Measuring the mass-elite preference congruence: findings from a meta-analysis and introduction to the symposium
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Measuring the mass‑elite preference congruence: findings from a meta‑analysis and introduction to the symposium Jaemin Shim1,2 · Sergiu Gherghina3
© The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The extensive scholarship devoted to the congruence of mass-elite policy preferences lacks consensus about the meaning, comparison, and measurement across political settings. This makes comparisons difficult and raises obstacles to advancing the debates. This symposium aims to identify the diversity of methodological choices and to reflect systematically on several key choices of particular importance in understanding the congruence. The contributions to the symposium compare and contrast how several types of measurement fare in diverse political contexts in Eastern Europe, Latin America, North Africa, and East Asia, and what we can learn from those methodological choices. Keywords Issue congruence · Measurement · Mass-elite · Policy preferences · Representation
Introduction Congruence in policy preferences between voters and elected politicians has been an asset of representative democracy (Pitkin 1967; Dahl 1971; Thomassen et al. 1999). Policy incongruence is, ultimately, a less-than-ideal description of political representation and a phenomenon with a potentially detrimental effect to the existence of democracy. For instance, extensive empirical research has shown that masselite incongruence tends to lower voter turnout and political trust while increasing * Jaemin Shim [email protected] Sergiu Gherghina [email protected] 1
Institute of Korean Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
2
German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Institute of Asian Studies, Rothenbaumchaussee 32, 20148 Hamburg, Germany
3
Department of Politics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
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J. Shim, S. Gherghina
dissatisfaction with democracy per se (Miller 1974; Ezrow and Xezonakis 2011; Curini et al. 2012). Indirectly, through its negative effects on representation, the absence of mass-elite congruence of policy preferences provided fertile soil for the growth of populism (Kriesi 2014). The mass-elite policy congruence lies at the core of the purpose of political representation through elections, which are “instruments of democracy to the degree that they give the people influence over policy making” (Powell and Powell 2000: 3). Empirical research focusing on the comparison between mass and elite-level policy preferences has seen a dramatic increase in number and geographical coverage over time (Shim 2019). Starting with Miller and Stokes’ (1963) seminal work on comparing the US voters and legislators in the 1960s, key empirical studies have covered developed European democracies either in single- or multi-country form, such as Barnes on Italy (1971), Dalton on Western Europe (1985), Converse and Pierce on France (1986), Granberg and Holmberg on Sweden (1996), Thomassen on the European Union countries (2005), and Belchior on Portugal (2008). Moreover, since the turn of the millennium, there is a numbe
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