As one of our “commenters notes”:https://themonkeycage.org/2010/01/last_time_on_independents_i_pr.html#comment-40409, political scientists aren’t in the business of “making some kind of normative judgment about what ‘independent’ means.” But what about those who _are_ in the business of making such normative judgments – i.e. political theorists? Nancy Rosenblum’s book on the “political value of partisanship”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691135347?ie=UTF8&tag=henryfarrell-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0691135347 has one interesting take (which is much more subtle than the gloss that I’ve shamelessly put on it in the title of the post). While noting that there is a well-established tradition in American politics of disparaging partisanship and praising independence, she also speaks about a counter-tradition which she herself wants to help revive. If there _are_ a small number of genuine independents, who are neither closet partisans nor politically apathetic, should we pay special deference to their judgment and seek to encourage them? Rosenblum says no.
bq. In the end, Independents are parasitic on the issues and positions struck by parties. They are reduced to choosing between courses arranged by others. From the perspective of defenders of party politics, the Independent’s unconcern for parties as institutions and dispositional incapacity for partisanship is a form of free-riding. They do not assume responsibility _for_ the institutions that organize elections and government or responsibility _to_ other like-minded citizens. They are not recruiting others to a position. Neither persuading nor joining is a mark of this status. It is not his or her business “to formulate and to set before the whole electorate opinions that are held in common by a portion of it, to impress the merit of these opinions by concerted effort upon the whole body of voters.” I will give the last word on this subject to Edmund Burke, who said it first: justifying a political position requires “not only that in his construction of these public acts and monuments he conforms himself to the rules of fair, legal, and logical interpretation,” but also that his construction is in harmony with a party. Though even Burke considered it perhaps “to overstrain the principle” to make “neutralitiy in party a crime against the state.” … For all these reasons, the notion that an “intelligently and progressively democratic system” depends on the ability of its supporters to attain a nonpartisan spirit is exactly wrong. (352-3)
A cynic might suggest that Rosenblum underestimates the political role of independents – even if independents do not themselves seek influence, they may have influence thrust upon them, when this or that politician or pundit uses the mythical Independent as a convenient ventriloquist’s dummy, not merely to revoice her own unsupported opinions, but magically to transmute them into the sober and considered judgment of that wise body of men (and perhaps women) who hold the balance of power in American politics. But this, of course, does not undercut her main argument.