European Elections Research Articles

To trust or not to trust? ‘Exit’ approaches in EU citizens’ attitudes after Brexit

AbstractThe European Union (EU) is a unique international alliance project, successful in maintaining political stability through its institutional model and decision-making procedures. However, recent economic and border crises, and COVID-19, have shown the institution’s fragility and undermined citizens’ trust. The UK’s 2016 vote to exit the EU demonstrated this. Indeed, Brexit was the first real example of the consequences of intensifying Eurosceptic sentiments. Since then, the fear of a likely ‘contagion’ in other countries has persistently spread. This paper investigates whether and how the Brexit issue impacts on EU citizens. In particular, it aims to understand how European citizens would react to a hypothetical referendum, along UK lines, on exiting the EU. Analysing the European Election Studies (EES) Voter Study 2019, this article tries to identify clusters of European citizens according to their attitudes to European policies, their trust in the EU, and their thoughts on an exit referendum.

Electoral effects of investment subsidies in national and European elections

ABSTRACT Extensive research has focused on political movements against regional integration and globalisation to understand the causes and consequences of their political success in developed democracies. However, studies on the effectiveness of large-scale institutional efforts to hinder this political development have been limited. My paper investigates the electoral effects of one of the largest investment subsidy programs in the world, the European regional investment policy. Even though it distributes billions of Euros each year to foster economic and social cohesion, it is unclear whether these fiscal transfers produce any tangible electoral effects. I argue that, in this case, supranational institutions have been successful in taking credit, making heavily targeted regions infertile grounds for the electoral success of eurosceptic parties. Leveraging the NUTS-level election dataset (EU-NED) and regression discontinuity models, this paper is the first to investigate the causal link between investment subsidies for less developed regions and electoral support for eurosceptic parties in national and European elections. The analysis shows that high fiscal transfers to less developed regions cause lower levels of Eurosceptic voting.

Lies, liability, and lawful content: Critiquing the approaches to online disinformation in the EU

This article considers legislative approaches to online disinformation in the European Union (EU) and identifies how shifting approaches could undermine applicable fundamental rights standards in the disinformation field. The problem of online disinformation – and its disruptive effects on European elections – has attracted extensive scrutiny at the EU institutional and Member State level. Since 2018, Union institutions have pursued self-regulatory measures for disinformation and have explicitly refrained from including this content in the EU’s intermediary liability regime. A key justification for this approach has been that disinformation generally includes lawful content and that restrictions on lawful content may undermine the right to freedom of expression. As this article maps, however, standards are shifting in the EU legal context regarding online intermediary responsibilities to limit the dissemination of content containing disinformation. This is not only evidenced by a diverse set of Member State laws designed to address misleading electoral communications, but also in several provisions of the Digital Services Act (DSA) which have potential applications in this area. Drawing from relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), this article provides a distillation of key European standards regarding how EU and Member State laws to combat disinformation must ensure compatibility with the right to freedom of expression. This article further considers whether – in light of these standards – divergent legislative approaches to online disinformation in the EU could undermine fundamental rights. Disinformation, Freedom of Expression, CFR, Free Elections, Democracy

When the Vote is Not the Only Factor: (Re)thinking Electoral Corruption in Nineteenth-Century Europe from the Electors’ Perspective

Practices labelled as corrupt in nineteenth-century European elections are generally conceived either as a form of domination where the candidates and their agents use exclusive resources for personal gain or a means of transaction between candidates and voters, on the assumption that candidates deploy corrupt practices in order to perusade voters. Consequently, electoral corruption in the nineteenth century is considered a tool that limits the participation of enfranchised citizens, whose conception of corruption is largely uncultivated. This study challenges this notion and demonstrates how corrupt practices by electors in societies where freedom was not guaranteed, did not restrain but instead extended the possibilities of political participation. The novelty of this study is based on integrating research focused on politicization beyond the elite and the new history of corruption, using Great Britain, France, and Spain as case studies. This integrated process found that corruption was used by electors to overturn unfavourable results, thus providing a platform for participation beyond voting.

