Why Do MPs Want To Be MEPs? Candidate Incentives and Party Nomination Strategies in European Parliament Elections in Finland

Abstract

Twenty per cent of the Finnish MPs elected at the April 2011 general election stood as MEP-candidates at the May 2014 European Parliament election, the highest proportion in Western Europe. Why? Who do Finnish MPs – and indeed former MPs – want to be MEPs and, more particularly, why do the political parties run a distinctively high proportion of parliamentarians on their Euro-lists? This article seeks to assess the impact of the electoral system and the electoral cycle on candidate incentives and party nomination strategies at ‘second order’ European Parliament elections using Finland as a case study.