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Citizens' ability to hold corrupt politicians accountable is a key feature of democratic political systems. Particularly in the European Union (EU), such accountability mechanisms are often argued to malfunction due to the EU's complicated and opaque institutional structure, which could compromise voters' basic abilities to detect political malpractice in Brussels. Putting EU voters' attentiveness to the test, we provide quasi‐experimental evidence of the causal effect of a recent corruption scandal in the European Parliament. Leveraging an 'Unexpected Event during Survey Design' identification strategy in France and Germany, we document a sizeable negative effect of the so‐called Qatargate scandal on public trust in the European Parliament. This provides causal evidence on the presence of attentiveness to EU politics within these electorates. Given the EU's complex institutional structure, we derive two alternative implications from this finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The absence of an electoral connection is a widely held assumption in the scholarship on the European Parliament (EP) and a cause of serious normative concern about the functioning of the European Union. Weak individual legislator accountability is part of this assumption, even if we still know little about the extent to which legislative performance matters for citizens in EP elections that allow preferential voting. This study is the first to analyse how legislative performance influences the preference vote shares of members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and whether this is moderated by their parties’ EU salience and incumbent intra-party competition. It draws on an original dataset that combines candidate and electoral data from three rounds of EP elections held between 2004 and 2014 under open or flexible list rules with information on individual legislative activity (i.e., number of reports, parliamentary questions and speeches) and leadership positions at EP and committee level. One dimension of legislative performance, report writing, is associated with a larger share of preference votes but only for incumbents of parties assigning high salience to the EU. While MEPs win a higher share of preference votes when they face limited co-partisan incumbent competition, this factor does not moderate the electoral connection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2014–2019 European Parliament (EP) contained an unprecedented number of Eurosceptic Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). These changes reflected a growing politicisation of European integration in which conflicts between those opposing the process and those favouring it became more pronounced. Using a unique time series of surveys of the European parliamentarians, we examine how far the policy preferences of the MEPs responded to this politicisation. MEPs' preferences over general policy questions as well as European Union (EU)‐specific issues have traditionally been described by a multi‐dimensional space: with a left‐right dimension, incorporating both economic and socio‐cultural issues, distinct from a pro‐/anti‐Europe dimension. We find that the political space in the EP evolved in the 2014–2019 parliament, with MEPs' preferences more strongly aligned along a single dimension, which captures economic, socio‐cultural, and EU integration issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When reporting on election results, the media declare parties as election 'winners' or 'losers', which has important consequences for voter perceptions and government formation. This article investigates news coverage of parties' electoral performance in proportional representation systems, in which election results are often less clear‐cut compared to majoritarian systems. It tests the extent to which news coverage of parties' electoral performance is based on objective measures or on party ideology. Its focus on the aftermath of the 2019 European Parliament election allows holding the electoral context constant across the 16 countries under study. Results from a Heckman selection model show that alongside a party's status as plurality winner and changes in electoral support, parties with radical socio‐cultural policy positions are both more likely to be covered and declared election winners in the news. These results have important implications for citizens' attitudes and perceived party legitimacy in democratic societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains Members of European Parliament's (MEPs') decisions to recognize some interest groups as relevant policy actors? Addressing this question is fundamental for understanding the role of political elites in shaping patterns of interest representation and interest groups' role in legislative decision making. Building on theories of legislative behaviour and informational theories of legislative lobbying, we argue that MEPs give recognition to those organizations that are instrumental for achieving key political goals: re‐election, career‐progression and policy influence. The pursuit of these goals generates different patterns of MEP recognition of interest groups. We contribute to the literature in three ways. Conceptually, we propose interest group recognition as a key concept for understanding interactions and links between legislative and non‐legislative actors. We illustrate the high conceptual relevance of recognition for interest groups research while noting its conspicuous neglect in the literature. We address this gap and place the concept central stage in understanding legislators' attention to and behaviour towards interest organizations. Theoretically, we build on a classic framework explaining legislators' behaviour and refine it through the lenses of informational theories of legislative lobbying. We argue and show that legislators recognize organizations that enhance electoral prospects in their home Member States, and that legislator–group ideological proximity and an interest group's prominence in a specific policy field affect MEPs' decisions to recognize some organizations as relevant actors. Our argument acknowledges the importance of the broader context in which MEPs operate and pays attention to how they react to and interact with it. Empirically, we propose an original and innovative research design to identify and measure recognition with the help of social media data. Our measurement strategy constitutes a significant improvement insofar that it reduces the challenges of measurement bias usually associated with self‐reported data generated through interviews, surveys, or the textual analysis of newspaper articles and official documents. Our research design allows using fine‐grained measures of key dependent and explanatory variables and offers the very first analysis of MEP interest