Turning against the Union? The impact of the crisis on the Eurosceptic vote in the 2014 European Parliament elections

The 2014 European Parliament elections were held against the backdrop of the worst economic crisis in post-war Europe. The elections saw an unprecedented surge in support for Eurosceptic parties. This raises the question of whether the crisis, and the EU’s response to it, can explain the rise of Eurosceptic parties. Our analysis of the 2014 European Election Study demonstrates that the degree to which individuals were adversely affected by the crisis and their discontent with the EU’s handling of the crisis are major factors in explaining defection from mainstream pro-European to Eurosceptic parties in these elections. This suggests that far from being second-order national elections concerned only with domestic politics, European issues had a significant impact on vote choices.     

Die politischen Konsequenzen der niedrigen Wahlbeteiligung bei der Europawahl 2009

If electoral abstention is linked to party preferences, low turnout—as witnessed in European Parliament elections—may hurt some parties and benefit others. In order to assess this possibility, we compare, in the member states of the EU, parties’ vote shares in the 2009 European Parliament elections with the results that would have been obtained had turnout reached the level of national general elections. We find that the effects of low turnout are minimal, and that—except for a single seat—higher turnout would not have resulted in a different composition of the European Parliament.     

The European Parliament Elections of June 2004: Still Second-Order?

A quarter of a century ago the first series of European Parliament elections were characterised as second-order national elections. Much has changed since, which might have had an impact upon this diagnosis. In this article the central assumptions and predictions of the second-order elections model are restated and evaluated against the outcome of the 2004 European Parliament election and a post-election survey. Surprisingly enough, the findings confirm the persisting second-order nature of EP elections for Western Europe. Matters look very different, however, in the eight new Central and East European member countries.     

Why Bother Lying When You Know So Few Care? Party Contact,Education and Over‐reporting Voter Turnout in Different Types of Elections

Studies on individual‐level voter turnout in the European Parliament elections rely solely on self‐reported turnout data. At the same time, a long tradition in public opinion research examines the impact of individual and contextual variables on over‐reporting of voter turnout. The ultimate goal of these efforts is an assessment of the bias introduced when turnout models are estimated from self‐reported turnout data. In this article, it is proposed that certain characteristics related to turnout (and turnout over‐reporting), like university education or party contact, should also be positively associated with political awareness and knowledge. If so, they might contribute to respondents' greater ability to distinguish between different salience levels, significantly increasing non‐voters' propensity to over‐report turnout in high‐salience elections, but not in low‐salience ones. This hypothesis is tested using data on electoral participation in Sweden, comparing patterns of turnout over‐reporting in the (high‐salience) national parliament elections and the (low‐salience) European Parliament elections. The results of this test, the first one to give an account of patterns of over‐reporting of turnout in the European Parliament elections, largely support the above hypothesis. Finally, the consequences of this phenomenon for the validity of inferences made from self‐reported turnout data are analyzed.     

The Danes and Europe: From EC 1972 to Euro 2000 – Elections, Referendums and Attitudes

Within Europe, the Danish electorate is the one that has most often expressed its opinion about the European Union in elections and in national referendums. Votes and attitudes are analysed for the five elections to the European Parliament between 1979 and 1999 and in the six referendums – from the first on membership of the EC in 1972 to the September 2000 referendum on acceptance of the euro, the European single currency. The article gives an overview of the development of Danish public opinion in relation to the European Union from 1960 to 2000, the turnouts at referendums, and the elections and results for the European Parliament. It is shown that since Denmark joined the EU, public opinion has fluctuated greatly, although the balance among Danish European Parliament members has remained stable. The reasons for the frequent use of referendums in Denmark and a thematic outline of the six referendums are put forward. The article concludes with a comprehensive analysis of public attitudes towards the referendum on the euro in 2000. It is shown that regional electoral patterns have vanished, but underlying attitudes are manifested in the public.     

Democratic legitimacy and direct elections to the European parliament

The theme of ‘democratic legitimacy’ and the way it affects the institutions and development of the European Community is a recurrent one both in the literature on Western European integration and especially in debates amongst European politicians and parliamentarians. This article examines the theme within the context of the direct elections to be held to the European Parliament in 1979. It is argued that the European Parliament has certain legitimacy problems which stem from the nature of its authority, intelligibility, visibility, and the way in which it acts as the European Community's ‘grand forum’. The holding of European elections will not in themselves overcome these problems, and a number of suggestions are offered as to how the European Parliament and the European Community can achieve democratic legitimacy.¹     

Personality and Political Participation: The Mediation Hypothesis

Recent analyses have demonstrated that personality affects political behavior. According to the mediation hypothesis, the effect of personality on political participation is mediated by classical predictors, such as political interest, internal efficacy, political discussion, or the sense that voting is a civic duty. This paper outlines various paths that link personality traits to two participatory activities: voter turnout in European Parliament elections and participation in protest actions. The hypotheses are tested with data from a large, nationally representative, face-to-face survey of the Spanish population conducted before and after the 2009 European Parliament elections using log-linear path models that are well suited to study indirect relationships. The results clearly confirm that the effects of personality traits on voter turnout and protest participation are sizeable but indirect. They are mediated by attitudinal predictors.     

