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Explaining Variation in the Effect of Priority Congruence on

Satisfaction with Democracy in Europe

Stefanie Reher

Nuffield College

Department of Sociology, University of Oxford

stefanie.reher@nuffield.ox.ac.uk

ABSTRACT

Political representation is a key element of the democratic process in representative

democracies for it achieves rule by the people by translating citizens’ preferences into policies.

Citizens therefore tend to be more satisfied with the functioning of democracy when

representatives more closely reflect their policy preferences. Previous studies have shown this

relationship primarily for policy positions. Since policy priorities are an equally important

component of policy preferences, this paper analyses to what extent congruence in policy

priorities affects satisfaction with democracy across the European Union. The results of

multilevel analyses using the 2009 European Election Study show that priority congruence

positively affects satisfaction in a range of countries but the effect varies in both strength and

statistical significance. This variation is shown to be partly due to differences in the quality of

democracy and governance. Since citizens in less democratic countries should place more

emphasis on more basic elements of democracy than substantive policy representation when

evaluating their system, priority congruence affects satisfaction with democracy more strongly

in the highly democratic countries. A society’s experience with democracy also increases the

effect of priority congruence, yet the results are less robust.

Paper prepared for presentation at the 7th General Conference of the European

Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) in Bordeaux, September 4-7, 2013

Draft version – please do not cite without permission.

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INTRODUCTION

In order for a democratic system to be stable, a certain level of satisfaction with the functioning

of democracy among its citizens is assumed to be vital. Scholars have thus looked at a variety of

factors that influence how satisfied citizens are with their democracy, including inputs and

outputs of the political system as well as individual-level characteristics and political

predispositions (Aarts and Thomassen 2008; Anderson 1998; Anderson and Guillory 1997;

Bernauer and Vatter 2011; Clarke et al. 2009; Curini, Jou, and Memoli 2012; Dennis and Owen

2011; Listhaug, Aardal, and Ellis 2009; Norris 2011) . Amongst these, a range of studies show

that citizens who are better represented by political representatives tend to be more satisfied

with democracy and have higher levels of political trust (Anderson et al. 2005; Miller 1974;

Miller and Listhaug 1990, 1998; Muller 1970; Weil 1989). When conceptualising substantive

policy representation, most studies focus on the proximity of citizens’ ideological or issue

positions to representatives’ (Ezrow and Xezonakis 2011; Kim 2009). However, issue priorities

are also a vital component of policy preferences, as this paper argues, and it has recently been

shown for the German case that the representation of citizens’ policy priorities also affects

individuals’ satisfaction with democracy (Reher 2012, 2013).

The first contribution of this paper is to show that the effect of priority congruence on

satisfaction with democracy exists beyond Germany across the European Union. Priority

congruence is measured by linking national representatives’ policy priorities, which are

measured based on the 2009 European Election Study’s (EES) candidate survey, with the

priorities expressed by respondents in the EES’s voter survey. Using cross-national data allows

showing that the strength and statistical significance of the effect of priority congruence on

satisfaction vary across countries by using a multilevel regression framework. Two country-

level characteristics are hypothesised to cause this variation: the quality of democracy and

governance and the age of democracy. Based on the idea that aspects of democracy and

governance can be conceived of as hierarchically ordered, I hypothesise that citizens in less

democratic countries will put less emphasis on the quality of substantive policy representation

when evaluating the functioning of their democracy. The evaluation criteria at the top of their

“hierarchy” should be more basic elements of democracy and governance such as freedom of

expression and accountability of elected office-holders.

Secondly, citizens in countries that transitioned to democracy more recently have been

found to understand democracy in more instrumental and less process-focused ways, for they

have had less opportunity to learn about the meaning of democracy (Dalton, Shin, and Jou 2007;

Norris 2011). In addition, in the post-communist countries, which represent the youngest

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democracies in the sample of EU countries studied in this paper, democratic transition was

strongly associated with the transition from planned to market economy. Consequently, citizens

in younger democracies might be inclined to link democracy to social and economic outcomes

and less strongly to processes such as policy representation. The results of multilevel logistic

regression analyses indicate that the quality of democracy indeed strongly and significantly

affects the strength of the congruence-satisfaction link, while the age of democracy has a similar

but less robust effect.

THEORY AND HYPOTHESES

Policy Congruence and Satisfaction with Democracy

Citizens’ level of satisfaction with democracy should reflect an evaluation of their perceptions of

various criteria they consider relevant for democracy on the basis of their expectations towards

these criteria (Fuchs, Guidorossi, and Svensson 1995; Norris 2011: 77; Thomassen 1995;

Wagner, Dufour, and Schneider 2003). Since the reflection, promotion, and implementation of

citizens’ policy preferences by the elected representatives are major elements of representative

democratic systems, they should be – and have been found to be – important criteria whose

fulfilment citizens take into consideration when evaluating the system they live in (Aarts and

Thomassen 2008; McAllister 2005; Miller 1974; Muller 1970). In Dennis and Owen’s (2011:

401) words,

[…] public dissatisfaction with politics and government is connected fundamentally to

popular perceptions about the political process and representation. In a fully operative

democracy, people are likely to have developed the firm expectation that they have the

right to be heard, and that officials should be responsible to their needs and take action.

If people have come to feel that their own needs, wants, interests, concerns, values, or

demands are not being effectively represented in the policy process, then no matter

how felicitous the nature of system outputs is perceived to be, popular resentment

likely will result.

Due to its central role in democracy, policy representation is a frequently studied

concept in political science (Powell 2004). The quality of policy representation is usually

conceptualised as the degree of congruence between citizens’ and representatives’ (individual

representatives’, parties’, governments’, or legislatures’) preferences. In most of these studies,

policy preferences are measured in terms of positions on a policy or ideological spectrum (e.g.

Borre 2000; Erikson, Mackuen, and Stimson 2002; Ezrow and Xezonakis 2011; McDonald and

Budge 2005; Powell 2004; Rosema, Denters, and Aarts 2011). While policy priorities are more

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and more recognised as important elements of policy preferences (Hobolt and Klemmemsen

2005; Jennings and John 2009; Jones and Baumgartner 2004; Lindeboom 2012; Pennings 2005;

Soroka and Wlezien 2010), they remain largely neglected in research satisfaction with

democracy. Several scholars (Curini, Jou, and Memoli 2012; Ezrow and Xezonakis 2011; Kim

2009; Uyar 2013) have shown that congruence in policy positions between citizens and

representatives increases satisfaction with democracy, but only Reher (2012, 2013) has looked

at congruence in issue priorities and found similar effects on satisfaction.

