A reflexive account of intra-party deliberation

Intraparty deliberation (IPD) has been advocated as a way to revitalize democracy and respond to the crisis of political parties. In this chapter, I will agree with this overall premise. Still, I will point out that this standard account of IPD does not ensure empowerment, and I will develop a reflexive alternative to overcome this pitfall. The chapter will unfold as it follows. In the first section, I will analyze the standard account of IPD and its main features (IPD as an extension of intra-party democracy; party ground value is participation; face-to-face deliberation). In the second section, I will contend that a fundamental feature of IPD is underestimated: the political empowerment it grants to citizens (reflexive control) and party members (agenda setting). To ensure empowerment, a reflexive account of IPD needs to be developed. In the third section, I will point out that a standard account of IPD cannot ensure empowerment because its deliberative interactions are inevitably opaque and do not grant the epistemic and organizational resources to develop a broad political discourse. In the final section, I will show that a reflexive account of IPD can overcome these ambiguities and ensure empowerment.