Introduction

Abstract

Parties seek political power in order to install their leaders in office and in command of the patronage that goes with office, and to defend or advance the interests of groups especially associated with them. Both the acquisition and retention of power under a representative system require, however, a degree of reconciliation between those special interests and the wider interests of the nation as a whole. The leadership therefore often has to disappoint the party stalwarts both from a sense of public duty and of electoral interest (though these do not coincide when what the statesman must do is popular neither with those who usually and those who may conceivably vote for his party).