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This time it’s different? Effects of the Eurovision Debate onyoung citizens’ and its consequence for EU democracy – evidence from a quasi-experiment in 24 countries
Journal of European Public Policy
Abstract
For the very first time in EU history, the 2014 EP elections provided citizens with
the opportunity to influence the nomination of the Commission President by
casting a vote for the main Europarties’ ‘lead candidates’. By subjecting the
position of the Commission President to an open political contest, many
experts have formulated the expectation that heightened political competition
would strengthen the weak electoral connection between EU citizens and EU
legislators, which some consider a root cause for the EU’s lack of public
support. In particular, this contest was on display in the so-called ‘Eurovision
Debate’, a televised debate between the main contenders for the Commission
President broadcasted live across Europe. Drawing on a quasi-experimental
study conducted in 24 EU countries, we find that debate exposure led to
increased cognitive and political involvement and EU support among young
citizens. Unfortunately, the debate has only reached a very small audience.
... Both politicians and political communication experts recognize that televised debates are paramount to bring voters and candidates closer together (e.g., Graber 1996;Schill 2012), helping the audience to form an impression of the political actors involved in them. The study of effects of exposure to televised debates, which is almost as old as televised debates themselves (Katz and Feldman 1962;Chaffee 1978;McLeod et al. 1979;Swanson and Swanson 1978), has indeed unveiled impacts on voting intentions and political attitudes (e.g., Maier and Faas 2011;Maier et al. 2018), interest and knowledge about politics (e.g., Pfau 2003), or issue salience (e.g., Benoit et al. 2003). The impact of political debates on candidate perceptions and evaluations has also been studied (e.g., Pfau and Rang 1991;Schill and Kirk 2014;Baboš and Világi 2018;Nina and Santana-Pereira 2021). ...
... Maier et al. (2016) also reported impacts on attitudes towards the EU amongst young German voters, while Maier (2015) identified amongst the same population positive impacts in the assessment of the political system. Using the very same data that the present article is based on, collected in 24 different EU Member States, Maier et al. (2018) identified effects in terms of knowledge (greater ability to express opinions on the candidates and their positions) and perceived levels of information on the EU (increased), perception of the candidates' ideological positions (viewers rated all candidates except Juncker as more left-wing and all candidates as more pro-EU after that before the debate), perception of polarization in the candidate pool (increased), interest in the campaign and internal efficacy (increased), and attitudes towards the EU (improved). There is no evidence, however, on whether exposure to this debate had priming effects. ...
... We tested our hypotheses with data from a quasi-experiment with the participation of young citizens from 24 EU Member States 1 , who were exposed to the 2014 Eurovision Spitzenkandidaten debate in their respective universities. The reception mode differed slightly across countries: about four in each five participants were able to watch the debate simultaneously translated in their native language, while the remainder watched the original version of the debate broadcasted in English (Maier et al. 2018). Moreover, 91 percent watched the debate live, with the others having watched a recording of the debate the very next day. ...
In this article, we show how exposure to debates primes specific candidate assessments as key factors of candidate appraisal. To fulfil this goal, we rely on quasi-experimental data collected in 24 European Union Member States and focus on a debate starred by largely unknown candidates (the 2014 European Spiztenkandidaten) engaged in a remarkably invisible campaign. Our results show that candidate perceptions become much more important factors of general candidate appraisal after the debate in the case of three out of the five lead candidates, namely those whose image benefitted from their participation in the debate. In several cases, personal likeability became more important in the general assessment of the Spitzenkandidaten, but there was also an increased relevance of the perceptions of leadership strength (Keller) and quality of the ideas to stimulate the European economy (Schulz and Tspiras). Moreover, in the cases of Schulz, Keller, and Tsipras, post-exposure candidate perceptions impacted more their general appraisal by participants without previous knowledge of them than by those who claimed to know them before the debate. Interestingly, leadership strength appraisal was more relevant for the former than for the latter participants. In short, by unveiling these patterns, this article not only provides evidence of the priming effects of debate exposure but also illustrates how such effects may vary according to citizens’ previous knowledge and the candidates’ general performance in the debate.
