Political Elites-Voters’ Substantive Policy Congruence and Misperception

• In Event: Unequal Representation and Its Consequences in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Political science research dedicated to political representation in European democracies has frequently looked at substantive policy representation, the question being whether or not voters and parties have congruent policy preferences. The general finding, when this distance is measured on the classic left-right dimension, is that representation works pretty well, but this reassuring result does not square so well with growing feeling among citizens that the political elites have lost contact with them and neither represent their interests nor respond to their worries and needs anymore. Using data on the policy positions of voters, candidates and MPs in Luxembourg, we analyse the blind corner of representation by looking at policy issues, and the tendency of political elites to project their own preferences onto their voters.

Author

• Patrick Dumont, Australian National University