Cautious Voters -Supportive Parties
| Author | Tapio Raunio,Mikko Mattila |
| Published date | 01 December 2006 |
| Date | 01 December 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1465116506069434 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Cautious Voters – Supportive
Parties
Opinion Congruence between Voters
and Parties on the EU Dimension
Mikko Mattila
University of Helsinki, Finland
Tapio Raunio
University of Tampere, Finland
ABSTRACT
This article analyses party–voter congruence on European
integration matters in the EU member states. Drawing on
existing research, we put forward eight hypotheses which
are tested with data from the EES2004 survey. We show that
parties are closer to their voters on the left/right dimension
than on the EU dimension. Parties are also more supportive
of European integration than are their voters. Party system
characteristics (number of parties, ideological range) did not
affect opinion congruence. The responsiveness analysis at
the party level shows that government parties were less
responsive than opposition parties; party size was related to
responsiveness, with opinion congruence higher in smaller
parties; and responsiveness was lower among centrist
parties. Voters are also better represented on the EU dimen-
sion by their parties in the new than in the older EU member
states. This difference may result from the EU occupying a
more central place on the political agendas of the new
member states.
427
European Union Politics
DOI: 10.1177/1465116506069434
Volume 7 (4): 427–449
Copyright© 2006
SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks CA,
New Delhi
KEY WORDS
EU
European Parliament
opinion congruence
parties
representation
Introduction
Representation is both a complex and a contested phenomenon. It is complex
in the sense that it can be approached from a variety of angles, with most of
the empirical research focusing on the linkages between the representatives
(such as members of parliament and political parties) and those who elect
them. It is contested in the sense that there is no commonly accepted norma-
tive rule or objective criterion for assessing whether representation works or
not.
Nonetheless, students of representative democracy do agree on certain
basic conditions that a political system should meet. First, the composition of
the representative body (primarily the legislature) should reflect the compo-
sition of the electorate, thus ensuring that all main societal groups are repre-
sented in public policy-making. Secondly, there should be at least some
congruence of preferences between the citizens and their representatives.
Although there is no consensus on what constitutes a sufficiently high level
of such opinion agreement, it is easy to agree with Wessels (1999: 137), who
states that ‘the smallest common denominator in normative terms, though, is
that in a democracy there should be some match between the interests of the
people and what representatives promote’.
Considering the dominance of the left/right cleavage in European politics
(Huber and Inglehart, 1995), it is not surprising that most studies find politi-
cal parties to be quite representative of their voters on this dimension.
However, any new dimension or issue that enters the political agenda,
particularly if that issue is only weakly related to the left/right dimension, is
bound to cause problems for parties. The main such new dimension in
European politics is undoubtedly the development of the European Union
(EU). Indeed, several scholars have argued that the European party-political
space, at least in those countries that joined the Union before 2004, is
nowadays based on two main dimensions – the old left/right cleavage and
the new EU cleavage, often defined as an anti/pro-European integration
dimension (e.g. Hix, 1999; Hooghe and Marks, 1999; Marks and Wilson, 1999;
Marks and Steenbergen, 2002b, 2004; Mattila, 2004). One of the key arguments
of this research is that the low connectedness between these two dimensions
creates problems for the established political parties, which hence have an
incentive to downplay European issues and to structure competition along
the more familiar and thus safer socioeconomic cleavage.
Comparing voters’ own policy positions with their assessment of the
position of the party they voted for, this article analyses the congruence of
preferences between political parties and their voters on European integra-
tion in 22 EU member countries. More specifically, we are not just interested
European Union Politics 7(4)
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