Party-voters congruence concerning the European Union: An analysis of its evolution during the Eurozone crisis using elite and mass surveys

Abstract

In this paper I analyze to what extent the Eurozone crisis has affected the representativeness of parties’ positions with respect to the issue of European integration. Public opinion data and many analyses have provided evidence that, since 2010, public support for the European Union (EU) has dramatically declined. In contrast, existing data on party positions indicates considerable stability in this area, particularly among mainstream parties. However, we still lack a comparative analysis of the evolution of citizens-representatives congruence since the start of the Eurozone crisis, and the factors that may affect variations in congruence levels. With this paper we fill this gap through using a unique dataset of parties and voter positions based on political elite and mass surveys carried out in nine EU countries in 2007, 2009 and 2014.