group recognition that holds across decision‐making events and policy areas. We test our argument on a new dataset with 4 million observations recording the recognition of more than 7,000 organizations by 80 per cent of MEPs serving in EP8. We find that MEPs are more likely to recognize organizations from their Member State, particularly under flexible‐ and open‐list electoral institutions. MEPs are also more likely to recognize organizations that share their ideological affinities and are prominent actors in policy areas legislators specialize in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parliamentary questions are an essential tool of legislative oversight. However, the extent to which they are effective in controlling the executive remains underspecified both theoretically and methodologically. This article advances a systematic framework for evaluating the effectiveness of parliamentary questions drawing on principal–agent theory, the public administration literature on accountability and communication research. The framework is called the 'Q&A approach to legislative oversight' based on the premise that the study of parliamentary questions (Q) needs to be linked to their respective answers (A) and examined together (Q&A) at the micro‐level as an exchange of claims between legislative and executive actors. Methodologically, the Q&A approach to legislative oversight offers a step‐by‐step guide for qualitative content analysis of Q&A that can be applied to different legislative oversight contexts at different levels of governance. It is argued that the effectiveness of Q&A depends on the strength of the questions asked and the responsiveness of answers provided, which are correspondingly operationalised. To illustrate the merits of the approach, the article includes a systematic case study on the relationship between the European Parliament and the European Central Bank in banking supervision (2013–2018), showing the connection between specific institutional settings and the effectiveness of parliamentary questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some issues receive more interest from the public, while others do not? This paper develops a theoretical and empirical approach that explains the degree to which issues expand from the elite to the public. We examine how candidates in the 2014 European Parliament elections talked about EU issues, in comparison to other political issues. We rely on data collected from Twitter and use a combination of human coding and machine learning to analyse what facilitates interactions from the public. We find that most political actors did not try to engage with the public about EU issues, and lack of engagement results in less interactions from the general public. Our findings contribute to understanding why EU issues still play a secondary role in European politics, but at the same time highlight what low‐cost communicational tools might be useful to overcome this expansion deficit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When and why do parliamentary majorities in Europe suppress parliamentary minority rights? This article argues that such reforms are driven by substantive policy conflict in interaction with existing minority rights. Government parties curb minority rights if they fear minority obstruction due to increased policy conflict and a minority‐friendly institutional status quo. Empirical support is found for this claim using comparative data on all reforms in 13 Western European parliaments since 1945. A curbing of minority rights is significantly more likely under conditions of heightened policy conflict and these effects are stronger the more the institutional status quo favours opposition parties. Contrary to frequent claims of consensual rule changes from single‐country studies in Europe, these findings demonstrate the importance of competitive strategies in explaining institutional reform in European parliaments. The conditional impact of the status quo provides interesting theoretical links to historical institutionalist arguments on path dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of the discourse about the democratic deficit and declining public support for the European Union (EU), institutionalist scholars have examined the roles of institutions in EU decision making and in particular the implications of the empowered European Parliament. Almost in isolation from this literature, prior research on public attitudes toward the EU has largely adopted utilitarian, identity and informational accounts that focus on individual‐level attributes. By combining the insights from the institutional and behavioural literature, this article reports on a novel cross‐national conjoint experiment designed to investigate multidimensionality of public attitudes by taking into account the specific roles of institutions and distinct stages in EU decision making. Analysing data from a large‐scale experimental survey in 13 EU member states, the findings demonstrate how and to what extent the institutional design of EU decision making shapes public support. In particular, the study finds a general pattern of public consensus about preferred institutional reform regarding powers of proposal, adoption and voting among European citizens in different countries, but notable dissent about sanctioning powers. The results show that utilitarian and partisan considerations matter primarily for the sanctioning dimension in which many respondents in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Sweden prefer national courts to the Court of Justice of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Specialisation and delegation of policy leadership within committees is the norm rather than the exception in legislatures around the world. Yet, little research has studied the sub‐groups of lawmakers who serve as policy leaders on particular bills. This article uses conceptual and methodological tools from social network analysis to investigate the groups' composition and relational structure. It tests the proposition that limited human resources lead lawmakers from small parties to more frequently engage with a greater number of colleagues from other parties across a wider range of policy areas. This may have important relational benefits that have the potential to outweigh the structural disadvantages of small party size. The article examines whether small party lawmakers participate more, are more central and have greater potential for brokerage in policy‐making networks, or if the constraints associated with small party size and/or particular ideological leanings prevent their realisation. Empirically, the analyses focus on working relationships between rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs in the adoption of reports by standing committees of the 7th European Parliament, 2009–2014. Methodologically, a mixed methods approach