the meanings associated with these distinctions are becoming increasingly diverse and confused. In part, this is due to the policy convergence between parties; in part also, to the often contradictory signals emerging from post-communist Europe, whereby the traditional left position is often seen as the most conservative. In another respect, it has to do with the new challenge of liberalism, and the increasingly heterogeneous coalition that has begun to define leftness in anti-imperial or anti-American terms, bringing together former communists, religious fundamentalists and critical social movements within what may appear to be a unified ideological camp. In this context, meanings are no longer shared and the implications of political stances on the left or on the right become almost unreadable.
This is the essence of the argument developed by Russell Hardin (2000) in an important essay on the problems of understanding political trust and distrust. Hardin argues that there have been two important changes in the way political issues have come to be understood and treated in contemporary democracies. The first is ‘the essential end, at least for the near term, of the focus on economic distribution and the management of the economy for production and distribution’ (Hardin, 2000: 41–42).In other words, echoing Scharpf’s and Ruggie’s observations on the end of embedded liberalism, he suggests that governments are no longer capable of purposefully managing the economy with a view to redistributing resources or responding to collective needs, and that this failing capacity has fundamentally altered traditional political discourse. The issue of planning versus markets has been settled – for now – in favour of the markets (2000: 32), leaving much of the matter of conventional political debate without a supporting context. The second change is that problem-solving and decision-making in public policy have become substantially more complex, and hence less amenable to popular understanding or control. Voters can no longer easily grasp the issues that are at stake, and find it difficult to evaluate the often quite technical alternatives that are presented to them. The result of both changes, claims Hardin (2000: 42), is to ‘preclude the organization of politics along a single left-right economic dimension’, leading to a situation in which the concerns of citizens become ‘a hotchpotch of unrelated issues that are not the obvious domain of any traditional political party’. The left-right divide loses its interpretive power as a schema for making overall sense of mainstream politics, and is not replaced by any alternative overarching paradigm. Demands become particularized and fragmented, while party policy and voter preferences evidence a lack of internal constraint or cohesion. In these circumstances, it is almost impossible to imagine party government functioning effectively or maintaining full legitimacy. Almost thirty years ago, in the anniversary issue of
Daedalus
, Suzanne Berger (1979: 30) argued that ‘the critical issue for Western Europe today is the capacity of the principal agencies of political life – party, interest group, bureaucracy, legislature – to manage the problems of society and economy, and, beyond coping, to redefine and rediscover commonpurposes.’ Today, it is their basic legitimacy as political institutions that is in doubt. Parties, like the other traditional agencies of the European polities, might well be accepted by citizens as necessary for the good functioning of politics and the state, but they are neither liked nor trusted, and one way in which we might better understand this change in perspective is by recognizing that although the trappings of party government may persist, the conditions for its maintenance as a functioning governmental mode are now at serious risk.
1. For a number of recent evaluations and analyses of these processes in the pages of
West European Politics
,
This is the essence of the argument developed by Russell Hardin (2000) in an important essay on the problems of understanding political trust and distrust. Hardin argues that there have been two important changes in the way political issues have come to be understood and treated in contemporary democracies. The first is ‘the essential end, at least for the near term, of the focus on economic distribution and the management of the economy for production and distribution’ (Hardin, 2000: 41–42).In other words, echoing Scharpf’s and Ruggie’s observations on the end of embedded liberalism, he suggests that governments are no longer capable of purposefully managing the economy with a view to redistributing resources or responding to collective needs, and that this failing capacity has fundamentally altered traditional political discourse. The issue of planning versus markets has been settled – for now – in favour of the markets (2000: 32), leaving much of the matter of conventional political debate without a supporting context. The second change is that problem-solving and decision-making in public policy have become substantially more complex, and hence less amenable to popular understanding or control. Voters can no longer easily grasp the issues that are at stake, and find it difficult to evaluate the often quite technical alternatives that are presented to them. The result of both changes, claims Hardin (2000: 42), is to ‘preclude the organization of politics along a single left-right economic dimension’, leading to a situation in which the concerns of citizens become ‘a hotchpotch of unrelated issues that are not the obvious domain of any traditional political party’. The left-right divide loses its interpretive power as a schema for making overall sense of mainstream politics, and is not replaced by any alternative overarching paradigm. Demands become particularized and fragmented, while party policy and voter preferences evidence a lack of internal constraint or cohesion. In these circumstances, it is almost impossible to imagine party government functioning effectively or maintaining full legitimacy. Almost thirty years ago, in the anniversary issue of
Daedalus
, Suzanne Berger (1979: 30) argued that ‘the critical issue for Western Europe today is the capacity of the principal agencies of political life – party, interest group, bureaucracy, legislature – to manage the problems of society and economy, and, beyond coping, to redefine and rediscover commonpurposes.’ Today, it is their basic legitimacy as political institutions that is in doubt. Parties, like the other traditional agencies of the European polities, might well be accepted by citizens as necessary for the good functioning of politics and the state, but they are neither liked nor trusted, and one way in which we might better understand this change in perspective is by recognizing that although the trappings of party government may persist, the conditions for its maintenance as a functioning governmental mode are now at serious risk.
1. For a number of recent evaluations and analyses of these processes in the pages of
West European Politics
,
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