... Moreover, the Spitzenkandidaten present themselves to the electorate by participating in televised debates. The most iconic debate is the Eurovision Debate organized by the European Broadcasting Union which features all pan-European candidates and is hosted by the EP itself Maier et al., 2018). But the Spitzenkandidaten do also participate in national debate formats (for an overview of the German EP election campaign in 2019 see Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Baden-Württemberg, 2019). ...
... By regularly attracting large audiences (Prior, 2012), televised debates are especially advantageous opportunities for candidates to make themselves known among voters (Benoit et al., 2003). Quasi-experimental evidence demonstrates that watching the Eurovision televised debate in 2014 increased knowledge about the participating Spitzenkandidaten (Baboš and Világi, 2018;Maier et al., 2018). ...
... Unsurprisingly, we observe a pronounced positive effect of watching such a debate in which a particular candidate was involved. We thereby demonstrated in an observational study what quasi-experimental studies (Baboš and Világi, 2018;Maier et al., 2018) have already shown: these 'miniature campaigns' (Maier and Faas, 2011) provide fruitful opportunities for voters to learn about the Spitzenkandidaten. All six model specifications in Table 1 provide consistent support for H2. ...
The Spitzenkandidaten were meant to personalize European Parliament elections. This paper asks whether and through which channels the lead candidates were actually able to make themselves known among voters – a necessary precondition for any electoral effect. Combining panel surveys and online tracking data, the study explores candidate learning during the German 2019 European Parliament election campaign and relates learning to different types of news exposure, with a special focus on online news. The results show that learning was limited and unevenly distributed across candidates. However exposure to candidate-specific online news and most types of offline news helped to acquire knowledge. The findings imply that Spitzenkandidaten stick to voters’ minds when they get exposed to them, but that exposure is infrequent in high-choice media environments.
... Apenas el 15% de la ciudadanía europea vio alguno de los debates (Hobolt, 2015). El principal de ellos, el Eurovision debate del 15 de mayo, con traducción simultánea a todas las lenguas de la UE, tuvo apenas 160.000 espectadores en Alemania, menos del 1% de la audiencia del debate nacional (Maier et al. 2017). ...
... Si bien para Schmitt et al. (2015), aunque de manera modesta, allí donde se reconoce a los candidatos, su presencia sirve para reforzar los efectos electorales (más notorio en las campañas tradicionales, en contacto con las bases, como las de Schulz y Verhofstadt). En perspectiva también optimista, se apunta a repercusiones en las actitudes ciudadanas, por ejemplo, en el incremento del apoyo al proyecto comunitario entre los universitarios que entran en contacto con la campaña (Maier et al., 2017). ...
El Tratado de Lisboa abre la puerta a que las elecciones al Parlamento Europeo, más allá del correspondiente reparto de escaños, desempeñen un papel protagonista en la elección del presidente de la Comisión Europea. En este sentido, su art. 17 estipula que el Consejo Europeo proponga un candidato a presidir la Comisión “tomando en consideración los resultados de las elecciones a la Eurocámara”, que habrá de ser elegido por esta. En la práctica, esta formulación ha dado lugar a que cada partido político europeo elija su denominado Spitzenkandidat o “candidato principal”, en el objetivo primordial de combatir el déficit democrático de la UE. Las elecciones al Parlamento Europeo de 2014, aunque con dificultades, se adecuaron a la nueva fórmula. No fue el caso de los comicios de 2019 en los que, refrendado por la Eurocámara, la elección de presidente de la Comisión Europea no correspondió a ninguno de los Spitzenkandidaten. El artículo analiza la génesis y desarrollo de esta figura, su papel en la profundización democrática de la UE y sus perspectivas en el contexto del debate sobre el futuro de Europa.
