Evidence suggests that issues may have mattered more than expected in the 2016 US presidential elections

In the lead up to the 2016 election, many commentators argued that Donald Trump’s personality and actions would encourage many voters to cross party lines or to stay home. That was emphatically not the case, with Republicans generally voting for Trump as they would any other GOP candidate. Using data from a Voting Advice Application, Diego Garzia and Lorenzo Cicchi write that while partisanship was important in the election, their initial results show that policy issues – such as the repeal of Obamacare – were important to voters as well

The health-economy divide : a structural analysis of sectoral affectedness and Covid-19 policy preferences in Europe

Published online: 12 September 2023The Covid-19 health emergency and the resulting economic crisis hit European societies asymmetrically, which led to divergent preferences over the policies addressing the emergency. This paper analyses how different economic sectors were affected based on the “essentiality” and “physicality” of their activities, and how the level of affectedness–job losses, furloughs, decreased working hours and salaries–opposed the interests in favour of reopening the economy against the lockdowns dictated by health concerns. We combine a structural approach with an examination of the impact of party identification on citizens’ preferences, and posit that the parties that mobilise groups negatively affected by previous crises take positions toward the economic end of the continuum, in line with the preferences of an electorate that has been negatively affected by the pandemic. Our explanatory models integrate other structural (age, education) and political (trust, attitudes on expertise) factors in an effort to assess if the health–economy divide reordered the European cleavage structure towards material, rather than cultural and post-material, concerns.Funded by the European Union, Horizon Europe – Research and Innovation Actions, Grant no: 10106082

Mapping parties’ positions on foreign and security issues in the EU, 2009–2014

First published online: 26 September 2020This article offers a comparative analysis of parties’ position on foreign and security issues in the EU28 across the EP elections of 2009 and 2014. First, we map the position of the parties on selected foreign policy and security issues in both 2009 and 2014. Second, we measure the extent to which party positions on such issues remained stable across these five years. Third, we offer an explanatory analysis of the competing factors potentially affecting changes in parties’ position. By means of multivariate regression models, we test the effect of party ideology, overall attitude toward EU integration, and structural factors at the party level in view of answering the following question: Do parties hold “genuine” positions over EU foreign and security policy, or are they rather due to their relatively more encompassing attitude toward EU integration? The data come from two transnational voting advice applications developed during the 2009 and 2014 European elections campaigns, respectively

How voting advice applications can be used to study the positions of political parties

Voting advice applications are typically used to inform voters ahead of elections, but can these tools also help us to understand where parties are located within the political space? Drawing on a new study, Frederico Ferreira da Silva, Andres Reiljan, Lorenzo Cicchi, Alexander H. Trechsel and Diego Garzia illustrate the potential for voting advice applications to act as a data source for studying political parties and their positions

National mini-public report : Italy

Published online: 11 January 2024This report provides an overview of the Italian mini-public on knowledge communication, disinformation, the role of experts, and trust in politics during the Covid-19 pandemic, which was held in the framework of the Horizon Europe research project REGROUP. The participants of the citizens’ jury shared their experiences related to these themes in times of the pandemic to ultimately formulate concrete policy recommendations to help the EU in preparing for future pandemics. The report discusses (1) organisational matters, (2) provides a summary of the discussion contents, (3) presents the jurors’ policy recommendations, (4) analyses the attitudinal participant surveys, and includes (5) citizens’ feedback, and a (6) self-evaluation.Funded by the European Union, Horizon Europe – Research and Innovation Actions, Grant no: 10106082

Longitudinal dataset of political issue-positions of 411 parties across 28 European countries (2009–2019) from voting advice applications EU profiler and euandi

