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The Ideological Congruence Illusion: The Impact of Valence
Author(s) -
Warwick Paul V.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
legislative studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.728
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1939-9162
pISSN - 0362-9805
DOI - 10.1111/lsq.12120
Subject(s) - congruence (geometry) , ideology , valence (chemistry) , national election , illusion , political economy , political science , perspective (graphical) , positive economics , survey data collection , social psychology , politics , psychology , sociology , economics , cognitive psychology , law , computer science , statistics , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence
Considerable evidence has been generated to establish that “ideological congruence,” that is, a close matching of government policy positions with median left‐right voter opinion, generally prevails in liberal democracies. Based on a cross‐national analysis of election survey data, this article challenges that view and elaborates an alternative perspective. In this perspective, nonpolicy or valence considerations strongly influence vote choices and electoral outcomes in a directional sense—sometimes favoring the Left overall, sometimes the Right. Partly as a result, government positions typically deviate substantially from median opinion, forming a pattern that is clearly bilateralist or two‐sided rather than center‐concentrated.