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Copyright of Yearbook of the Faculty of Political Sciences / Godisnjak Fakultet Politickih Nauka Beograd is the property of University of Belgrade, Faculty of Political Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Structural and Investment Funds (SIFs) have become the European Union's most robust redistribution programme. In this article, we demonstrate that SIFs have grown large enough in scope that they are now beginning to function similarly to more established macroeconomic determinants of the vote such as unemployment and GDP growth in European Parliamentary elections. Moreover, SIFs have an electoral effect in a type of election that was previously assumed to be merely a referendum on national government performance: second‐order, EP elections. SIFs serve as an example of how robust public spending can have an electoral effect even in a second‐order election environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the potential impact of the economic crisis, the main goal of the article is to ascertain whether the second-order election model lost ground in Portugal during the 2014 election to the European Parliament. We conclude that this was a more second-order contest than ever. The explanation for the resilience of the model relies on a mismatch between the citizens’ growing potential for contestation and the low politicisation of European Union (EU) issues at the party level. However, the election outcomes also reveal the significance of EU issues for the radical left. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is about comparative voting behaviour in referendums on the EU and explores variation within one country rather than variations across countries. This enables us to control for broad national context while allowing variations in the immediate referendum context, in terms of campaign intensity and incumbency. It analyses voting behaviour in the many referendums that have taken place in Ireland. The major part of the analysis deals with the five referendums since 2001, as this allows the use of the same measurement of EU support and the use of post referendum surveys. Most attention is paid to attitude to the EU, party support and satisfaction with the incumbent government, reflecting the main debates in the literature on the issues and party cues. The relative importance of each is said to depend on contextual factors such as campaign intensity and economic strength. We find both party cues and issues matter consistently, and suggestive evidence that incumbency matters to the effectiveness of cues given by the two main pro-EU parties but the major finding is that variations in the factors driving voting behaviour in different Irish polls on Europe are slight and barely significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to inquire into whether the Italian case still provides evidence in favor of the standard theoretical framework according to which European elections are second-order national elections in which national rather than European issues are the main determinants of voter choice. Our findings are rather contradictory. First, the main party in the government coalition received a higher share of votes compared with the results in the previous 2013 national election, confirming a so-called honeymoon period between the Italian voters and the Democratic Party (PD). Still, despite the increased relevance of EU issues in the electoral campaign, the primary motivation of politicians and parties remains their interest in holding on to national government office or to an opposition status (a strategic position for the Five Star Movement - M5S). Second, the lower turnout in European than in national elections was confirmed despite Prime Minister Renzi's successful mobilization of the PD electorate. Though large parties like Forza Italia and M5S lost votes, few small parties surpassed the electoral threshold. Broadly speaking, this analysis points to a vote of trust in government rather than a clear stance on EU issues, considering that Italian voters expressed their preferences mainly in relation to the new government formula rather than to the EU agenda or performance of previous members of the European Parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on voter survey from European election study 2009, we examine the impact of one individual-level motivational factor, i.e. interest in politics, and its interactions with institutional and contextual factors such as compulsory voting, electoral competition and the number of parties on participation in 2009 EP elections and previous national elections. The results show that political interest is more closely connected to turnout in second-order elections which are usually considered less salient. Correspondingly, also the contingent effect of compulsory voting and competition is more evident in EP elections. While compulsory voting substantially decreases the turnout gap between the most and least politically attentive voters in both types of elections, the moderating effect of competitiveness is found only in EP elections. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this article we seek to understand whether, how and under what conditions political parties publicly articulate matters of European integration and encourage contestation over Europe. Based on a content analysis of parties’ televised advertising spots during the 2009 European Parliament (EP) election campaign in six countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom), we find evidence that European Union (EU) issues and actors are more prominent on the campaign agenda in countries with many Eurosceptic parties. Eurosceptic and non-Eurosceptic parties co-orient themselves towards each other in their EU articulation. Finally, contestation over Europe exists in the realm of identity politics: right-wing fringe parties (and in some countries also mainstream parties) characterize the EU as a threat to national sovereignty and identity, whereas left-wing mobilization against the EU on economic matters is hardly visible. Regarding the two politicization dimensions — EU articulation and contestation — we show that party campaigns cannot be described as purely second-order national contests any more. Instead, the strategic party mobilization model seems to better characterize the 2009 EP campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Why has turnout in European Parliament (EP) elections remained so low, despite attempts to expand the Parliament’s powers? One possible answer is that because little is at stake in these second-order elections only those with an established habit of voting, acquired in previous national elections, can be counted on to vote. Others argue that low turnout is an indication of apathy or even scepticism towards Europe. This article conducts a critical test of the “little at stake” hypothesis by focusing on a testable implication: that turnout at these elections will be particularly low on the part of voters not yet socialized into habitual voting. This proposition is examined using both time-series cross-section analyses and a regression discontinuity design. Our findings show that EP elections depress turnout as they inculcate habits of non-voting, with long-term implications for political participation in EU member states. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines the micro-foundations of the second-order elections model of European Parliament (EP) elections. We extend the existing literature in several ways. First, we propose an individual-level model of voting behaviour in second-order elections. Second, we present the first study using experimental methods to test the predictions of the second-order model, allowing us to test the individual-level propositions about vote choice in a controlled environment. Importantly, we also examine the conditioning effect of information on the ‘second-order’ nature of voting behaviour in EP elections. Our findings show that while voters base their EP vote choices primarily on domestic preferences, those who are given additional information about the European integration dimension are also more likely to vote on this basis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Increasing politicization in EU member states about European issues can be expected to strengthen the impact of attitudes towards Europe on vote choice in European Parliament (EP) elections. At the same time this impact is likely to vary between voters and contexts as a function of political information. This study explores the role of political information in explaining individual and contextual heterogeneity in the degree of EU issue voting. Using a two-step hierarchical estimation procedure to explore both individual and contextual variation, we show that while EU issue voting in the 2009 EP elections is only slightly more pronounced among the politically sophisticated, it is clearly more extensive in contexts that provide higher levels of political information on European matters. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Second-order election models are based on several assumptions about individual-level motivations. These can be summarized by a transfer hypothesis: individuals presumably apply their evaluations of national-level phenomena to the EU level when voting in EU elections. In contrast, a suis generis hypothesis stipulates that voters evaluate the EU on its own performance terms. This paper tests these competing hypotheses. We find considerable support for both models. In the election context, where national institutions — political parties — dominate the representation process, the transfer hypothesis receives considerable support. However, we also find surprisingly strong support for the first-order hypothesis: electoral choice in EU election is influenced to a considerable extent by EU level factors. Furthermore, when voters evaluate the mechanisms of representation more broadly without a focus on elections per se, we find much more support for the first-order than the transfer hypothesis — voters clearly separate the two levels and evaluate each level on its own terms. These results have important implications, both for how we analyse voters' decisions in European elections, and how we view the sophistication of voters more broadly in the context of multi-layered institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voters who participate in elections to the European Parliament (EP) apparently use these elections to punish their domestic governing parties. Many students of the EU therefore claim that the party-political composition of the Parliament should systematically differ from that of the EU Council. This study shows that opposed majorities between council and parliament may have other than simply electoral causes. The logic of domestic government formation works against the representation of more extreme and EU-skeptic parties in the Council, whereas voters in EP elections vote more often for these parties. The different locations of Council and Parliament are therefore caused by two effects: a mechanical effect—relevant for the composition of the Council—when national votes are translated into office and an electoral effect in European elections. The article discusses the implications of this finding for our understanding of the political system of the EU and of its democratic legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]