Political parties create the people and majority they then claim to represent

Evidence

Party competition is constitutive. It creates a system of conflict. It “stages the battle.” An astute theorist of parties, Maurice Duverger, captures the creative aspect of translating pluralism into politics through metaphors of natural and artistic creation: parties crystallize, coagulate, synthesize, smooth down, and mold. Creativity in politics is rarely recognized, and when it is, the focus is on founding moments or constitutional design, transformative social movements or revolution—not on “normal politics.” Yet everyday democratic politics requires creativity and political ingenuity because neither “the people” nor “the majority” nor the “opposition” exists on its own. Parties make democracy happen. — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 194

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s broader thesis on conspiracism and to Loewenstein/classic anti-party theory literature; the claim that parties construct their own constituencies echoes constructivist work on representation. — connects to: Political representation actively constitutes the class it claims to express; Marginal groups gain a political will only through representation itself — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 313; Parties organize political conflict rather than merely reflecting preexisting disagreements — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 193 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Political representation actively constitutes the class it claims to express #corroborates (0.92)
• Parties organize political conflict rather than merely reflecting preexisting disagreements #corroborates (0.80) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 193
• Marginal groups gain a political will only through representation itself #corroborates (0.78) — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 313
• Parties are definitionally partial and oppositional, not unifying institutions #qualifies (0.75) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 195