ABSTRACT
Parties seek to respond to voters so they can attract a majority and control the presidency and Congress. In a two-party system, a party wishes for power presumably because it wants policies that diff er from those of the other party. Th e fi nal question in any analysis of parties, then, is just what do parties do with power when they acquire it? Does party control produce clear diff erences in policy? Do parties just make claims of what they will do or do they act on proposals? Further, has the developing polarization of recent decades altered how much control of government aff ects public policy?
