Second-order Elections Theory Research Articles

Testing Europe Salience and Second-Order Election Theories: 2019 European Parliamentary Elections in Lithuania

Abstract The article assesses the 2019 elections to the European Parliament (EP) in Lithuania and their theoretical relevance. The analysis presents the political stances of parties and the electorate towards the EU. The focus then shifts to information and political campaigns, the parties participating in the EP elections, and the electoral results. These aspects serve to evaluate the theoretical relevance of Second-order election theory and the Europe salience theory, revealing the absence of Eurosceptic, protest, populist, and postmaterial mood in the 2019 EP elections in Lithuania.

2019 European Elections in Cyprus: An Empirical Exploration of Second-Order Election Effects and Europe Salience

Abstract By focusing on Cyprus’ constitutional and political system in light of the most recent European elections, this article explores and empirically analyses the second-order election theory and the European salience theory. The study applies these theories to identify key trends in Cypriot voters’ electoral behavior, including their attitudes toward European integration. The contribution starts with a brief preliminary section on the country’s historical background, geopolitical profile, and political landscape. It then provides insights on Cyprus’ electoral system, the political parties’ campaigns, and election results. The findings seek to unveil voter attitudes and political trends in Cyprus, feeding public discussion and academic dialogue on the issue in anticipation of the upcoming 2024 European election. The article aims to clarify the European South’s attitudes toward voting and what to expect in the upcoming 2024 elections, considering challenges, threats, and volatility.1

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.

Beyond the second-order national elections model: Incumbency effects in regional elections in the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT Literature provides four basic theories to explain regional election results and how they differ from national patterns: authority of regional governments, ethnic or linguistic cleavages, congruence of national and regional electoral systems, and second-order election effects. The second-order national election theory explains why regional elections exhibit lower turnout levels, why government parties lose voter support, and why opposition, minor, and new parties gain support. While second-order election theory provides the dominant explanation for countries with low regional power, we argue in favour of an additional explanation based on incumbency effects on parties’ electoral support. We test the explanations on Czech regional and national election data for the years 2000–2020. The results attest to a strong effect of regional governorship, with a bonus of 5 percentage points for parties whose governors run for re-election. Parties also receive another bonus when national-level MPs and local mayors are present on the ballot.

National and local effects in the Italian regional elections (2018-2020). Beyond second-order election expectations?

ABSTRACT This article investigates Italian regional elections held between 2018 and 2020 in order to assess whether, and if so, to what extent, regional elections present nationalized or localized features. We argue that the Italian regional elections do not perfectly reflect the expectations deriving from the Second Order Elections (SOE) theory. However, they are not completely ‘localized’, and they often mirror the national climate, as captured by Reif and Schmitt’s classical empirical expectations. Our contribution consists of two parts. First, we descriptively measure and discuss the extent to which high rates of volatility are due to local (localness) or national factors (nationalness). We do so by separately inspecting volatility produced by variations in electoral supply and by variations in vote shares. Secondly, after reflecting on the expected scope of the SOE theory in these terms, the latter component of volatility is explored to test Reif and Schmitt’s classic expectations. We show that, despite profound party-system change, recent Italian regional elections are still second-order – featuring, compared to legislative elections, lower turnouts and reversals for large, governing parties. Moreover, we show that, on top of the impact of national politics, regional and local peculiarities are nonetheless clearly visible; and, regardless of the recent extreme turbulence, they (mostly) follow classic historical trends and features.

Still second-order? European elections in the era of populism, extremism, and Euroscepticism

The continued relevance of the second-order elections (SOE) theory is one of the most widely debated issues in the study of European Parliament (EP) elections. While the theory has been criticised from many angles, the recent success of populist, extremist, and Eurosceptic parties raises additional questions about the applicability of a model that depicts EP elections as a low-stakes affair revolving around national issues. This article tests the SOE model with party-level data from all 175 EP elections held between 1979 and 2019. While turnout in EP elections remains well below participation rates in national elections, the 2019 EP elections were marked by a significant reduction in the average turnout gap. Across all election years, party size is the most potent predictor of electoral gains and losses in EP elections. Incumbency is associated with electoral losses in most EP election years. These effects are moderated by the electoral cycle and the electoral system in some but not all years. The expectation that the SOE model performs worse in countries with fragmented party systems was not confirmed. All in all, the SOE model continues to wield significant explanatory power in both the West and the East.

