Finding Inequality in an Unlikely Place: Differences in Policy Congruence between Social Groups in Belgium

in Acta Politica (2017), 52(3), 361383

This paper seeks to develop and test an issue-level determinants model of opinion congruence inequality between the privileged and the underprivileged social groups. Current theories on congruence ... [more ▼]

This paper seeks to develop and test an issue-level determinants model of opinion congruence inequality between the privileged and the underprivileged social groups. Current theories on congruence inequality and representation focus on country-level factors such as the interest group system or campaign finance. The existing literature focuses far less on variation in inequality in preference representation in a single context. To fill this void in the literature, we develop an issue-level model of opinion congruence inequality between the privileged and the underprivileged groups in terms of education and income. Based on an integrated dataset containing the policy positions of parties and voters in Belgium on 229 policy statements, we find that when social groups have different policy positions, preferences in the legislature align more with the preferences of the privileged social groups. In addition, opinion congruence inequality also depends on the importance of the issues to groups: the difference in opinion congruence is larger for economic and tax policies, vital to the privileged groups, but smaller on issues related to social welfare, crucial to the underprivileged groups. Finally, the results show that when voters of a group disagree with their party’s position on an issue, their preferences regarding that issue are less well represented in the legislature. [less ▲]

The Predictive Power of the Left-Right Self-Placement Scale for the Policy Positions of Voters and Parties.

in West European Politics (2017), 40(2), 357-377

The left-right self-placement scale is often used in political science as a proxy for the policy positions of voters and parties. Yet studies have suggested that, for voters, this relation is dependent on ... [more ▼]

The left-right self-placement scale is often used in political science as a proxy for the policy positions of voters and parties. Yet studies have suggested that, for voters, this relation is dependent on education level. These studies were, however, hampered by data limitations and restricted statistical analyses. In addition, the extent to which the relation between the left-right self-placement scale and policy positions differs for parties and voters has not been explored. This article looks at the differential relation between left-right self-placement and policy positions for voters with different education levels on an integrated dataset containing over 50 voter and party policy positions. It is found that the left-right self-placement scale is a much better predictor for the policy positions of parties than it is for the policy preferences of voters. Robustness checks show that neither the saliency of the policy positions nor their complexity moderates these findings. [less ▲]

Het Effect van Lokale Verkiezingscampagnes Op Politieke Kennis. De Case van de Antwerpse Lokale Verkiezingen

in Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap (2014), 42(1), 7188

Political knowledge is crucial for the functioning of democracy: only informed citizens can cast a substantiated vote. Therefore, it is especially important that citizens are informed during election ... [more ▼]

Political knowledge is crucial for the functioning of democracy: only informed citizens can cast a substantiated vote. Therefore, it is especially important that citizens are informed during election campaigns. Indeed, election campaigns can educate the public on the various parties and candidates. However, extant research mostly focuses on national election campaigns. Local election campaigns often get less (media) attention, yet have been seldom researched. In this paper we investigate whether citizens also learn during local election campaigns. We use panel data collected during the 2012 Antwerp local election campaign. We find that although the campaign did cause slight knowledge gains, it mainly increased the existing knowledge gap between well- and ill-informed citizens. On the other hand the campaign did amend some other gaps: uncertain voters learned more, and voters learned most about parties they evaluated highly. [less ▲]