A developing literature on the securitisation of immigration documents the prominence of security-based framing, but its prevalence has not been systematically established in Central and Eastern Europe through an analysis of the relative importance of various immigration-related frames. Using content analysis, this study tests the securitisation of the immigration thesis in the coverage of the refugee crisis between 2013 and 2016 in Czech and Slovak media ( N = 7,910), in particular focusing on frame variation over time, and on differences between quality and tabloid media. The results reveal that the security-threat frame is the dominant frame, while economic framing is significantly less frequent in regard to the topic. While both quality media and tabloids employ the security-threat frame often, it is significantly more prominent in tabloids. In sum, these results confirm the existence of a pre-eminent securitised interpretation of immigration in the region during the crisis.

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.

Elections to the European Parliament fall within the category of second-order elections (SOEs). 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 votes. But do also political parties also behave as if there is less at stake as voters do? This article draws on an original dataset on the political experience of party candidates in the Czech Republic and Slovakia to explicitly link the SOE model to independent actions of political parties. The results show that political parties indeed nominate higher quality candidates to the first-order arena, where more is at stake. Moreover, parties in government in first-order arena react to domestic situation and nominate lower quality candidates to EP elections than parties in opposition. IntroductionThe fact that elections to the European Parliament (EP) are different from national parliamentary elections in European Union (EU) member states has been evident ever since the very first of these Europe-wide elections were held in 1979. In their immediate aftermath, Reif and Schmitt (1980) labelled first direct EP elections as "second-order national elections" (for an overview, see Marsh and Mikhaylov 2010). In a later work, Reif (1997) proposed an operational definition of such second-order elections (SOEs):

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One of the eternal influencing factors on the development of people´s place of living is the problem of burying. These problems change in time but consequentially require long-term planning, the reservation of an area in a proper territorial community with all planned consequences thoroughly thought through. Cemeteries come close to the course of life in society and its relationship to the values of previous generations. According to the state of the cemetery and its tidiness it is possible to make a judgement on the cultural advancement of society. The loss of rituals and the encroaching secularization of society are connected to making the problems of burials and burying taboo. The objective of this work is an attempt to change this state by leading a discussion on the tradition of burying as part of life in the European context of selected cemeteries in Vienna, Brno and Prague. There are taken into consideration the historical influences and the reasons of introducing legal arrangements, historical connections, urban establishments, funereal arts, architecture and pictures of the cemeteries that were studied. There are observed the present trends in burying and the arrangement of existing cemeteries and comparing them with inter-European influences. The problems of cemeteries are presented with their projection into the future on the cultural and ethical level of the moral code.