Political representation in different electoral settings. Measuring issue congruence with VAA-generated data
Popp, Raluca-Florica
Date: 23 March 2018
Publisher
University of Exeter
Degree Title
PhD in Politics
Abstract
The long line of representation studies posits that proportional representation
systems, with larger electoral districts, have a representational advantage over
majoritarian systems. However, over the last decade, scholars have challenged
this longstanding nding (Blais & Bodet 2006, Golder & Stramski 2007). Additionally,
Golder & ...
The long line of representation studies posits that proportional representation
systems, with larger electoral districts, have a representational advantage over
majoritarian systems. However, over the last decade, scholars have challenged
this longstanding nding (Blais & Bodet 2006, Golder & Stramski 2007). Additionally,
Golder & Stramski (2007) initiated a debate over the conceptualization
and measurement of congruence, arguing that the most common practice of assessing
congruence is flawed. They call for an improved measure of congruence.
In the light of this recent debates, the purpose of this thesis is to inspect the
relationship between institutional designs and political representation in the European
context, using Voting Advice Application generated data. Three main
research questions are explored. The first question relates to institutional designs
such as district magnitude, and electoral system characteristics such as disproportionality
or polarization, investigating the conditions necessary for a country
to present high levels of congruence between its citizens and their representatives.
Looking at party level characteristics, I will investigate what are the effects of
niche party status and governmental status on issue congruence in European
democracies? Last but not least, what is the role of individual characteristics?
These questions will be addressed by studying the impact of different features
of electoral systems, party and individual characteristics have on political representation
conceptualized as issue congruence. Congruence is measured as the
degree of matching of the common policy preferences of citizens and parties as
indicated by the Voting Advice Applications EU Pro filer 2009 and EUvox 2014.
The present work contributes to the stream of research on political representation
understood as congruence. The strength of this work lays in its comparative
approach, and the use of VAA generated data to measure congruence. While
most of the studies on political representation using congruence focus on the
Left-Right dimension, this thesis uses the concept of issue congruence. Based
on the 28 common statements of the VAA tool, the measure of congruence is
metric-free, allowing for cross-country comparisons. Although there is a wide
range of research on the effects of electoral systems on political representation,
most of these studies are limited in their use of comparative approaches. The
lack of extensive comparative research on issue congruence is due to insufficient
data. The 2009 EU Profi ler and 2014 EUvox address this issue, providing the
necessary framework for testing the predictors of congruence at a system, party
and individual level.
Political representation can be operationalized through congruence, as the distance
between the citizen and the representative (Huber & Powell 1994, Powell
2004). Issue congruence is the correspondence between party electorates and
their representatives across a set of salient policy dimensions (Powell 2004). VAA
generated data provides a new means of measuring congruence. I propose two
new measures of congruence, based on the distance between the citizen and the
party the citizen intends to vote for. Unlike other comparative studies that measure
congruence with the help of the Left-Right scale, the present work focuses
on issue policies. Issue congruence is the outcome of the match between the
citizen and the party she intends to vote for on a series of 28 and 22 political
statements. Additionally, the focus on issue congruence is important because
issue representation is mostly inferred from the alternative interpretations of
congruence. The measures of issue congruence therefore contribute to a better
understanding of political representation in the EU political space, tackling the
recurrent crisis of representation.
Doctoral Theses
Doctoral College
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