Perceptions and reality: Economic voting at the 2004 European Parliament elections

Abstract.  One of the most influential explanations of voting behaviour is based on economic factors: when the economy is doing well, voters reward the incumbent government and when the economy is doing badly, voters punish the incumbent. This reward-punishment model is thought to be particularly appropriate at second order contests such as European Parliament elections. Yet operationalising this economic voting model using citizens' perceptions of economic performance may suffer from endogeneity problems if citizens' perceptions are in fact a function of their party preferences rather than being a cause of their party preferences. Thus, this article models a 'strict' version of economic voting in which they purge citizens' economic perceptions of partisan effects and only use as a predictor of voting that portion of citizens' economic perceptions that is caused by the real world economy. Using data on voting at the 2004 European Parliament elections for 23 European Union electorates, the article finds some, but limited, evidence for economic voting that is dependent on both voter sophistication and clarity of responsibility for the economy within any country. First, only politically sophisticated voters' subjective economic assessments are in fact grounded in economic reality. Second, the portion of subjective economic assessments that is a function of the real world economy is a significant predictor of voting only in single party government contexts where there can be a clear attribution of responsibility. For coalition government contexts, the article finds essentially no impact of the real economy via economic perceptions on vote choice, at least at European Parliament elections.     

European Parliament Elections and Political Representation: Policy Congruence between Voters and Parties

It is often said that European Parliament elections fail as an instrument to express the will of the European people. However, while the elections are not contested at the European level and are often dominated by national issues, this does not necessarily imply that they fail to connect policy views of voters and representatives. This article examines policy congruence between voters and candidates, utilising the candidate and voter surveys of the European Election Study 2009. First, it demonstrates that policy preferences of candidates and voters are constrained by three separate policy dimensions. Second, it shows that the quality of representation is high in terms of left/right, the main dimension of conflict in European politics, but lower on the cultural and European integration dimensions. Finally, it establishes that in some cases the aggregation of national parties in political groups in the European Parliament poses problems for effective political representation.     

Support for the Far Right in the 2014 European Parliament Elections: A Comparative Perspective

The May 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections were characterised by the success of far‐right Eurosceptic parties, including the French Front National, UKIP, the Danish People's Party, the Hungarian Jobbik, the Austrian FPÖ, the True Finns and the Greek Golden Dawn. However, a closer look at the results across Europe indicates that the success of far‐right parties in the EP elections is neither a linear nor a clear‐cut phenomenon: (1) the far right actually declined in many European countries compared to the 2009 results; (2) some of the countries that have experienced the worst of the economic crisis, including Spain, Portugal and Ireland, did not experience a significant rise in far‐right party support; and (3) ‘far right’ is too broad an umbrella term, covering parties that are too different from each other to be grouped in one single party family.     

Dynamic ideal point estimation for the European Parliament, 1980–2009

The European Parliament is one of most prominent substantive applications of NOMINATE to the study of roll call voting outside the U.S., yielding tremendous insights into the voting patterns of the world’s most important transnational parliament. However, this body of research cannot facilitate comparisons of ideological shifts over time, because it exclusively employs scaling models that are static. In this paper, I produce dynamic ideal point estimates for the first six European Parliaments from 1980 to 2009 that can be compared over time. These estimates show a significant amount of ideological shifting for some Members of the European Parliament. I explain the measurement strategy, and compare cross-sectional estimates to existing measures as a validity check. I also offer three applications highlighting the types projects that scholars of the European Parliament might wish to use these dynamic measures to study further.     

Partisan consequences of low turnout at elections to the European Parliament

Low turnout and potential differences in party preferences between voters and non-voters may affect party vote shares at European Parliament (EP) elections. Of particular concern is the rise of Eurosceptic and populist parties, but scholars do not know whether these would benefit from increased voter mobilization. To address this gap, we simulate the party choices of non-voters at the 2009 and 2014 EP elections. Contrary to analyses of turnout effects at general elections in multiparty systems, our simulations suggest that left-leaning and ideologically moderate parties would gain if turnout went up to levels observed at first-order national elections. And while there is some evidence that populist parties might have benefitted from higher turnout at the 2014 elections (but not in 2009), our findings do not support expectations that either Eurosceptic or Europhile parties’ vote share would be affected by higher turnout.     

Motivating the European voter: Parties,issues and campaigns in European Parliament elections

Voters behave differently in European Parliament (EP) elections compared to national elections because less is at stake in these ‘second‐order’ elections. While this explains the primary characteristic of EP elections, it has often led to a conflation of distinct motivations for changing behaviour – namely sincere and protest voting. By distinguishing these motivations, this article addresses the question of when and why voters alter their behaviour in EP elections. In addition, it argues that the degree of politicisation of the EU in the domestic debate shapes the extent to which voters rely on EU, rather than national, considerations. These propositions are tested in a multilevel analysis in 27 countries in the 2009 EP elections. The findings have important implications for understanding why voters change their behaviour between different types of elections.     