is employed. The quantitative analyses show that small party size does not affect legislators' participation in policy‐making networks, but that it increases legislators' centrality and brokerage potential. Regarding ideology, being committed to democratic participation as a good in itself has a positive association with all three outcomes, while attitudes to European integration show no effect. The qualitative data suggest that the relational benefits of belonging to a small party partially mitigate the structural disadvantages associated with it. They also indicate that policy making in the European Parliament is quite inclusive, as any systematic exclusion tends to be the result of self‐marginalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While intersectionality is a recurrent theme in the literature on women's political representation, few studies empirically disentangle who are the women who get elected to parliaments. An argument on biases in recruitment practices suggests that those who are members of more than one outgroup, such as young women, benefit from an 'outgroup advantage'. In elections, a candidate with two outgroup features might attract more voter support than a candidate with just one outgroup feature. Hence, nominating a candidate that is both young and female could be a rational move by (male) elites in political parties that allows them to open fewer seats to newcomers. These expectations are tested on data for all members of the European Parliament since 1979. Not only is it found that women's presence increased steadily throughout the parliament's history, but also that women's representation is consistently highest among the group of young representatives, lower among middle‐aged Members of the European Parliament and lowest among older representatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article analyses what makes political candidates run a party‐focused or personalised election campaign. Prior work shows that candidates face incentives from voters and the media to personalise their campaign rhetoric and promises at the expense of party policy. This has raised concerns about the capacity of parties to govern effectively and voters’ ability to hold individual politicians accountable. This article builds on the literature on party organisation and considers the possible constraints candidates face from their party in personalising their election campaigns. Specifically, it is argued that party control over the candidate nomination process and campaign financing constrains most political candidates in following electoral incentives for campaign personalisation. Using candidate survey data from the 2009 EP election campaign in 27 countries, the article shows how candidates from parties in which party officials exerted greater control over the nomination process and campaign finances were less likely to engage in personalised campaigning at the expense of the party programme. The findings imply that most parties, as central gatekeepers and resource suppliers, hold important control mechanisms for countering the electoral pressure for personalisation and advance our understanding of the incentives and constraints candidates face when communicating with voters. The article discusses how recent democratic reforms, paradoxically, might induce candidate personalisation with potential negative democratic consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In many political systems, legislators serve multiple principals who compete for their loyalty in legislative votes. This article explores the political conditions under which legislators choose between their competing principals in multilevel systems, with a focus on how election proximity shapes legislative behaviour across democratic arenas. Empirically, the effect of electoral cycles on national party delegations’ ‘collective disloyalty’ with their political groups in the European Parliament (EP) is analysed. It is argued that election proximity changes the time horizons, political incentives and risk perceptions of both delegations and their principals, ‘punctuating’ cost‐benefit calculations around defection as well as around controlling, sanctioning and accommodating. Under the shadow of elections, national delegations’ collective disloyalty with their transnational groups should, therefore, increase. Using a new dataset with roll‐call votes cast under legislative codecision by delegations between July 1999 and July 2014, the article shows that the proximity of planned national and European elections drives up disloyalty in the EP, particularly by delegations from member states with party‐centred electoral rules. The results also support a ‘politicisation’ effect: overall, delegations become more loyal over time, but the impact of election proximity as a driver of disloyalty is strongest in the latest parliament analysed (i.e., 2009–2014). Furthermore, disloyalty is more likely in votes on contested and salient legislation, and under conditions of Euroscepticism; by contrast, disloyalty is less likely in votes on codification files, when a delegation holds the rapporteurship and when the national party participates in government. The analysis sheds new light on electoral politics as a determinant of legislative choice under competing principals, and on the conditions under which politics ‘travels’ across democratic arenas in the European Union's multilevel polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can a directly elected European Parliament help deliver standards by which the European Union can be indirectly legitimated through its component national democracies? This article argues that the Union can be indirectly legitimate where it helps member state democracies meet their own obligations to their own publics. The Union can do just that by managing externalities in ways needed to secure core values of justice, democracy and freedom from arbitrary domination within member states. Yet that poses a predicament: for if any one member state has an interest in imposing negative externalities or in freeriding on positive externalities provided by another, then so may its voters and democratic institutions. The article argues a directly elected European Parliament can help manage that predicament both by identifying externalities and by ensuring their regulation meets standards of public control, political equality and justification owed to individual national democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections produced a record proportion of women MEPs overall (37 per cent). Yet, these results vary widely across countries and parties. This article aims to explain these variations, evaluating not only who the elected representatives of the 8th EP are, but also how they got there. Are the paths to the EP the same for women and men? Are there gender differences in terms of MEPs' political