From convergence to congruence: European integration and citizen–elite congruence
| Author | Raimondas Ibenskas,Daniel Devine |
| DOI | 10.1177/14651165211024936 |
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
From convergence to
congruence: European
integration and citizen–elite
congruence
Daniel Devine
St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, UK
Raimondas Ibenskas
Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen,
Norway
Abstract
Recent research argues that European integration has led to an ideological convergence
of member state party systems, which is purported to have significant consequences for
democratic representation. We argue that convergence of party positions is less proble-
matic if congruence between governed and governing is maintained. We therefore turn to
test whether integration has had an effect on congruence between the public and their
governing elites. Using five measures of integration, two sources of public opinion data,
and expert surveys on political parties, we find little evidence that integration into the
European Union reduces congruence between the public and the national party system,
government or legislature either ideologically or across five issue areas. These results
should assuage concerns about integration’s effect on domestic political representation.
Keywords
European integration, policy congruence, policy convergence, representation
Introduction
International integration has had a profound impact on domestic mass politics. On the
supply side, European and global integration have shifted political parties’policy
Corresponding author:
Daniel Devine, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, Manor Road Building,
Oxford OX1 3UQ, UK.
Email: daniel.devine@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk
Article
European Union Politics
2021, Vol. 22(4) 676–699
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14651165 211024936
journals.sagepub.com/home/eup
positions (Dorussen and Nanou, 2006; Konstantinidis et al., 2019; Nanou and Dorussen,
2013; Ward et al., 2015) and the level of welfare and social spending governments
commit to (Heimberger, 2020); on the demand side, integration is linked to, among
other consequences, declining turnout (Steiner, 2010) and changing demands from
voters (Hellwig, 2014) (for reviews, see Gall, 2017). These accounts are particularly pes-
simistic about the normative consequences for democratic legitimacy, insofar as they
point to the weakening of ties between the voting public on one side and the policy
output and accountability of governments on the other (Mair, 2013). Public, and particu-
larly populist, contestation over international integration precisely emphasises the rela-
tionship between national institutions and citizens that are being altered in the wake of
greater integration (Halikiopoulou et al., 2012).
In this paper, we contribute to this debate by asking whether European integration is
associated with the decline of ideological and issue-based congruence across the
European Union (EU) since the early 1980s, the earliest point at which data is available.
European integration represents a particularly intense form of international integration, in
which states pool sovereignty to pursue common policy interests, and so provides an
arena to understand the effects of deep and wide integration processes. Some crucial
areas of policymaking, such as monetary policy in the case of the EU 19, are the sole
competence of European decisionmaking, and many others are shared competencies.
At the elitelevel, one important result of the European integration process is that the posi-
tions that parties adopt in the policy areas over which the EU has significant competence
move closer to a ‘European’position (Dorussen and Nanou, 2006; Hix, 2003; Nanou,
2013; Ward et al., 2015). In other words, parties converge on the policy position
decided at the EU level, which we refer to as party convergence.
Has this convergence occurred alongside a concomitant decline in public–elite con-
gruence? A loss of public–elite congruence is frequently cited as a particularly nefarious
effect of European governance on domestic democracy. For instance, Follesdal and Hix
(2006) highlight that integration leads to ‘policy drift’, where policies are adopted away
from (most) voters’ideal position. More recently, Nanou and Dorussen (2013, 90) go
further, arguing that party convergence means that ‘as EU authority increases, parties
become less responsive to their electorate’. However, the evidence brought to bear on
this question has missed a fundamental element of this link: the public. Party conver-
gence, we argue, is less problematic if there is still congruence between the public and
its representatives.
We provide the first study on the effects of integration on congruence by examining
both ideological congruence on the left–right scale (the distance between the ideological
preferences of the electorate and its representatives) and policy-based congruence (the
distance between the policy preferences of the electorate and its representatives). The
latter type of congruence is examined across five issue areas (redistribution, social life-
style, European integration, environment and immigration). Our substantive focus is
on the breadth (Börzel, 2005) of integration, or the extent of EU involvement in policy
making. We study congruence between the public and three representative bodies at
the centre of representation and preference aggregation: the party system, government
and legislature. Building on the relevant literature, we develop a nuanced theoretical
Devine and Ibenskas 677
To continue reading
Request your trial