ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that when electors think of policies in terms of narrower clusters, or of single-issue proposals, there is no guarantee of finding a settled policy majority for parties and governments to respond to. If everyone viewed policy in left-right terms all the time, all the problems of matching policy supply to demand could be reduced to the question of whether the government and the popular majority take up the same left-right position. Where there is an overwhelming popular agreement on what the government should do on the most important problems facing it, matching policy targets to preferences is relatively easy. Some of electors’ policy thinking is multidimensional. Different groupings in the population put together their policy thinking in different ways. The median preference has a special position in policymaking. A clear majority may emerge for what a party offers, including its policy programme.
