Blind spots in the study of democratic representation: Masses and elites in old and new democracies
| Published date | 01 January 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/01925121231219045 |
| Author | Jaemin Shim,Mahmoud Farag |
| Date | 01 January 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/01925121231219045
International Political Science Review
2025, Vol. 46(1) 91 –107
© The Author(s) 2024
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DOI: 10.1177/01925121231219045
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Blind spots in the study of
democratic representation:
Masses and elites in old and new
democracies
Jaemin Shim
Department of Government and International Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
Mahmoud Farag
Department of Political Science, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
Abstract
Preference congruence between masses and elites lies at the heart of the study of democratic representation.
In this article, substantiated by a meta-analysis of 154 studies published between 1960 and 2022, we show that
the literature on mass–elite congruence has increased exponentially in the past decade. Despite the growing
academic interest, the publications mainly focus on Western Europe and leave two critical blind spots.
First, at the mass level, little attention has been paid to distinguishing between voters and non-voters and
between independents and partisans. Second, at the elite level, presidents have been overlooked, including
those studies examining presidential or semi-presidential democracies. In this article, we demonstrate the
existence of two blind spots with a meta-analysis, explain their significance for political representation and
test the extent to which they affect mass–elite congruence measurement. The article contributes to the
comparative study of representation by illustrating how filling in these two blind spots is necessary to ensure
a reliable and comprehensive assessment of mass–elite congruence.
Keywords
Issue congruence, mass–elite, representation, president, global approach, measurement
Introduction
Congruence in the preferences of voters and elected representatives is a vital quality of representa-
tive democracy (Dahl, 1971). Congruence is an essential part of achieving substantive representa-
tion, which occurs when the ideas and actions of representatives reflect the ideological orientation
and policy preferences of the represented (Pitkin, 1967). Moreover, research shows that a lack of
Corresponding author:
Jaemin Shim, Department of Government and International Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, Academic and
Administration Building, Baptist University Road Campus, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong.
Email: jamesshim83@gmail.com
1219045IPS0010.1177/01925121231219045International Political Science ReviewShim and Farag
research-article2024
Original Research Article
92 International Political Science Review 46(1)
congruence brings numerous negative real-world consequences. For instance, lower ideological or
policy preference proximity to elites makes the public less satisfied with democracy (Stecker and
Tausendpfund, 2016), and negatively impacts voter turnout and trust in the government (Lefkofridi
et al., 2014; Miller, 1974).
Reflecting the significance of the topic, a wealth of empirical research has examined the
degree to which the masses and elected political elites match on the broad left–right ideological
spectrum or on specific policy positions and priorities (henceforth, mass–elite congruence).
Specifically, starting from the early 1960s, this line of scholarship has appeared under several
labels, including ‘issue representation’, ‘opinion congruence’, ‘policy representation’, ‘issue
congruence’, ‘opinion-policy link’, ‘policy congruence’, ‘representation gap’ and ‘mass–elite
discrepancy’ (Shim, forthcoming).
Despite the noticeable advances in the mass–elite congruence literature, it has two critical blind
spots that affect the empirical assessment of mass–elite congruence. The first blind spot concerns
the insufficient recognition of non-voters and independents in the mass-level preference aggrega-
tion. The second blind spot relates to the exclusion of presidents at the elite level. We argue that
both blind spots have serious measurement consequences.
In the following section, we present a meta-analysis that highlights the key advancements in the
field and elucidates the connection between the regional concentration of literature in Western
Europe and two blind spots. Second, we demonstrate the existence of the two blind spots, explain
their significance and illustrate measurement consequences with the Japanese and Chilean exam-
ples. Third, building on recent mass–elite congruence scholarship that emphasizes the importance
of ‘what is measured and how it is measured’, we investigate the extent to which neglected actors
influence mass–elite congruence. For this, we employ multiple linear regressions on a sample of
12 Latin American cases. Finally, in the concluding section, we offer recommendations to address
each blind spot and identify promising directions for future research.
Mapping the mass–elite congruence literature: a meta-analysis
To systematically map the mass–elite congruence literature, we carried out a meta-analysis of
empirical works that compare the preference congruence between the masses in general and elected
political elites at the national level based on a quantitative dataset. We chose 154 relevant studies
published between 1960 and 2022 through 2 rounds of sample selections (see Appendix 1 for
details of the selection process and the complete list of samples). Reflecting diverse approaches to
mass–elite congruence analysis (Shim and Gherghina, 2020: 514), our selected samples include
studies that measure issue position or saliency, and absolute or relative congruence, and that
employ direct or indirect measures.
The meta-analysis divides the publication periods into 7 periods with 10-year intervals begin-
ning in 1960 (for the 2020s, the calculation is based on the period between 1 January 2020 and 27
June 2022). The overtime publication trend clearly points to the increasing saliency of the mass–
elite congruence theme. Specifically, the number of published articles and book chapters in the
past 3 decades has expanded from 14 (1990–1999) to 20 (2000–2009) and then to 98 (2010–
2019). The publication explosion in the scholarship in the 2010s is noteworthy since the degree
of increase more than doubled that of publications in the political science field during the same
period.1
We identified several milestone works from the past seven decades of knowledge accumulation
in the field. To begin with, Miller and Stokes (1963) conducted a field-opening work that explicitly
compares the policy preferences between US voters and legislators at the district level. This was
followed by other seminar empirical studies covering developed European democracies, either in
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