Matching cabinets, ESS and CHES

The figure shows how we matched the information from the ESS and CHES to the different cabinets that were in place during the period of investigation. Coloured rectangles represent the duration of specific cabinets. All cabinets included in the analysis are labelled by the name of the prime minister. Different colours identify the specific CHES wave from which positions were attributed to the respective cabinet. Grey rectangles identify the duration of ESS field periods, that is, when the interviews were conducted.

Number of Cases across ESS-rounds

Country 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
Austria 2405 1795 2010
Belgium 1798 1760 1704 1869 518
Bulgaria 1400 2230 2434 2260
Denmark 1504 1610 1576 1650 1502
Finland 1896 2195 1878 2197 2087 1925
France 1986 2073 1728 1968 1917 2070
Germany 2916 2751 3031 2958 3045 2852
Greece 2072 2715
Hungary 1518 1544 1561 2014 1698 1614
Ireland 1772 1764 2576 2628 2390 2757
Netherlands 1889 1778 1829 1845 1919 1681
Poland 1721 1619 1751 1898 1615 1694
Portugal 2222 2367 2146 2151 1238
Spain 1876 2576 1885 1889 1922 1958
Sweden 1926 1830 1497 1847 953
United Kingdom 2394 2352 2422 2286 2261 1958

Aggregate Results

The figure shows the mean incongruence across the different issues in all countries (with 95% confidence intervals). It can be seen that the means are signficantly different. It is also obvious that left/right exhibits the lowest degree of incongruence across all countries, while European Integration and - less often - redistribution is the issue with the highest mean incongruence.

The following figure shows the mean incongruence across all citizens for each individual issue. Obviously, incongruences on an left/right-axis are smallest while European integration exhibits the largest incongruences.

Multi-dimensional citizen-government congruence separated by income and education (ESS)

The figure replicates figure 3 from the manuscript in order to ease comparison between congruence measured on the basis of data from the European Social Survey and the European Election Study (see below).

Multi-dimensional citizen-government congruence separated by income and education (EES)

The figure uses the data from the European Election Study and replicates the models based on ESS data (see figure 3 in the manuscript and above). Individual socioeconomic variables in the EES differ from the ESS. Education is measured as a categorical variable of the respondent’s age when he or she finished education: 15 or younger / No full-time education (= low), 16-19 (= medium), 20 or older / still studying (= high). There is no income variable in the EES. We therefore used a question with which respondent’s were asked to sort themselves into a high, medium or low social level.
The results corroborate the impression from the analyses using ESS data. Overall congruence and representational biases are somewhat lower on the left-right axis. Representational biases on European integration and redistribution tend to favor the better educated and particularly people from a higher social level.

Country Results

In the following we present detailed results for each country studied in this paper. We first present information on the distribution of citizen preferences (from ESS and EES) and governments (Figure 1 in the manuscript). The plots also contain the mean preferences of the socioeconomic subgroups (people with high/low income/education) as measured by the ESS.
The regression tables and the coefficient plot present the results that underly Figure 3 in the text.

Austria

Belgium

Bulgaria

Denmark

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Ireland

Netherlands

Poland

Portugal

Spain

Sweden

United Kingdom