However, policy priorities are an important component of policy preferences and should

thus receive more attention in research on representation and its consequences (cf. Lindeboom

2012). Issue priorities are often recognised as playing a role in determining the issues

dimensions for which it is most important that citizens’ and representatives positions align

(Abramowitz 1995; Giger 2011), for citizens will not feel well represented if politicians reflect

their positions, yet only with regard to issues which they do not consider crucial (Jones and

Baumgartner 2004). However, priorities matter above and beyond their moderating function.

This is most obvious in the case of valence issues, where the aims with regard to a policy issue

are generally uncontroversial – for instance, virtually everyone prefers low unemployment to

high unemployment and environmental protection to environmental damage (Budge and Farlie

1983; Clarke et al. 2009; Enelow and Hinich 1984; Stokes 1963). Differences in policy

preferences on valence issues are therefore defined by differences in the importance assigned to

an issue relative to others, since they often involve trade-offs (such as environmental protection

and low energy prices) and because resources as well as representatives’ as well as the public’s

attention capacities are constrained (Jones and Baumgartner 2004). Hence, in the case of

valence issues congruence in priorities is equivalent to congruence in preferences (Aldrich and

Alvarez 1994: 295).

But agreement with representatives on policy priorities should also directly affect

perceptions of the quality of representation in the case of position issues in the Downsian

(1957) tradition, where competing opinions exist on an issue. If a citizen has the impression

that representatives address the issues she considers most important, she should feel that the

‘chain of delegation’ (Strøm 2000) between constituents and representatives functions properly

and that representatives are in fact concerned with achieving policy outcomes that are

beneficial to society, rather than for instance with their own interests. If, in addition, a citizen’s

policy positions are aligned with representatives’, she should be even more satisfied with the

functioning of the representation process. Yet, even if they are not, she will have the feeling that

the important issues are at least addressed. Congruence in policy priorities should thus have an

effect on perceptions of representation that is unconditional on position congruence.

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Moreover, it should be rather rare that a position issue is highly salient in the political

debate but that only one point of view is voiced. If, for instance, a party campaigns for an

extension of abortion rights, it is unlikely that there will be no other party taking the opposite

stance, particularly if a substantial part of the public is against the proposed policy. Of course

citizens’ positions may nevertheless be more or less well represented, for instance, if one has an

extreme view while parties are more moderate. But if we accept that in most cases where a

position issue is highly salient different views on it will be voiced in the political debate, we can

consider the representation of policy priorities to act as a cognitive shortcut to the

representation of preferences, for determining whether one’s concerns are addressed in the

political debate is less cognitively demanding than determining how well parties’ policy

positions match one’s viewpoint. The first contribution of this paper is therefore to test to what

extent the relationship between congruence in issue priorities and satisfaction with democracy

beyond Germany, where Reher (2012, 2013) has shown that the effect exists:

HYPOTHESIS 1: Higher levels of priority congruence are associated with higher levels of

satisfaction with democracy across the European Union countries.

Cross-national variation in the effect of priority congruence on satisfaction

While priority congruence, much like the quality of political representation in general, should

affect satisfaction with democracy in most contexts, there is reason to believe that there will be

some variation in the relationship. Recall the assumption that citizens’ are satisfied with

democracy when their perceptions of the reality in their country match their expectations

towards different aspects of democratic systems. Priority congruence should thus affect an

individual’s satisfaction only if she considers substantive policy representation a relevant aspect

of democracy and if she accepts congruence in issue priorities as a valid indicator of the quality

of policy representation. To the extent that there is variation in these attitudes and perceptions,

the effect of priority congruence on satisfaction will also differ. Reher (2013) has shown that the

effect differs across individuals with higher and lower levels of political sophistication.

Assuming that people’s expectations towards democracy also depend on the context in which

they live, we can expect that:

HYPOTHESIS 2: The strength of the effect of priority congruence on satisfaction with democracy

varies across the EU countries.

A particularly important set of country-level characteristics that should cause variation

in the effect includes the quality of democracy and governance as well as a society’s amount of

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experience with democratic rule. For a number of reasons, which I explain in more detail below,

I expect that in countries with deficiencies in the functioning of democracy and governance as

well as in countries with a shorter history of democracy, citizens’ satisfaction with democracy

will be less strongly affected by congruence with their representatives in issue priorities. The

mechanisms argued to be behind these relationships are related to differences in expectations

towards and conceptions of democracy.

The moderating effect of the quality of democracy and governance

Most classical definitions of democracy are restricted to procedural elements such as free and

fair elections, freedom of expression, the right to assemble, and the rule of law, among others

(Dahl 1989; Schumpeter 1942). We can think of these formal rules and procedures as the most

basic and necessary elements without which a country cannot be considered democratic. In

addition, there are aspects that can “deepen” democracy or improve the quality of democratic

governance, even in contexts where the procedural requirements are fulfilled. Opinions on what

this set of aspects encompasses can be vastly different but often include universal and extensive

citizen participation as well as the representation of minorities in the legislature. The quality of

substantive representation can also be considered to be such an element of representative

democracy. While some level of congruence between citizens’ preferences and the policies

enacted by parliament and the government can be considered necessary for a country to be a

properly functioning representative democracy, there can be large differences in the quality of

substantive representation across contexts in which political institutions and processes are

functioning according to democratic standards. Thus, all else equal, a representative democracy

can be considered to be of even better quality when policy congruence is higher, as the policies

discussed and implemented are closer to the actual will of the people.

We can think of such aspects as being at a different level in the hierarchy of democratic

elements from the more basic freedoms, institutions, and procedures that are more crucial in

defining whether a country passes as democratic. Only when these fundamental criteria are

fulfilled do aspects further down in the hierarchy, such as substantive representation, become

priorities in the quest to improve democracy. If we assume that such a hierarchy also exists

with regard to people’s values and expectations, similar to Maslow’s (1954) ‘hierarchy of needs,’

the quality of policy representation should play a stronger role in citizens’ evaluation of their

democracy in more democratic countries where more basic aspects of democracy are in place.

Citizens in less democratic systems, on the other hand, should pay more attention to the

presence and quality of more fundamental elements of democracy and governance.