... Recently, this concrete effort to make European Parliament (EP) elections more attractive has gained significant attention in academic research. Unsurprisingly, attention has focused mainly on the evaluation of the procedure's impact on overall turnout (Hobolt 2014), voters' propensity to cast ballots (Schmitt, Hobolt and Popa 2015), or on new campaign attributes such as debates between candidates (Maier, Faas, Rittberger, Fortin-Rittberger, et al. 2018). However, little is known about the actors responsible for instigating this innovation and their motivations to participate in the Spitzenkandidaten 'experiment'. ...
... The second line relates to the role of media in EU politics. In this regard, the presence of lead candidates in the media and the media's role in providing information about Spitzenkandidaten are of importance (for example Schulze 2016;Maier, Faas, Rittberger, Fortin-Rittberger, et al. 2018;Gattermann, De Vreese and van der Brug 2016). A third line of research is oriented more towards the EU's political system. ...
The European Parliament elections in 2014 and 2019 were different insofar as European citizens had the possibility to ‘directly’ influence who could become the next President of the European Commission. This innovation is based on the idea of ‘Spitzenkandidaten’, where a vote for a given political party also represents a vote for its lead candidate. This article examines the process behind the institutionalisation of the Spitzenkandidaten procedure, with attention focused on the actors involved and their motivations for supporting this institutional innovation. Using a qualitative content analysis of EU institutional and party documentation, the article confirms that the Spitzenkandidaten
procedure should be perceived as the culmination of a long-term process beginning in the pre-Amsterdam era. It also concludes that the procedure, as firstly applied in 2014, represents the common effort of two supranational institutions and four European political parties. It is also argued that while the emergence of the Spitzenkandidaten is primarily a result of perceived shortcomings of the EU’s democratic quality, actors’ self-interest was also driving force.
... Finally, in line with the Lisbon treaty, an important change was introduced together with the 2014 EP elections: the introduction of European-wide lead candidates. While this did not fundamentally change the elections themselves or raise their visibility (Christiansen, 2016;Hobolt, 2014), it is likely to have increased EP turnout at least to some degree (Maier et al., 2017;Schmitt et al., 2015). Our theoretical assumption hence is that non-structural factors, including politicization of the EU and the rise of Eurosceptic parties, are likely to have induced higher turnout in EP elections. ...
The European Parliament (EP) has seen a gradual increase in its powers since the introduction of direct elections in 1979. Scholars have focused on both individual-level and aggregate factors to explain turnout rates in EP elections over time, including increased levels of EU politicization and the rise in support for Eurosceptic parties. However, one strand of analysis seems to partially have been overlooked: Some earlier research on EP election turnout claimed that absolute turnout rates across the EU should be used with care, as a number of ‘structural factors’ influences these shares and with this, affects estimates of actual voter turnout. Are such structural variables still relevant in a time where European politics are becoming increasingly salient among the wider public, pro- and anti-EU sentiments may increase citizens’ inclination to vote and trust in EU institutions may be getting increasingly important? Based on various estimates, we find that structural factors can still be characterized as determinants in EP elections, but that the power of structural factors to explain turnout at the EU level, compared to non-structural factors, has decreased. Nonetheless, EU-wide (average) EP turnout rates, as widely reported, are not likely to be good reflections of actual trends in EP turnout over time.
... In other words, debates tend to receive a lot of attention in first-order elections, but hardly in second-order elections, such as EP elections. The so-called Eurovision debate before the 2014 EP elections had reached a limited audience, but Maier et al. (2018) showed how exposure to this debate increased cognitive and political involvement as well as EU support, among young citizens (see also Maier et al., 2016). In this Special Issue, Palacios and Arnold (2021) test the effect of the 2019 debate, the so-called Maastricht debate, on voter awareness and evaluations of the Spitzenkandidaten in a novel experimental set-up. ...
