Left-Right Ideological Congruence in Southern Europe

This chapter comparatively examines left-right ideological congruence in Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) between members of parliament and their constituents, through contrasting periods before and after the Great Recession. The study finds that Greece is an outlier, with the lowest level of congruence. Diverse trends in both party representation and left-right ideological congruence are also identified. Finally, the chapter identifies trends of both bottom-up and top-down representation, across and within countries, which highlights the importance of both types of representation for the functioning of democracy.