experience? A unique dataset listing more than 700 elected MEPs and their background, party and country characteristics is used to empirically examine who makes it to the EP and through which route. The results of the analysis suggest no significant gender differences in the pathways to the EP. Yet, parties matter: more women were elected to the 8th EP from left-wing than from right-wing or 'new' parties, and both men and (especially) women representing right-wing parties tend to be politically more experienced than their fellow MEPs from other types of parties. Furthermore, it is found that men are more likely than women to be promoted straight from party office to the EP, suggesting that some pathways to the EP are less open to women than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2008/2009 economic crisis has been identified as an important element contributing to declining trust in institutions in Europe and worldwide. However, it is unclear whether this decline in trust is distributed homogenously among citizens or whether there are differences across social strata. This article applies multilevel models to six waves of European Social Survey (ESS) data to analyse changes in trust in the European Parliament (EP) from 2002 to 2012 in 20 European Union countries. Moreover, it investigates whether individuals with different socioeconomic backgrounds experienced different reductions in trust. The results indicate that trust in the EP declined the most in the peripheral European countries hit hardest by the economic crisis: Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Cyprus, Greece and Spain. Furthermore, the results suggest that the decline in trust was more pronounced among subjects with lower social status. The tightening of the link between social and political inequalities is especially preoccupying considering the importance of trust in institutions for citizens to actively participate in society, voice their needs and demand their place at the table. Hence, the worsening economic conditions, combined with declining levels of trust, are not only troublesome for the functioning of democracies as a whole, but they are also problematic at the individual level as they are likely to perpetuate the divide among subjects at different ends of the social ladder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on an original dataset covering more than 100 political parties in over 20 European Union Member States, this article analyses how political recruitment procedures affect the proportion of women nominated on party lists in the context of the 2009 European Parliament elections. The findings show that the inclusiveness of the selectorates in the early stage of candidate selection processes is a key determinant of the representativeness of lists regarding their gender composition. Moreover, it is found that neither territorial centralisation nor the inclusiveness of the selectorate in the later stage of candidate selection play a significant role. The key to the puzzle, therefore, lies in the composition of the initial pool of potential candidates and those who make initial nominations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Members of the European Parliament ( MEPs) represent their citizens in European Union policy making, having the power to approve, amend or reject the near majority of legislation. The media inform EU citizens about their representatives and are able to hold them publicly accountable. However, we know little about whether, and to what extent, MEPs are visible in the news. This study investigates the visibility of MEPs in national broadsheets in Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. It seeks to explain individual-level variation by employing an original dataset of news visibility of 302 MEPs over a period of 25 months ( September 2009- September 2011) and tests the applicability of the news values and mirror theories in the context of supranational politics. The results show that political office, length of tenure and domestic party leadership have a positive effect. Legislative activities have a mixed effect on MEP news visibility. Attendance negatively affects news visibility, while non-attached MEPs receive more news coverage. In short, despite the core supranational nature of EP legislative politics, MEP news visibility primarily depends on journalists' domestic considerations. This informs both our understanding of MEP parliamentary behaviour and journalism studies in the context of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the increasing politicisation of Europe signify a step towards the legitimation of the Union? This could be the case if the increased public intensity of debate and polarisation of opinion brought about by politicisation do not fragment the audience and if arguments presented in public are sufficiently clear about the desired nature of the polity. To answer this question, the focus of this article is on dynamic contestation in the public sphere using original data of news platforms and political blogs in 12 EU Member States and transnational websites during the European Parliament election campaign of 2009. The results are, first, that diffuse eurosceptic evaluations dominate public debates despite large variation in the intensity of debate across Member States. Second, a majority of evaluations made, particularly those by citizens leaving comments online, are negative in all countries included in this study. A gap between elites and citizens persists, but it appears less pronounced than often proclaimed in the literature. And third, democracy is a primary concern in EU polity contestation, especially for those evaluating the EU negatively. Although little evidence is found of a fragmentation of audiences, the prominence of diffuse euroscepticism poses a major challenge to legitimation of the Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some European law proposals are subject to scrutiny by national parliaments while others go unchecked. The analysis in this article indicates that the opposition scrutinises European Union law to gather information on the proceedings inside the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. Yet whereas strong opposition parties scrutinise highly politicised law proposals, weak opposition parties tend to scrutinise those proposals that are negotiated under the non-transparent fast-track procedure. In addition, there is ample evidence that the leading minister initiates scrutiny in order to strengthen his or her intergovernmental bargaining leverage. Yet, this Schelling Conjecture presumes that the party of the minister is located between the expected bargaining position in the Council and the coalition partner. Any other domestic interest constellation could lead to scrutiny motivated by whistle blowing. However, an issue's salience helps us to separate the whistle blowing from