EU National Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions: A study prepared in the framework of the European Union Democracy Observatory for the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC)

The present publication is an integral part of a larger comparative study on EU Member States consultations with civil society on European policy matters. Following a call for tenders launched by the EESC, the EUDO Observatory on Public Opinion, Political Elites and the Media was commissioned to carry out the study under the direction of Didier Chabanet and Professor Alexander H. Trechsel. The publication is identical with the text published by the EESC: http://www.eesc.europa.eu/resources/docs/eesc-2010-21-en.pdfInspired by a European spirit, the EU’s national economic and social councils and the EESC worked together tirelessly to create a European network of economic and social councils. Thanks to the commitment of the presidents and members of all the councils, the network has helped forge systematic and structured cooperation on topics of practical relevance in EU policy. Today, the EU’s network of economic and social councils and similar institutions is a recognised institutional set-up which is consulted and listened to by the main EU institutions.This study was funded by the European Economic and Social Committe

EU Member States’ Consultation with Civil Society on European Policy Matters

A study prepared in the framework of the European Union Democracy Observatory for the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). The present publication is an integral part of a larger comparative study on EU Member States consultations with civil society on European policy matters. Following a call for tenders launched by the EESC, the EUDO Observatory on Public Opinion, Political Elites and the Media was commissioned to carry out the study under the direction of Didier Chabanet and Professor Alexander H. Trechsel.The objective of this study is to describe the EU national governments’ consultation with civil society at national level, Member State by Member State. To achieve objective 1, each country expert has carried out internet investigations. Additional research has been realized (such as analysis of policy-making documents, legal texts, etc.), as well as phone inquiries with governments and CSOs in order to better understand their system of consultation with civil society. As a general rule, the country experts have interviewed two members (or representatives) of two different CSOs operating in two different sectors. These interviews do not constitute a representative sample but have nonetheless enabled us to add more information to that already available through official documents, and to read it from a different, often relatively critical, angle. On the basis of the information gathered by the country experts, the two project coordinators - Didier Chabanet and Alexander H. Trechsel - have carried out the most accurate possible synthesis. The description of each national government consultation with civil society is provided in four different sections, following the same pattern for each case examined. 1. Introduction 2. Formal Framework for Civil Society Consultation 3. European Issues Consultation 4. ConclusionThis study was funded by the European Economic and Social Committe

The Effect of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) on Political Preferences - Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Can online Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) that match voters to candidates and parties based on issue congruence influence voters’ political preferences? To address this question, we conducted a field experiment with University students during the 2011 Swiss federal elections and examine whether voters who used the Swiss VAA smartvote prior to the elections were more likely to adapt their initial party preferences. smartvote is an online web tool that enables voters to match their issue preferences to those of parties and candidates running for office, providing voters with custom made voting recommendations. Moreover, the tool allows voters to visualize their political position in the political landscape and compare their position to the political offer. The VAA gives unprecedented access to detailed political information and lets voters systematically compare electoral alternatives. Given these unique opportunities offered by the VAA, we analyze whether the revelation of “objective” preferences by the voting recommendation initiates changes in “subjective” preferences of voters. Decades of research on political behavior indicate that voters’ knowledge of and interest in politics is fairly limited and that political preferences are therefore highly amenable to (additional) information. Hence, we expect that voters who have their policy matches revealed by smartvote to be more likely to reconsider previously held convictions and consequently show changes in their political preference structure. We argue that VAAs can reinforce and rearrange pre-existing preferences. Employing the common political preference measure of an individual’s propensity to vote (ptv) for specific parties, we ascertain whether the smartvote voting recommendation caused voters to adapt their ptv scores for the running parties in the election. To empirically test these assumptions, we conducted a randomized field experiment during the 2011 Swiss federal elections among 2’000 University students in Switzerland. The treatment group received * Contact: [email protected] an email invitation to use smartvote before elections, providing survey participants with a personalized login for the website. The control group did not receive such an invitation. We measured the baseline characteristics and political preferences of both groups before and after the elections by means of an online survey. Given the randomized treatment assignment and the panel structure of the experiment, the data allows us to estimate the causal effect of smartvote use on political preferences. Due to non-compliance in the sample, we identify local average treatment effects for compliers. We find significant changes in the awarded scores for the top party preference among smartvote users. The assigned ptv score for the top party preferences increases significantly among those voters who used smartvote. Among those who changed their top party ptv score, most remained with the same party choice. Thus, in case of the most preferred party, smartvote use seems to reinforce pre-existing preferences. We do not only find a strengthening of the top party preference but also a multiplication thereof. Voters who consulted the tool report higher likelihoods for considering alternative choice options at elections. smartvote users, compared to non-users, are significantly more likely to change their initial preferences from a single most favored party to multiple highly preferred parties. In other words, being exposed to detailed information about vote alternatives seems to incline voters to consider these alternative options more closely and include the closest ones as part of their future choice set. These systematic shifts among smartvote users present empirical evidence for a causal effect of VAA use on political preferences