First published online: 02 July 2020This data article provides a descriptive overview of the “EU Profiler/euandi trend file (2009–2019)“ dataset and the data collection methods. The dataset compiles party position data from three consecutive pan-European Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), developed by the European University Institute for the European Parliament elections in 2009, 2014 and 2019. It includes the positions of 411 parties from 28 European countries on a wide range of salient political issues. Altogether, the dataset contains more than 20 000 unique party positions. To place the parties on the political issues, all three editions of the VAA have used the same iterative method that combines party self-placement and expert judgement. The data collection has been a collective effort of several hundreds of highly trained social scientists, involving experts from each EU member state. The political statements that the parties were placed on, were identical across all the countries and 15 of the statements remained the same throughout all three waves (2009, 2014, 2019) of data collection. Because of the unique methodology and the large volume of data, the dataset offers a significant contribution to the research on European party systems and on party positioning methodologies

Elite-mass linkages in the preference formation on differentiated integration

Published online: 17 May 2022How does the public form preferences about differentiated integration (DI)? The literature on mass-elite linkages offers two perspectives: top-down, political elites cue the public, or bottom-up, political elites react to public preferences. This paper develops expectations based on both perspectives, and presents novel empirical data on citizens, political parties, and governments to test them. We distinguish preferences over differentiated policy integration, like ‘Opt-Outs’, from preferences over polity differentiation, such as ‘Two-Speed Europe’. Although our evidence is observational and therefore cannot establish causal relationships between elites and the mass public, our results are most compatible with the notion of a top-down linkage. This is because DI preferences are generally of low salience, and first revealed at the European level in the context of negotiations. Subsequently, this revelation of DI preferences shapes domestic discussions about DI, especially at the level of political parties. Yet, this mostly pertains to situations when governments do not yet have clear DI preferences of their own, meaning government preferences are not yet formed and revealed in the context of the supranational negotiations. Overall, this study suggests that mass-elite linkage in the preference formation on DI might be more tenuous than either the top-down or bottom-up perspective might assume

Elite-Mass Linkages in the Preference Formation on Differentiated Integration

How does the public form preferences about differentiated integration (DI)? The literature on mass-elite linkages offers two perspectives: top-down, political elites cue the public, or bottom-up, political elites react to public preferences. This paper develops expectations based on both perspectives, and presents novel empirical data on citizens, political parties, and governments to test them. We distinguish preferences over differentiated policy integration, like ‘Opt-Outs’, from preferences over polity differentiation, such as ‘Two-Speed Europe’. Although our evidence is observational and therefore cannot establish causal relationships between elites and the mass public, our results are most compatible with the notion of a top-down linkage. This is because DI preferences are generally of low salience, and first revealed at the European level in the context of negotiations. Subsequently, this revelation of DI preferences shapes domestic discussions about DI, especially at the level of political parties. Yet, this mostly pertains to situations when governments do not yet have clear DI preferences of their own, meaning government preferences are not yet formed and revealed in the context of the supranational negotiations. Overall, this study suggests that mass-elite linkage in the preference formation on DI might be more tenuous than either the top-down or bottom-up perspective might assume

Elite-mass linkages in the preference formation on differentiated integration

How does the public form preferences about differentiated integration (DI)? The literature on mass-elite linkages offers two perspectives: top-down, political elites cue the public, or bottom-up, political elites react to public preferences. This paper develops expectations based on both perspectives, and presents novel empirical data on citizens, political parties, and governments to test them. We distinguish preferences over differentiated policy integration, like “Opt-Outs”, from preferences over polity differentiation, such as “Two-Speed Europe”. Although our evidence is observational and therefore cannot establish causal relationships between elites and the mass public, our results are most compatible with the notion of a top-down linkage. This is because DI preferences are generally of low salience, and first revealed at the European level in the context of negotiations. Subsequently, this revelation of DI preferences shapes domestic discussions about DI, especially at the level of political parties. Yet, this mostly pertains to situations when governments do not yet have clear DI preferences of their own, meaning government preferences are not yet formed and revealed in the context of the supranational negotiations. Overall, this study suggests that mass-elite linkage in the preference formation on DI might be more tenuous than either the top-down or bottom-up perspective might assume.This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 822304. The content of this document represents only the views of the InDivEU consortium and is its sole responsibility. The European Commission does not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains