Political competition is under attack. Does it merit defense?

In many countries the normal back and forth of political competition is under assault. Why should we value or defend what Nancy Rosenblum calls “regulated rivalry”? One answer is that competition is democratic. Indeed, the last decade has witnessed a tidal wave of theoretical arguments defending the democratic potential of partisan competition. But political competition, including competition amongst parties, can mark regimes marked by undemocratic inequality—political, social, and economic. Should we mourn the destruction of competitive regimes in these less-than-democratic cases? I argue that we should. My paper offers an intrinsic or non-instrumental defense of competitive, pluralist political systems. Political competition allows for many individuals to exercise their political agency together. In this way competitive systems are respectful of individuals’ agency, while many of political competition’s real-world rivals are not. As I show, this remains true of competitive regimes even when they are unjustifiability elitist and inegalitarian.