European Parliament elections as second-order national elections

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-75
Author(s):  
Michael Marsh
Keyword(s):  
European Parliament ◽  
Second Order ◽  
National Elections ◽  
European Parliament Elections

Introduction: No longer second-order? Explaining the European Parliament elections of 2019

Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 026339572110350
Author(s):  
Katjana Gattermann ◽  
Claes H de Vreese ◽  
Wouter van der Brug
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
General Framework ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
National Elections ◽  
First Order ◽  
The Future ◽  
European Parliament Elections

The dominant perspective of European Parliament (EP) elections is that these are second-order national elections where little is at stake. This Special Issue asks whether this perspective is still valid in view of increased politicization of European integration and in view of the higher turnout levels at the last EP elections. This introduction provides a general framework for the Special Issue and reflects upon some of its main findings. We argue that EP elections can only be considered first-order if they are primarily about the policies, rather than the polity. Some of the contributions in this Special Issue suggest that this is indeed the case. We reflect upon this and argue that there are reasons to expect that EP elections will become more first order in the future.

A Vote Against Europe? Explaining Defection at the 1999 and 2004 European Parliament Elections

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara B. Hobolt ◽  
Jae-Jae Spoon ◽  
James Tilley
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Factors ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Government Performance ◽  
National Elections ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Level Model ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
European Parliament Elections

Governing parties generally win fewer votes at European Parliament elections than at national electionsmost common explanation for this is that European elections are ‘second order national elections’ acting as mid-term referendums on government performance. This article proposes an alternative, though complementary, explanation: voters defect because governing parties are generally far more pro-European than the typical voter. Additionally, the more the campaign context primes Eurosceptic sentiments, the more likely voters are to turn against governing parties. A multi-level model is used to test these propositions and analyse the effects of individual and contextual factors at the 1999 and 2004 European Parliament elections. Both European and domestic concerns matter to voters; moreover, campaign context plays an important role in shaping vote choices.

scholarly journals Individual-level factors influencing voter turnout in the 2014 European Parliament election

2019 ◽  
pp. 142-158
Author(s):  
Serhii Shapovalov
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Binary Logistic Regression ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Second Order ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Logistic Regression Method ◽  
European Parliament Elections

The participation of EU citizens in the European Parliament elections is much lower than in the national elections and differs significantly across the EU member states. The articled is aimed at finding out the factors that influence the participation of EU citizens in the elections to the European Parliament. The study outlines the theoretical approaches to understanding the phenomenon of the European Parliament elections and the assumptions of researchers about the factors that may influence the electoral activity of citizens. According to second-order elections theory by Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmitt citizens perceive European Parliament elections as less important than national elections that results in lower participation. However, the behavior of voters may also be affected by a number of factors which may be regarded as individual-level motivations (trust in national and European authorities, attitudes towards EU institutions etc.). With use of binary logistic regression method it was defined which factors influenced the participation of citizens in the European Parliament election 2014 and explained the differences in the electoral activity of citizens of different EU countries. The nature of the identified factors that influence the participation of citizens in the elections to the European Parliament suggests that the second-order elections theory is still valid.

Testing the Second-Order Elections Model on the 2019 European Elections in Romania

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-374
Author(s):  
Nicoleta Lașan
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Second Order ◽  
National Elections ◽  
European Elections ◽  
New Type ◽  
Treaty Of Rome ◽  
Direct Elections ◽  
European Parliament Elections

"The Treaty of Rome adopted in 1957 included provisions on the elections of the then European Parliamentary Assembly elections, but it took more than two decades for the members of the European Parliament to be directly elected. Immediately after the first direct elections of the European Parliament in 1979, the second-order elections model was conceived in order to understand the new type of supranational but less important elections. The model includes several hypotheses deriving from the idea that in the European elections there is less at stake, so instead of having genuine EU elections, in reality there are now 27 simultaneous national elections. The paper tests the second order elections to see whether its hypotheses are valid in the case of 2019 EU elections in Romania. Keywords: European Union, European Parliament, elections, Romania, 2019."

scholarly journals Do European Parliament Elections Impact National Party System Fragmentation?

