Although Ferguson (1995: 37) may err toward another extreme by pointing out the extraordinary impact of party finance on the selection and framing of political issues, his corrective is a useful reminder that the exchange of ideas in democracies is not just an idealistic and rarefied dialogue between citizens and leaders. Parties do not listen to voters only; they must also bend to the will of those who support them or risk losing their competitive place in elections. T h u s, party finance mechanisms become important considerations for understanding the patterns of communication in polities. As we shall see, by contrast the public financing of Swedish parties opened up a broad spectrum of debate about issues as varied as the future of the welfare state and the evolution of a national energy policy based on environmental protection. Moreover, Swedish parties that suffer catastrophic misfortune with ideas that suddenly prove unpopular - as was the case of the Communists after the end of the Cold War - are given a cushion of time in which to develop new ideas (and even change their name). T h e protections of Swedish public finance saw the popularity of the newly named Left Party rebound to stunning levels in the polls within five years of its sudden fall from grace.

In the United States, the combination of institutional factors that act upon the formulation of political programs often have more of a wearing than a building effect. T h e Democrats, for example, have suffered an idea slump of such magnitude that party conferences to invent a new “story” to present to the voters have become as regular as they have proved uneventful. In a poll taken by the Wirthlin Group on the eve of the 1996 election campaign, for example, voters gave their hearts to the Democrats but credited the Republicans with being the party with the clear vision.