Issue Salience, Multi-Dimensional Preference Congruence and Perceptions of Representation in Europe

Citizens’ perceptions of how well their policy preferences are represented are shaped by the degree of congruence between their own views and those of political elites. We posit that when evaluating how well representatives’ policy positions match their own, individuals pay greatest attention to the policy issues that are most salient to them. First, citizens are likely to care more about being represented on the issues they consider important. Second, attitudes and information concerning more salient issues are more readily accessible and hence more influential in the opinion-formation process. The latter might further imply that issues which are not important to the individual but salient in society at large have a stronger impact. Although a range of studies have provided evidence for the relationship between congruence in left-right positions and satisfaction with democracy, with representation perceptions as the assumed mediating variable, only one recent study takes the multi-dimensional nature of policy preferences into account. Building on this research, we investigate the effects of multi-dimensional preference congruence on representation perceptions, paying special attention to the role of issue salience. We link voter survey data from the 2014 European Election Study with the Chapel Hill Expert Survey. We investigate whether the relationship between preference congruence on a set of policy dimensions and representation perceptions is conditioned by personal and ‘systemic’ issue salience. We furthermore analyse whether and how the role of salience differs with individuals’ political sophistication, as the more knowledgeable and interested might be more likely to also take less salient dimensions into account and take advantage of the information available.