The Role of Patients’ Advocacy Groups to Reduce Headache Pain in the European Union: from the Italian Case History to the European Migraine Action Plan

From the “patients’ right to avoid unnecessary suffering and pain” to the “Charter of Rights of the Cephalalgic Patient”, over the years the role of the civic & patients’ organisations to reduce headache pain in the European Union is increased: this research article explores the experiences of individuals affected by migraines and headaches, highlighting challenges, rights, and the need for improved healthcare support. Based on an extensive civic survey conducted at the national level by the Italian NGO Cittadinanzattiva, the study reveals the profound impact of headaches on people's lives, emphasising the lack of disability recognition and difficulties in accessing quality care. Through compelling testimonies, the article underscores the emotional, psychological, and physical burden of these conditions, and describes an innovative artificial intelligence-based tool called “EMI”. Together with many actors, since decades Cittadinanzattiva has been engaged in the fight against chronic pain for decades, both at the national and European levels. In this regard, what attention will the new MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) and the new leadership of the EU Commission DG Santé (Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety) dedicate to this issue in the wake of the upcoming European elections in 2024? From various quarters, there is a call for a European Migraine Action Plan aimed at finally placing this issue on the agenda of European political institutions, promoting a more inclusive and patient-centered vision within the European healthcare landscape, where the pain of those suffering from migraines and headaches is no longer invisible or unheard.

Unpacking second-order elections theory: The effects of ideological extremity on voting in European elections

The proposition that extreme parties should perform better in second-order national contests when compared to adjacent, first-order, national elections has so far received scant attention from scholars. Correspondingly, it lacks a developed theoretical framework and systematic empirical testing. This study strives to fill these lacunae, offering a comparative analysis of all European and adjacent national elections in the last six decades. Contrary to expectations, I find a negative effect of ideological extremity on party performance in (second-order) European elections. Moreover, the effect of ideological extremity is also conditional upon party size and the temporal distance of the European election to the last national election. However, these effects are at odds with theoretical expectations of existing research. These findings have broader implications, especially in terms of transformations of European politics. For instance, they can be indicative of shifts in voter motivations and the electoral costs of governing for extreme parties.

Populism in Context: A Cross-Country Investigation of the Facebook Usage of Populist Appeals During the 2019 European Parliament Elections

Recent scholarship demonstrated that Facebook is a fertile space for populist political communication as its unmediated and viral nature make populist appeals highly efficient in mobilizing voters. However, less attention has been paid to the way these populist messages appear through political actors’ Facebook communication, and what post- and page-level factors they are associated with. We investigate these questions in the context of the 2019 European Parliament election based on a unique cross-national dataset covering twelve European countries. In this study, we categorized 8,074 Facebook posts published on the main Facebook pages of sixty-seven parties. Our findings show that different populist appeals are used in specific ways. For example, at the post level, anti-elitism is frequently used in relation to economy, labor and social policy, and immigration; people-centric appeals are associated with labor and social policy and used when parties call for action, while out-group messages are not related to other topics beyond immigration. “Ideational populist” communication is more frequently articulated in European level and related to the topics of economy and labor and social policy. At the party level, it seems that there are still sharp differences between populist and non-populist parties in their communication.

European Parliament Elections in the Dutch Press and the Mainstreaming of Euroscepticism: Outsiders Becoming Insiders?

AbstractEuroscepticism has become prominent across the European Union, also in countries that were originally seen as pro‐integrationist such as the Netherlands. Based on a qualitative analysis of claims in three major Dutch newspapers, I examine the mainstreaming of Euroscepticism in the Netherlands in the context of the 2009, 2014 and 2019 European Parliament elections. Mainstreaming refers to a process in which an idea becomes an integral part of debates in the public sphere. I examine the mainstreaming of Euroscepticism through a two‐part analysis that centres around a fourfold typology, which distinguishes between supportive, Euroalternative, soft Eurosceptic and hard Eurosceptic claims. I find that Euroscepticism has indeed become mainstream, in debates revolving around arguments for and against the European Union. Furthermore, Euroscepticism has not just become more prominent but has also moved from an outsider to an insider perspective. Yet, it often remains unclear what Euroscepticism actually entails.