the Schelling Conjecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News about the European Union ( EU) looks different in different countries at different points in time. This study investigates explanations for cross-national and over-time variation in news media coverage of EU affairs drawing on large-scale media content analyses of newspapers and television news in the EU-15 (1999), EU-25 (2004) and EU-27 (2009) in relation to European Parliament ( EP) elections. The analyses focus in particular on explanatory factors pertaining to media characteristics and the political elites. Results show that national elites play an important role for the coverage of EU matters during EP election campaigns. The more strongly national parties are divided about the EU in combination with overall more negative positions towards the EU, the more visible the news. Also, increases in EU news visibility from one election to the next and the Europeanness of the news are determined by a country's elite positions. The findings are discussed in light of the EU's alleged communication deficit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which parties represented in the European Parliament ( EP) are able to extract regular donations from their MEPs' salaries and, if they extract donations, how great are they? In the literature on party finances, there has been a lack of attention paid to the use of salaries of elected representatives as a source of funding. This is surprising given that the national headquarters of many parties in Europe regularly collect 'party taxes': a fixed (and often significant) share of their elected representatives' salaries. In filling this gap, this article theoretically specifies two sets of party characteristics that account for the presence of a taxing rule and the level of the tax, respectively. The presence of a tax depends on the basic 'acceptability' of such an internal obligation that rests on a mutually beneficial financial exchange between parties' campaign finance contributions to their MEPs and MEPs' salary donations to their parties. The level of the tax, in contrast, depends on the level of intra-organisational compliance costs and parties' capacity to cope with these costs. Three factors are relevant to this second stage: MEPs' ideological position, the size of the parliamentary group and party control over candidate nomination. The framework is tested through a selection model applied to a unique dataset covering the taxing practices in parties across the European Union Member States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voters behave differently in European Parliament (EP) elections compared to national elections because less is at stake in these 'second-order' elections. While this explains the primary characteristic of EP elections, it has often led to a conflation of distinct motivations for changing behaviour - namely sincere and protest voting. By distinguishing these motivations, this article addresses the question of when and why voters alter their behaviour in EP elections. In addition, it argues that the degree of politicisation of the EU in the domestic debate shapes the extent to which voters rely on EU, rather than national, considerations. These propositions are tested in a multilevel analysis in 27 countries in the 2009 EP elections. The findings have important implications for understanding why voters change their behaviour between different types of elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Euroscepticism is the most important driver of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) support, other attitudinal drivers - namely dissatisfaction towards mainstream parties and xenophobia - are also important. Examining vote-switching between first- and second-order elections evidence is found of a distinction between two types of supporter: more affluent and middle-class 'strategic defectors' from the mainstream Conservative Party who support UKIP to register their Euroscepticism, and more economically marginal and politically disaffected 'core loyalists' who are attracted to UKIP by its anti-immigration rhetoric and populist anti-establishment strategy. UKIP also succeeds in attracting core support from groups such as women who have traditionally rejected extreme right parties such as the British National Party (BNP). This suggests that UKIP is well positioned to recruit a broader and more enduring base of support than the BNP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops and tests a number of competing expectations (institutional, party and individual) about what influenced the campaign activity of individual parliamentary candidates for the 2004 European Parliament elections. The principal interest is in the effects of variations in the design of electoral institutions across the Member States of the European Union. Based on the analysis, it is argued that an important distinction needs to be made between campaign effort and campaign goals, with electoral institutional factors having a more significant role over the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delegation in the European Union (EU) involves a series of principal-agent problems, and the various chains of delegation involve voters, parties, parliaments, governments, the European Commission and the European Parliament. While the literature has focused on how government parties attempt to monitor EU affairs through committees in national parliaments and through Council committees at the EU level, much less is known about the strategies opposition parties use to reduce informational deficits regarding European issues. This article argues that the European Parliament (EP) offers opposition parties an arena to pursue executive oversight through the use of written parliamentary questions. Using a novel dataset on parliamentary questions in the EP, this article examines why Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) ask questions of specific Commissioners. It transpires that MEPs from national opposition parties are more likely to ask questions of Commissioners. Questions provide these parties with inexpensive access to executive scrutiny. This finding has implications for the study of parliamentary delegation and party politics inside federal legislatures such as the EP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presented is a political survey of the country of Finland for the year 2009. It is noted that Finland's representation in the European Parliament has been reduced by a single seat and that puts extra pressure on the smaller political parties to win a seat in parliament. A number of other events and developments are discussed including the reduced voter turnout for the European Parliament elections, the electoral alliances sought by the Christian Democratic Party, and the nationalist appeal of Timo Soini of the True Finns party.

