This paper connects the empirical literature on the function of political parties with the normative elaboration of a notion of deliberative democracy. It argues that conceptualizing political parties as deliberative fora provides a means to address two ‘blind spots’ in these bodies of literature, helping make sense of the way parties mediate between particular interests the general will and providing a means to address some weaknesses in the existing literature on deliberative democracy. By clearly distinguishing between the domains in which consensus and majority rule are required (i.e. intra-party and inter-party democracy), it reintroduces the possibility of legitimate disagreement – and therefore opposition – within the framework of deliberative democracy.
