The Supply Side of Second-Order Elections: Comparing German National and European Election Manifestos

Abstract

The second-order character of past European elections is a well-established hypothesis with respect to voter turnout and voting behaviour. This paper presents a conceptual framework for testing this hypothesis on the supply side of European elections. It includes three groups of indicators allowing for the comparison of national and European election manifestos to determine the latter's second-order nature: (1) resource allocation, measured by the number of actors involved in manifesto adoption and by the manifestos' length; (2) the manifestos' content, comparing issue congruence and framing; and (3) political competition, measured by the ideological distance between manifestos. Building on this, we analyse the manifestos of all relevant German parties in the 2009 European and national elections using Comparative Manifesto Project data as well as original, self-created data on election manifestos. We find major variations between parties which can neither be explained by government participation nor satisfaction with the European Union. INTRODUCTION European elections are commonly ascribed as second-order elections. Initially, this thesis was developed for the demand side of elections, or voter behaviour, 1 and has been tested as such on several occasions. 2 Going beyond this perspective, questions about parties and their relationship to European elections arise. More precisely, one can ask whether parties also regard European elections as second-order elections and what impact this type of election has on parties' behaviour. In order to answer these questions, an analysis of the allocation of parties' supply is needed to determine whether parties show different allocation patterns in European as opposed to national elections. In other words, by comparing parties' supply of three commoditiescandidates, campaigns and election manifestos -we can evaluate whether parties treat first-and second-order elections differently. Due to the mix of methods and range of data necessary for these analyses, existing empirical studies concentrate on the analysis of each of these three 'commodities' separately. Thus far, only studies on campaigning provide a clear analytical framework for testing the second-order nature of European elections as well as empirical results for single countries, in particular Germany. More precisely, comparative analyses of election campaigns reveal that German parties invest far fewer resources in European than Downloaded by [Monash University Library] at 15:12 03 February 2015 national election campaigns. 3 Additional studies of German election campaigns show, in general, a lower degree of the campaigning professionalism often found in European elections but, furthermore, highlight an increasing professionalism between the campaigns in 2004 to 2009. 4 Whether this finding however is influenced by the subsequent national election four months later is not clear yet. 5 Moreover, a second-order nature can be partially confirmed for individual candidates' campaigning behaviour as they spend less time...

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“…This finding is consistent with conclusions of studies that analysed Euromanifestos in some of the old EU member states (Brunsbach, John and Werner, 2012;Kritzinger, Cavatorta and Chari, 2004;Wüst, 2009). Concerning the second proposition I forwarded, it was only partly verified in the analysisEuromanifestos of those parties that drafted election manifesto for both the 2004 and 2009 EP elections exhibited higher level of Europeanisation at the first EP elections than in subsequent ones held.…”

“…A few studies conducted in Germany analysed election manifestos that parties produce for EP elections and, at the same time, relate their studies to the SOE model. These studies find that Euromanifestos are of 'second-order' nature in terms of (a) resource allocation, (b) manifestos' content, and (c) ideological distance between different parties' manifestos (Brunsbach et al, 2012;Wüst, 2009). Put differently, EP elections are generally considered to be highly domesticised rather than Europeanised whereas they 'should be about European politics and the questions of Europe itself' (Mair, 2000, p. 43).…”

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“…Political parties clearly reflect the supply-side of electoral competition (Marsh and Norris, 1997;Katz 2008;Brunsbach, et al 2012;Pallarés and Keating 2006). Parties select candidates, establish electoral agendas and develop manifestos in the hope of introducing their policy programmes when in office.…”

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