The dominant perspective of European Parliament (EP) elections is that these are second-order national elections where little is at stake. This Special Issue asks whether this perspective is still valid in view of increased politicization of European integration and in view of the higher turnout levels at the last EP elections. This introduction provides a general framework for the Special Issue and reflects upon some of its main findings. We argue that EP elections can only be considered first-order if they are primarily about the policies, rather than the polity. Some of the contributions in this Special Issue suggest that this is indeed the case. We reflect upon this and argue that there are reasons to expect that EP elections will become more first order in the future.
... During a debate, candidates have the opportunity to make themselves known, discuss in detail their policy positions, and distinguish themselves from the other candidates. Given that voters are usually poorly informed at the beginning of political campaigns, especially in regard to EU matters, debates help them to form an impression about the candidates and issues (Baboš and Világi, 2018;Maier and et al, 2018). After a debate, viewers have been found to have the subjective feeling that they are better informed than before and are more confident of their vote choice (Kaid et al., 2000). ...
The Lisbon Treaty introduced key institutional changes to increase the relevance of elections to the European Parliament (EP). Among these was the ‘Spitzenkandidaten process’, which was introduced with the aim to increase the visibility of the EP elections and mobilize more citizens to turnout to vote. This article investigates the effect that the debates among the Lead Candidates had on voters’ perceptions about candidates and policy issues. To do this, we administered a two-wave panel online survey to a sample of students from different European universities prior to the Spitzenkandidaten debates and right after them, following the logic of a quasi-experimental research design. Following a difference-in-differences approach, we gauge the extent to which those respondents who were exposed to the debates increased their degree of information about the candidates and changed their perceptions about the candidates and their policy positions. The findings reveal that respondents who followed the debate felt significantly more informed to make up their minds about the candidates as well as to make their vote decisions and slightly improved the perceptions of the policy positions of those candidates who they had intended to vote for.
... Individuals exposed to the 2014 EPE campaign were more likely to express preferences for the Spitzenkandidaten (Gattermann et al., 2016). In turn, exposure to the 'Eurovision debate' between these candidates increased knowledge and EU support among the young (Maier et al., 2018). ...
Utilitarian theories propose that support for the EU is based on an instrumental calculus about the costs and benefits of European integration. Drawing on these theories, we analyze whether and how ads produced by European institutions affect public support for the EU. Our findings, based on a panel survey experiment, indicate that these ads increase support for the EU, and that ads emphasizing the policy benefits of European integration are more effective than ads emphasizing its reduced costs. However, these positive effects are short-lived, since they had disappeared one year after citizens were initially exposed to the ads. In a context of increasing negativity towards the EU, these findings, based on realistic treatments, have relevant theoretical and policy implications.
... And finally, by introducing so-called lead candidates for the President of the European Commission (e.g. Maier et al., 2017), the Europarties themselves expressed their hope that 'This time [it would be] different' (e.g. Van der Brug et al., 2016). ...
We investigate the interplay between party communication and media coverage in putting EU issues on the agenda during the 2014 European Parliamentary election campaigns in Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom. A temporal pattern analysis focuses on the dynamic perspective of media–parties’ interactions based on a quantitative content analysis of (a) the press releases published by parties and (b) the coverage of two leading newspapers per country 12 weeks prior to the elections. We find that most public discourses are started by the media; however, political parties especially in Austria are also quite successful in initiating discussions about EU issues. Interestingly, once an issue has been placed on the agenda, only few parties take the chance of their issue ownership as response to the media agenda. On the other side, media react to publications of all party types, even radical parties.
The Spitzenkandidaten system was envisaged as a way of transforming the character of elections to the European Parliament (EP). To gain a better understanding of how this ambitious aim has met empirical reality, we focus on political parties dealing with the European-wide lead candidates in EP electoral campaigns. More precisely, we study the perspective of political parties by drawing on Euromanifesto data. On the one hand, we analyse country differences and test whether European-wide lead candidates have generated more visibility in their home countries while, on the other, we take a closer look at the statements made about the Spitzenkandidaten principle in the respective Euromanifestos to learn more about the reasons for its potentially positive or negative assessment. Findings from these analyses allow for more detailed insights into the issue of transnational party competition in Europe. On top of examining previous and current trends, this contribution sets out what we might expect when it comes to the Spitzenkandidaten process for the upcoming 2024 EP elections.
