Abstract

MORALES QUIROGA, Mauricio. Programmatic congruence between parties and voters in Chile. Perf. latinoam. [online]. 2014, vol.22, n.44, pp.59-90. ISSN 0188-7653.

The Chilean party system tends to be classified as one of the most programmatic in Latin America. It is assumed that there is a high consistency between parties and voters. However, the most incongruous party with the citizenship is the one that today has the largest base of members. As a result, Chile is a useful case to discuss two central claims of literature. First, institutionalized party systems are characterized by a strong programmatic structure of preferences and secondly, the programmatic closeness between parties and voters is a necessary condition for electoral success. Data analysis is based on two opinion studies applied to the total number of deputies and senators who exercised during 2010 and 2011-2012, and two national citizen surveys conducted in the same years.

Keywords : congruence; parties; party systems; elections; Chile; voters; representatives.