Presented is a political survey of the country of the Czech Republic for the year 2009. It is noted that for the first half of 2009 the Czech Republic presided over the European Council. A number of other developments and events are discussed including the disruption of the supplies of natural gas caused by the Russian and Ukrainian gas dispute, the collapse of the cabinet that was brought about by a vote of no confidence sponsored by the opposition Social Democratic Party, and the election for members of the European Parliament.

Presented is a political survey of the country of Austria for the year 2009. It is noted that the election of members of the European Parliament that took place in June 2009 unfolded against an Austrian background of increased skepticism about pan-European institutions on the part of the electorate. A number of other developments and events are discussed including the actions of the European Union and the European Commission, significant tax reform in Austria, and the passage of a federal budget for 2009 and 2010.

Presented is a political survey of the country of Greece for the year 2009. It is noted that the riots precipitated by the police killing of a teenager in December 2008 continued well into 2009. A number of other developments and events are discussed including a cabinet shake-up undertaken by prime minister Costas Karamanlis, the return of political leader Antonis Samaras to the cabinet, the elections for members of the European Parliament in June 2009, and the parliamentary election of October 2009.

Presented is a political survey of the country of the Netherlands for the year 2009. It is noted that the Netherlands went from being a supporter of pan- European institutions such as the European Parliament to becoming a Eurosceptic nation. A number of other developments and events are discussed including opposition among the Socialist Party of the transfer of national sovereignty to the European Union (EU), the campaign against the EU mounted by conservative Freedom Party, and the pro-Europe program of the Green Left party.