Mainstreaming the populist radical right? Online news exposure and voting behavior in the 2019 European Parliament election

AbstractHow does media exposure relate to support for radical right populist parties (RRPPs)? We contribute to this classic debate by analyzing the web browsing histories and survey responses of six thousand study participants in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK during the 2019 European Parliament election. Linking direct measures of online news exposure to voting behavior allows us to assess the effects of the salience of issues politicized by RRPPs on their electoral support. The likelihood to vote for RRPPs was higher when the EU was more salient in individual media diets, while exposure to the less salient issue of immigration did not increase the propensity to vote for RRPPs. Alongside consistent results for other party families and interactions with pre-existing voting intentions, the findings indicate that the electoral effects of online media are contingent on the overall salience of a specific issue and voters’ predispositions.

Understanding European Union Climate Change Governance through Political Parties Euromanifesto

This study offers a novelty specifying climate change as the legislation results in the European Parliament (EP) as an indicator of the consistency of political groups in realising their Euromanifestos. The article aims to investigate precisely the prospects and future of climate change policies in the EU post the 2019 general election. This study adopted qualitative legal research methods by studying the Euromanifestos of political groups in the European Union that competed in the 2019 European elections. Environmental issues, particularly climate change, were a significant focus in the study of these manifestos. Based on data from Euromanifesto, this study selected five EU Regulations as indicators of realising such political promises. In addition, the record of legislation and the results of voting during the establishment of the regulation was also applied as a data source in this study. In general, the cohesion between political groups in the EP is excellent. Based on a manifesto study, there are three essential findings; namely, most political groups in the EP make environmental issues, especially climate change, a politicised issue in elections. The second finding is that there are specific intersections between political groups, so it has implications for making the issue of climate change a common interest, and the results of the vote showed that a majority of Member of European Parliament members supported the establishment of the regulation. Finally, the solidarity of the EP political group cohesion in establishing regulations related to climate change is the last finding in this research.

Elite party disunity negatively predicts mass partisan-ideological sorting

Political parties often feature salient internal conflicts between elite members over the party's positioning on political issues. We consider the relationship between elite partisan disunity and an important element of mass partisanship: partisan-ideological sorting. We argue that the likelihood of a partisan being sorted on a political issue will decrease as the extent of within-party elite disunity increases because this disunity will make it more difficult for mass partisans to ascertain the dominant position in their party and hence undermine persuasion and switching processes. We test this argument using data from the 2009 European Election Studies and 2005–2012 Comparative Candidate Survey. Ultimately, we find that partisan-ideological sorting is substantially lower when party elites are divided on the issue. However, we find weaker evidence in favor of the proposed mechanism. Our findings raise questions about optimal party strategy.

Varieties of antigenderism: the politicization of gender issues across three European populist radical right parties

ABSTRACT This research contributes to the study of populist radical right parties’ (PRRPs) role in gendered democratic backsliding by analyzing their articulation and symbolic representation of gender issues. We compare the politicization of gender issues across three European PRRPs, examining how context-specific gendered opportunity structures – the level of contestation of gender issues in their country, the resonance of antigenderism among their electorate, and their issue repertoire and historical trajectory – shape the extent and ways in which the German AfD, the Italian Lega and the Sweden Democrats politicize gender issues. We conduct a quantitative content analysis of PRRPs’ framing of gender issues and construct topic networks based on the parties’ Facebook and Twitter posts during the European Parliament election campaign 2019. We analyze the salience of gender issues, the broader topical context in which they are embedded, the specific gender issues addressed, and the parties’ positions on these issues. Our results show how context-specific gendered opportunities shape PRRPs’ national gender discourses: A low level of contestation, evidenced by a high public recognition and legal protection of gender and sexual equality, seems to foster a femonationalist framing, while antigenderist discourse is less pronounced in such a context. Instead, a higher level of contestation, expressed in a lower public recognition and legal protection of gender and sexual equality, seems to foster antigenderist discourse. A transnational femonationalist framing, shared by all analyzed parties, relates to a common nativist ideological core.

