The complexity of a party system does not affect theideological compatibility of voters and political parties

In multi-party political systems, it has been argued that voters have more difficulties in matching their own programme with that of a political party. Joris Boonen, Eva Falk Pedersen and Marc Hooghe argue that there are differences between countries, but these are not explained by the complexity of the party system: the number of competing parties is not significantly related to the degree of ideological compatibility between voters and parties in a country. On the individual level, they find that political knowledge increases the ideological congruence between voters. Furthermore, voters with strong party attachments seem to be less ideologically close to the party they intend to vote for than independents.