Not all election winners are equal: Satisfaction with democracy and the nature of the vote

Singh, Shane P.

doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12028

Cited by 101 publications

(106 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…This could be the case for voters taken as a whole or for population sub-groups such as ideological extremists or different types of national electoral winners and losers (Chang et al 2014;Singh 2014). Observational data drawn from mass surveys offer a useful way to test for these effects, but experimental designs also provide a powerful set of tools for gaining analytic purchase on how different forms of congruence affect public opinion in different ways.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ideological Congruence and Citizen Satisfaction: Evidence From 25 Advanced Democracies

Mayne

Hakhverdian

2016

Comparative Political Studies

106

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Ideological congruence is an important and popular measure of the quality of political representation. The closer the match between the preferences of the public and those of elected elites, the better representative democracy is thought to function. Relatively little attention has been paid however to the effects of ideological congruence on political judgement. We address this gap by examining whether citizens use egocentric or sociotropic judgments of congruence to evaluate democratic performance. Using a variety of congruence measures, we find that citizens are unmoved by sociotropic congruence; however, our analyses provide clear evidence that egocentric congruence boosts citizen satisfaction, especially among political sophisticates. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the study of ideological congruence and political representation.1 Earlier versions of this paper were presented at annual conferences of the Midwest Political Science Association and the Dutch Political Science Association as well as a workshop at the University of Gothenburg. We thank the discussants and panel participants at these meetings for their feedback. We also thank Wouter Schakel for data assistance. We are grateful for the thoughtful comments of our reviewers as well as 2Over the years ideological congruence has become an important and popular concept in the study of political representation (Huber and Powell 1994;Powell 2000 Powell , 2009McDonald et al. 2004;Klingemann et al. 2006;Griffin and Newman 2008;Golder and Stramski 2010). Third, in addition to testing for the direct effects of various measures of ideological congruence on citizen satisfaction we investigate whether the effects of congruence are contingent upon a person's political sophistication. While a positive relationship between representative congruence and citizen satisfaction seems plausible in the abstract, it is also possible that, given its potential complexity and concomitant inscrutability as a feature of the political environment, congruence -whether egocentric or sociotropic -may in reality only affect those capable of ascertaining its presence and degree.In the end our analyses provide no evidence that variations in sociotropic congruence are related to how citizens think about the general working of their political system. None of the 4 sociotropic measures is found to impact citizen satisfaction, even among political sophisticates. In contrast, we find clear evidence that egocentric congruence matters for citizen satisfaction. In addition, political sophistication moderates the relationship between egocentric congruence and citizen satisfaction. Specifically, egocentric congruence boosts the chances of satisfaction more among citizens with the highest levels of political sophistication.In the next section we elaborate on the concept of ideological congruence as one aspect of political representation that citizens might take into account when evaluating democratic performance. We then introduce the distinction bet...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ideological Congruence and Citizen Satisfaction: Evidence From 25 Advanced Democracies

Mayne

Hakhverdian

2016

Comparative Political Studies

106

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“…Berggren et al. (: 88) have extended Anderson and Guillory's findings by noting that different measures of institutional context (e.g., electoral district size, degree of unicameralism, electoral system disproportionality) affect the attitudes of winners and losers differentially (see also Bernauer & Vatter ; Singh ).…”

Section: Prior Studies Of Satisfaction With Democracymentioning

confidence: 97%

Valence and satisfaction with democracy: A cross‐national analysis of nineWesternEuropean democracies

Leiter

Clark

2015

European J Political Res

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In recent studies, scholars have highlighted factors that influence citizen satisfaction with democracy, with particular emphasis on the role played by the institutional features of political systems, and ideology. This article presents the first empirical study of whether changes in important party characteristics can affect individuals' satisfaction with democracy. Using a measure of parties' character‐valence derived from content analysis of news reports, evidence is presented that when governing parties' images decline with respect to important valence‐related attributes such as competence, unity and integrity, then citizen satisfaction with democracy similarly declines. However, this relationship is conditional on the performance of opposition parties. These findings are relevant to studies of regime support, political representation, democratic accountability and voter behaviour.

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“…On a general level, Aarts and Thomassen () find that citizens’ satisfaction hinges primarily on their perception of how well their views are represented by members of parliament (MPs). Furthermore, a part of the satisfaction‐engendering effect of winning in elections stems from policy considerations (Singh : 310). Singh et al () demonstrate that the strongest rise in SWD occurs in those who voted for a party that ends up in the government.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multidimensional government-citizen congruence and satisfaction with democracy

Stecker

Tausendpfund

2016

European Journal of Political Research

110

101

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In the first comparative study of multidimensional government‐citizen policy congruence, this article shows that citizens are less satisfied with democracy when their views differ from that of the government on policy dimensions beyond the general left‐right axis. Satisfaction is reduced by a government that deviates on European integration and redistribution and partly also on social lifestyle, immigration and environmental protection. Furthermore, this analysis identifies the level of political interest as central moderator of this relationship. Satisfaction of citizens with stronger interest in politics suffers more when there is a politically distant government. Combining data from the 2010 Chapel Hill Expert Survey and two waves of the European Social Survey, the analysis builds on information on citizen‐government policy congruence of some 45,000 citizens and 31 governments in 15 Western and Central Eastern European countries. The article brings a multidimensional perspective to the study of policy congruence between citizens and governments in a time when the preference structure of parties and citizens has become increasingly complex.

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Not all election winners are equal: Satisfaction with democracy and the nature of the vote

Cited by 101 publications

References 54 publications

Ideological Congruence and Citizen Satisfaction: Evidence From 25 Advanced Democracies

Ideological Congruence and Citizen Satisfaction: Evidence From 25 Advanced Democracies

Valence and satisfaction with democracy: A cross‐national analysis of nineWesternEuropean democracies

Multidimensional government-citizen congruence and satisfaction with democracy

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