Erik Moberg ã:
A Theory of Democratic Politics
 
 

15.3 - THE POSSIBILITY OF PURELY IDEOLOGICAL SINGLE PARTY EXECUTIVES

As we saw in part 11.2 it is impossible to account for the appearance of a coalition executive within the framework of an one-dimensional spatial model. If there are just two parties in the legislature, as we are now assuming (or if one party has a majority of its own), the executive may very well have an ideological foundation. Consider, for example, the situation in the figure below. There P₂ can easily, by itself, form an executive, and that executive is obviously able to pursue a policy equivalent to P₂'s position on the ideological scale. In a parliamentary-majoritarian context with two main parties it is thus perfectly possible to account for the executive formation in purely ideological terms.