" Curini, Jou, and Memoli's carefully and thoroughly researched book answers an enormously important, yet previously unstudied, question: how does the quality of representation in a democracy affect citizens' participation, satisfaction in that democracy and happiness. Through systematic analysis of 180,000 respondents in 46 countries they show the persistently virtuous power of the "divine middle": centrist governments inspire citizens' greatest belief and satisfaction in democracy, while also affecting participation and life satisfaction ." -- Robert J. FRANZESE, Jr., Professor, Department of Political Science, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor " Whether you agree or not that the "left-right scale" is an effective measure to assess policy distance between citizens and their governments, you will enjoy this book. With a well-balanced review of existing literature in the field, a careful operationalization of concepts, and beautiful illustrative representations of their empirical evidence, you will find that the ideological proximity of citizens to their governments is crucial to understanding democratic representation." -- Yoshitaka NISHIZAWA, Professor, Political Science Department, Doshisha University, Kyoto " A truly innovative approach to the measurement of congruence between citizens and democratic governments. An evidence-based praise for "centrist governments", that will be surely discussed at length.

" -- Luca VERZICHELLI, Professor, Department of Social, Poitical and Cognitive Sciences, University of Siena.