Multidimensional incongruence and vote switching in Europe

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • Ryan Bakker
  • Seth Jolly
  • Jonathan Polk

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.

Original languageEnglish
JournalPublic Choice
Volume176
Issue number1-2
Pages (from-to)267-296
Number of pages30
ISSN0048-5829
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2018

    Research areas

  • Elections, European Union, Incongruence, Parties

ID: 235408913