Introduction

FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS, SOME MORE COMPLEX THAN OTHERS, AND some of which have also been explored in Mair and Thomassen (2010; see also Mair 2009), political parties in European democracies are now more likely to be judged on how they govern rather than on the substantive policy programmes that they advocate. In other words, and to paraphrase Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002), voters are increasingly likely to be concerned with the process of governing rather than with substantive issues, and hence are more likely to evaluate parties in terms of how they perform rather than on what they promise. When it comes to winning votes in contemporary elections, claims to accountability are more likely to tip the balance than claims to representation (see also Andeweg 2003).

This also implies that elections will grow to be more about the competition between governments than about the competition between parties. In two party systems, of course, this is one and the same thing, and hence to choose parties in the UK, for example, is usually also to choose governments. In multi-party systems, on the other hand, any shift from choosing parties to choosing governments is bound to pose distinct challenges. In multi-party systems, or at least in those that lack a dominant party, and in which every actor is a minority player, politics has usually been about representation. Parties in these circumstances have tended to stand for groups of voters, and to have entered parliament and government as the voice of these voters. As Rokkan (1970: 93) once noted: “in some countries elections have had the character of an effective choice among alternative teams of governors, in others they have simply served to express segmental loyalties and to ensure the right of each segment to some representation, even if only a single portfolio, in a coalition cabinet.” To move from the choice of parties to the choice of governments in such a setting is therefore to move from a political culture that emphasises voice and representation to one that emphasises choice and accountability, and that thereby approximates much more closely to the Schumpeterian model in which democracy is seen as the method in which voters choose between potential teams of leaders.