What Are Elections For? Conferring the Median

Democracy is often described as a system in which a majority of electors choose one out of a number of competing parties to form a government and carry out its programme. Unfortunately, spontaneous majorities rarely form in support of one party. We generalize from a 'government' to a 'median' mandate, in which the median elector chooses the pivotal party in parliament, which then translates his or her preferences into public policy. To check this we investigate how accurately parliaments and governments represent the left-right position of the median voter in each of twenty parliamentary democracies. Distortions depend on the type of electoral arrangement, being relatively smaller under proportional representation than under single-member districts. Distortions do not equate to biased representation, however. Once we consider how distortions at one step or one time are compensated by distortions in the opposite direction at another, overall representation of the median voter position is reasonably accurate. Conventional mandate theory, sometimes termed majoritarian democracy, sees popular preferences being translated into public policy through voters choosing as their government the party whose policies a majority prefers. Crucially, this assumes that elections do decide which party forms the government. In fact, this seldom happens. If elections do not unambiguously designate governments, what do they do? One reaction, common to both classic representational theory and modem 'visions' of 'consociational' or 'consensus' democracy, is to limit their role to endorsing representatives. These then negotiate compromises on behalf of their constituents in a more considered way than election campaigning would allow.' Acknowledging that there is a restricted role for elections and hence for voters in the democratic process is certainly one possible reaction to the failure of elections to designate governments unambiguously. It may even have an upside, in terms of the better policy solutions that can be reached through autonomous discussion and bargaining between parties.2 But it is not very democratic