Citizens’ Perceptions of Government Distance and Democratic Satisfaction

• In Event: Congruence and Democratic Responsiveness

Abstract

Ideological representation matters for citizen satisfaction. Perceived representation matters even more. We know that at the individual level closer proximity between the citizen’s own left-right position and the position of government is a significant predictor of democratic satisfaction. This relationship is even stronger if we use the individual’s perception of the position of the government parties, rather than the average perception—for various reasons some people do not concur with average perceptions of party positions. This difference is one factor attenuating the aggregation connection between ideological government congruence and democratic satisfaction (Powell 2019).

Recent studies have also investigated the ways that citizens attribute policy influence to different parties under coalition governments (Bowler, Geschwend, Indridison 2019; Fortunato, et al 2019). Most citizens do not follow politics closely. Even scholarly studies vary in their estimation of relative party influence on government policy (Laver & Budge 1992; Warwick 2009; Martin and Vanberg 2014, 2016; Thomson et al 2017; Naurin et al. 2019, Arbellaro 2019.) What will be the consequences—if any—for the effect of government congruence on democratic satisfaction if we use, as citizens seem to, alternative estimates of party influence in coalition governments?

This paper first replicates the aggregate and individual level studies of citizen satisfaction with the working of democracy (Maine and Hackverdian 2017; Powell 2019) using the standard way of estimating the positions of the coalition governments (average perceived party position weighted by portfolio share,) and controls previously found significant. The effect of a citizen being an election “winner,” by having voted for a party that becomes part of the government, is an important linkage mechanism. The “winner” effects are especially strong in elections under Single Member District elections (as per Anderson and Guillory 1997 and Anderson, et al. 2005.).The analysis then modifies the estimated government positions by using the individual’s perceptions of each government party, rather than average perception.

Bearing in mind the “promise-keeping” findings (Thomson, et al. 2017) about the relative success of governing parties in achieving campaign promises, as well as the “winner-loser” effects, the analysis contrasts the effect of citizens’ proximity to single party governments with proximity to coalition governments in elections contested with various election rules.

For coalition governments, found most consistently in PR systems, the analysis explores
various possible party weightings, taking advantage of recent heuristic analysis on citizen influence perceptions, beginning with the assumption that only the party of the prime minister matters, followed by other plausible party influence configurations. Alternative party weightings include the role of each party in the government (prime minister, junior partner, opposition), the voting support won by each party, the legislative seats won by each party; the distance of the party from the pure “center” of 5 on the 0-10 scale, the distance of the party from the legislative median. Do some party weightings better explain the effect of government proximity?

Finally, the analysis returns to the aggregate level to examine whether the various simplifications and misperceptions distort citizen satisfaction or cancel out to a reasonable approximation of more accurate measures.

Author

• G. Bingham Powell, University of Rochester