Presented is a political survey of the country of Portugal for the year 2009. It is noted that in 2009 Portugal underwent elections for members of the European Parliament, in the national legislature and for local councils. A number of other developments and events are discussed including corruption allegations that touched on a number of cabinet ministers and indirectly on prime minister José Sócrates, and the appointments of Gabriela Canavilha to the Ministry of Culture and António Mendonça as Minister for Public Works.

Presented is a political survey of the country of Ireland for the year 2009. It is noted that the continued impact in Ireland of the global financial crisis of 2008-09 and subsequent recession indicated that government supported candidates were unlikely to be successful in the local elections and for election as members of the European Parliament. A number of other events and developments are discussed including the nationalization of the Anglo-Irish Bank, the establishment of the National Assets Management Agency, and child abuse in the Catholic Church.

Presented is a political survey of the country of Romania for the year 2009. It is noted that 2009 was marked by political instability and by deadlocked policy makers as president Traian Basescu and his ruling Democrat-Liberal Party became isolated from voters. A number of other events and developments are discussed including the 2009 presidential election, the degree of political corruption in the Social Democratic Party under the leadership of Mircea Geoana, and the election of members of the European Parliament.

Presented is a political survey of the country of Luxembourg for the year 2009. It is noted that a referendum on a constitutional amendment that would have limited the prerogatives of the Grand Duke of Luxembourg was defeated. A number of other events and developments are discussed including laws on Luxembourgish nationality and new citizens of Luxembourg, the modification of a law that established the status of members of the civil service, and provisions related to the election of members of the European Parliament.

Presented is a political survey of the country of Sweden for the year 2009. It is noted that the major issues of the year related to the European Union (EU) include the election of members to the European Parliament in June 2009 and the Swedish presidency of the EU from July to December 2009. A number of other events and developments are discussed including a proposal on posted workers to the EU suggested by the Swedish Social Democrats, the relative success in the European Parliament of the Pirate Party, a political party devoted to technology privacy, and the appointment of Herman van Rompuy as president of the European Commission.

Presented is a political survey of the country of Bulgaria for the year 2009. It is noted that a new political party, Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria, won the general election and formed a minority government. A number of other events and developments are discussed including improving relations between Bulgaria and the European Union, corruption and patronage as factors that influenced national elections and the election of members of the European Parliament, and above average voter turnout.

Recent research on the European Parliament (EP) has neglected the idiosyncrasies of niche parties. Similarly, analyses of niche parties have not fully engaged the literature on the EP. This article builds on both literatures by analysing niche party behaviour in the EP as a distinct phenomenon. It is argued that niche parties will respond differently to institutional stimuli than parties more generally. To test this argument, Hix, Noury and Roland's work on EP party voting behaviour is replicated concentrating on niche parties only. It is found that participation in national government and institutional changes affect niche party legislators' voting behaviour, whereas they do not for legislators in the EP overall. These results have important implications for understanding both party behaviour in the EP and niche party behaviour more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What impact has the 2004 enlargement had on legislative decision making in the European Union (EU)? This study answers this question by examining the controversies raised by a broad selection of legislative proposals from before and after the 2004 enlargement. The analyses focus on the alignments of decision-making actors found on those controversies. Member State representatives, the European Commission and the European Parliament vary considerably in the positions they take on controversial issues before and after enlargement. Consistent patterns in actor alignments are found for only a minority of controversial issues. To the extent that consistent patterns are found, the most common involve differences in the positions of Northern and Southern Member States and old and new Member States. The North-South alignment was more common in the EU-15 and reflected Northern Member States' preference for low levels of regulatory intervention. The new-old alignment that has been evident in the post-2004 EU reflects new Member States' preference for higher levels of financial subsidies. This study argues that the persistent diversity in actor alignments contributes to the EU's capacity to cope with enlargement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most influential explanations of voting behaviour is based on economic factors: when the economy is doing well, voters reward the incumbent government and when the economy is doing badly, voters punish the incumbent. This reward-punishment model is thought to be particularly appropriate at second order contests such as European Parliament elections. Yet operationalising this economic voting model using citizens’ perceptions of economic performance may suffer from endogeneity problems if citizens’ perceptions are in fact a function of their party preferences rather than being a cause of their party preferences. Thus, this article models a ‘strict’ version of economic voting in which they purge citizens’ economic perceptions of partisan effects and only use as a predictor of voting that portion of citizens’ economic perceptions that is caused by the real world economy. Using data on voting at the 2004 European Parliament elections for 23 European Union electorates, the article finds some, but limited, evidence for economic voting that is dependent on both voter sophistication and clarity of responsibility for the economy within any country. First, only politically sophisticated voters’ subjective economic assessments are in fact grounded in economic reality. Second, the portion of subjective economic assessments that is a function of the real world economy is a significant predictor of voting only in single party government contexts where there can be a clear attribution of responsibility. For coalition government contexts, the article finds essentially no impact of the real economy via economic perceptions on vote choice, at least at European Parliament elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the government of Slovenia in 2004. A chart is presented which compares the number of seats in the European Parliament attained by political parties such as the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia party, the Social Democrat party, and the Democratic Party of Slovenian Pensioners. A list of cabinet members of Prime Minister Janez Janša is presented, including Minister of Finance Andrej Bajuk, Minister of Culture Vasko Simoniti, and Minister of Defence Karl Viktor Erjavec. The author also discusses the results of the Slovenian Parliamentary elections, held on October 3, 2004.

