Voter-Party Congruence in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

A certain correspondence between the positions of political elites and those of citizens is commonly understood as a major aspect of democratic representation. From a normative perspective, under a democratic regime the preferences of the elected representatives are expected to be aligned with the preferences of the mass public. Empirically, the study of this correspondence constitutes a huge and still developing research program in political science. Congruence between politicians and voters has been conceptualized and measured in various ways, depending on the specific research questions at issue. Some scholars, especially in the US, have assessed the degree of preference congruence between individual legislators and their electoral constituencies. Others have measured congruence between the government and the electorate as a whole. In Europe, congruence has been typically analyzed on a party basis, i.e. between voters and politicians of the same party. In addition, the correspondence between politicians and voters can be assessed either on the general left-right dimension or on more substantive policy scales. A further crucial issue concerning the study of congruence deals with whether to choose a relative measure (i.e. an indicator based on the correlations between politicians’ and voters’ preferences) or an absolute measure (i.e. an indicator based on the proximity between the two). Building on an ever growing body of scholarship, this panel aims at collecting works that explore new avenues of research in the field of voter-party congruence. Paper proposals are expected to exploit data from the Comparative Candidate Survey Module II and to consider congruence either as a dependent variable or as an explanatory factor. We accept papers taking into consideration also the dynamic dimension of political representation, as the key parameters of the relationship between citizens and politicians can be altered over time throughout electoral cycles. Moreover, we encourage paper proposals where congruence is measured not only on the left-right axis, but also on specific domains – including, for example, dimensions extracted through sophisticated analyses of survey questions. We also welcome works where parties and the electorate are explicitly considered as collective (rather unitary) entities. Furthermore, elected politicians can represent citizens in many ways, including through constituency work, the provision of resources for the district, or through various accountability mechanisms. This panel is open to papers that analyze the relationship between voter-party congruence and other dimensions of political representation.