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In addition, democratic aspects can be conceived of as being conditional on each other in

a similarly hierarchical fashion. If, for instance, elected representatives are not accountable, if

government and administration are ineffective, or if political decisions and their execution are

subject to corruption, citizens will not trust that the policies promised by their representatives

will actually be turned into effective policy. Congruence in policy preferences should thus not be

as consequential for citizens’ satisfaction with democracy in contexts where the relationship

between policy proposals and policy outcomes is not very strong. Moreover, if the

representational link between citizens and representatives does not function as it should in

democratic systems – i.e., where representatives do not address particular issues in order to

reflect their constituents’ preferences but for other reasons, which may again be linked to

clientelism and corruption – congruence in policy priorities will be more or less coincidental

and not reflective of the quality of the representational process. Thus, citizens will not consider

high levels of policy congruence as a valid indication of a well-functioning representation

process and differences in priority congruence should therefore not affect satisfaction with

democracy in these contexts.

HYPOTHESIS 3: The effect of priority congruence on satisfaction with democracy is stronger in

countries with higher levels of democracy and good governance.

The moderating effect of democratic experience

In addition to differences in priorities based on the supply of democratic rules and institutions,

variation in the conception of democracy should also lead to differences in the effect of priority

congruence on satisfaction. Since satisfaction with democracy reflects how well one perceives

the political system to perform in comparison to one’s expectations, and since different ideas

about what democracy is should result in different expectations, the predictors of satisfaction

with democracy should vary with one’s understanding of democracy. Studies of how people in

different parts of the world conceptualise democracy show that, generally, most people

associate democracy with freedom, the rule of law, and democratic institutions. However, there

is also substantial variation (Schedler and Sarsfield 2007), which has been found to be related to

individuals’ socio-demographic characteristics, such as gender, education, and religiosity, but

also to the political and social contexts in which individuals are embedded (e.g. Bratton and

Mattes 2001; Doherty and Mecellem 2012; Miller, Hesli, and Reisinger 1997; Norris 2011).

Dalton, Shin and Jou (2007) show that citizens outside Western democracies are more

likely to define democracy in terms of social and economic benefits, which are not aspects of

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democracy according to democratic theory, although people across the world do also link

democracy with freedom and liberties as well as democratic institutions and processes.

Analysing time-series trends of how citizens in countries that recently underwent

democratising regime changes understand democracy, they show that this pattern appears to

be due to differences in a society’s experience with democracy. The longer a country has been

democratic, the argument goes, the more its citizens learn about democracy and, hence, are

more likely to define it in terms of freedoms and rights as well as institutions and procedures

rather than social and economic benefits.

Amongst the 27 EU countries on which this study focuses, societies’ experience with

democratic rule varies quite substantially. Spain, Portugal, and Greece, for instance, became

democratic only in the 1970s, when the United Kingdom had already been ruled democratically

continuously for at least a century. The most important gap in experience with democracy,

which may imply important differences in the understanding of and expectations towards

democracy, however, exists between Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe, for the

post-Communist countries have only become democratic within the past 30 years and are still

strongly shaped by their political and societal past.

Dalton and colleagues (2007) show that, indeed, citizens in the post-Communist

countries are less likely to link democracy with institutions and processes while giving more

weight than Western Europeans to social and economic benefits, even though their focus on

such aspects is still less strong than in other world regions. These results are mirrored by

Norris’ (2011: 159) finding that ‘instrumental’ (focusing on social and economic benefits) and

‘authoritarian’ – as opposed to ‘procedural’ – notions of democracy are more prevalent in

societies with less historical experience of democracy, including the post-Communist countries.

In addition, the transition from socialism to democracy in these countries was strongly linked to

the shift from planned economy to market economy: “democracy and the market have been

packaged together as an ideology of opposition to communism” (Evans and Whitefield 1995:

507). Citizens’ norms and expectations towards the new political regime were thus strongly

linked with norms and expectations towards the new economic system (Przeworski 1991; Rose,

Mishler, and Haerpfer 1998; Toka 1995). Hence, we might expect that the quality of policy

representation has a weaker effect on satisfaction with democracy among citizens in those EU

countries where the democratic transition occurred more recently and particularly in Central

and Eastern Europe.

HYPOTHESIS 4: The effect of priority congruence on satisfaction with democracy is stronger in

countries that have been democracies for longer.

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DATA AND METHOD

Analysing the relationship between congruence in issue priorities and satisfaction with

democracy across countries is hampered by data requirements. In order to measure priority

congruence, we need information about both individuals’ and representatives’ issue priorities in

compatible formats. I use the 2009 European Election Study (EES), which includes a voter

survey with around one thousand respondents in each country as well as a survey among

candidates running for European Parliament (EP) seats in the 27 EU member states (EES 2009a,

2009b). While using the EES to draw inferences for the national level might seem problematic,

since its purpose is to study EP elections, the items I use refer to the national context. Most

importantly, I measure policy priorities in terms of the issues that are considered most

important in a respondent’s and a candidate’s country rather than in the European Union.

Moreover, respondents are asked about their satisfaction with the functioning of democracy in

their own country.

The two main issues with the data that remain are, first, that the candidates who

participated in the candidate study stood for election to the European Parliament and not

national parliaments and, second, that the candidate survey response rate is very low in some

countries. However, I account for these drawbacks by weighting the candidate study data and

controlling for the survey response rate, as I will explain below. In light of a lack of alternative

cross-national data suitable for measuring priority congruence, using the EES is therefore

appropriate.

Measuring Priority Congruence

The priority congruence variable indicates how salient a respondent’s issue priorities are

among her country’s EP candidates. Both the voter and the candidate survey asked respondents

what they thought were the most, second most, and third most important problems (MIP) their

country is currently facing. The issues mentioned were summarised into 24 categories (cf. Table

1). Each issue category’s salience among a country’s candidates was calculated as the relative

frequency with which it was mentioned in the replies to the MIP questions. The candidates’

issue mentions were weighted, first, based on their party’s vote share at the most recent

national parliamentary election and, second, based on whether an issue was mentioned as the

most, second most, or third most important as follows:

Salience = frequency as MIP * .5 + frequency as second MIP * .34 + frequency as third MIP * .16.

The salience of each issue category among each country’s candidates is listed in Table 1.

