Multidimensional incongruence and vote switching in Europe

Ryan Bakker (), Seth Jolly () and Jonathan Polk ()
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Ryan Bakker: University of Georgia
Seth Jolly: Syracuse University
Jonathan Polk: University of Gothenburg

Public Choice, 2018, vol. 176, issue 1, No 15, 267-296

Abstract: Abstract Does ideological incongruence hurt parties in elections? Research on the representational relationship between parties and voters suggests that ideological congruence can boost a party’s electoral prospects. However, while the mechanism is at the individual-level, most of the literature focuses on the party-level. In this article, we develop a set of hypotheses based on a multi-issue conception of party-voter congruence at the individual-level, and examine the electoral consequences of these varying congruence levels in the 2014 European Parliament elections. Consistent with our expectations, comparative analysis finds that ideological and issue-specific incongruence is a significant factor in voting behavior in the European Parliament elections. Although the substantive effects of incongruence are understandably small compared to partisanship, government, or EU performance evaluations, party-voter disagreement consistently matters, and voters’ issue salience is an important moderator of the impact of incongruence on vote choice.

Keywords: Parties; Elections; Incongruence; European Union (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-018-0555-z

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