Indifferent and Eurosceptic: The motivations of EU-only abstainers in the 2019 European Parliament election

Constantin Schäfer

doi:10.1177/0263395720981359

Abstract

Despite the dramatic voter turnout increase in 2019, the participation level in European Parliament elections is still considerably lower than in national elections. How can we explain this persistent ‘Euro gap’? This article analyses the motivations of citizens who participate in national but not in European electoral contests, the so-called ‘EU-only abstainers’. The empirical analysis based on the EES 2019 voter study reveals that EU-only abstention is driven by low levels of general political interest and EU-specific political sophistication, as well as by distrust towards EU institutions. Therefore, the Euro gap results from the widespread perception that there is ‘less at stake’ during EP elections, but it is also an aggregate-level consequence of individual Eurosceptic attitudes. These findings have important implications for our understanding of present-day European elections and the debate between the two most common theoretical approaches in EP election research.

Highlights

The European Parliament (EP) election in 2019 surprised many observers and analysts
While the European Parliament itself called the increase in turnout ‘a symbol of the democratic EU’s good health’ (EP, 2019),1 some scholars described this dramatic boost in electoral participation as ‘an indication of Corresponding author: Constantin Schäfer, Institute of Political Science, University of Münster, Scharnhorststr. 100, Münster 48151, Germany
In the empirical analysis that follows, I test the explanatory power of the two approaches and compare their effects with two residual groups of citizens: those who vote in EP elections (‘voters’) and those who abstain both in national and European elections (‘habitual abstainers’)

Summary

Introduction

The European Parliament (EP) election in 2019 surprised many observers and analysts. For the first time since 1979, overall voter turnout increased compared to the previous election, yielding the highest rate (50.66%) in the past 25 years. It is more than surprising that little scholarly attention has so far been paid to EU-only abstainers, even though the difference in turnout between national and European elections is widely noticed.3 the particular conduct of EU-only abstention has rarely been studied on the individual level, that is, by analysing voter data (Boomgaarden et al, 2016: 132).

Results

Conclusion