and are increasingly held accountable by means of judicial and regulatory controls. And since this broad network of agencies forms an ever larger part of a dispersed and pluriform executive, operating both nationally and supranationally, the very notion of accountability being exercised through parties, or of the executive being held answerable to
voters
(as distinct from citizens or stakeholders) becomes problematic. Party, in this sense, loses much of its representative and purposive identity, and in this way citizens forfeit much of their capacity to control policy-makers through conventional electoral channels.
Above all, it is here that we see the conditions for the maintenance of party government being undermined, and where the alternative forms of government identified by Rose (1969) begin to acquire greater historical weight, notably both government by inertia and ‘administrative government’. This is the sort of shift identified also by Johannes Lindvall and Bo Rothstein (2006: 61) in their analysis of the decline of the ‘strong state’ model in Sweden: ‘the state … is no longer an instrument for the political parties that dominate the Riksdag to steer and change society. Instead, the administrative state is turning into another ideological battlefield, wheresectoral interests seek power and influence … [and in which] the role of political parties as the main producers of policy-oriented ideology and ideas is challenged.’
There is one other respect in which the conditions for the maintenance of party government are severely undermined, but in this case one that has received relatively scant attention. In Thomassen’s account, summarized above in Box 3, a key condition for party government and for the responsible parties model is that both the policy programmes of the parties and the policy preferences of the voters be inscribed in, and constrained by, a single ideological dimension. The reasoning behind this argument is straightforward. Should two or more dimensions be invoked as the plane of contestation, it would be impossible for either the voters or the parties to establish a relationship based on representation and accountability, since it would never be clear precisely which positions on which dimension had favoured support for one particular alternative over another. In other words, the requirement of popular control that is included in the various sets of conditions given by the other authors (1, 5 and 6 in Rose’s set; 1 and 3b in Katz’s; 1, 3 and 5 in the summary set) calls for a shared recognition by voters and parties of the policy choices that are on offer and of the commitment to implement these policies, and also, it follows, for the sort of clarity that is intrinsically unavailable in a multi-dimensional space (Thomassen 1994: 252–57 and fn. 3). Moreover, as Thomassen goes on to suggest, and as is clear from the work of Sani and Sartori (1983) among others, the only possible single dimension that can meet this requirement is that of left-right opposition, which alone is sufficiently elastic and pervasive to accommodate the various domains of voter identification, and at the same time sufficiently enduring to provide a stable reference point over time. It is difficult to imagine any otherdimension that might offer the same degree of coherence and clarity to the electorate and the parties taken as a whole. In the absence of a left-right plane of competition, in other words, the entire foundation of the party government/responsible parties model is undermined.
It is here that the challenge to party government may be most sharply defined. Briefly put, and building on a variety of different arguments, it may be argued that the left-right divide, even in its simplest form, is now finally losing coherence (Mair, 2007). Voters in contemporary Europe may still be willing to locate themselves in left-right terms, and may even be willing to locate the parties in the same dimension, but
voters
(as distinct from citizens or stakeholders) becomes problematic. Party, in this sense, loses much of its representative and purposive identity, and in this way citizens forfeit much of their capacity to control policy-makers through conventional electoral channels.
Above all, it is here that we see the conditions for the maintenance of party government being undermined, and where the alternative forms of government identified by Rose (1969) begin to acquire greater historical weight, notably both government by inertia and ‘administrative government’. This is the sort of shift identified also by Johannes Lindvall and Bo Rothstein (2006: 61) in their analysis of the decline of the ‘strong state’ model in Sweden: ‘the state … is no longer an instrument for the political parties that dominate the Riksdag to steer and change society. Instead, the administrative state is turning into another ideological battlefield, wheresectoral interests seek power and influence … [and in which] the role of political parties as the main producers of policy-oriented ideology and ideas is challenged.’
There is one other respect in which the conditions for the maintenance of party government are severely undermined, but in this case one that has received relatively scant attention. In Thomassen’s account, summarized above in Box 3, a key condition for party government and for the responsible parties model is that both the policy programmes of the parties and the policy preferences of the voters be inscribed in, and constrained by, a single ideological dimension. The reasoning behind this argument is straightforward. Should two or more dimensions be invoked as the plane of contestation, it would be impossible for either the voters or the parties to establish a relationship based on representation and accountability, since it would never be clear precisely which positions on which dimension had favoured support for one particular alternative over another. In other words, the requirement of popular control that is included in the various sets of conditions given by the other authors (1, 5 and 6 in Rose’s set; 1 and 3b in Katz’s; 1, 3 and 5 in the summary set) calls for a shared recognition by voters and parties of the policy choices that are on offer and of the commitment to implement these policies, and also, it follows, for the sort of clarity that is intrinsically unavailable in a multi-dimensional space (Thomassen 1994: 252–57 and fn. 3). Moreover, as Thomassen goes on to suggest, and as is clear from the work of Sani and Sartori (1983) among others, the only possible single dimension that can meet this requirement is that of left-right opposition, which alone is sufficiently elastic and pervasive to accommodate the various domains of voter identification, and at the same time sufficiently enduring to provide a stable reference point over time. It is difficult to imagine any otherdimension that might offer the same degree of coherence and clarity to the electorate and the parties taken as a whole. In the absence of a left-right plane of competition, in other words, the entire foundation of the party government/responsible parties model is undermined.
It is here that the challenge to party government may be most sharply defined. Briefly put, and building on a variety of different arguments, it may be argued that the left-right divide, even in its simplest form, is now finally losing coherence (Mair, 2007). Voters in contemporary Europe may still be willing to locate themselves in left-right terms, and may even be willing to locate the parties in the same dimension, but
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