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Editor's Note:In his inaugural address, President Clinton urged a season of democratic reform in the United States. Clinton's speech was, to be sure, richer in the verdant imagery of renewal than in the grey detail of politics. But even the images -- however hazy their substance -- invited a serious public discussion on revitalizing the democratic ideal in America. Accepting that invitation, we devote the third installment of our Democracy Project to a debate about an important proposal for such revitalization. The proposal is that committed democrats support the New Party, a third party formed last year that hopes to break the two party monopoly on political power in the United States. The concerns that animate the New Party can be summarized in two observations and a question. The observations are that American politics is now defined by stunning inequalities of money, power, and access, and that those inequalities mock the democratic promise of self-government by equal citizens. The question is: What can we do to redeem the promise? In our lead article, Joel Rogers argues that the New Party can play a central role in that redemption. Growing steadily over the past year, the New Party is committed to a system of American politics that is "participatory in its process, egalitarian in its distribution of opportunity and reward, and centrally based in the organizations of ordinary citizens." More immediately, the idea is to build organizations locally and coordinate them nationally; to join electoral efforts with political education; and to wed moral conviction to political calculation. The New Party is of course a strategy, not an end in itself. And as ever, people disagree about the efficacy of the strategy. To explore the disagreement, we present responses to Rogers's essay from four political analysts who share the democratic values of the New Party. Their assessments vary markedly. Elaine Bernard -- a long-time activist in Canada's New Democratic Party -- sees great promise in the New Party, particularly in its potential for constructive impact on the American labor movement. The other contributors are less certain. Robert Borosage -- a leading progressive Democrat -- thinks that a reformed Democratic Party remains the best hope for democratic aspirations. Steve Rosenstone -- co-author of a leading study of third parties in American politics -- argues that the New Party project cannot succeed without prior reform of election law. And Jerry Watts -- a student of American political culture -- sees the principal obstacles to political reform as more cultural than organizational, and concludes that a strategy of renewal must focus first on building democratic sensibilities and only later on winning elections. Disagreements over organizational, legal, and cultural strategies are familiar among democrats. What is less familiar is that a debate about alternative strategies is taking place at all. The fact that it is shows a striking expansion of the space for political discussion -- to include themes of democracy and equality that have been off the American political agenda for nearly twenty years. What happens in this newly open public space remains uncertain. But the opening itself is our first hopeful sign of democratic renewal. Joshua Cohen for the editors
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