The influence of the domestic election cycle on the turnout for European parliamentary elections. The case of Poland

The purpose of the article is to diagnose the causes of the increased interest shown by Poles in the European parliamentary election in 2019. From 2014 to 2019, Poles’ participation in elections to the European Parliament went up from 23.83% to 45.68%. Drawing on Europe salience theory and second-order election theory, I set out to determine whether changes in Poles’ attitudes towards the European Union led to this almost twofold increase in turnout from 2014 to 2019, or whether this trend was mainly attributable to the election cycle, that is, the coincidence in 2019 of both European and domestic parliamentary elections. My research involved an analysis of survey data (CBOS, Eurobarometr), statistical data, and the course of the European parliamentary election campaign.
 During the analysis, it turned out that in the years 2014–2019 there were no significant changes in how the European Union and its institutions were perceived by Poles that could explain the dramatic increase in interest in the European election. What had the greatest impact on voter behaviour was the fact that the European election was held just several months before an election to the Polish parliament. The Polish political parties treated the European election in May as a test of support in the nation election to be held in the autumn – as a ‘quasi-first round.’ The European election campaign was heavily covered by the media, and focused on domestic issues (building up Poland’s welfare state). The ruling party’s announcement of numerous social reforms and a desire to influence the result of the ‘May round’ mobilised an above-average number of Poles to take an active part in the European election.

Second-order effects or ideational rifts? Explaining outcomes of European elections in an era of populist politics

AbstractThis article seeks to enhance our understanding of the European Parliament (EP) elections in an era of populist and anti-European Union (EU) politics. Specifically, it aims to evaluate both the conventional second-order elections theory as well as an alternative approach that regards EP elections as an arena for conflict between liberal-democratic Europeanism and populist, extremist and euroskeptic alternatives. It does so by deriving a series of hypotheses from both approaches and testing these with party-level data from all EU member states in the context of 2019 EP elections. Our results challenge both explanations. Party size is a robust predictor of electoral performance in EP elections, and its effect is moderated by electoral system design. While large parties lost votes across the EU, their losses were more pronounced in countries where national legislatures are elected under plurality or mixed systems. We find no evidence of incumbent losses or electoral cycle effects. Party-level populism, extremism and euroskepticism did not systematically predict electoral performance but party ideology appears to have moderated the effects of incumbency and party size. Incumbency was associated with vote gain among populist and far-right parties but not other parties, and the effect of size also varied across party ideologies. In sum, these results suggest that vote fragmentation in the 2019 EP elections is partly explained by electoral system design, while it was not driven by the desire to punish political incumbents. Populist and far-right parties in power appear to be particularly immune to punishing behavior often associated with EP elections.

European Elections, National Agenda: Facebook in the 2019 Romanian EP Elections

Politicians and political campaigns are not inadvertent to the development of social media platforms as environments that allow access to a larger audience. Not relying solely on the traditional media as a mouthpiece for their messages and taking matters into their own hands offers new segues for analyzing political communication. However, not all elections are of equal interest, both for the electorate and for the candidates, as second-order election theory suggests (Reif & Schmitt, 1980; Hix & Marsh, 2004). This paper investigates the area situated at the intersection of these two research directions. This quantitative study aims to analyze how Romanian political parties and candidates used Facebook in the electoral campaign for the European Parliament, in May 2019. Th e study follows the correlation between Facebook metrics, like frequency of posts and the popularity of the pages, and the political agendas reflected in each party’s Facebook posts. The conclusions are consistent with second-order elections theory, but raise questions about the dependable nature of Facebook metrics.

The European Parliament Elections and Czech Political Parties: Much Ado About Nothing?

