Representation in Europe: Policy Congruence between Citizens and Elites (REPCONG)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Thomas Bräuninger
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2008 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 77084283

Representative democracy is premised on the notion that there should be a reasonable degree ofcongruence between the wishes of citizens and the priorities of those elected to represent them. Thequality of this ‘substantial’ representation is important, as it will affect citizens’ perception ofrepresentation and their attitudes toward representative democracy, more generally. In real worldrepresentative democracy, however, policy congruence between citizens and elites is partial forvarious reasons: representatives may deviate from what they promised when electoral sanctioning isunlikely, parties have informational advantages, or the nature of party competition in mass electionsdistorts the multi-dimensional character of citizen and party preferences. Yet, we know very little aboutthe actual extent, the determinants and consequences of policy congruence between citizens andelites in Europe, at the national or the European Union levels.The CRP will address these issues focussing on two sets of questions: Firstly, we explore thedeterminants of policy congruence and the impact of political institutions and direct democracy, inparticular. Secondly, we investigate how policy congruence impacts on the perception ofrepresentation, and the satisfaction with democracy as well as the perception of specificrepresentative institutions, such as national parliaments/governments and European institutions. Theempirical analysis uses data from various sources: European Social Survey (ESS) and ComparativeStudy of Electoral Systems (CSES) for information on individual citizens’ policy preferences andindividual perceptions of representation and attitudes toward democracy; national party manifestosand Euro-manifestos supplemented with data from an online survey amongst MPs and MEPs to obtaininformation on policy preferences of both ‘parties’ and ‘individuals’ as representatives. Techniquesfrom multi-level analysis are employed to reflect the multi-level nature of these data (individual, partyand system level).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants