Misperceptions and Effective Representation
-The simultaneous effect of electoral systems, political parties and individual characteristics on voters’ percep-tions of party posipercep-tions - a multilevel approach
Abstract
In the terms of the responsible party model, parties are assumed to formu-late prospective policy programs and voters are assumed to vote for the party whose program most closely matches their preferences. In this con-text, elections are reckoned as a process of mandate giving where once in government, parties will strive to realize their policy programs. Voters’ per-ceptions of party positions are essential in this view since they affect the extent to which voters are meaningfully represented in a political system:
common and accurate perceptions are the prerequisites for effective policy representation. However, according to Heider (1946) people strive to main-tain cognitive balance and as a consequence, individuals tend to conceptu-ally ‘push and pull’ candidates or parties which they like or dislike (also known as 'assimilation and contrast effects' or ‘wishful thinking’). The ten-dency to ‘push and pull’ candidates or parties has in earlier studies also been shown to be affected by a voter's own ideological beliefs (Granberg 1992; Granberg 1993).
Past research on perception among voters has, however, mainly focused on the impact of internal features among voters on the perceptual process with less emphasis on the impact and characteristics of external stimuli. A relevant question regarding external factors is if and to what extent the electoral and the political context also matters for voters’ perceptions. The focal point in this study is how individual characteristics and various con-textual factors related to the political parties and the political systems
might effect voters’ perceptions. Analysis of data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, modules 1 and 2, on individual voters and vari-ous system characteristics from election surveys in 29 countries will shed some light on this area of research.
The results show that individual factors such as the left-right positions of individuals, education and gender are important factors behind voters’ per-ceptual deviation (i.e. the difference between an individual’s placement of parties and the median placement position of a party by all voters). How-ever, the strongest impact on perceptual deviation comes from the degree of divergence in a party’s left-right position together with party size, party labels and the degree of competition within a system. In general, it seems that the ideological affiliation among voters is less important for the ten-dency to ‘push and pull’ parties than was believed from earlier research.
‘Wishful thinking’ instead seems to occur when the policy positions of par-ties are blurred due to either positions being shared by several parpar-ties, large party sizes, absent brand cues to party positions or a low degree of com-petitiveness with in a system.
Key words: political perceptions, electoral systems, political representation, left-right ideology, party competition.
Introduction
In the history of modern representative democracy one of the key elements has been government by the consent of the people rather than government by the people such as in Athenian direct democracy (Manin 1997;
Schattschneider 1960). Consent by the governed is a central component in the mandate model of representative democracy, also known as the respon-sible party model (RPM). In this model parties are assumed to present pro-spective policy programs during elections as the basis of the choices voters must make. Voters are assumed to vote for the party whose policy program is closest to their own views. From this perspective, elections are seen as a process of mandate giving. When in government, parties will then strive for realizing these policy mandates. Elections should thus function as a mecha-nism for generating agreement between the opinions of the voters and their elected representatives (APSA 1950; Esaiasson and Holmberg 1996;
Thomassen 1999).87
Since the degree of accuracy and agreement in voters’ perceptions af-fects the extent to which voters are meaningfully represented in a represen-tative democracy, it is essential that voters’ indeed have accurate and shared perceptions of parties’ policy positions. Without such agreement or accuracy, the individual choices of voters will be indistinguishable from random noise. Agreement and accuracy about parties’ policies makes the collective outcome of such choices meaningful and, as such, both affect the quality of representation (Granberg and Holmberg 1988; van der Brug and van der Eijk 1999b).
