Ideological Congruence: Illusion or Imperfection?

• Published in: Legislative studies quarterly Vol. 43; no. 1; pp. 21 - 32
• Main Author: Powell, G. Bingham
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Iowa City Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-02-2018
• Subjects: Elections; ideological congruence; Ideology; Left wing politics; measurement; Median voter; Polarization; valence voting
• ISSN: 0362-9805; 1939-9162
• DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12177

Paul Warwick () argues that much of the research on ideological congruence leaves the erroneous impression that a close match of median left‐right voter opinions and government ideological positions usually emerges from elections. I propose further clarifications. I offer a “natural metric” based on the average distances from the median voter of the most distant and the closest parties competing in all these countries’ elections. I suggest that by these standards average ideological congruence in the Western liberal democracies in the last 20 years has been fairly successful, but not as successful as it could be.