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Elections are the defining institution of democracy, in the sense of directly linking popular preferences to public policy. Which programme gets chosen depends on the outcome of the election. However, voters' choices are very much constrained by the policy packages parties put forward in the first place. In most representative elections, no alternatives can be voted on apart from those advocated by established parties, who thus play a role almost equal to electors in defining the election outcome. This article examines the policy choices offered by parties in their published programmes over 17 post-war democracies—uncovering a wide variety of patterns with only limited links to type of election system or number of parties. Voters always have a choice, though in some countries it is more limited and less nuanced than in others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most discussions of democratic theory assume that parties should offer clear choices to voters but also show themselves sensitive to public concerns. Under certain circumstances, however, party convergence on these may preclude electoral choice, thus creating conflict between two democratic 'goods'. We examine possible tradeoffs between choice and responsiveness, and see which actually occur in 16 postwar democracies. Party policy positions turn out to be more strongly related to party ideology than popular concerns, thus privileging differentiation and choice over sensitivity and responsiveness. Implications for democratic theory and practice are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capital to the best-known classification of Political Arguments is a distinction between want-regarding and ideal-regarding principles, upon which this paper bases alternative representations of the dynamics of political debate. These are discussed with specific reference tot eh possibility that want-regarding goals are served less well by British planning decisions than if ideal-regarding arguments were permitted. The representations provide a limited explanation of how such a situation might come about and be maintained. Initially the draw on Down's models of voting and party competition, but explore alternatives because of: (1) the possibility that some assumptions needed for a Downsian representation cannot realistically be made about political arguments; and (2) the probability that factors other than verbal arguments enter into planning decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Context of a general policy-based theory of how parties behave in democratic governments, a specific hypothesis on party factional behaviour is proposed and tested for the post-war period in 20 democracies. The hypothesis is that reshuffles (replacements and transfers of individual between ministries) are more frequent where Prime Ministers have more freedom of action and decline where they have less freedom. As Prime Ministerial power is greatest in single-party governments, these are expected to produce more reshuffles - an expectation strongly confirmed by the evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]