Much research has been undertaken on the impact of individual-level characteristics on voting behavior and party choice such as socio-economic status, education and party identification (Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes 1960; Fiorina 1981; Holmberg and Oscarsson 2004). Factors such as political knowledge, left-right self placement and whether a voter likes or dislikes a specific party has been proven to be influential when it comes to political perceptions (Granberg 1993; Granberg and Holmberg 1988;
Popkin 1991). Perceptions among voters with higher levels of political knowledge often are both more accurate and more in agreement (van der Brug 1997). However, according to Heider (1946), people are prone to maintain cognitive balance, and when placing parties or candidates on various scales, individuals in general will tend to place parties or candidates that they like close to them selves while those that are disliked will be pushed away. This tendency will give rise to perceptual distortions. The tendency to ‘push and pull’ candidates or parties - also known as assimila-tion and contrast effects or simply ‘wishful thinking’ occur due to ego in-volvement and one’s affective orientation toward parties or candidates (Granberg 1993; Granberg and Holmberg 1988). A relevant question that, according to Granberg (1993), remains unanswered is whether the percep-tual process is determined mainly by external stimulus or by internal fea-tures. In literature on social psychology in general and on perceptions in particular, the focus is divided among subjects (those who perceive), objects (what is being perceived) and finally the context that envelopes the subjects
87 The consent of the governed is, however, also a central part of the accountability model of representative democracy. Just as in the mandate model, the voters’ preferences are expected to influence how they evaluate the policy programs of the parties and are central in the ac-countability model of voting. The main difference between the two models is that while the mandate model is prospective, the accountability model is retrospective in the sense that vot-ers are assumed to evaluate the parties on their past record rather than their programs for the future (Holmberg 2006).
and the objects. The order of focus of prior research on these topics has been firstly the characteristics of the subjects, secondly the objects and thirdly, and to a far more limited extent, the context.
The present article aims to take a more comprehensive grip of the issue and make a simultaneous analysis of the impact on perceptual deviations (i.e. the deviation between individual’s placement of parties and the median party position made by all voters) of what prior research informs us are the most important characteristics related to the subjects (the individual vot-ers), the objects (the political parties) and the context (in which the former two interact).
This study has two consequent aims. First, is an investigation of how dif-ferent factors related to both individuals and the political and institutional context are affecting the perceptions among voters, or more specifically, the perceptual deviations among voters. For example, it is well known today that proportional electoral systems tend to promote stronger and more ideologically committed parties while majoritarian systems are more candi-date centered (Holmberg 2006; Sartori 1997). Given these differences and that voters are assumed to orientate themselves in the policy space accord-ing to the ideological positions occupied by the political parties, the accu-racy and agreement in voters’ perceptions of parties’ positions could be ex-pected to be higher for voters within proportional electoral systems. Other studies suggest that various party characteristics such as party labels (cen-tre-left etc.) (Budge, Klingemann, Volkens, Bara, and Tanenbaum 2001;
Snyder 2002), divergence in ideological positions (Dahlberg 2009; Dahl-berg and Oscarsson 2006) and electoral size (Cox 1997; van der Eijk, Franklin, and van der Brug 1999) also affect perceptions among voters and thereby, voting behavior. Consequently we know that internal features among individuals are important for the clarity in voters’ perceptions, but what about the effect of externally related factors? Are different contextual factors associated with the political parties and is the political and the elec-toral system also affecting voters’ perceptions by facilitating or motivate voters when apprehending political information?
Secondly, we know from prior research that we can expect a significant negative impact on the quality of voters’ perceptions due to affective vari-ables, such as party sympathy, i.e. whether a voter likes or dislikes a spe-cific party, or the ideological distance between a voter and parties. We also know that the adoption of proportional or majority formulas creates incen-tives for rational vote-seeking politicians to use bonding or bridging strate-gies, by emphasizing either programmatic or particularistic benefits during the election campaigns (Farrell 1997; Norris 2004). It can thereby be ex-pected that the political context will influence the affective attachment to ideologies or parties displayed by individual voters which in turn will result in decreasing or increasing levels of wishful thinking, i.e. a tendency to
‘push and pull’ parties. Hypothetically, different institutional arrangements can thus, be expected to exaggerate or mitigate the effect of different affec-tive factors on individuals (i.e. party sympathy or the ideological distance between voters and parties) which in turn may affect voters’ perceptual de-viations (PD).
In conclusion, this article addresses two research questions:
1. How important are factors related to the political parties and the insti-tutional context compared to individual characteristics in the genera-tion of voters’ perceptual deviagenera-tions?
2. To what extent are differences between individual voters regarding
‘wishful thinking’ being exaggerated or mitigated by contextual differ-ences?
The study will be carried out by combining data on individual characteris-tics with various contextual explanations that can be expected to influence voters’ perceptions of party positions, using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) modules 1 and 2 on both individual vot-ers and various system characteristics from election surveys in 29 countries.
The article first discusses some of the basic requirements in the RPM for