Perceptions of policy choice in contemporary democracies TIMOTHY HELLWIG, 1 ANNA MIKULSKA 2 & BURCU GEZGOR 2 1 Department of Political Science, Indiana University, USA; 2 Department of Political Science, University of Houston, USA Abstract. Though the concept of choice is essential to democracy, little is known about how citizens make sense of the diversity of policies offered by political elites. Research has found that institutional arrangements such as low electoral thresholds and multiple party competi- tors are associated with greater policy choice. Other work emphasises non-institutional factors. No research, however, examines what the voters think. In this article these alterna- tive explanations are assessed in terms of whether citizens believe parties to provide choice over policy. Evidence from 25 democracies reveals that electoral and party systems have no direct effect. Choice perceptions are instead affected by non-policy factors: social heteroge- neity and individual political dispositions. This result contrasts with analyses showing a strong connection between electoral rules and the diversity of messages communicated by parties during campaigns.The article also shows how choice perceptions matter for political behaviour. Overall, study findings imply that the promise of institutions for fostering repre- sentation is weaker than previously assumed. Introduction How much choice do parties provide? This question lies at the heart of theo- ries of representation. At minimum, democracy means citizens are granted an opportunity to select from a set of elites distinguished by their policy platforms (Dahl 1971; Riker 1982). Classic discussions in democratic theory emphasise the need for elites to provide not just one, but multiple solutions to the problems that face society (Pitkin 1967; Sartori 1976; Schumpeter 1942). The dispersion of policy appeals remains a focus in current scholarship on the effects of electoral rules (Ezrow 2007; Powell 2008), regime type (Dow 2008) and dimensionality of policy competition (Andrews & Money 2009; Tavits 2007). By emphasising institutional factors, however, current research says little about the role of the principal actor in representative democracy’s principal-agent game – the individual citizen.Yet if we entertain the claim that alternative policy offerings inform the citizen’s decision of whether and how to participate in the political process, then this omission appears as a critical oversight. If parties competing in the election fail to propose unique policy European Journal of Political Research 49: 705–730, 2010 705 doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6765.2010.01917.x © 2010 The Author(s) Journal compilation © 2010 (European Consortium for Political Research) Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA