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How do parties that do not fight for controlling government, that do not behave in a traditional government-opposition dynamic, that do not have the incentive of forming coalition differ from traditional parties? How do parties that cannot offer to carry on specific policies campaign for votes? I will address these questions in this paper. More specifically, I argue that the studies of legislative behavior at the EU level need to understand this new actor and the role of them in the new Europe to come. In this paper, I develop a theoretical model of the European level political party. I argue that this party presents completely different characteristics from the conventional definition of parties used in political science. The European parties develop a technocratic profile given the EU institutional setting. Furthermore, I posit that this has implications for the European parliament as a whole, who has already developed a more technocratic profile. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of public attitudes towards EU membership in the ten candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It integrates theories of public opinion on EU integration for Western and Eastern Europe, and tests the derived hypotheses with data from the 2002 Candidate Countries Eurobarometer, using multinomial logit. The results confirm that education, income, and cognitive mobilization are positively related to support for EU membership, but occupation is not significant, except for the negative attitude of farmers. Also, positive economic perceptions and expectations increase support for EU membership, as well as reported satisfaction with democracy in the country, trust in government, and the belief that the country historically belongs to Europe. An interaction model comparing the relative impact of the public opinion determinants for more successful versus less successful transition countries indicates that economic determinants have a bigger impact for the successful countries, while satisfaction with democracy is more important for the less successful countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The average voter in European Parliament elections violates the normative ideals of democratic theory by being disinterested and uninformed. However, given the limitations of human cognition, the normative ideals of democratic theory are unrealistic. In this paper I use an alternative standard that suggests voters fulfill their democratic obligations if they "vote correctly." Using an operationalization of correct voting developed in experimental research and adapted for use in survey data, I compare actual votes to an objective determination of how the voter would have voted if they were fully informed about their own preferences. I calculate that 71 percent of European voters cast a correct vote in the 1999 European Parliament election, although there is considerable variation across the 15 member states. I also examine the individual determinates of correct voting and find little to no evidence for a "democratic deficit." Finally, I compare the allocation of seats in the Parliament based on actual and correct voting and find little difference. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The average voter in European Parliament elections violates the normative ideals of democratic theory by being disinterested and uninformed. However, given the limitations of human cognition, the normative ideals of democratic theory are unrealistic. In this paper I use an alternative standard that suggests voters fulfill their democratic obligations if they "vote correctly." Using an operationalization of correct voting developed in experimental research and adapted for use in survey data, I compare actual votes to an objective determination of how the voter would have voted if they were fully informed about their own preferences. I calculate that 69 percent of European voters cast a correct vote in the 1999 European Parliament election, although there is considerable variation across the 15 member states. I also examine the individual determinates of correct voting and find little to no evidence for a "democratic deficit." Finally, I compare the allocation of seats in the Parliament based on actual and correct voting and find little difference. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]