Internet Voting in Estonia

Several countries have conducted Internet voting trials in binding public elections over the past decade, including Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These trials have been conducted at the local and regional levels of government, targeting specific populations of voters. However, Estonia—a former Soviet republic and now a full member of the European Union—has advanced the farthest in deploying Internet voting. Since 2000, Estonia has conducted two national elections in which all voters could use Internet voting. The first election, in October 2005, was for local offices and the second election, in March 2007, was a national parliamentary election. In this article, we discuss the context for the Estonian experience in deploying Internet voting. We focus on how the Estonians have systematically addressed the legal and technical considerations required to make Internet voting a functioning voting platform, as well as the political and cultural framework that promoted this innovation. Using data from our own qualitative and quantitative studies of the Estonian experience, we consider who voted over the Internet in these elections, and the political implications of the voting platform. Finally, we consider the lessons that other countries can learn from the Estonian experience

The representative deficit in different European Party Systems: an analysis of the elections to the European Parliament 2009-2014

This paper explores the extent to which different party systems in Europe effectively represent their citizens. We argue that many European countries suffer from a “representative deficit”, which occurs when a significant portion of citizens have to vote for a political party whose stated views are actually quite different from their own. We measure the extent of this deficit in different European countries using data from EU Profiler and euandi, two Voting Advice Applications which served millions of users during the EP elections in 2009 and 2014 respectively. We find wide variation in the extent to which political parties are accurately tuned in to the preferences of their voters, a variation which is not clearly linked to the number of political parties or the proportionality of the electoral system. We attempt to explain some of this variation, and explore the reasons why some party systems offer better representation than others

Potential and challenges of e-voting in the European Union

European Union Democracy Observatory (EUDO)This study was commissioned and supervised by the European Parliament’s Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the AFCO Committee. It addresses the potentials and challenges of the implementation of Internet voting in European Parliament elections. It considers the social, political, legal, and technological implications of its introduction as an alternative to on-paper ballot and builds on the recent experience of previous trials and successful e-enabled elections to issue technical recommendations regarding Internet voting in the European Union

The Effect of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) on Political Preferences - Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Can online Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) that match voters to candidates and parties based on issue congruence influence voters’ political preferences? To address this question, we conducted a field experiment with University students during the 2011 Swiss federal elections and examine whether voters who used the Swiss VAA smartvote prior to the elections were more likely to adapt their initial party preferences. smartvote is an online web tool that enables voters to match their issue preferences to those of parties and candidates running for office, providing voters with custom made voting recommendations. Moreover, the tool allows voters to visualize their political position in the political landscape and compare their position to the political offer. The VAA gives unprecedented access to detailed political information and lets voters systematically compare electoral alternatives. Given these unique opportunities offered by the VAA, we analyze whether the revelation of “objective” preferences by the voting recommendation initiates changes in “subjective” preferences of voters. Decades of research on political behavior indicate that voters’ knowledge of and interest in politics is fairly limited and that political preferences are therefore highly amenable to (additional) information. Hence, we expect that voters who have their policy matches revealed by smartvote to be more likely to reconsider previously held convictions and consequently show changes in their political preference structure. We argue that VAAs can reinforce and rearrange pre-existing preferences. Employing the common political preference measure of an individual’s propensity to vote (ptv) for specific parties, we ascertain whether the smartvote voting recommendation caused voters to adapt their ptv scores for the running parties in the election. To empirically test these assumptions, we conducted a randomized field experiment during the 2011 Swiss federal elections among 2’000 University students in Switzerland. The treatment group received * Contact: [email protected] an email invitation to use smartvote before elections, providing survey participants with a personalized login for the website. The control group did not receive such an invitation. We measured the baseline characteristics and political preferences of both groups before and after the elections by means of an online survey. Given the randomized treatment assignment and the panel structure of the experiment, the data allows us to estimate the causal effect of smartvote use on political preferences. Due to non-compliance in the sample, we identify local average treatment effects for compliers. We find significant changes in the awarded scores for the top party preference among smartvote users. The assigned ptv score for the top party preferences increases significantly among those voters who used smartvote. Among those who changed their top party ptv score, most remained with the same party choice. Thus, in case of the most preferred party, smartvote use seems to reinforce pre-existing preferences. We do not only find a strengthening of the top party preference but also a multiplication thereof. Voters who consulted the tool report higher likelihoods for considering alternative choice options at elections. smartvote users, compared to non-users, are significantly more likely to change their initial preferences from a single most favored party to multiple highly preferred parties. In other words, being exposed to detailed information about vote alternatives seems to incline voters to consider these alternative options more closely and include the closest ones as part of their future choice set. These systematic shifts among smartvote users present empirical evidence for a causal effect of VAA use on political preferences

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

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