Programmatic congruence in the Southern Cone. Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay in comparative perspective

Abstract Institutionalized party systems can coexist with a low programmatic congruence between elites and citizens. To the contrary, less institutionalized party systems could be in a position to generate greater programmatic congruence. We analyze this apparent anomaly in the Southern Cone of Latin America, comparing Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Methodologically, we used three measures of congruence: averages, comparison of distributions (many-to-many), distance between voters and a median legislator (many-to-one). For this last measure, we designed multiple regression models to identify the variables that predict greater congruence. We arrived at the conclusion that in stable systems the electoral preferences remain despite the distance between elites and voters in some areas of the competition—Uruguay being the most representative case.