CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Petriashvili, Nino |
|---|---|
| Title | The Effect Of Democratic Maturity On Ideological Congruence: The Study Of European Parliamentary Democracies |
| Summary | The following research studies one of the most debated topics in political science – political representation in democracies. Particularly one type of political representation – ideological congruence between voters and their representatives which plays a decisive role in many fields of politics. Scholars interested in congruence, have been actively presenting novel measurements of it, analyzing factors influencing it and being influenced by it. Therefore, research on ideological congruence is voluminous and contrasting, including individual level, party level and system level characteristics. However, with this research paper I try to demonstrate that system level variables deserve more attention from scholars, especially the characteristics of the regime. Since experience of democratic governance is often named as one of the main elements affecting different parts of representation, I propose that democratic maturity might affect ideological congruence. After utilizing CSES Integrated Module dataset (IMD) I analyze 34 European parliamentary democracies from 1996 to 2016, to measure the ideological congruence in the region between the voters and representatives by placement of voters and parties on the left-right scale. Multiple linear regression model used in the paper finds statistical significance for the democratic maturity however other factors like electoral systems and degree of disproportionality together with individual level factors- Human Development Index do no show significance. Therefore, this paper proposes that research on ideological congruence should start reassessing the systems level variables believed to influence the congruence and expand the research including other system level factors that might have a role on political representation of citizens preferences on government level. Keywords: Ideological congruence, left-right scale, democratic maturity, European Democracies, CSES data. |
| Supervisor | Gabor Toka |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/petriashvili_nino.pdf |
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