Voting across borders? The electoral consequences of individual transnationalism

ABSTRACT This article investigates the association between individual-level transnationalism, interactions and cultural skills cutting across European Union (EU) member states, and voting behaviour in the 2019 European elections. The process of EU integration has expanded significantly virtual and physical forms of cross-border mobility in the last decades. Previous works have shown that transnational social exchange furthers Europhile attitudes and dilutes fears for immigrants. Against this backdrop, it is argued that people with high levels of transnationalism have the incentive to vote for parties with pro-EU integration and pro-immigration platforms. Empirical analyses conducted on original public opinion data show that transnational traits significantly affected vote choices in the 2019 European elections. Individual transnationalism is relevant per se in increasing the probability of voting for green and radical-left parties, instead, its negative association with voting for radical right parties runs through EU and immigration attitudes.

The role of hyperactive Twitter accounts in the diffusion of political information

ABSTRACT Social media virality is intertwined with content’s ability to trigger specific reactions; however, little is known regarding the behavioural component of political information diffusion. This study uses big data to investigate the significance of hyperactive social media use in the retransmission of information produced by political opinion leaders on Twitter during Poland’s 2019 European parliamentary election campaign. Using the isolation forest method, the research identified the social bot-like (semi)automated or human-controlled Twitter handles which are referred to as hyperactive accounts. The study finds that the hyperactive accounts produced almost all reactions in our sample (N = 114,036), but their average activity was relatively moderate and did not exceed human capabilities. Although their retweets equal 0.46% of the retweets obtained by political opinion leaders, the random forest regression models suggest that the likes and retweets from hyperactive accounts are the most important determinants of the dissemination of political opinion leaders’ tweets. The results draw attention to the alarming phenomenon of the further increase in Twitter’s interactional asymmetry.

Legislative performance and the electoral connection in European Parliament elections

AbstractThe absence of an electoral connection is a widely held assumption in the scholarship on the European Parliament (EP) and a cause of serious normative concern about the functioning of the European Union. Weak individual legislator accountability is part of this assumption, even if we still know little about the extent to which legislative performance matters for citizens in EP elections that allow preferential voting. This study is the first to analyse how legislative performance influences the preference vote shares of members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and whether this is moderated by their parties’ EU salience and incumbent intra‐party competition. It draws on an original dataset that combines candidate and electoral data from three rounds of EP elections held between 2004 and 2014 under open or flexible list rules with information on individual legislative activity (i.e., number of reports, parliamentary questions and speeches) and leadership positions at EP and committee level. One dimension of legislative performance, report writing, is associated with a larger share of preference votes but only for incumbents of parties assigning high salience to the EU. While MEPs win a higher share of preference votes when they face limited co‐partisan incumbent competition, this factor does not moderate the electoral connection.

The Need to Modernize European Parliament Elections

Bir tanesi henüz yürürlüğe giremese de 1976 tarihli Avrupa Seçim Yasası bugüne kadar iki kez değişikliğe uğramış ve Avrupa Parlamentosu, Mayıs 2022’de Avrupa Seçim Yasasını yürürlükten kaldırmak için yeni bir Konsey tüzüğü önerisi kabul etmiştir. Temel çıkış noktası seçimlerin “Avrupalılaşma”sı olan bu öneri ile Avrupa Parlamentosu seçimlerinin ulusötesi aday listesi, Spitzenkandidaten prosedürü, tüm üye devletlerde yeknesak bir seçim sistemi gibi radikal değişikliklerle yapılması hedeflenmektedir. 2010 yılından itibaren Birliğin içinde bulunduğu kriz döneminin Birlik vatandaşlarının talep ve görüşlerinin gözardı edilmesinden kaynaklandığı düşünüldüğünde Avrupa seçim yasasında yapılması önerilen bu değişikliklerle siyasi partilerin doğrudan Avrupa meselelerine odaklanması ve böylece seçmenlerin de Birlik için en beğendikleri seçim programına oy verme imkanları söz konusu olabilecektir. Her ne kadar Avrupa Birliğinin İşleyişi Hakkındaki Antlaşma m. 223’de öngörülen prosedür nedeniyle yürürlüğe girip girmeyeceği belli olmasa da Avrupa Parlamentosu tarafından kabul edilen önerinin Birliğin geleceğinin belirlenmesinde önemli bir kilometre taşı olduğu düşünülmektedir.

