ABSTRACT
According to a typical American account, in parliamentary systems cohesive parties, which control their candidates' access to the ballot, contest elections on the basis of clearly defined and differing platforms; the winning party organises the government with its leader becoming head of government, makes its platform the policy agenda, and enacts that agenda into law. Although based on a twoparty system such as the British and a gross simplification even so, this account nevertheless highlights some important differences between the parliamentary systems in most English-speaking countries and the US presidential system. In those parliamentary systems where one party or a well-established coalition regularly wins a legislative majority, elections tend to decide more than they do in the US system. Of course, most parliamentary democracies are not two-party systems; a governing coalition must be formed after the elections, and post-election elite politics are decisive. In contrast, in the US system, the public is increasingly involved in the decisions that elections leave unsettled. The problems, dilemmas and opportunities of legislative leaders in the US system stem from the limited scope of what elections decide, on the one hand, and from the fluidity of the context in which and the openness of the process by which decisions are made, on the other.
