Parties and Executives in Parliamentary Systems

Abstract

AbstractThe study of the relationship between political parties and political executives is inspired by normative questions about the democratic legitimacy of government. As a common denominator, party government requires several parties to present distinctive and realistic policy programmes to the voters, who choose the party with the programme they most prefer. The party winning a majority receives a mandate to implement its policies, and appoints partisans to executive office with that aim. The empirical study of this chain of delegation brought to light a more complex reality. Most governments are controlled by a coalition of parties. Paradoxically, decision-making in coalition governments is more politicized than in single-party governments, although individual parties in a coalition are not able to realize as much of their programmes. In addition to inter-party dynamics in coalitions, government may be affected by intra-party divisions between factions and branches of the party, government itself is increasingly multi-level government, and the direction of influence does not run exclusively from the party to the government. Party governments may be replaced by party governance, but several areas of further study to determine the extent of this development are identified. Alternatives, or challenges, to party government such as personalization, populism or technocracy seem to deny rather than incorporate the growing complexity.