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Comparing Candidates and Citizens in the Ideological Space
Author(s) -
Leimgruber Philipp,
Hangartner Dominik,
Leemann Lucas
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
swiss political science review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.632
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1662-6370
pISSN - 1424-7755
DOI - 10.1002/j.1662-6370.2010.tb00439.x
Subject(s) - ideology , elite , polarization (electrochemistry) , voting , politics , voting behavior , political science , political economy , value (mathematics) , social psychology , positive economics , sociology , law , economics , psychology , statistics , chemistry , mathematics
Little is known about the ideological relationship between the Swiss political elite and the general public. Based on the Selects 2007 candidate and voter surveys, we compare the value orientations of both groups by applying ordinal factor analysis. First, we test whether political leaders or their supporters are more ideologically polarized. Second, we investigate whether ideological congruency between the electorate and representatives varies from party to party. Third, we examine whether winning candidates are ideologically more remote from their party supporters than unsuccessful candidates. We find that ideological polarization is larger within the political elite than within the general public. As a consequence, representatives of parties with rather extreme value orientations represent the moderate electorate rather poorly. Similarly, successful candidates are found to be more distant from their party supporters than unsuccessful candidates. These findings challenge traditional spatial voting theory but accord nicely with the directional model of voting behavior.