The 2014 European Parliament Elections in Southern Europe: Second-Order or Critical Elections?

Context Matters: Economic Voting in the 2009 and 2014 European Parliament Elections

“…But more fundamentally, voters in both remained strongly motivated by national considerations with domestic issues such as national economic perceptions playing a key role. Therefore, we can deduce the EP elections remain classic 'second-order' contests (for similar conclusions see Quinlan & Okolijk, 2016;Schmitt & Teperoglou, 2015).…”

“…Nonetheless, EP elections continue to have a 'second-order' dimension, with elections campaigns dominated by domestic issues, low voter turnout, and established parties and incumbent governments losing votes (e.g. Cordero & Montero, 2015;Quinlan & Okolikj, 2016;Schmitt & Teperoglou, 2015). Accordingly, we would expect to find support for valence economic voting in EP elections with voters judging government performance on a domestic issue (the national economy).…”

“…Traditionally, EP elections have been considered 'second-order', with voter behaviour conditioned by attitudes to the incumbent government (e.g. Hix & Marsh, 2011;Marsh, 1998;Reif & Schmitt, 1980;Schmitt & Teperoglou, 2015). More recently, there has been an appreciation that other reasons also influence voters in EP contests (e.g.…”

Against Bipartyism, Towards Dealignment? The 2014 European Election in Spain

“…Party fragmentation rose dramatically: the index of the effective number of parties (Laakso & Taagepera 1979) increased from 2.9 in the previous EP election and 2.6 in the preceding 2011 general election, to 6.8 in 2014. The levels of voteswitching were even more extraordinary: the index of aggregate volatility (Pedersen 1979) To what extent do these results fit the predictions of the second-order election (SOE) model posited by Reif and Schmitt (1980) and described in the introduction of this volume (Schmitt & Teperoglou 2015)? How have Spanish voters reacted to the interaction between a brutal economic crisis and increasing levels of dissatisfaction with politics?…”

This time it's different … but not really! The 2014 European Parliament elections in Ireland

“…Thus, these elections are associated with lower turnout, smaller parties performing better than bigger ones, and incumbent governments losing votes, especially if the election occurs in the middle of their term of office (Marsh, 1998;Schmitt, 2005;Hix & Marsh, 2011;Schmitt & Teperoglou, 2015).…”