The paper inquires divergences in electoral programs of four Czech political parties (the ČSSD, KDU-ČSL, KSČM, and the ODS) as delivered for all the previous European Parliament elections. The aim of this study is to compare the use of national and European themes as delineated in programs. It is assumed that, in many cases, the programs contain topics and aspects which are specific and valid for elections on the national level instead. Thus, the paper elaborates on one of the characteristics of the second-order elections theory as exemplified in the Euro-elections. Results of the analysis showed a significant superiority of national affairs over the European issues in the examined samples. Although the number of political parties varies in individual periods, the study has also confirmed the assumption drawn from the theory of second-order elections. Therefore, political parties utilize political programs for the European Parliament elections as of national interest with domestic affairs, not European. Furthermore, the study considers dissimilarities among political parties in positive and negative attitudes toward the EU. Hence, sundry approaches to European affairs may be identified across the Czech political parties.

Электоральная активность на муниципальных выборах в посткоммунистических странах

In this article, the electoral turnout in the municipal elections held in post-communist states is compared. Using correlation analysis, comparing electoral turnout and its change as well as municipal/national electoral gap, the authors reveal principal features of the electoral behavior in the local elections. The study shows that the electoral turnout is not affected by the level of political competition and a size of municipalities either in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) or in Russia. However, the turnout itself which is usually low can be explained with the use of the second-order elections theory. At the same time, the ongoing change does not prove the increasing number of disinterested or disappointed voters in some of the consolidated CEE democracies. On the contrary, a number of CEE states demonstrate a growing interest of voters towards a local government, sometimes by contrast with a real disappointment in national politics. Indeed, more successful democracies in the Northern part of Central and Eastern Europe usually deliver a higher turnout level. In Russian cities, the crucial influence of pro-regime mobilization is in evidence, while poorly developed civic culture of participation depresses the turnout. As a result, under conditions of weak interest of Russian authorities to boost turnout in the local elections, Russia experiences a natural decline in voter turnout also reflecting poor social efficiency of municipal authorities, which puts the country seriously behind CEE in terms of electoral turnout. Thus, the more successful consolidation of democracy in the CEE states has created a turning point between growing and falling interest in local elections in different states and/or cities depending on individual political developments at the national level. Meanwhile, Russia experiences its own “natural” development resulting in falling local turnout caused by the lack of interest both from local communities and authorities.

Local autonomy and national–local turnout gap: Higher stakes, higher turnout?

ABSTRACT This paper offers a cross-national comparison of the aggregate turnout rates in local elections across 21 European countries between 1990 and 2014. The study confirms that the aggregate turnout in local elections is almost always lower than the turnout in the preceding parliamentary election; yet, the national–local turnout gap varies considerably across European countries. The level of local autonomy, i.e. the amount of power and discretion available at the local level turned out to be only a weak explanation of this participation gap. The Local Autonomy Index (LAI) had a positive effect on the local voter turnout, which is in line with the ‘less at stake’ argument of the second-order elections theory, yet the magnitude of this effect is rather small. The synchronization of electoral cycles plays a much more significant role in explaining the aggregate local voter turnout.

Turnout, preferential voting and vote flows in the E.U. election1

ABSTRACTThis article aims at focusing on four main features of the European elections that were held on 26 May 2019. Firstly, it analyses electoral turnout, both from a diachronic and a geographical point of view. Secondly, it presents electoral data and identifies winners and losers of the vote, not only by comparing 2019 E.U. results to 2014 E.U. results and 2018 political results, but especially focusing on the territorial dimension of electoral dynamics. Thirdly, it discusses flows of vote in five Italian cities (Brescia, Turin, Florence, Naples, Palermo), in order to give a clearer picture of how citizens (potentially) changed their electoral preferences from 2018 to 2019. Fourthly, it focuses on preferential vote, with the aim of distinguishing between parties characterized by ‘micro-personalization’ and ‘macro-personalization’. On many of these aspects, the 2019 European elections in Italy can be understood on the basis of the well-known ‘second-order election theory’. Yet, there are also interesting empirical findings that deviate from this pattern, among which the electoral success of the League – one of the two parties in government at the moment of the elections – merits further attention and can be mostly explained on the basis of government political action. That same electoral success, in addition, represented one of the causes that led to the end of the so-called yellow-green government in August 2019.

