Issue Competition without Electoral Incentives? A Study of Issue Emphasis in the European Parliament

Abstract

Note. Prais-Winsten regression coefficients with panel-corrected standard errors in parentheses. EPG p European party group. * p ! .05.

MEP Responses to Democratic Backsliding in Hungary and Poland. An Analysis of Agenda‐Setting and Voting Behaviour

“…As such, saliency theory expects political parties to tend to remain silent on issues that are less advantageous to them. Crucially, such forms of issue competition are found not only in the domestic parliamentary arena (Baumgartner and Jones, ; Green‐Pedersen, ; Vliegenthart et al ., ; van de Wardt, ) but in the EP arena as well (Meijers and van der Veer, forthcoming; Proksch and Slapin, ; Slapin and Proksch, ).…”

To Democratize or to Protect? How the Response to Anti‐System Parties Reshapes the EU's Transnational Party System

“…The challenge from what can broadly be defined as anti‐system political parties and governments in the EU have moved from the margins of European political debate to its very core. A growing field studies how the political mainstream is reacting to such actors, focusing, prominently, on to what extent the political mainstream has shifted its positions on key issues for these parties, such as European integration (Williams and Spoon, 2015) and immigration (Abou‐Chadi and Krause, 2020; Meijers and Van der Veer, 2019a). These studies have provided useful insights on reactive patterns but have often relied on models that emphasize the instrumental aspects of political action, allowing less room for studying the ideas that inform such reactions.…”

“…With Europe experiencing rapid political shifts related to the rise of far‐right populism and backsliding towards authoritarianism among some EU member states (Camatarri and Zucchini, 2019; Kelemen, 2017), scholars have increasingly turned their attention to reactions by the political mainstream to anti‐system political actors (Brack, 2018; Halikiopoulou, 2018; Magen, 2016; Meijers and Van der Veer, 2019a, 2019b; Morijn, 2019; Müller, 2016; Norman, 2017). This growing research field thus studies various aspects of the response to political actors that have emerged in sharp opposition to core values and principles around which the European Union (EU) is built (see Cappoccia, 2002; Sartori, 1976; Zulianello, 2019).…”

“…Meijers and Van der Veer (2019a) indicate how the electoral incentives that are at the basis of standard accounts on party politics are much less present in the European Parliament. See alsoHix et al (2003).6 Detterbeck usefully highlights how the rise of new Green parties in the 1980s and 1990s did not trigger exclusionary reflexes among mainstream parties(Detterbeck, 2005, p. 186).…”

Democratic backsliding as a catalyst for polity-based contestation? Populist radical right cooperation in the European Parliament

“…First, we analyse the cosponsorship of parliamentary questions as a measure of agenda-setting efforts by PRR MEPs: what issues do they emphasise when co-sponsoring parliamentary questions? Parliamentary questions have been used in the EP for three main purposes: executive oversight (Proksch & Slapin, 2011), signalling responsiveness to constituents and representing territorial interests (Brack & Costa, 2019) and agenda-setting (Meijers & van der Veer, 2019b). Adopting the latter view, we contend that PRR actors may use parliamentary questions to raise new issues on the EP's agenda or to push specific framings of debated topics.…”