Ideological and Policy Congruence in Italy and Spain

This chapter investigates the extent to which the political elites in Spain and Italy represent the views of citizens at party and voter level. In particular, the degree of congruence between party members of parliament (MPs) and party voters is analysed both on the general left-right scale and on specific policy issues using data on the general elections in Spain (2016) and Italy (2013). This chapter connects with the debate on the crisis of mainstream party responsiveness by addressing two research questions. One concerns whether challenger parties represent the opinions of their voters better than mainstream parties do. The second deals with the relationship between the general left-right scale and other issues of political conflict. The findings show no systematic “advantage” in terms of responsiveness on the part of challenger parties. Moreover, there seems to be a strong relationship between distances on the left-right scale and distances on the immigration issue, which points to some peculiarity in the use of the left and right categories in the Italian case.