The article looks at the government of France in 2004. The resignation of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin on March 30, 2004, is mentioned, noting the public opinion of his abilities. A list of Raffarin's cabinet members is presented, including Minister of Foreign Affairs M. Barnier, Minister of Justice D. Perben, and Minister of Defence and Veterans M. Alliot-Marie. President Jacques Chirac's proposal of a Treaty for a European Constitution is discussed. Results of the 2004 elections to the European Parliament are reviewed, noting the seats held be political parties such as the French Communist Party, the Greens, and the Socialist Party.

The article looks at politics in Denmark in 2004. The level of support for Danish membership in the European Union is discussed. A chart is presented which compares the number of seats in the European Parliament held by various political parties following the election on June 13, 2004, including the Social Democratic Party, the Conservative People’s Party, and the Socialist People’s Party. Changes made to the cabinet of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen are reviewed, noting the resignations of Minister of Defence Svend Aage Jensby, Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Mariann Fischer Boel, and Minister of Taxation Svend Erik Hovmand.

The article looks at the government of Malta in 2004. The replacement of Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami by Dr. Lawrence Gonzi is discussed. A list of members of Gonzi's cabinet is offered, including Minister for Tourism and Culture Francis Zammit Dimech, Minister for Gozo Giovanna Debono, and Minister for Resources and Infrastructure Ninu Zammit. The number of seats acquired by the political parties of Malta during the elections to the European Parliament are reviewed, including the Malta Labour Party and the Nationalist Party. National political issues of Malta are also discussed, focusing on economic development and unemployment.

The article presents information on politics and government in various nations during 2004. Topics discussed include the U.S. war on terrorism and Iraq war, the results of the 2004 elections to the European Parliament, and the importance of pension systems for countries with aging populations. A chart is presented which compares the cabinet changes of countries such as Czech Republic, Germany, and Belgium, noting the number of women holding cabinet positions. Additional issues reviewed include labor market reform, immigration policy in Sweden, and the assassination of film producer Theo van Gogh.

The article looks at the government of Great Britain in 2004. A chart is presented which shows the number of seats acquired by various political parties during the European Parliament elections, including the Liberal Democrat Party, the British National Party, and the Scottish National Party. Speculation that Tony Blair would step down from his position as Prime Minister in favor of Gordon Brown is considered. A proposed ban on smoking in enclosed public places in England and Wales is also discussed. Great Britain's involvement in the investigation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is reviewed.

The article looks at the government of Poland in 2004. Several national political issues are discussed, including Poland's accession to the European Union, the resignation of Prime Minister Leszek Miller, and his replacement by Marek Belka. The trial of film producer Lew Rywin, who was found guilty of fraud, is discussed. The actions of various political parties are reviewed, including the Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej, the Civic Platform, and the Freedom Union. Changes made to the electoral process of the European Parliament are also mentioned.

The article looks at the government of Ireland in 2004. A chart displaying the results of the 2004 national elections is presented, focusing on the number of seats in the European Parliament attained by political parties such as the Labour Party, the Green Party, and Fine Gael. Changes made to the cabinet of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern are reviewed, including the appointments of Brian Cowen as Minister of Finance, Séamus Brennan as Minister of Social Welfare, and Dermot Ahern as Minister of Foreign Affairs. The author also comments on the results of the national referendum.

The article looks at politics in Spain in 2004. Topics discussed include voter turnout and terrorist attacks in Madrid, Spain, on March 11, 2004. A chart is presented which compares the number of seats held in the Spanish Senate (Sendao) by various political parties following the election held on June 13, 2004, including the Partido Popular, the Convergencia i Unio, and the Izquierda Unida. Results of the election to the European Parliament are also reviewed. The author also presents a list of members of the cabinet of president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, including Minister of Defence José Bono, Minister for Public Administration Jordi Sevilla, and Minister of Health and Consumer Elena Salgado.

The article looks at the government of Slovakia in 2004. A chart is presented which reviews the number of seats various Slovakian political parties control in the European Parliament, including the Christian Democratic Movement, the Party of the Hungarian Coalition, and the Communist Party of Slovakia. The results of the 2004 Slovakian national elections are discussed, noting the election of President Ivan Gašparovič over candidates Luděk Mikloško, Martin Bútora, and Eduard Kukan. The author also comments on the results of a national referendum initiated by the Confederation of Trade Unions demanding the termination of the current parliament's tenure.