Research

The accuracy of voters’ perceptions of party positions is central to democratic choice and accountability. However, some citizens are more accurate than others. Political sophistication increases accuracy, while strong party identification reduces it. But how do they interact? Prior research on other political domains offers mixed answers. Understanding this interaction in perceptions of party positions is crucial, as sophistication could either mitigate or amplify partisan bias, and misperceiving party positions can exacerbate dissatisfaction with democracy and affective polarisation. Using data from the 2019 European Election Study across 28 countries, I test whether political sophistication moderates the effect of partisan strength on perceptions of party positions on the left-right and EU integration dimensions. I find no evidence of moderation. Sophistication and partisan strength have independent effects. Sophistication reliably increases accuracy, while partisan strength reduces it. Projection effects help explain why: partisans project their own views onto parties, regardless of their political sophistication. Thus, political sophistication improves accuracy by greater information processing and/or cognitive ability rather than by reducing projection bias.

Congruence between voters and parties is often taken as evidence of effective democratic representation. Yet congruence can arise from distinct mechanisms with different implications for political representation and accountability. Voters can achieve congruence by learning about party positions and selecting a like-minded party, but also by other means, such as blindly following their preferred party. Because perceptions of party positions are central to policy voting, this study quantifies the effect of accurate perceptions of party positions on voter-party congruence to help disentangle these mechanisms. Combining public opinion and expert data on three issues in the United Kingdom and Germany, the results show that accurate perceptions of party positions are the strongest and most robust predictor of congruence. However, voters who struggle to accurately assess parties’ positions still exhibit high congruence with their preferred party. These findings have implications for our understanding of mass-elite congruence. Voter-party congruence is not necessarily evidence of effective substantive representation and accountability, but it can also be a sign of a lack thereof.

How can partisans ‘turn a blind eye’ to political wrongdoing? Drawing on data from a survey experiment in 15 European countries, we explore two distinct rationalization strategies. First, we examine selective attribution, investigating whether voters are more inclined to hold the individual politician accountable rather than the party as a whole. Second, we assess judgment flexibility to determine whether voters engage in bending norms and standards to accommodate political misconduct. The evidence supports both mechanisms. Supporters are less likely to hold the party accountable for individual politicians' transgressions and adjust their social, legal, and moral standards in response to unsettling scandal revelations. Although these findings raise concerns about democratic erosion, they also point to targets for possible interventions to strengthen accountability.

This article studies how party positional ambiguity relates to objective and subjective voter-party congruence. Ambiguity should reduce congruence by making it harder for voters to place parties accurately and choose a like-minded party. Yet it may raise perceived congruence if greater ambiguity increases voters' tendency to project their positions onto parties, placing the parties they like closer to their own views than they actually are. Using data on three issues in Germany and the United Kingdom, the results support these expectations. Party ambiguity consistently lowers objective voter-party congruence across all issues and countries. By contrast, its effect on subjective congruence, how well voters feel represented by their party, varies by issue. When parties blur their positions on complex issues, such as economic issues, voters perceive greater congruence between their own views and their preferred party. These findings imply that parties that take ambiguous positions can dilute actual policy representation while sustaining perceived representation among their voters.