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[TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE]

In a second step, each respondent in the voter survey was assigned the salience scores derived

from the candidate survey of the issues she mentioned as most important. The salience scores

for all issues a respondent mentioned were averaged, again giving more weight to the most

important issue than to the second and third most important issues:1

Priority congruence = MIP salience *.5 + second MIP salience *.34 + third MIP salience *.16.

The resulting score indicates the respondent’s level of priority congruence. If, for instance, a

Polish respondent mentioned the economic situation as the most important problem, health

care as the second most important problem, and immigration as the third most important

problem, her priority congruence score will be .379 *.5 + .049 * .34 +.042 * .16 = .213, because

the weighted percentage of economic issues among Polish EP candidate’ concerns was 37.9, the

salience of health care was 4.9, and that of immigration was 4.2. The priority congruence score

is thus equivalent to the weighted frequency of the respondent’s issue priorities on her

country’s candidates’ agendas.

[TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE]

Since this measure is relatively novel, we should explore it in more detail before

proceeding to the analysis. Theoretically, priority congruence can range from zero, in case a

respondent’s issue priority is not mentioned by candidates at all, to one – or one hundred per

cent – when each candidate only mentions the respondent’s issue priority. The empirical range

is generally between 0 and about .4, with the lowest maximum at .18 in Slovenia and the highest

at .71 in Ireland (Table 2). The maximum is dependent on the proportion with which the most

salient issue among the candidates in a country was mentioned. The distribution of priority

congruence in each country is displayed in Figure 1. In many countries we see a spike at the

empirical maximum of congruence, which indicates that a large number of respondents

mentioned the issues that were also highly salient among their country’s candidates. We also

see that there is quite some variance in congruence within each country.

[FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE]

1 Additional analyses that were performed with priority congruence measures based on different

weighting schemes or only including the most important problem suggest that the observed effects are

robust to changes in the precise calculation of the measure.

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The effect of priority congruence on satisfaction with democracy

As a first step, I analyse the effect of priority congruence on satisfaction with democracy within

each country to obtain an impression of whether the relationship exists across countries and

how it varies. Satisfaction with democracy is measured by the item “On the whole, how satisfied

are you with the way democracy works in [country]? Very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not very

satisfied, or not at all satisfied?” Figure 2 displays the distribution of levels of satisfaction among

respondents in each country, ordered by countries’ mean level of satisfaction. For the analyses,

the four answer categories were collapsed into a dummy with 1 indicating that a respondent is

satisfied rather than dissatisfied in order to eliminate culturally based differences in the

tendency to use the extreme categories and to avoid estimation problems due to empty cells.

[FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE]

I include a range of control variables that have been shown to be related to satisfaction

with democracy. Age, sex (female), education, and social class are included as socio-demographic

controls. Moreover, I include the strength of party identification (with 0 indicating no

identification), since “[p]eople who identify strongly with a party tend to be much more

supportive of the idea that the political system functions properly than people without strong

party attachment” (Anderson et al. 2005: 76; Miller and Listhaug 1990). The evaluation of the

development of the economic situation over the previous twelve months and economic

expectations with regard to the next twelve months are included because perceptions of

economic conditions have been found to be an important predictor of satisfaction with

democracy (Borre 2000; Dalton 2004; Kim 2009).

Since previous studies have found citizens who are closer to representatives on the left-

right dimension tend to be more satisfied with democracy (Curini, Jou, and Memoli 2012; Kim

2009; Uyar 2013), I also include a variable measuring the distance between a respondent’s self-

placement on the left-right dimension and the mean position of all parties calculated by

averaging all respondents’ mean party placements in each country. Similarly to Golder and

Stramski’s (2010) measure, which relies on the most educated respondents’ perceptions of

parties’ positions, this more objective measure of party positions avoids a ‘projection bias’

(Kedar 2005: 191; Macdonald, Rabinowitz, and Listhaug 1997), where respondents who are

more satisfied with democracy might place parties closer to their own positions.

Table 3 shows the results of the logistic regression analyses predicting satisfaction with

democracy (only the estimates for priority congruence are reported but the models include the

control variables listed above). The estimates, and in particular the standard errors and p-

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values, cannot be directly compared across countries since the samples are different.

Nevertheless, the results give us an indication of the effect of priority congruence on satisfaction

in each country. In most countries, we find positive coefficients, indicating that citizens with

higher levels of priority congruence tend to be more satisfied with democracy. The eleven

countries in which the effect is significant at the .05-level are marked in bold. For these

countries, the results confirm Hypothesis 1: Citizens are more satisfied with the functioning of

democracy in their country if their issue priorities are more strongly emphasised by political

representatives. The findings also appear to be in line with Hypotheses 2: Countries vary in the

extent to which priority congruence affects satisfaction.

[TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE]

Exploring variation in the effect of priority congruence on satisfaction with democracy

I explore variation in the effect in more detail using multilevel logistic regression analysis.

Estimating the effect of priority congruence as well as the cross-country variance of the effect in

the pooled sample including all 27 countries measures more systematically how the effect

differs across countries. The random-slope model is presented in Table 4. It includes the same

individual-level variables as the previous models and, in addition, several control variables on

the country level that should predict country-level differences in satisfaction with democracy.

GDP per capita in 2009 measures a country’s economic development, which has been found to

affect satisfaction with democracy (e.g. Bernauer and Vatter 2011).2 Furthermore, it has been

argued that citizens in countries with proportional election systems should be more satisfied

with democracy since election outcomes are more representative and because democracy has

been argued to be generally of higher quality in consensus systems (Aarts and Thomassen 2008;

Bernauer and Vatter 2011; Lijphart 1999). I therefore control for the proportionality of the

electoral system even though empirical evidence regarding its effect on satisfaction has been

mixed (e.g. Aarts and Thomassen 2008; Anderson and Guillory 1997; McAllister 2005). The

Gallagher Index (Gallagher and Mitchell 2008), or Least Squares Index, measures the

discrepancy between parties’ vote and seat shares according to the following equation:3

√

∑

2 Data were obtained from the World Bank (http://data.worldbank.org/).

3 Data were obtained from the Quality of Government Institute (http://www.qog.pol.gu.se/data).

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I also include the measure of the quality of democracy and governance, whose

hypothesised influence on the effect of priority congruence will be tested further on, since

citizens in more democratic countries should on average be more satisfied with the functioning

of democracy (e.g. Wagner, Schneider, and Halla 2009). The quality of democracy and

governance in 2009 is measured by a combined measure of several indices that are part of the

World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators.4 The Voice and Accountability index combines

several indicators of political rights, civil liberties, press freedom etc. It functions as the main

indicator of the quality of democracy. The quality of governance is measured by several indices,

including the Control of Corruption index, which combines a range of indicators of corruption

perceptions among experts and citizens from a variety of sources. The Government Effectiveness

index “captures perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and

the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and

implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies”

(Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi 2012). Lastly, the Rule of Law index measures “perceptions of

the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular

the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the

likelihood of crime and violence” (2012). Each indicator is composite of a multitude of measures

drawn from different sources, namely citizen and firm surveys, commercial business

information providers (such as the Economist Intelligence Unit), non-governmental

organisations, and public sector organisations such as the World Bank.

