From ideological congruence to satisfaction with democracy: how leverage can mitigate the ill-effects of party polarization

Abstract

The impact of party polarization on voter satisfaction is disputed. While a direct negative effect is expected, polarization has also been found to clarify party policies, with indirect positive impact. This Note proposes a more direct source of positive effects for polarization through an interaction with congruence. We use citizens’ satisfaction with democracy (SwD) as the evaluation of interest; we take ideological polarization among parties and citizen-government left-right congruence as independent variables; and we use data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. We find that higher polarization, while indeed detrimental to satisfaction with democracy, gives rise to countervailing effects of congruence. We borrow the geometric concept of leverage to characterize the way this interaction enhances congruence’s positive effect on SwD.