Congruence between voters and parties: The role of party‐level issue salience

Abstract

The level of congruence between parties and their voters can vary greatly from one policy issue to another, which raises questions regarding the effectiveness of political representation. We seek to explain variation in party–voter congruence across issues and parties. We focus on the hypotheses that (1) average proximity between the positions of voters and the party they vote for will be highest on the issues that the party emphasises in the election campaign and that (2) this relationship will be stronger for niche parties. We test these hypotheses using data on the policy preferences of voters, party positions, party attention profiles and salience on concrete policy issues in four countries: The Netherlands, Ireland, Germany and Sweden. Overall, we find that voter–party proximity tends to be higher on issues that the party emphasises. As these are the issues where parties typically have the greatest policy impact, this implies that the quality of representation is highest where it matters most. There is some limited evidence that the positive relationship between issue salience and proximity is stronger for niche parties. In sum, the quality of policy representation varies strongly with party‐level issue salience and to a lesser extent with the type of political party.

The paradox of poor representation: How voter–party incongruence curbs affective polarisation

“…. and those with whom they disagree.’ Of most relevance to this study, research also indicates that ideological proximity between voter and party tends to be higher on personally salient issues (Giger and Lefkofridi, 2014) and on issues emphasised by the party during elections (party-level salience) (Costello et al, 2021), with niche parties performing better in both instances. These findings imply that the importance citizens attach to single issues plays a fundamental role in the representational relationship between parties and voters.…”

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Support for the German AfD: Jumping the Populist Ship or Staying the Course?

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Congruence in Proportional Representation Systems: Non‐Economic Issue Salience and Coalition Formation

“…When the ideologically adjacent party on the left–right dimension has a clear position on alternative issues and emphasizes those issues more (Costello et al, 2021), the lack of gains from the economic policy outcomes due to compromise can be substituted with gains from the other issue area. Earlier literature indeed showed that parties with greater issue diversity, in general, tend to cooperate more with other parties, as diversity provides a large space for bargaining and compromise rather than intensifying ideological tensions due to parties' efforts to preserve their distinct positions towards their electorate (Greene, 2017: 580).…”