The four democracy and governance indices are strongly correlated: the average inter-

item correlation for the standardised variables is .94. I therefore construct an additive scale that

combines the four indicators to measure the quality of democracy and governance. The scale

reliability coefficient is extremely high with Cronbach’s α = .98. This measure of democracy and

good governance is more suitable for this study than other commonly used measures of

democracy, such as Freedom House’s Freedom of the World Index or Polity IV, since these

measures show hardly any variation in the quality of democracy among the European countries,

whose scores are generally at or close to the maximum. The Worldwide Governance Indicators,

on the other hand, vary quite substantively across EU countries (cf. Appendix 1) as they include

a wide range of information.

[TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE]

The results of the multilevel logistic regression analyses estimating the effect of

congruence on satisfaction with democracy are shown in Table 4. Across the pooled sample of

4 Data were obtained from the World Bank (http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.asp).

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all EU countries, priority congruence has a positive significant (p

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democracy, while the salience of economic issues also has a significant (p

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significantly correlated with both the quality of democracy (Pearson’s r = .79, p

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Estonia; the oldest democracies have as much experience with democracy as the UK and

Sweden. The former are generally less satisfied with democracy and their satisfaction is not

significantly influenced by priority congruence. Individuals in societies with a long experience of

democratic rule, on the other hand, are generally more satisfied with the functioning of their

system and their satisfaction is even higher when their issue priorities are considered

important by representatives.

[FIGURE 5 ABOUT HERE]

We thus find clear support for the hypothesis that citizens in countries with high levels

of democratic quality and good governance pay more attention to the quality of policy

representation when evaluating democracy. For the age of democracy, the effect is less robust

but points into the same direction. A final robustness check to test the validity of the results

concerns the low response rates in the candidate surveys in some of the countries. It might be

the case that the estimates of the salience of issue categories are less accurate in countries with

very low response rates and, hence, the measure of priority congruence is less valid there. As a

consequence, then, we might find weaker or no effects of the priority congruence measure on

satisfaction with democracy in these countries. If, in turn, the response rate was related to the

quality or the age of democracy, this could then mean that the interaction effects we have found

are spurious and in fact caused by cross-country differences in the validity of the congruence

measure rather than in different expectations towards democracy. Inspecting the correlation

between these variables shows that, indeed, the quality of democracy and the candidate survey

response rate are strongly and significantly positively correlated (Pearson’s r=.55; p=.003;

N=27). The age of democracy, on the other hand, is not significantly related to the response rate

(Pearson’s r=.32; p=.100; N=27).

In order to exclude this possibility of spurious results, I include the interaction between

priority congruence and the response rate in Models 5-1 and 5-2. The results show that the

quality of democracy significantly (p

18

if they feel that political representatives try to implement their policy preferences (Aarts and

Thomassen 2008; Anderson 2010; McAllister 2005; Muller 1970). A number of studies have

shown that citizens whose ideological positions in terms of left and right are represented are

indeed more satisfied with democracy (Ezrow and Xezonakis 2011; Kim 2009; Uyar 2013). But

having policy preferences also entails prioritising some issues over others. Recently, it has been

shown for the German case that citizens whose policy priorities are shared by representatives

also tend to be more satisfied with democracy (Reher 2012, 2013). This paper studies the

priority congruence-satisfaction link across the 27 European Union countries. Using European

Parliament candidates’ most important policy concerns as a proxy for national representatives’

policy priorities, the analysis of European Election Study (EES) data suggest that in several

countries citizens whose issue concerns are more salient among representatives tend to

evaluate the quality of democracy in their country more positively.

However, the existence and the strength of this relationship vary across countries,

indicated by the random slope variance of the effect of priority congruence estimated in a

multilevel logistic regression model. Such variation is in line with theoretical expectations, since

citizens’ satisfaction with democracy should only be affected by the quality of representation if

they consider it to be an important defining aspect of democracy. In countries where more

fundamental elements of democracy, such as free and fair elections, freedom of expression or

the rule of law, are deficient, citizens should place more emphasis on the quality of these aspects

when evaluating the functioning of democracy. While the quality of policy representation is

without doubt a crucial component of representative democracy and a system can be

considered more democratic – ceteris paribus – if citizens’ policy preferences are more closely

represented, it should be lower in individuals’ ‘hierarchy of democratic needs’ than necessary

and more fundamental elements of democracy. Substantive policy representation should thus

only be an important criterion for the evaluation with democracy when more basic criteria are

in place.

We reach the same conclusion if we think about the conditions under which a high level

of priority congruence indicates that the substantive representation process is functioning well.

It only does if it is reasonable to assume that, first, congruence is actually the result of

representatives’ desire to represent their constituents and, second, that the issue priorities

voiced by representatives will actually be reflected in the policy-making process. These

conditions are less likely to be fulfilled in countries where democratic processes and the rule of

law are not functioning properly. If, for instance, political elites are corrupt, they may prioritise

certain issues because of particularistic interests rather than the broader population’s

preferences. If office holders are not held accountable, their incentives to actually implement

19

the policies they proposed to gain support might be low. Again, we would then expect that the

level of priority congruence does not make it into the pool of criteria citizens use when

evaluating the functioning of their democracy. The results of multilevel logistic regression

analyses with cross-level interaction effects show exactly this pattern: priority congruence

affects satisfaction with democracy most strongly in the European countries with the highest

levels of democracy and good governance but not in countries with lower levels of democracy.

