THE NORMATIVE FORCE OF ELECTORAL PROMISES

At elections, voters choose among substantive programs and correspondi ngly, endow winning parties with determinate policy mandates. The arti cle inquires into a neglected side of this 'mandate theory' of electio ns: it explores the normative foundations of democratic mandates. The general norm, which demands that parties honor their campaign promises , is quite uncontroversial. The essay therefore reconstructs the contr oversial logic of norm application: it argues that different kinds of promises create different kinds of commitments; it explains 'rules of transgression' which specify improper promises and 'rules of exception ' which allow parties to abandon their campaign pledges; and it looks at structural uncertainties electoral mandates are associated with. As the article concludes, electoral accountability is a complex and 'ess entially contested' task. It provokes (and presupposes) public controv ersies which in the last instance can be settled only by the supreme j udge, the voter.