Party Responsibility Revisited: A Case of Policy Discussion At the Grass Roots

Abstract

MERICAN political parties have not fared well by their critics in recent years. Among the most common complaints leveled against U.S. major parties is their alleged failure to provide clear policy choices for the electorate. For more than a quarter century advocates have argued that parties could play a more important role in providing for popular control over government policy-making.' To its advocates, party responsibility entails policy articulation and coordination by political parties at several levels. In legislatures, parties may be urged to coordinate and implement policy through legislative party caucuses, by tighter control over committees, and by a greater emphasis on legislative leaders acting as party spokesmen. For political party organizations, responsibility requires the formulation of clear and coherent party positions, at least on major issues, and the stressing of issues during the campaign. At the level of citizen participation, responsible party advocates encourage more opportunities for citizens to discuss and debate policies within the party organization. At the risk of simplifying the complex and intricate discussions of several decades, most responsible party reformers appear to agree that party responsibility entails three conditions. First, each party must formulate coherent positions, at least on major issues. Second, the positions adopted by competing parties must differ. Third, party-designated candidates and (after the election) office-holders must support their party's positions. Through intraparty consensus and interparty differentiation, the mass electorate may choose between policy alternatives. To most proponents of the responsible party positions, however, the two major American parties are seen as falling woefully short of these standards. If American parties are often criticized as presently irresponsible and, therefore, seem to be in dire need of reform, how are such extensive changes to be achieved? Put otherwise: what party structures are necessary and sufficient to foster more policy responsibility, as outlined above? Many students of political parties and critics of the party responsibility model have raised doubts that party responsibility is, in fact, either a realistic or attainable goal.2 First, critics may deny that election outcomes are sufficient to demonstrate