Mapping established democracies: Integrated data on parties,elections and cabinets

Work on democratic delegation needs coherent and integrated recording of parties, elections and cabinets to study aspects of democratic representation such as electoral dynamics, cabinet formation and policy making. In this article, we present the methodological design of the ParlGov database and demonstrate how its operationalization of parties, election results and cabinets adds to a better understanding of political representation. The most recent version of the database includes 1177 parties, 735 elections (580 national, 155 European Parliament) and 1067 cabinets for democratic elections in 37 established democracies from 1945 to 2015. With this information we provide a definition of relevant political parties, a systematic recording of electoral results including electoral alliances and an adjustment to the definition of cabinets to account for potentially short lived cabinets. A replication of a prominent study by Hix and Marsh (2007) on second-order elections to the European Parliament (EP) demonstrates the added value of an integrated data source for a better understanding of electoral dynamics.     

Multidimensional incongruence and vote switching in Europe

Does ideological incongruence hurt parties in elections? Research on the representational relationship between parties and voters suggests that ideological congruence can boost a party’s electoral prospects. However, while the mechanism is at the individual-level, most of the literature focuses on the party-level. In this article, we develop a set of hypotheses based on a multi-issue conception of party-voter congruence at the individual-level, and examine the electoral consequences of these varying congruence levels in the 2014 European Parliament elections. Consistent with our expectations, comparative analysis finds that ideological and issue-specific incongruence is a significant factor in voting behavior in the European Parliament elections. Although the substantive effects of incongruence are understandably small compared to partisanship, government, or EU performance evaluations, party-voter disagreement consistently matters, and voters’ issue salience is an important moderator of the impact of incongruence on vote choice.     

YouTube: A Political Advertising Tool? A Case Study of the Use of YouTube in the Campaign for the European Parliament Elections 2009

Political campaigns are made to attract the attention from citizens. The beginning of its adaption is linked to the appearance of the social media and user-generated content. Since the number of users of social network sites in Europe constantly grows, 2009 was the first time that these websites were used in political marketing purposes for the European Parliament elections. This is an exploratory study of the nature and extent of video-based social media, studied through the content analysis of YouTube videos created for the electoral campaign for the 2009 European Parliament . ( 2009 ). European elections . Retrieved from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/default.htm?language=en  [Google Scholar] European Parliament elections by 13 political parties from four EU states. Results have shown the specificities of political advertising on the YouTube, a raising interest in social media among citizens in Europe, and the development of this way of campaigning.     

Second-order elections

Abstract The composition of the directly elected European Parliament does not precisely reflect the 'real' balance of political forces in the European Community. As long as the national political systems decide most of what there is to be decided politically, and everything really important, European elections are additional national second-order elections. They are determined more by the domestic political cleavages than by alternatives originating in the EC, but in a different way than if nine first-order national elections took place simultaneously. This is the case because European elections occur at different stages of the national political systems' respective 'electoral cycles'. Such a relationship between a second-order arena and the chief arena of a political system is not at all unusual. What is new here, is that one second-order political arena is related to nine different first-order arenas. A first analysis of European election results satisfactorily justifies the assumption mat European Parliament direct elections should be treated as nine simultaneous national second-order elections.     

Failure or long-haul? European elections and European integration

The impact of the direct election of the European Parliament is assessed with reference to the hopes of the proponents of European integration—increased weight for the Parliament, legitimacy for the institutions and achievements of European integration, and the development of trans-national political forces. Particular examination is made of the low level of turnout in the elections, of the absence of any Community-wide focus on personalities or on issues in the campaign and of the problems of the Socialist, Christian Democratic and Liberal party federations. One effect offering an integrative prospect is the emerging élite of full-time trans-national politicians.     

Second-order effects plus pan-European political swings: An analysis of European Parliament elections across time

After seven waves of European Parliament elections and European Union enlargement to 27 states, the time is ripe to analyse the temporal robustness of the second-order model. We pool all the elections in a single evaluation and also look at election-by-election variations. We analyse changes in party performance over time in all EU states as well as in the ‘original 10’, to see whether any cross-time changes are driven by the changing composition of the EU. We also look for pan-European trends in each election, as a way identifying ‘European effects’ distinct from second-order effects. There are few consistent winners and losers, although socialist parties performed worse in the last three elections than their size and government status would predict.     

Exit,Voice, and Cyclicality: A Micrologic of Midterm Effects in European Parliament Elections

Very few theories of democratic elections can claim to overarch the field. One of them that has not been given due regard, I suggest, is Albert Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. I aim to exploit the integrative capacity of this general framework in a model of typical “midterm” effects occurring through the electoral cycle. The model unites such diverse phenomena as antigovernment swings, declining turnout, protest voting, conversion, and alienation. An empirical test with comparative survey data from elections to the European Parliament reveals that the role of strategic voting in the form of voice is limited. Instead, processes of de‐ and realignment in the form of exit dominate a picture of European Parliament elections beyond the widespread conception of “second‐order” irrelevance. More generally, the “cyclical” view on voting behavior suggests systematic links between short‐run midterm effects and long‐run electoral change.