In addition to the quality of democracy and governance, a society’s experience with

democracy was also hypothesised to affect the relationship between priority congruence and

satisfaction with democracy. Previous research shows that the conceptions individuals have of

what democracy means differ based on individual characteristics but also on the context in

which they live. Citizens in countries that have recently made the transition to democracy tend

to equate democracy with social and economic benefits more frequently than people in older

democracies (Dalton, Shin, and Jou 2007; Norris 2011). As a result, we might expect that the

quality of policy representation has a weaker effect on satisfaction with democracy in the

younger European democracies, for their citizens should pay more attention to socio-economic

outcomes when evaluating their system. Within the EU, the societies with the shortest

experience with democracy are in Central and Eastern Europe. Their Communist legacy might

make their citizens particularly prone to associate democracy with social and economic output,

since the transition to democracy was strongly linked to the transition to a market economy

here. While the analyses do show a moderating effect of the age of democracy on the

relationship between congruence and satisfaction, the effect was found to be less robust than

that of the quality of democracy when controlling for other factors.

Since the quality and the age of democracy are strongly correlated within the EU, it was

not possible to test whether one variable’s interaction effect wit priority congruence is merely a

reflection of the other’s. Future research should aim at solving this problem in order to clarify

which societal-level factors really are responsible for whether policy representation affects

satisfaction with democracy. Moreover, we should try to uncover in what other ways the

explanations of satisfaction with democracy varies across contexts: Which other individual-level

predictors of satisfaction differ across countries in their explanatory power, and which other

contextual variables cause this variation? The effects of other indicators of policy representation

on satisfaction with democracy across countries should be analysed in order to establish

whether the patterns we found for priority congruence can be generalised to substantive policy

representation more broadly defined.

20

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24

TABLES

Table 1. Weighted salience of issue categories among countries’ EP candidates

Belgium Czech Rep.

Denmark Germany Estonia Greece Spain France Ireland Italy Cyprus Latvia Lithuania Luxem-bourg

Civil rights & liberties

.06 .33 .07 .02 .03 .07 .01 .04 .00 .03 .08 .16 .15 .05

Health .01 .00 .00 .01 .05 .02 .00 .01 .00 .01 .11 .02 .02 .00 Agriculture .00 .00 .03 .00 .00 .00 .01 .01 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 Education .01 .02 .00 .05 .00 .04 .19 .03 .00 .05 .05 .02 .02 .05 Environment .07 .09 .18 .05 .01 .00 .00 .07 .04 .02 .03 .00 .00 .02 Energy .00 .03 .00 .02 .03 .00 .00 .01 .03 .00 .00 .00 .13 .01 Law, crime, and domestic security

.00 .01 .10 .00 .00 .15 .08 .00 .00 .06 .00 .00 .01 .00

Social justice & welfare

.02 .01 .07 .12 .10 .04 .00 .11 .00 .06 .00 .10 .04 .24

Military and defence

.00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00

Science, Technology & Communications

.00 .01 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .03 .00 .07 .00 .00 .00 .00

Foreign affairs & EU .01 .00 .10 .01 .00 .00 .00 .02 .04 .01 .39 .01 .00 .00 Elderly .03 .04 .00 .01 .11 .00 .00 .02 .00 .02 .00 .03 .00 .00 Family .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .01 .03 .00 .00 .01 .00 .00 Regional and local administration

.13 .07 .10 .05 .04 .06 .05 .02 .00 .06 .02 .08 .04 .00

Culture .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .02 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .01 Church and Religion .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 Multiculturalism and immigration

.13 .02 .12 .02 .06 .05 .00 .07 .00 .09 .02 .09 .06 .00

Economic system .04 .08 .11 .11 .12 .02 .02 .05 .09 .13 .00 .20 .03 .00 Economic and financial situation

.48 .25 .36 .51 .41 .41 .48 .50 .71 .38 .21 .24 .35 .50

Transportation .01 .00 .01 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 Human interest .00 .02 .00 .00 .01 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00

No. of respondents 75 28 31 160 34 33 68 125 8 73 8 54 38 20

25

[Table 1 continued]

Hungary Malta Netherlands Austria Poland Portugal Slovenia Slovakia Finland Sweden UK Bulgaria Romania

Civil rights & liberties .18 .05 .05 .01 .03 .08 .01 .10 .10 .06 .06 .04 .23

Health .00 .01 .00 .00 .05 .00 .00 .02 .02 .02 .01 .00 .01

Agriculture .00 .00 .00 .00 .02 .00 .00 .02 .01 .00 .00 .00 .00

Education .00 .00 .01 .02 .00 .12 .00 .00 .00 .01 .03 .00 .01

Environment .00 .03 .16 .05 .02 .00 .14 .04 .16 .21 .16 .00 .00

Energy .00 .04 .04 .00 .10 .03 .00 .02 .00 .00 .02 .00 .02

Law, crime, and domestic security

.00 .00 .02 .05 .01 .08 .02 .00 .00 .02 .05 .05 .00

Social justice & welfare

.12 .01 .01 .07 .00 .02 .04 .01 .11 .11 .04 .07 .01

Military and defence .00 .00 .00 .04 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .01 .00 .00

Science, Technology & Communications

.00 .00 .00 .00 .18 .00 .00 .00 .00 .01 .01 .00 .04

Foreign affairs & EU .01 .00 .00 .00 .13 .02 .08 .07 .01 .02 .04 .00 .02

Elderly .00 .00 .00 .01 .00 .00 .00 .04 .09 .00 .03 .00 .01

Family .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .02 .00 .01 .00 .00 .00 .00

Regional and local administration

.08 .00 .00 .01 .01 .00 .00 .00 .02 .01 .00 .01 .06

Culture .00 .00 .09 .00 .01 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .01 .00 .00

Church and Religion .00 .00 .02 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00

Multiculturalism and immigration

.12 .38 .15 .18 .04 .00 .01 .11 .04 .05 .02 .00 .01

Economic system .01 .12 .01 .22 .01 .03 .18 .02 .12 .12 .01 .00 .02

Economic and financial situation

.48 .34 .44 .35 .38 .59 .17 .52 .32 .34 .48 .40 .22

Transportation .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .02 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00

