Position, priority, and political legitimacy: party–citizen alignment on environmental issues in Italy

This article examines how party-citizen alignment on environmental issues relates to satisfaction with democracy (SWD) in Italy, a key attitudinal indicator of political legitimacy. Building on theories of representational congruence, it distinguishes between positional congruence – agreement on policy direction – and priority congruence – alignment on issue importance. Using data from the 2019 European Election Study (EES) and the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES), the analysis provides a descriptive assessment of how these dimensions operate in a context of low salience and fragmented competition. The patterns observed indicate that environmental congruence is extremely rare and largely symbolic: only a small fraction of citizens identify the environment as the country’s most important problem, and even fewer are represented by parties that prioritize it. This absence of alignment reveals a representational void rather than a mere measurement limitation, highlighting the weak politicization of environmental concerns in Italian politics. The article argues that environmental representation exposes the limits of issue-based legitimacy in contexts where citizens’ priorities remain systematically detached from party agendas.