EXPLAINING LEFT-RIGHT PARTY CONGRUENCE ACROSS EUROPEAN

PARTY SYSTEMS: A TEST OF MICRO, MESO AND MACRO LEVEL MODELS

Ana Maria Belchior

Comparitive politics

Clint Dillard

AIMS• Attempt a comprehensive theory about what causes

higher or lower levels of congruence between parties or party leaders and their voters.

• Attempts to explain the levels of left-right congruence within European political parties.

Specifics• Study uses 27 member states of the European Union• Total of 189 political parties• In order to provide broad comparative cross-national and

cross-party system data about causes of congruence• Micro Level: Individual• Mecro Level: Party• Macro Level: Political Systems

Downs- May Model• Assumes that voters prefer the parties that best represent

their political positions, and that parties seek to maximize their votes so that positions tend to converge

• Spatial Theory: voters utility for a party depends in the distance between the issue position of the party and the position of the voter assuming relation is linear

• Best strategy is to target the median voter• Activists: push party leaders, leads to incongruency

Przeworski-Sprague Model• Voters and party leaders influence eachother• Not only shows party position, but also how far from

neutral center.• Short-term voter maximization: leaders may forgo a catch-

all-party to influence public opinion• Catch-all-parties: shows highest levels of congruence

Huber-Powell-Wessels Model• Proportional systems are more likely to generate high

levels of positional representation than majoritarian• Polarized proportional electoral systems with a large

number of parties are expected to exhibit higher levels of congruence

Hypotheses for when higher congruence is expected

• Downs – May

-H1a: Among politically sophisticated and involved voters and with a high level of education.

-H1b: Among MPs with high political experience and with accurate perceptions on voters' positions.

-H1c: Among political parties with high cohesion and low intra-party polarization.

• Przeworski - Sprague

-H2: Among political parties whose electoral competition is closer to the ideological center.

• Huber-Powell-Wessels

-H3: In more differentiated and proportional electoral systems.

MP and Voter Left-right Spatial Distribution across European Party

What does the graph mean?• The spatial distribution of the European party systems

shows a tendency towards concentration in the ideological center

• MP positions on the left-right scale appear to be directly and positively related to their voters positions, with a significant statistical linear relationship

• There is a geographical pattern of congruence

MP and Voter Left-Right Spatial Distribution across European Political Parties

Explaining Party Ideological Congruence

• To compare the importance of the models for levels of left-right congruence, regression analysis was performed for each, taking into account the individuals, parties and electoral systems.

• The dependent variable is ideological distance• Which is computed for each party by subtracting the

average position of MPs on the left-right scale from the position of voters on the same scale.

• A high level of difference means there is a low level of congruence, and a low level of difference mean a high level of congruence.

Results• The accuracy of representatives perceptions of the

position of voters is surprisingly significant, suggesting that the more accurately MPs perceive the ideological placement of voters, the closer they position themselves to voters

• There is evidence that parties with higher levels of cohesion and lower levels of polarization tend to produce higher MP-voter congruence

Results: Micro• H1a: not supported by the data, suggesting that the

political sophistication of voters does not have a significant impact on the level of congruence of parties

• H2b: only partially supported since in the case of MPs only perceptual accuracy seems to have a significant effect on congruence

• H2c: Supported because the cohesion and polarization of parties correlate with levels of congruence

Results: Mecro• H2 is Supported: political parties competing for the center

are more congruent• As the distance of the party from the neutral center

increases, the level of ideological distance between voters and MPs also increases

• congruence with voters increases with the size of the party

Results: Macro• H3 is Rejected• More proportional systems do not contribute to higher

levels of party congruence as expected • More differentiated party systems and proportional

representation systems do not generate higher MP-voter congruence than the non-differentiated, majoritarian systems

Conclusion• Larger centrist parties evince the lowest level of

ideological incongruence between MP candidates and voters

• The candidates that most accurately perceive the ideological position of their voters are consistently the most congruent with their electorate

• Left-right party cohesion supports the notion that MP candidates distance from the left-right mean in the party correlates with lower levels of congruence with voters