Human interest .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00

No. of respondents 31 14 78 52 40 17 23 35 55 183 258 7 28

26

Table 2. Descriptives of priority congruence

Mean Std. dev. Minimum Maximum N

Belgium .30 .15 0 .48 690

Czech Republic

.20 .09 0 .33 907

Denmark .19 .10 0 .36 873

Germany .38 .14 0 .51 861

Estonia .27 .12 0 .41 930

Greece .25 .11 0 .41 937

Spain .35 .20 0 .48 982

France .29 .15 0 .50 967

Ireland .45 .22 0 .71 947

Italy .20 .11 0 .38 867

Cyprus .27 .09 0 .39 883

Latvia .17 .06 0 .24 908

Lithuania .25 .09 0 .35 926

Luxembourg .36 .15 0 .50 905

Hungary .30 .13 0 .48 778

Malta .23 .11 0 .38 904

Netherlands .27 .14 0 .44 792

Austria .23 .10 0 .35 829

Poland .23 .12 0 .38 845

Portugal .38 .21 0 .59 948

Slovenia .11 .05 0 .18 910

Slovakia .37 .16 0 .52 927

Finland .21 .10 0 .32 852

Sweden .18 .09 0 .34 916

UK .24 .15 0 .48 866

Bulgaria .22 .15 0 .40 831

Romania .16 .06 0 .23 923

Total .26 .15 0 .71 23904

27

Table 3. Effect of priority congruence on satisfaction with democracy in each EU country

Coefficient Std. error p-value Pseudo R2 LR chi2 N

Belgium 0.44 0.71 .537 .05 30.78*** 460

Czech Republic 0.94 0.88 .287 .06 61.65*** 710

Denmark 4.10 1.49 .006 .07 27.23** 789

Germany 1.64 0.62 .009 .08 65.96*** 672

Estonia 3.17 0.79 .000 .10 87.68*** 610

Greece 1.54 0.81 .058 .08 71.39*** 785

Spain 1.82 0.65 .005 .07 66.54*** 760

France 1.52 0.56 .007 .09 85.40*** 680

Ireland 2.22 0.37 .000 .08 81.25*** 764

Italy 0.65 0.87 .458 .11 82.06*** 549

Cyprus 1.42 1.05 .177 .10 88.04*** 672

Latvia -1.99 2.05 .333 .12 67.38*** 636

Lithuania -0.20 1.07 .849 .07 50.83*** 548

Luxembourg 1.46 0.82 .076 .08 39.42*** 676

Hungary 0.09 0.84 .918 .07 38.85*** 602

Malta 2.79 1.06 .009 .14 76.47*** 395

Netherlands 1.92 0.70 .007 .03 17.61* 683

Austria 0.81 0.87 .350 .05 40.13*** 665

Poland 1.18 0.89 .187 .10 62.72*** 504

Portugal 0.45 0.40 .271 .06 50.29*** 664

Slovenia 2.34 1.72 .175 .06 54.63*** 721

Slovakia 0.68 0.55 .217 .04 39.82*** 646

Finland 2.45 1.00 .014 .09 70.85*** 702

Sweden 4.45 1.09 .000 .12 88.49*** 786

UK 2.25 0.54 .000 .08 76.46*** 711

Bulgaria 1.70 0.91 .063 .07 30.12*** 478

Romania -1.56 1.65 .346 .06 34.96*** 527

Notes: Coefficients are log-odds estimates of logistic regression analysis. Models were estimated including the following control variables: age, female, education, social class, economic situation, party identification, prospective economic situation, left-right distance. Models with significant (p

28

Table 4. Effect of priority congruence on satisfaction with democracy with random slope

estimation for priority congruence

Model 4

Coeff. SE p-value

Fixed effects Constant -2.01 .14 .000

Individual level

Age .00 .00 .104

Female -.09 .04 .010

Education .06 .01 .000

Class .19 .02 .000

PID strength .13 .02 .000

Economic situation .25 .02 .000

Economic expectations .35 .02 .000

Left-right distance -.03 .01 .003

Priority congruence 1.49 .20 .000

Country level

Quality of democracy .21 .08 .007

GDP/capita .01 .01 .113

Gallagher Index -.04 .03 .147

Random variance

Priority congruence .419 .291

Constant .254 .077

Constant-slope covariance .193 .133

Deviance 19368

Notes: Coefficients are log-odds from multilevel logistic regression, estimated in Stata 12. Level-1 N (individuals) = 17985; level-2 N (countries) = 27.

29

Table 5. Moderating effects of the quality and the age of democracy on the effect of priority congruence on satisfaction with democracy

Model 5-1 Model 5-2 Model 5-3 Model 5-4

Coeff. SE p-value Coeff. SE p-value Coeff. SE p-value Coeff. SE p-value

Fixed effects

Constant -2.02 .14 .000 -2.01 .16 .000 -2.01 .14 .000 -2,01 .16 .000

Individual level

Age .00 .00 .112 .00 .00 .095 .00 .00 .109 .00 .00 .096

Female -.09 .04 .011 -.09 .04 .010 -.09 .04 .012 -.09 .04 .010

Education .06 .01 .000 .06 .01 .000 .06 .01 .000 .06 .01 .000

Class .19 .02 .000 .19 .02 .000 .19 .02 .000 .19 .02 .000

PID strength .13 .02 .000 .13 .02 .000 .13 .02 .000 .13 .02 .000

Economic situation .25 .02 .000 .25 .02 .000 .25 .02 .000 .25 .02 .000

Economic expectations .35 .02 .000 .35 .02 .000 .35 .02 .000 .35 .02 .000

Left-right distance -.03 .01 .003 -.03 .01 .003 -.03 .01 .003 -.03 .01 .003

Priority congruence 1.39 .18 .000 1.39 .17 .000 1.39 .18 .000 1.39 .17 .000

Country level

Quality of democracy .28 .07 .000 .28 .07 .000

Age of democracy .01 .01 .146 .01 .01 .146

GDP/capita .01 .01 .256 .02 .01 .003 .01 .01 .241 .02 .01 .003

Gallagher Index -.04 .03 .197 -.07 .04 .076 -.04 .03 .199 -.07 .04 .076

Cross-level interactions Priority congruence * quality of democracy

.26 .09 .003 .38 .14 .008

Priority congruence * age of democracy

.01 .01 .016 .01 .01 .063

Priority congruence * GDP/capita

-.02 .02 .290 .00 .01 .930

Random variance

Priority congruence .253 .214 .188 .218 .265 .207 .187 .218

Constant .239 .068 .349 .098 .240 .068 .350 .098

Deviance 19362 19376 19361 19376

Notes: Coefficients are log-odds from multilevel logistic regression, estimated in Stata 12. Level-1 N (individuals) = 17985; level-2 N (countries) = 27. Constant-slope covariance set to independent.

