Party positions

Furthermore, the clarity of party positions is more easily and unambiguously linked to themes in normative democratic theory than polarisation. It is simply not obvious whether relatively great policy distances between the parties are good or bad for the quality of democracy. The responsible party government ideal requires that competing parties have distinctive, unambiguous, and binding policy commitments. In the absence of policy differences between the parties, governments cannot be held accountable for their policies. But the requirements of responsible party government may well conflict with the ideal of responsive government (cf, Pennock 1979: 283-6, 293-303). In a purely Downsian world, Tweedledee and Tweedledum may converge around a single position - either as a consequence or an anticipation of electoral pressure - and thus create responsive party government. Here, the dearth of policy differences between the competitors would actually help to ensure that popular preferences (whatever that means) determine public policies.3 However, the clarity - as opposed to the differentiation - of party positions at any one point in time is part of both responsible and responsive party government ideals. In both cases, parties offer identifiable products. Therefore, the clarity - not the differentiation - of party positions is the decisive sign of programmatic party competition.