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Photo of Jonathan Polk. Photo.

Jonathan Polk

Professor

Photo of Jonathan Polk. Photo.

Multidimensional Incongruence and Vote Switching in Europe

Author

  • Ryan Bakker
  • Seth Jolly
  • Jonathan Polk

Summary, in English

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.

Publishing year

2018

Language

English

Pages

267-296

Publication/Series

Public Choice

Volume

176

Issue

1-2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Springer

Topic

  • Political Science

Keywords

  • Parties
  • Elections
  • Incongruence
  • European Union

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0048-5829