This chapter focuses on the extent to which perceptions of economic self‐interest affect levels of public support for European Community integration, both at the macro‐level and the micro‐level. The macro‐level analysis examines the impact of variables such as net budgetary transfers between the EC and individual member states, each country's position in the international division of labour, as well as several indicators of economic development. At the micro‐level, the chapter analyses the influence of individual economic circumstances, perceptions, and expectations on public attitudes and orientations.

This article examines the influence of economic crisis on voting preferences for the emerging Spanish parties (Podemos and Ciudadanos). We develop a multinomial model that tests their voting antecedents, and we find three results that may be relevant for the literature on the emergence of parties. First, a negative evaluation of the country’s economic situation has a major impact on votes for the two parties. Second, the perception of corruption also plays a crucial role in understanding support for the two emerging parties. And third, both the evaluation of the country’s economic situation and the perception of corruption interact to account for the emergence of both Podemos and Ciudadanos. We conclude that the emergence of new parties has an economic basis, but political factors – such as corruption – are not suppressed by this. Conversely, the two factors interact in order to finally give rise to the new parties.

Representative democracies are supposed to be uniquely virtuous in that they ensure that public preferences drive public policy. Dynamic representation is the outcome of a recurring interaction between electorate and parties that can be observed at the macro level. Preferences can shape government policy via two possible mechanisms. ‘Policy accomodation’ suggests that governments respond directly to the electorate’s preferences. ‘Electoral turnover’, on the other hand, assumes that preferences shape policy indirectly. Parties pursue their ideological goals, and public preferences respond ‘thermostatically’ by moving in the opposite direction to policy. This causes voters to switch votes and eventually leads to a turnover of power from one ‘side’ to ‘the other’. In this paper, we estimate preferences for government activity (‘the policy mood’) in Spain between 1978 and 2017. We show that mood responds ‘thermostatically’ to policy. Variations in mood are associated with support for parties. Policy is driven by party control but is not thermostatically responsive to mood. It appears that in Spain – like Britain – dynamic representation can only be achieved by electoral turnover. We consider the implications of this for our understanding of how representation works

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This paper analyzes the influence of ballot structure over satisfaction with democracy. In line with previous literature, we hypothesize that some ballot structures -such as preferential ballots -generate more satisfaction with democracy than closed ones. Yet, we expect these differences to be especially relevant among the more knowledgeable electorate, since any open ballot structure requires more sophisticated voters. Using CSES surveys, our results do not show a clear and parsimonious relation between ballot openness and satisfaction with democracy as some previous research seems to suggest. Our findings rather suggest that is preferential ballots and open lists the only ballot structures that generate more satisfaction than most of the remaining ballot structures. Yet, this relation is restricted only among the more knowledgeable electorate. The liberty of choice that ballot structure offers only concerns a reduced portion of the electorate, namely the more politically sophisticated one.