How Campaigns Enhance European Issues Voting During European Parliament Elections

Abstract

Based on findings from the literature on campaign effects on the one hand, and the literature on European Parliament elections on the other, we propose a model of European Parliamentary elections in which the campaign shift the calculus of electoral support, making differences in national political allegiances less important and attitudes about the European project more important by informing voters of and getting them interested in European politics. In effect, we argue that the political campaign leading up to the election makes European Parliament elections less second order. While previous studies have demonstrated that EU issues can matter for voting behavior in European Parliament elections, existing research has drawn on post-election surveys that do not enable us to capture campaign effects. Our contribution is to assess the impact of a campaign by utilizing a rolling cross-sectional survey that enables us to track how voters were affected by the campaign. Our findings show that campaigns do have an effect on European Parliament election outcomes, in that they provide information that enables voters to make decisions based on their attitude on European issues, making voter decision-making more dominated by EU issue voting.

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

“…Issue voting in EP elections is enhanced by political campaigns that inform and persuade voters about candidates, policies and performance (Beach et al, 2018), as well as by the availability of information on European integration (Hobolt and Wittrock, 2011). Thus, information and campaigns make EP elections less second-order, enabling voters to become more aware of their own and the parties' EU attitudes and rely on these attitudes as opposed to national heuristics (Beach et al, 2018). 1 On the aggregate level, attempts to identify 'European effects' in EP elections distinct from second-order effects have focused on pan-European shifts in the behavior of voters towards or away from particular party families (Hix and Marsh, 2011).…”

“…The extensive literature on EU issue voting suggests that EU attitudes are an important determinant of vote choice in EP elections (Carrubba and Timpone, 2005; van Spanje and de Vreese, 2011; Hobolt, 2015; Hobolt and de Vries, 2016; van Elsas et al , 2019). Issue voting in EP elections is enhanced by political campaigns that inform and persuade voters about candidates, policies and performance (Beach et al , 2018), as well as by the availability of information on European integration (Hobolt and Wittrock, 2011). Thus, information and campaigns make EP elections less second-order, enabling voters to become more aware of their own and the parties' EU attitudes and rely on these attitudes as opposed to national heuristics (Beach et al , 2018).…”

“…Issue voting in EP elections is enhanced by political campaigns that inform and persuade voters about candidates, policies and performance (Beach et al , 2018), as well as by the availability of information on European integration (Hobolt and Wittrock, 2011). Thus, information and campaigns make EP elections less second-order, enabling voters to become more aware of their own and the parties' EU attitudes and rely on these attitudes as opposed to national heuristics (Beach et al , 2018). 1…”

EU issue voting and the 2014 European Parliament elections: a dynamic perspective

“…Hix and Marsh (2011) show that in terms of aggregate support in the EP elections from 1979 to 2004, parties that emphasize EU issues gain electorally (relative to their results in national elections). At the individual level, however, most empirical studies have focused on explaining support for anti-EU parties only, either by comparing anti-EU parties to all other parties (Beach, Hansen, and Larsen 2017; Van Spanje and De Vreese 2014), or by studying propensity to vote scores for Eurosceptic parties in isolation (Hobolt 2015;Van Elsas 2017). Studies on the 2014 EP elections show that EU attitudes are an important motivation for voting forparticularly right-wing -Eurosceptic parties (Hobolt 2015;Hobolt and De Vries 2016).…”

“…1. The only dynamic study on EU issue voting we know of, by Beach, Hansen, and Larsen (2017), uses rolling cross-sections in Denmark to examine trends over time. 2.…”