One of the most debated arguments in contemporary political science is the idea that globalisation changes the balance between ‘responsive’ and ‘responsible’ government, causing a decline of political parties’ responsiveness. Existing research has not yet succeeded in providing evidence for this causal mechanisms and one of the main reasons, I argue, is that it has not centered on the real essence of the ‘responsive/responsible’ dilemma, namely the criteria with which governments make decisions. I propose a new unit of analysis, policy-legitimation arguments, and with these I first explore how a technical government, which in my theoretical framework is a purely ‘responsible’ government, justifies its policies differently from a typical party-government from the 1970’s. This comparison creates the basis for comparing justification arguments of contemporary governments with those of past governments, in order to see whether there has been an over-time shift in the balance between ‘responsive’ and ‘responsible’ government.