Higher education must become a strategic ecosystem in developing Pancasila values to regenerate student democratic life. The purpose of this study was to find out and describe the influence of understanding Pancasila values on the democratic life of STKIP PGRI Bandar Lampung students. This research involved 358 students spread across 7 (seven) study programs. This research is a quantitative descriptive study using the correlational method. The instrument of Pancasila values was adopted from the embodiment of the socialization material "Four Pillars of National and State Life", while the instrument for democratic life was adopted from the embodiment of Udin S Winataputra's opinion. Prerequisite tests and data analysis techniques in this study were carried out with the help of the SPSS version 25 application. The results showed a significant influence between the understanding of Pancasila values on the democratic life of STKIP PGRI Bandar Lampung students with a correlation value of 0.538. This research proves that college students fulfill the requirements as interest groups and legitimate democratic actors. The involvement of students in social projects and problem-solving provides more opportunities to develop students' fighting power and critical power. This will further enhance students' understanding of Pancasila values which will ultimately improve students' democratic life. The trilogy of success in learning student democratic behavior focuses on the relationship between learning in the classroom, the importance of student autonomy, and the development of democracy played by the government.
Televised debates represent an integral part of election campaigns and with the introduction of the Spitzenkandidaten process also became part of the European Parliament (EP) elections campaign. Various characteristics of EP elections such as a generally lower (perceived) relevance of and participation in the elections, and also the relatively unknown lead candidates running for Commission President assign TV debates a crucial role to inform European citizens and assist them in their voting decision. Focusing on the second edition of the ‘Eurovision debate’ during the 2019 EP elections campaign, this article examines the impact of debate exposure on both the decision to turn out and party choice. The study uses original flash survey data collected after the debate in five countries (DE, DK, ES, HU, NL). These data are part of a larger panel-survey study, which allows to examine immediate effects in the days after the debate and also for the eventual decision on Election Day. Although citizens' debate exposure varies considerably across countries, and watchers further differ in their evaluations of the candidate performances, the results show a surprisingly negative effect of debate exposure on turnout, especially among more interested citizens, and basically no effects on party choice.
Leader evaluations are a crucial aspect in representative democracy. We analyse the patterns, antecedents and consequences of European Union leader evaluations against the backdrop of the 2019 European Parliament elections in ten countries. The article shows, firstly, that leader evaluations are unidimensional, both among voters with low and high knowledge as well as partisans and non-partisans. Secondly, among the antecedents of leader evaluations, European Union trust and performance evaluations are positively associated with leader evaluations, while European identity hardly plays a role compared to other factors. Lastly, the positive effect of leader evaluations on vote choice is conditional upon the individual leader and their party affiliation. Our results have important implications for expectations towards and evaluations of European Union leadership in the long term.
The aim of the article is to investigate how a change in the election method of the President of the European Commission influenced of the political system of the European Union.Given the 2014 election results and the consequences of actions taken by the European Council in 2019, a question arises: what opportunities did the party families hope to be brought by The Spitzenkandiaten process? Did it strengthen cooperation among national parties belonging to the same European party during the campaign? How has the role of the European parties in the EU’s political system changed?
How does political involvement impact on data quality of virtualized Real-Time-Response (RTR) Measurement? The article addresses this issue, drawing on a large field study (n = 5660) conducted during the 2017 German general election campaign. Since it is unclear how heterogeneous characteristics of individuals influence data quality of RTR-Measurement from audiences surveyed outside the lab, we assess the impact of political involvement on the reliability and validity of virtualized real-time-response data. We show that political involvement shapes reliability and validity systematically but to a degree that does not compromise established standards of data quality. Thus, we conclude that virtualized RTR outside the laboratory with limited means of control is an appropriate method to survey heterogeneous samples in large N-field studies and therefore offers new paths of data collection.
