An essential feature of representative democracy is, of course, its indirect nature. Although in modern parlance the citizen is still the ‘principal’ and the executive and legislative branches of constitutional government are then the ‘agents’, it is obvious that both government and parliament are the crucial actors in modern democracy. The citizen is important at the time of election, but then he/she must wait and see until the next election in what way and to what extent parties in parliament and in government have indeed translated the citizens' preferences into policy. Conversely, parties are to a large extent dependent on how the electorate chooses.

In Chapter 4 Ian Budge et al. examine this relationship between parties and ...