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elias Dinas ◽  
Pedro Riera
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Variables ◽  
Party System ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Second Order ◽  
National Party ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
European Parliament Elections ◽  
Instrumental Variables Approach ◽  
Shed Light

Why have European large parties lost electoral ground in recent decades? Whereas most explanations draw on theories of dealignment, this article advances a novel, institutional, argument by focusing on the introduction of direct elections to the European Parliament (EP) in 1979. Archetypes of second-order elections, EP elections are characterized by lower vote shares for (a) large and (b) incumbent parties. Bridging the second-order elections theory with theories of political socialization, we posit that voting patterns in EP elections spill over onto national elections, especially among voters not yet socialized into patterns of habitual voting. In so doing, they increase the national vote shares of small parties. This proposition is examined using an instrumental variables approach. We also derive a set of testable propositions to shed light on the underlying mechanisms of this pattern. Our findings show that EP elections decrease support for big parties at the national arena by inculcating voting habits.

Testing the Second-Order Election Model after Four European Elections

1998 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL MARSH
Keyword(s):  
European Parliament ◽  
National Election ◽  
Second Order ◽  
National Elections ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Using Data ◽  
European Parliament Elections ◽  
Electoral Performance ◽  
The Impact

Reif and Schmitt argued that elections to the European Parliament should be understood as second-order national elections, and advanced several predictions about the results of such elections. Those concerning the impact of government status, party size, party character and the national election cycle on electoral performance are examined here using data on four sets of European Parliament elections. In addition, the consequences of European Parliament elections for the next national election are explored. The analysis demonstrates the validity of most of Reif and Schmitt's original propositions, and further refines their analysis of the relationship between European and subsequent national elections. However, all propositions hold much more effectively in countries where alternation in government is the norm, suggesting that the distinction between first-order and second-order elections may not be so clear cut as Reif and Schmitt imagined.

scholarly journals European Parliament Elections of May 2014: Driven by National Politics or EU Policy Making?

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hermann Schmitt ◽  
Ilke Toygür
Keyword(s):  
Political Trust ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Second Order ◽  
National Politics ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Election Results ◽  
European Parliament Elections ◽  
Political Groups ◽  
High Salience

The 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections took place in a very particular environment. Economic crisis, bailout packages, and austerity measures were central on the agenda in many Southern countries while open borders and intra-EU migration gained high salience elsewhere in the Union. A strong decline of political trust in European and national institutions was alarming. At the same time, the nomination and campaigning of “<em>Spitzenkandidaten</em>”, lead candidates of EP political groups for European Commission (EC) presidency, was meant to establish a new linkage between European Parliament elections and the (s)election of the president of the Commission. All of this might have changed the very nature of EP elections as second-order national elections. In this paper, we try to shed light on this by analysing aggregate election results, both at the country-level and at the party-level and compare them with the results of the preceding first-order national election in each EU member country. Our results suggest that the ongoing politicisation of EU politics had little impact on the second-order nature of European Parliament elections.

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

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.

scholarly journals Political equality without social equality? Social distortion of voter turnout in the European elections 2019 across nine European capitals

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205316802092815
Author(s):  
Stefan Haußner ◽  
Michael Kaeding
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
European Elections ◽  
The Social ◽  
European Parliament Elections

Although we know a lot about why citizens vote or abstain in elections, the social inequality of low turnout in European elections has attracted little attention. This paper focuses on voter turnout in the last 2019 European elections and examines whether low voter turnout in second-order elections is automatically associated with high social inequality, using Tingsten’s law as inspiration. By contrasting a second-order election with other high and low turnout elections, the paper deepens our understanding of the mechanisms behind low turnout in European elections. Following the argument that the macrolevel social imbalances of low turnout can best be analysed at the neighbourhood level, we develop a small-scale analysis of turnout across nine capitals of the European Union for the 2019 European Parliament (election and perform a regression model with interaction effects to examine the effects between different types of elections. Our results do not find differences in the effect of neighbourhoods’ social context on voter turnout between these elections. Although turnout in all cities is socially biased across all types of elections, jeopardising the ideal of political equality across Europe, we find no evidence that the 2019 European Parliament elections were more socially unequal than other elections – regardless of their second-order nature.

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