What’s the Right Kick-Off to a Good Finish? Polish Political Parties and Their Strategies in the 2014 European Parliament Elections

Author(s):  
Marzena Cichosz
Author(s):  
Colin Rallings ◽  
Michael Thrasher

The European Parliament elections in June 2004 coincided with local elections in many parts of England. In four regions of the country these elections were conducted entirely by postal ballots; in four other regions traditional methods of polling were used. Overall turnout was higher where all-postal voting was in place, but having local in addition to European elections made an independent and significant contribution to the level of electoral participation in all postal and non-postal regions alike. The pattern of party choice at the two types of contest also varied considerably. The three major political parties together took a much larger share of the overall vote at the local than at the European elections, and each independently ‘lost’ a sizeable number of its local votes to smaller parties. Aggregate level analysis suggests that voters assess the importance of electoral contests along a continuum and, in Britain in 2004 at least, treated local elections as less ‘second-order’ than pan-European ones.


Author(s):  
Catherine E. De Vries

This chapter examines the link between the four types of support and scepticism and the likelihood of casting a ballot for a Eurosceptic party in the 2014 European Parliament elections. Importantly, the chapter demonstrates close ties between being an exit sceptic and supporting hard Eurosceptic parties that reject the EU project and mobilize secession sentiment. Moreover, the chapter demonstrates that issue priorities matter greatly. Sceptics who care mostly about immigration display the highest support for hard Eurosceptic parties, especially on the right of the political spectrum, while those who care mostly about unemployment and the economy are, overall, less likely to vote for a Eurosceptic party. If they do, they support a soft Eurosceptic party, mostly on the left of the political spectrum. Finally, the chapter shows that the choices for Eurosceptic parties are mainly fuelled by concerns over immigration and a desire for more national control.


Author(s):  
Vitalij Semenko

The article deals with peculiarities of the regular elections in the Republic of Austria to the European Parliament in 2014, as well as the main reasons for the success of nationalists, left-wing parties, eurosceptics, populists, far-right political parties, even though the pro-European forces have retained their majority. The main results of the parliamentary elections, the conclusions of eminent political scientists, experts who researched election to the European Parliament are in details analyzed. Also, the main objectives and tasks of the party and election programs of political parties in Austria are in details characterized, which are represented in the European Parliament, this important supranational body of the European Union. Specific features of obtaining by Austria of 18 seats on the 8th next elections to the European Parliament are revealed, which took place on May 25, 2014. Keywords: Political party, euroscepticism, elections, populism, political system


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 715-735
Author(s):  
Daniela Braun ◽  
Markus Tausendpfund

Despite a higher turnout, the ninth elections to the European Parliament can still be considered as second-order elections . In Germany, the governing parties - in particular the CDU and SPD - experienced a significant loss compared to the 2017 Bundestag elections and the 2014 European elections, whereas the Greens are the winners . The article provides information on the conditions framing the European Parliament elections and focuses on political parties and citizens . The empirical findings show, on the one hand, that the European integration issue is more salient in the manifestos than generally assumed and, on the other hand, that citizens’ knowledge of the European Union continues to be low . Against this background, turnout, electoral choices and reasons for these are discussed . Moreover, the composition of the newly elected European Parliament and possible implications are described . [ZParl, vol . 50 (2019), no . 4, pp . 715 - 735]


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ondřej Mocek ◽  
Martin Petlach ◽  
Zuzana Hudečková

The paper inquires divergences in electoral programs of four Czech political parties (the ČSSD, KDU-ČSL, KSČM, and the ODS) as delivered for all the previous European Parliament elections. The aim of this study is to compare the use of national and European themes as delineated in programs. It is assumed that, in many cases, the programs contain topics and aspects which are specific and valid for elections on the national level instead. Thus, the paper elaborates on one of the characteristics of the second-order elections theory as exemplified in the Euro-elections. Results of the analysis showed a significant superiority of national affairs over the European issues in the examined samples. Although the number of political parties varies in individual periods, the study has also confirmed the assumption drawn from the theory of second-order elections. Therefore, political parties utilize political programs for the European Parliament elections as of national interest with domestic affairs, not European. Furthermore, the study considers dissimilarities among political parties in positive and negative attitudes toward the EU. Hence, sundry approaches to European affairs may be identified across the Czech political parties.


Tripodos ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 151-165
Author(s):  
Mārtiņš Pričins

Over the last decade, the implementation of campaigns by political parties and their candidates on social media platforms has become an integral part of political communication. Political communication studies have long indicated that elections are becoming personalized, with more focus on party leaders or individual candidates. But studies on communication by political parties to understand the identity of parties and their potential in communication with voters remain relevant. The aim of the paper is to analyse the visual election materials of the political parties from Latvia on the social network Facebook during the 2019 European Parliament (EP) election campaign. The research period is two weeks before elections. The subject of the study is election materials on Facebook accounts of the parties representing the national parliament of Latvia. A codebook for analysis has been developed, containing common and specific variables, designed to explore the verbal and visual dimensions. The results of the study allow us to draw conclusions about the changing success of new populist and traditional parties, as well as to look at the role of Facebook in elections in a little-studied country.


2020 ◽  
pp. 147892992095200
Author(s):  
Melanie Leidecker-Sandmann ◽  
Beatrice Eugster

This article starts from the observation that most voters know relatively little about positions and plans of political parties, especially when European Union politics is concerned. One reason for this could be that the main sources for political information, party communication and mass media coverage, provide voters only little concrete information about positions and plans of political parties. We ask how concretely, respectively vaguely, political parties and mass media communicate political positions prior to the 2014 European Parliament elections. We conducted a quantitative content analysis of all European Union–related press releases from 46 national political parties and of all European Union–related articles of 14 national quality newspapers from 7 European countries 12 weeks before the 2014 European Parliament elections. Our analysis shows that press releases as well as media coverage contain more concrete political positions on European Union issues than vague political statements. Other than expected, newspaper coverage provided the public with less concrete information than political actors did. Nevertheless, countries vary with regard to the extent to which party communication or newspaper coverage contain vague statements. We cannot find empirical support that the communication of concrete political positions depends on a party’s “extremity” of issue position or on the type of issue.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document