Trends in European
Elections
Sebastian Popa, University of
Mannheim
Hermann Schmitt, University of
Mannheim/ University of Manchester
8. April 2015
How different are EP
elections?
What we can expect in
2014?
1
Low and decreasing turnout in EP elections
2
Changing trends in turnout?
3
4
Low and decreasing turnout, so what?
Turnout in EP elections is lower, but so is turnout
in all second order elections
The decrease in turnout not characteristic of EP
elections
Not indicative of a lack of legitimacy of the EU level
of governance, nor of an outgrow of EU scepticism
in general
Higher turnout would not change the election
results
Institutional solution: holding elections on
weekends and having multiple constituencies in all
countries could increase turnout significantly
5
What about 2014?
Greater mobilization – list leading candidates
of the major EP parties are adding “European”
faces and voices to the campaign.
More political conflict about EU policies both
within and between member countries.
Greater distinctiveness between national and
European electoral alternatives/parties.
An immediately visible consequence of the
election result: the list leader of the winning EP
party (or party coalition) will be the parliament’s
candidate for EC presidency.
6
Differences in behavior and their
consequences
The benchmark for how well parties
perform in EP elections are the results of
THE PREVIOUS national election
Less strategic voting, protest voting, lower
campaign intensity=> small parties gain
votes
Tendency to punish incumbents (but this is
dependent on the time of elections and
economic performance)
Limited impact of EU issues
7
Small parties win votes, big parties lose
8
Incumbents lose votes…
9
And they lose more in post-communist
countries…
10
But they do not lose if the economy is
doing well…
11
and not small incumbent parties
12
Expectations for 2014
Increase importance of EU related issues (i.e.
increase contestation of the scope and role of the
EU)
Increase support for anti-EU parties
Bigger gains for small parties (increase protest
vote)
Higher losses for incumbents
13
Conclusions
EP elections are characterized: by lower
turnout, better performance of small parties
and a tendency to punish the incumbent
They were mostly about national issues
But this will likely change in 2014 as debates
over the scope and role of the EU became
more salient
Higher turnout in EP elections
Increase importance of EU related issues for
vote choice
14
Euro-Scepticism as a reason?
Euro-scepticism is often understood to be a driving
force of abstentions in EP elections, both in journalistic and academic work (e.g. Blondel et al. 1998).
This however is not normally the case. When
controlling for the standard determinants of electoral
participation –in any election– we find nothing left
for being explained by Euro-scepticism (Schmitt &
van der Eijk 2008).
Standard determinants include resources, sociopolitical integration and mobilisation, habituation,
and political involvement.
The meaning of a low turnout in EP elections
A low turnout is therefore NOT indicative of a crisis
of legitimacy of the European Parliament and the
EU system of governance more generally.
In addition, it can be shown that the composition of
the EP would hardly be different if the level of
participation would be higher. The relative strength
of EP party groups would remain much the same
(van der Eijk, Schmitt & Sapir, Bernhagen & Rose).
However, this is not to say that low turnout is good.
It weakens the electoral connection between
citizens and their representatives, and may eventually have repercussions also for national politics.