Disinformation and the Brussels bubble: EU correspondents’ concerns and competences in a digital age

European Union (EU) political actors have been heavily affected by the so-called disinformation crisis, leading to intense worries about how EU citizens may be guaranteed access to trustworthy information in the years to come. While there is increasing research on how EU officials, platforms, and political parties react to the threat of disinformation, less attention has been paid to how another crucial group of actors in Brussels copes with this threat: EU correspondents. This paper presents one of the first empirical observations of EU correspondents’ perceptions of the disinformation crisis. We conducted a survey with Brussels-based correspondents ahead of a politicized 2019 European Parliament election campaign, and asked: What are (a) the concerns and (b) self-perceived competences these correspondents have in dealing with disinformation? Our study offers two main take-aways: First, we recommend further studying EU journalism as a complex organism whose concerns and competences are influenced by intra-European differences in press freedom and journalistic professionalisation. Second, disinformation studies in the EU context must no longer neglect the challenges professional journalism faces when aiming to stop false content.

Modulation of Democracy: Partisan Communication During and After Election Campaigns

AbstractIt is well known that politicians speak differently when campaigning. The shadow of elections may affect candidates' change in tone during campaigns. However, to date, we lack a systematic study of the changes in communication patterns between campaign and non-campaign periods. In this study, we examine the sentiment expressed in 4.3 million tweets posted by members of national parliaments in the EU27 from 2018 to 2020. Our results show that (1) the opposition, even populists and Eurosceptics, send more positive messages during campaigns, (2) parties trailing in the polls communicate more negatively, and (3) that the changes are similar in national and European elections. These findings show the need to look beyond campaign times to understand parties' appeals and highlight the promises of social media data to move beyond traditional analyses of manifestos and speeches.

Political news diets and political attitudes in the 2019 EU elections in Italy

ABSTRACT This study investigates Italian citizens’ news diets during the 2019 European election and examines the relationship between these diets and citizens’ attitudes to three central political issues: trust in the EU, prejudice towards migrants and populist attitudes. Combining a self-report survey with passive data recording real news consumption, the study identified three main user profiles. It verified that News Avoiders (meagre news diets) associate with distrust in the EU, anti-immigrant positions and populist attitudes; News Seekers (cross-media and in-depth information) align with open-minded attitudes towards Europe and immigration; the TV-News Centric (almost single-channel news) identify with moderate political attitudes.

Does Digital Campaigning Make a Difference for Individual Candidates in an Open List Proportional Representation System? The Case of the 2019 Election in Belgium

This article looks at the equalization/normalization problem through the lens of campaign spending and investigates the effect of expenses for digital tools on the electoral result of individual candidates in an open list proportional representation system. A multilevel analysis of the campaign expenses of 1253 serious contenders in the Belgian 2019 concurrent federal, regional, and European elections shows that the investment in both owned Web 1.0 media and paid Web 2.0 media does not have an effect on electoral performance. Investing in traditional tools, by contrast, does have a significant positive effect. While most candidates use digital tools, they invest only a small part of their budget in these, which may explain the absence of a digital expense effect. These findings put the use of digital campaigning in perspective, showing that the effect of paid online tools should not be overestimated, and that the role of traditional campaigning is still dominant.