What Are Elections For? Conferring the Median Mandate

McDonald, Michael D.; Mendes, Sílvia M.; Budge, Ian

doi:10.1017/s0007123403000322

Cited by 310 publications

(335 citation statements)

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“…Over 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.…”

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Ideological Congruence and Citizen Satisfaction: Evidence From 25 Advanced Democracies

Mayne

Hakhverdian

2016

Comparative Political Studies

108

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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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Ideological Congruence and Citizen Satisfaction: Evidence From 25 Advanced Democracies

Mayne

Hakhverdian

2016

Comparative Political Studies

108

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“…This policy position corresponds to the electorate's core which can be understood as the result of sophisticated strategic interaction in the electorate and in the national legislature (see Banks and Duggan 2000). We consider (MED) to be a fair approximation, even in the light of the big variation among the actual national electoral systems in the EU member states (see McDonald et al 2004). …”

Section: Representatives In the Ep And In The Councilmentioning

confidence: 99%

Codecision in context: implications for the balance of power in the EU

Maaser

Mayer

2015

Soc Choice Welf

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The paper analyzes the European Union's codecision procedure as a bargaining game between the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. The relative influence of these institutions on legislative decision-making in the EU is assessed under a priori preference assumptions. In contrast to previous studies, we do not consider the codecision procedure in isolation but include several aspects of the EU's wider institutional framework. The finding that the Council is more influential than the Parliament due to its more conservative internal decision rule is robust to adding 'context' to the basic model, but the imbalance is considerably attenuated. JEL Classifications

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“…He found broad congruence, which varied with the clarity of government responsibility and other contextual factors. Since then several studies have used data from the Comparative Manifestos Project to compare citizen-government congruence (Klingemann et al 1994;McDonald and Budge 2005). Much of this research has considered how electoral system rules might affect the degree of congruence between citizens and their government in Western democracies (Huber and Powell 1994;Wessels 1999;Powell 2000Powell , 2006.…”

Section: Conceptualizing Representationmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Democracy Works : Political Representation and Policy Congruence in Modern Societies

Rosema¹,

Denters²,

Aarts³

2011

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DemocracyCover design and layout: Maedium, Utrecht All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owners and the authors of the book. PrefaceThere are many good reasons to present a book on the functioning of representative democracy at this precise moment. But the true reason for its creation is a special event of a personal nature: the formal retirement of Jacques Thomassen at the University of Twente. In his long and impressive academic career Jacques Thomassen has greatly contributed to the study of democracy. He has authored and edited several influential academic works, which already started with one of his first articles in 1976, entitled "Party identification as a cross-national concept," which is still considered to be a classic in the literature on voting behavior. His publications since include many books in both Dutch and English, often published by the leading academic publishers in political science. His reputation as an editor of books is almost unrivalled in political science. But there is much more. Jacques Thomassen has played a vital role in the development of major national and international data collection projects about political institutions, such as the Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies, Dutch Parliament Studies, Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and the European Election Studies. The data that are still generated on the basis of these collaborative projects provide a most valuable source of information for the study of democracy -without it researchers would arguably not be able to adequately study the functioning of democracy -and thus form one of the most important developments in the last decades in political science. This Liber Amicorum serves to honour Jacques Thomassen for his extremely valuable contribution to the study of democracy. In his career he has collaborated with dozens of academics from many countries. They have learned to know Jacques Thomassen as a most competent and erudite scholar and a good colleague; and many enjoy the privilege of being amongst the many friends that he has made over these years. This volume is a collection of essays by some of these colleagues and friends. In planning this volume, we had to be very restrictive, and as a result many colleagues who would have liked to contribute to this book could not be taken on board. The final set of essays demonstrate the appreciation of the authors for Jacques Thomassen by bringing together in this volume some of their very best and fresh work on the theme that has been at the heart of his research agenda: the functioning of representative democracy. Together, these contributions provide the most up-to-date assessment of how democracy works in the world of today. The contributions in this volume have been created in the spi...

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What Are Elections For? Conferring the Median Mandate

Cited by 310 publications

References 5 publications

Ideological Congruence and Citizen Satisfaction: Evidence From 25 Advanced Democracies

Ideological Congruence and Citizen Satisfaction: Evidence From 25 Advanced Democracies

Codecision in context: implications for the balance of power in the EU

How Democracy Works : Political Representation and Policy Congruence in Modern Societies

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