This book is about the challenges facing representative democracy in a modern world. Some claim that, in Western democracies, political representation is experiencing a crisis. For many years, representation appeared to be founded on a stable and powerful relationship of trust between voters and political parties, with the vast majority of voters identifying themselves with, and remaining loyal to, a particular party. Differences between parties once appeared to be a reflection of social cleavages. Today, however, more and more voters are changing party from one election to the next, the electorate is mobile, and their votes can go in any number of directions. Moreover, opinion surveys show an increasing number of voters who refuse to identify with any party. In such a competitive environment, parties cannot be confident that any substantial bloc of voters is their own. These trends, it is often claimed, not only mean a decline of parties and party government, but a challenge to the pr
