Clarity of voter choices: neglected foundation for ideological congruence

Luana Russo,Mark N Franklin,Stefanie Beyens

doi:10.36253/qoe-9836

Luana Russo, Mark N Franklin + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.36253/qoe-9836

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Abstract

Ideological congruence between voters and governments is desirable, the wisdom goes, because it implies enactment of policies close to those preferred by voters. Party polarization plays a paradoxical role here: more polarization reduces voter-government congruence if parties making up a government move away from the center-ground where most individual voters are located; yet increasing polarization permits those governments’ policies to become more distinct in the eyes of voters. This paper investigates how political system clarity helps to resolve this paradox. We examine the interplay of several sources of clarity and, in particular, of the joint role of party and voter polarization. We argue and find that, if polarization of survey respondents increases in step with party polarization, this provides clarity that can override party polarization’s negative effect on voter-government congruence. But other types of clarity also play important roles in accounting for the range of values that congruence takes on.

Highlights

Ideological congruence between individual voters and their elected governments is crucial for well-functioning representative democratic systems
This raises the question: how much party polarization is enough to ensure meaningful distinctions among parties without incurring deleterious consequences for ideological congruence? We suggest a previously unanticipated role for voter polarization in mitigating the ill-effects of party polarization
We argue that a joint increase in party and voter polarization can facilitate joint ‘sorting’ of voters and parties in terms of their left-right positions, injecting a degree of clarity into the choices facing voters

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Ideological congruence between individual voters and their elected governments is crucial for well-functioning representative democratic systems. Some of these (party system size and government status) have been identified as providing opportunities for increasing voter satisfaction if the obstacles are minimized (perhaps because small party systems and majority governments facilitate ideological congruence between voters and their governments) Another (electoral clarity) has figured rather in studies of economic voting and in turnout studies (though sometimes under other names). In a country where coalition governments are the norm, voters would need to know a great deal about likely coalition preferences of the parties on offer (Fortunato and Stevenson 2013) in order to be able to make sensible use of their vote This problem will be acute to the extent that the parties are small ones. All of these variables have previously been seen as relevant to voter decision-making, only in regard to electoral clarity do scholars regularly explain this relevance in terms of the role the variable plays in clarifying voter choices – and only in studies of economic voting and some turnout studies

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