30

FIGURES

Figure 1. Distribution of priority congruence by country and in pooled EU sample

31

Figure 2. Distribution of levels of satisfaction with democracy in EU countries, ordered by mean

level of satisfaction

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Bulgaria

Latvia

Hungary

Romania

Greece

Lithuania

Portugal

Slovenia

Estonia

Slovakia

Italy

Czech Rep.

UK

France

Cyprus

Austria

Spain

Germany

Malta

Belgium

Ireland

Finland

Poland

Netherlands

Sweden

Luxembourg

Denmark

Very dissatisfied

Quite dissatisfied

Quite satisfied

Very satisfied

32

Figure 3. Predicted effect of priority congruence on satisfaction with democracy per country

(Notes: Empirical Bayes predictors based on Model 4; predicted coefficients are log-odds.)

33

Figure 4. Predicted probability of being satisfied with democracy across priority congruence

levels at low and high levels of democracy and governance quality (Notes: Predicted

probabilities at low quality of democracy are average predicted probabilities for individuals in

the two countries with the lowest levels of democracy (Romania and Bulgaria); probabilities at

high quality of democracy are the equivalent for individuals in the two countries with the

highest levels (Denmark and Finland). Predictions are based on a random-intercept multilevel

logistic model equivalent to Model 5-1 without the random slope component.)

34

Figure 5. Predicted probability of being satisfied with democracy across priority congruence

levels at low and high age of democracy (Notes: Predicted probabilities at low age of democracy

are average predicted probabilities for individuals in the two countries with the most recent

transitions to democracy (Romania and Estonia); probabilities at high age of democracy are the

equivalent for individuals in the two countries with the most distant transitions (United

Kingdom and Sweden). Predictions are based on a random-intercept multilevel logistic model

equivalent to Model 5-2 without the random slope component.)

35

APPENDIX 1. Descriptives of country-level variables

Quality of democracy

and governance Age of

democracy GDP per capita, 2009

(in $1000 ppp) Gallagher Index

Mean (std. dev.) 4.453 (2.326) 45.064 (29.047) 31424.69 (19860.25) 4.91 (3.55)

Range -0.317 – 8.190 9 – 129 6403 – 100541 .72 – 16.73

Belgium 5.873 65 43848 3.37

Czech Republic 3.123 16 18806 5.72

Denmark 8.190 63 56227 0.72

Germany 6.237 59 40275 2.16

Estonia 3.882 9 14264 3.43

Greece 2.301 34 28452 6.99

Spain 4.352 31 31714 4.49

France 5.418 63 40477 13.58

Ireland 6.028 88 50034 5.85

Italy 2.311 61 35073 3.61

Cyprus 4.386 37 29428 2.42

Lithuania 1.956 18 11034 11.14

Latvia 2.108 18 11476 4.77

Luxembourg 7.240 63 100541 3.36

Hungary 2.868 19 12635 5.13

Malta 4.562 45 19564 1.44

Netherlands 7.118 63 48174 1.03

Austria 6.755 63 45859 2.92

Poland 2.642 18 11294 4.67

Portugal 4.678 33 22016 5.75

Slovenia 4.208 18 24051 3.89

Slovakia 2.315 16 16100 5.53

Finland 7.865 65 44838 3.20

Sweden 7.713 92 43640 3.02

UK 6.057 129 35331 16.73

Bulgaria 0.350 19 6403 3.97

Romania -0.317 13 7500 3.74

36

APPENDIX 2: Priority congruence and the salience of economic issues

Figure A1. Mean levels of priority congruence at different levels of the salience of economic

issues in EU countries

37

Table A1. Effects of priority congruence on satisfaction with democracy, controlling for the

salience of economic issues

Coeff. SE p-value

Fixed effects Constant -2.00 .17 .000

Individual level

Age .00 .00 .216 Female -.12 .04 .002 Education .07 .02 .000

Class .19 .02 .000 PID strength .13 .02 .000 Economic situation .24 .02 .000

Economic expectations .34 .02 .000

Left-right distance -.03 .01 .013 Priority congruence 1.26 .26 .000 Economic issue salience .07 .03 .014

Country level

Quality of democracy .27 .08 .001 GDP/capita .01 .01 .218 Gallagher Index -.03 .03 .236

Random variance

Priority congruence .174 .313

Constant .269 .077

Constant-slope covariance -.005 .117

Deviance 16996

Notes: Coefficients are log-odds from multilevel logistic regression, estimated in Stata 12. Level-1 N (individuals) = 15340; level-2 N (countries) = 27.

38

APPENDIX 3. Moderating effects of the quality and the age of democracy on the effect of

priority congruence on satisfaction with democracy, controlling for the moderating effect of the

candidate survey response rate

Model A3-1 Model A3-2

Coeff. SE p-value Coeff. SE p-value

Fixed effects

Constant -1.78 .30 .000 -2.01 .14 .000

Individual level

Age .00 .00 .111 .00 .00 .095

Female -.09 .04 .012 -.09 .04 .011

Education .06 .01 .000 .06 .01 .000

Class .19 .02 .000 .19 .02 .000

PID strength .13 .02 .000 .13 .02 .000

Economic situation .25 .02 .000 .25 .02 .000

Economic expectations .35 .02 .000 .35 .02 .000

Left-right distance -.03 .01 .003 -.03 .01 .003

Priority congruence 1.19 .51 .019 .88 .43 .039

Country level

Quality of democracy .31 .07 .000

Age of democracy .01 .01 .172

Candidate survey response rate -.01 .01 .375 .00 .01 .665

GDP/capita .01 .01 .284 .02 .01 .005

Gallagher Index -.04 .03 .145 -.06 .04 .107

Cross-level interactions Priority congruence * quality of democracy

.24 .11 .023

Priority congruence * age of democracy

.01 .01 .042

Priority congruence * candidate survey response rate

.01 .02 .672 .02 .02 .200

Random variance

Priority congruence .242 .211 .162 .205

Constant .230 .066 .347 .098

Deviance 19362 19374

Notes: Coefficients are log-odds from multilevel logistic regression, estimated in Stata 12. Level-1 N (individuals) = 17395; level-2 N (countries) = 27. Constant-slope covariance set to independent.