This project seeks to expand our understanding of policy representation in several ways: First, it integrates the different layers of policy making from the regional to the European level and thus aims to show a more precise and accurate picture of policy representation in Europe. Second, it expands the scope of research on policy congruence beyond the left-right dimension to account for regional, party specific and personal differences in the salience of policy areas. Last, it connects the study of political representation more closely to electoral behavior literature which allows deriving theoretical expectations about the level of policy congruence at various levels of policy making and across a large variety of issues. Empirically, it draws on several recently released datasets which offer data on citizens and party positions on several dimensions (e.g. ESS; EES, national and regional election studies).
This project was discontinued because of the departure of the project director.
