Legislative Behaviour and Party Competition in the European Parliament: An Application of Nominate to the EU

Abstract

This article looks at the voting behaviour of Members of the European Parliament in the first year of the 1999–2004 European Parliament. The research applies the Nominate scaling method (developed to map voting in the US Congress) to the 1,031 ‘roll‐call votes’ in the EP in this period. This method enables us to locate each MEP in a multi‐dimensional policy space, and to plot a ‘cutting line’ for each vote. From this information we find that legislative behaviour in the EP is mainly along left—right lines, transnational party group affiliation is more important than national affiliation for determining how MEPs vote, different majority‐commanding coalitions form on different issues, and the difference between the simple majority and absolute majority rules has no effect on the voting behaviour of the two main party groups.