1	Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System Report of the APSA Committee on Political Parties, 1950 The Role of the Political Parties The Parties and Public Policy. Throughout this report political parties are treated as indispensable instruments of government.
2	Parties Provide Choice That is to say, we proceed on the proposition that popular government in a nation of more than 150 million people requires political parties which provide the electorate with a proper range of choice between alternatives of action. The party system thus serves as the main device for bringing into continuing relationship those ideas about liberty, majority rule and leadership which Americans are largely taking for granted.
3	The New Importance of Program. One of the most pressing requirements of contemporary politics is for the party in power to furnish a general kind of direction over the government as a whole. The crux of public affairs lies in the necessity for more effective formulation of general policies and programs and for better integration of all of the far-flung activities of modern government.
4	Parties and Public Policy The choices provided by the two-party system are valuable to the American people in proportion to their definition in terms of public policy. The reasons for the growing emphasis on public policy in party politics are to be found, above all, in the very operations of modern government. With the extraordinary growth of the responsibilities of government, the discussion of public affairs for the most part makes sense only in terms of public policy.
5	Importance of Parties to Public Policy Modern public policy, therefore, accentuates the importance of the parties, not as mere brokers between different groups and interests, but as agencies of the electorate. [Parties aggregate political interests.] Because it affects unprecedented numbers of people and because it depends for its execution on extensive and widespread public support, modern public policy requires a broad political base. That base can be provided only by the parties, which reach people touched by no other political organization.
6	Effective Party System An effective party system requires, first, that the parties are able to bring forth programs to which they commit themselves and, second, that the parties possess sufficient internal cohesion to carry out these programs. . . . Clearly such a degree of unity within the parties cannot be brought about without party procedures that give a large body of people an opportunity to share in the development of the party program.
7	The Need for an Effective Opposition Party. The argument for a stronger party system cannot be divorced from measures designed to make the parties more fully accountable to the public. The fundamental requirement of such accountability is a two-party system in which the opposition party acts as the critic of the party in power, developing, defining and presenting the policy alternatives which are necessary for a true choice in reaching public decisions
8	Dangers in Weak Party System The American people may go too far for the safety of constitutional government in compensating for this inadequacy by shifting excessive responsibility to the President. With growing public cynicism and continuing proof of the ineffectiveness of the party system the nation may eventually witness the disintegration of the two major parties.
9	The Danger of Overextending the Presidency The President can attempt to fill the void caused by the absence of an effective party program by working up a broad political program of his own. If he does, however, he has to go out and build the necessary support for that program through his personal effort without benefit of party
10	Problems of Personal Presidency When the President's program actually is the sole program in this sense, either his party becomes a flock of sheep or the party falls apart. In effect this concept of the presidency disposes of the party system by making the President reach directly for the support of a majority of the voters. It favors a President who exploits skillfully the arts of demagoguery, who uses the whole country as his political backyard, and who does not mind turning into the embodiment of personal government.
11	The Danger of Disintegration of the Two Parties It is a thing both familiar and deeply disturbing that many Americans have only caustic words or disdainful shrugs of the shoulder for the party system as it operates today. [Parties do not give the electorate a meaningful choice between programs that can become law.]
12	Shift of Electoral Focus to the President A sizable body of the electorate has shifted from hopeful interest in the parties to the opposite attitude. This mass of voters sees itself as the President's or his opponent's direct electoral support. Continued alienation between increasing numbers of voters and both major parties is an ominous tendency. It has a splintering effect and may lead to a system of several smaller parties. American political institutions are too firmly grounded upon the two-party system to make its collapse a small matter.
13	Parties Must Provide Meaningful National Programs Orientation of the American two-party system along the lines of meaningful national programs. . .is a way of keeping differences within bounds. It is a way of reinforcing the constitutional framework within which the voter may without peril exercise his freedom of political choice.