Public Reason, Partisanship and the Containment of the Populist Radical Right
| Author | Gabriele Badano,Alasia Nuti |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00323217211005917 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217211005917
Political Studies
2023, Vol. 71(1) 198 –217
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/00323217211005917
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Public Reason, Partisanship
and the Containment of the
Populist Radical Right
Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti
Abstract
This article discusses the growth of the populist radical right as a concrete example of the scenario
where liberal democratic ideas are losing support in broadly liberal democratic societies. Our
goal is to enrich John Rawls’ influential theory of political liberalism. We argue that even in that
underexplored scenario, Rawlsian political liberalism can offer an appealing account of how to
promote the legitimacy and stability of liberal democratic institutions provided it places partisanship
centre stage. Specifically, we propose a brand-new moral duty binding ‘reasonable’ partisans
committed to pluralism. This duty establishes conditions where partisans must strategically
transform society’s public reason (i.e. transform the visions for society their parties campaign on)
in ways that promise to attract back support from illiberal and antidemocratic competitors. While
this strategic behaviour might seem impermissible, we show that Rawls’ distinctive account of
sincerity in democratic deliberation is uniquely placed to justify it as perfectly ethical.
Keywords
John Rawls, public reason, sincerity, ethical partisanship, containment, populist radical right
Accepted: 9 March 2021
Should broadly liberal democratic societies counter the spread of views that reject basic
liberal democratic commitments? If they should, how can they pursue this task without
themselves violating such commitments? Many believe these questions to be pressing
because of the recent success of the populist radical right (PRR), which we define follow-
ing the influential ideological account advanced most prominently by Cas Mudde. PRR’s
ideology is populist because it is centred on an us/other dichotomy, pitting the homogene-
ous ‘pure people’ against their ‘corrupt’ enemies (Mudde, 2007: 23). Being right-wing,
PRR includes among such enemies not only the elites, but also minorities, such as immi-
grants, Muslims and Roma. These minorities are placed outside the political community as
PRR understands it and seen as threatening its homogeneity. Finally, PRR is characterised
Department of Politics, University of York, York, UK
Corresponding author:
Alasia Nuti, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK.
Email: alasia.nuti@york.ac.uk
1005917PSX0010.1177/00323217211005917Political StudiesBadano and Nuti
research-article2021
Article
Badano and Nuti 199
by authoritarian beliefs (Mudde, 2007: 22–23). Examples of populist radical-right parties
and leaders that have recently attracted considerable support include the Italian La Lega,
Rassemblement National in France, Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and the 45th
US President Donald Trump (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017).
This article discusses PRR from within normative political theory. We use PRR as a
case study to develop John Rawls’ prominent account of political liberalism in new direc-
tions concerning the containment of possible threats to liberal democracy. Our argument is
that a Rawlsian approach involves that under certain conditions, partisans of mainstream
parties have a moral duty to react against competitors that, like PRR, reject key liberal
democratic commitments. Those partisans must employ their characteristic creative abili-
ties to collectively change the whole range of mainstream political platforms on offer (or,
in Rawlsian language, to transform society’s public reason). While staying within limits
we set, partisans must be strategic in developing visions for society that promise to be
effective in inspiring back the support lost to PRR and similar competitors.
Our article offers several contributions, directed at any political theorist interested in
the tenability of Rawlsian political liberalism, either as supporters or critics. Rawls inves-
tigates how liberal democratic institutions can create their own support over time, moving
from strength to strength (Rawls, 2005: 158–168). However, he never focuses on the case
in which this trend slows down, stops and eventually reverses, with beliefs rejecting lib-
eral democracy gaining ground. The growth of PRR exemplifies that case, highlighting
difficult questions around whether Rawlsian political liberalism can demonstrate that,
even under these circumstances, the legitimacy and stability of liberal democratic socie-
ties can be protected. Political liberals have only just started to address these large ques-
tions, and we aim to make substantial progress by drawing attention to partisanship.
Our goal is to suggest that Rawlsian political liberalism can be made able to handle
cases where liberal democracy is losing supporters. We argue that at least at a general
level, a Rawlsian framework can provide partisans with normative guidance in those
cases. Specifically, it excludes both self-righteous political paralysis and the appropria-
tion of illiberal themes. Importantly, Rawls’ distinctive account of sincerity in public
reasoning makes Rawlsian political liberalism uniquely well-suited to justify as ethical
some forms of strategic behaviour that we intuitively expect of mainstream partisans
transforming their platforms in this context.
Moreover, this investigation allows us to make original theoretical points about
Rawlsian political liberalism at large. Our novel argument that there are scenarios where
public reason must be transformed gives the full picture of the dynamic nature of Rawlsian
public reason, providing the strongest rebuttal to date of the criticism that public reason
is a hopelessly conservative ideal. Also, by building on Rawls’s work, we argue that our
duty applies to a variety of partisans across the left-right spectrum, who should experi-
ment with different visions. This highlights a brand-new source of appeal of Rawls’s
characteristic appreciation of wide ‘reasonable’ pluralism of political views as a fact of
liberal democratic life – that is, its contribution to a theory of containment of possible
threats to liberal democracy.
The article is organised into five sections. The first reconstructs Rawls’ theory and the
few existing political liberal analyses of PRR. Next, it argues that to remedy the incom-
pleteness of those analyses, partisanship must be placed centre-stage. The second intro-
duces the duty of partisans to transform public reason, justifies it and outlines the
conditions where it applies. The third further specifies the duty, drawing on real-world
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