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

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 article 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. The paper shows that feeling of political efficacy makes voting a sensible act for a per­son. Feeling close to certain political party motivates a person to support his or her party in all types of elections. The importance of factors related to the second-order elections paradigm is partly confirmed by the voter turnout in 2019 EP elections. More mobilization efforts by the parties and more visible election campaign made the topic of the EP elections more public and motivated the voter to turn out.

Do European Parliament elections foster challenger parties' success on the national level?

European Parliament elections create structural advantages for challenger parties. Building on the second-order elections theory, this article argues that European Parliament elections foster challenger parties' success on the national level by increasing their visibility and offering an opportunity structure for domestic politicisation of Europe. I test this proposition by exploiting the quasi-exogenous timing of European Parliament elections and the variation in national electoral cycles since 1979. A country-fixed effects model and two placebo-tests show that populist radical right parties gain momentum in the supranational contest, particularly when coinciding campaigns increase the domestic salience of Europe. Considering their antagonism to an integrative Europe, it seems ironic that the European Parliament elections foster the ascendency of just these opponents of the European idea.

Do European Parliament Elections Impact National Party System Fragmentation?

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.

Do parties respond? How electoral context influences party responsiveness

How responsive are political parties to the issue priorities of voters? While there are numerous studies that examine policy position congruence between parties and voters or government responsiveness, we know little about the extent to which parties adjust their policy priorities to the issue concerns of voters. Following saliency and issue ownership theory, we argue that political parties listen to their voters by emphasizing policy issues in their election manifestos that have been prioritized by citizens. However, in line with second-order election theory, we expect that issue responsiveness varies with the electoral context. To test our theoretical expectations, we generated a novel dataset that combines data on issue attention of political parties from the Comparative Manifesto and the Euromanifesto projects with data on policy priorities of voters from the European Election Studies, the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and various national election studies. We empirically test our theoretical claims based on a comprehensive analysis of 104 parties from 17 countries competing in 84 national and European elections from 1986 to 2011. Our findings have important implications for political representation in Europe.

Towards the European(-ised) Public Sphere: The Case of EP Elections in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

European Parliament (EP) elections fall within the category of second-order elections: because these types of elections do not lead to the formation of government there is less at stake and, consequently, voters behave differently when casting ballot. However, since the behaviour of voters in elections cannot be perceived in isolation from the behaviours of political parties and media, the question then arises if media (and political parties) also perceive that there is less at stake and hence they behave differently. To this aim, this article analyses the news media coverage of the 2004 and 2009 EP elections in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (N = 5672) and, at the same time, integrates the second-order election theory with the behaviours of the media. Moreover, the article provides unique comparative evidence of news coverage of national parliamentary (N = 5435) and EP elections in both countries. The results indicate that media across the EU only marginally cover EP elections and particularly less than national first-order elections and that coverage of EP elections is dominated by domestic EU political actors. The findings are discussed in the light of existing literature on EP elections, the existence of Europeanised public spheres and EU’s legitimacy as well as democratic deficit.

The Principle of Cyclicality of the Second-Order Election Theory for Simultaneous Multi-Level Elections

The principle of cyclicality in the leading theory of multi-level voting – second-order election theory – assumes that simultaneous multi-level voting should be congruent and that regional electoral contests should have no second-order election effects: regional turnout should not decrease, parties in office should not lose support, while opposition, small and new parties should not attract more votes. This article tests the principle of cyclicality of second-order election theory against a set of simultaneous multi-level elections in order to explain why second-order election effects rise and fall.

Congruence Between Regional and National Elections

The number of regional elections and what is at stake at these elections have increased considerably over the past decades. Yet the interpretation of regional election results lags behind, in particular explanations for when and how regional election results deviate from national election results. This article conceptualizes congruence of the vote in three different ways that make it possible to assess the contribution of three competing theoretical approaches in explaining variation in dissimilarity between vote shares across space and time. These approaches are second-order election theory, regional authority and territorial cleavages. The hypotheses are tested against a data set containing the results of more than 4,000 regional and national elections held in 360 regions in 18 countries. It appears that the depth of territorial cleavages explains variation across space, but to understand change over time one needs to consider institutional authority and second-order election effects.