The Internet and the European Parliament elections: Theoretical perspectives, empirical investigations and proposals for research

The objective of this research is to find if the success of Podemos in the 2014 European Parliament Elections and its activity on Twitter agrees with the theoretical perspectives that Dahlgren (2011) and De Ugarte (2007) developed or if there is a new civic participation paradigm that determines the success of the current political communication strategies. In order to verify this proposal, this study not only has applied Dahlgren and De Ugarte's theories, but it has also developed a tweets sampling methodology that permits collection and analysis of information from Podemos' tweets from the 25th March 2014 to the 24th May 2014. The main conclusion of this research is that there is not a ‘new civic participation model', but there are some emerging social and collective trends that De Ugarte and Dahlgren did not consider in their approaches, but that offer a context for the development of a new concept of “politics”.

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Imperfect Bipartisanship and Spanish Pluralism

Civic Engagement and Politics ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-7669-3.ch070 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1393-1416

Author(s):

Marta Pérez Escolar

Keyword(s):

Political Communication ◽

Civic Participation ◽

Communication Strategies ◽

European Parliament ◽

Sampling Methodology ◽

Theoretical Perspectives ◽

European Parliament Elections

The objective of this research is to find if the success of Podemos in the 2014 European Parliament Elections and its activity on Twitter agrees with the theoretical perspectives that Dahlgren (2011) and De Ugarte (2007) developed or if there is a new civic participation paradigm that determines the success of the current political communication strategies. In order to verify this proposal, this study not only has applied Dahlgren and De Ugarte's theories, but it has also developed a tweets sampling methodology that permits collection and analysis of information from Podemos' tweets from the 25th March 2014 to the 24th May 2014. The main conclusion of this research is that there is not a ‘new civic participation model', but there are some emerging social and collective trends that De Ugarte and Dahlgren did not consider in their approaches, but that offer a context for the development of a new concept of “politics”.

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The European Parliament Elections as an Arena for Ethnic Minority Representation

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.1915970 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Maria Spirova

Keyword(s):

Ethnic Minority ◽

European Parliament ◽

Minority Representation ◽

European Parliament Elections

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Disengaging elections? Political interest, number of elections, and turnout in elections to the European Parliament

European Union Politics ◽

10.1177/1465116521998455 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 146511652199845

Author(s):

Jeffrey Nonnemacher

Keyword(s):

Political Behavior ◽

Voting Behavior ◽

European Parliament ◽

National Study ◽

National Elections ◽

Multi Level ◽

European Election ◽

Using Data ◽

European Parliament Elections ◽

Cross National Study

Since direct elections to the European Parliament began in 1979, variations in voting behavior in European Parliament elections from national elections have raised interesting questions about political behavior. I add to a growing literature that explores turnout in European Parliament elections by focusing on the count of national elections between European Parliament elections. Through a cross-national study of elections, I find that turnout decreases in the European Parliament contest following cycles with numerous national contests. Then, using data from the European Election Study, I argue that this is the result of frequent elections decreasing turnout particularly among already low interest voters who stay home. My findings have implications for how formal rules of multi-level elections shape political behavior more generally and voter fatigue in particular.

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