Ausgehend von einem Dreieck wechselseitiger Abhängigkeiten zur Mobilisation in Europawahlkämpfen, sichtet dieser Beitrag die neuere kommunikationswissenschaftliche Forschung zu den Kampagnen, der Medienberichterstattung und ihrer Resonanz bei der Wählerschaft. Der Überblick fokussiert auf die international vergleichenden Studien, für die Europawahlen aufgrund ihrer besonderen Konstellation eine einzigartige Gelegenheit bieten. In der Bilanz zeigt sich, dass das Interesse der Forschung zu Europawahlen deutlich gewachsen ist, Fragestellungen und methodisches Vorgehen sind jedoch heterogen, sodass nur bedingt allgemeine Schlüsse über das Zusammenwirken der verschiedenen Einfluss nehmenden Faktoren zu ziehen sind.
This article examines how different modes of exposure to debates between presidential candidates affect both the criteria by which they are assessed and levels of learning about politics in an unobtrusive, distant context. In this study, 167 Portuguese undergraduate students were randomly assigned to either watch or listen to one of two 1986 dyadic presidential debates, rate the candidates on a series of items, and answer questions about the contents of the debate. We found that the mode of exposure only affected the assessment criteria of the lesser known presidential candidate. In fact, his personality appraisals carried more weight for viewers than for listeners, while the substantive performance was more important for those who listened to the debate. Although a more confrontational debating style lowered the ratings of the lesser known candidate, this was not conditional to mode of exposure. Moreover, video exposure to the debate resulted in higher levels of learning. In summary, this study supports the assumption that the visual cues in audiovisual formats are major factors of learning and prime personality traits as criteria for the appraisal of (relatively) unknown candidates.
Televised debates are major events in electoral campaigns, serving voters as a substantial source of political information and reaching millions of the potential electorate. Scholars have made use of this potential by applying Real-Time Response Measurement (RTR) to assess reception and perception processes. However, RTR-research has yet almost exclusively focused on duel scenarios. In this paper, we argue that the focus on the duel format in political and communication science research is inappropriate. Thus, we apply virtualized RTR on TV-debates with a multi-person panel. Drawing on data of two field studies ( n = 1191/1058) conducted with the Debat-O-Meter – an innovative virtualized RTR-Measurement toolbox – in the course of the 2017 federal election in Germany, we show that virtualized RTR-Measurement can indeed produce valid and reliable data regarding TV-discussions with a multi-person podium. Additionally, we find perception processes to be primarily shaped by party identification and prior political preferences such as candidate orientation. Furthermore, our results give strong evidence that candidate preferences are substantially affected by debate reception. Overall, our data follows an established structure well-known from research on TV-duels. As such, research on TV discussions with a multi-person panel is compatible with the existing repertoire of methods, offers great potential for political communication research and provides results that can be linked to current findings in empirical debate research while making its own contribution to the research field.
In the 2014 and 2019 European elections, not only were parliamentary seats at stake, but more importantly, European citizens were given the opportunity to indirectly decide who would captain the ship of the European Commission for the next five years. Ahead of the elections, based on Article 17(7) of the Treaty on European Union, the European political parties nominated their lead candidates ( Spitzenkandidaten) for the Commission presidency and ran personalised, presidential-style campaigns across the member states. Although discarded in 2019, the Spitzenkandidat process brought about several political and institutional changes, while aiming to cure the EU’s democratic deficiencies. The process was conceived in 2014 as a way to make the selection of the Commission president more transparent and legitimate. At the same time, the level of politicisation was increased, with inter-institutional changes being implemented. The role of the European political parties was strengthened from that of being service providers to being proactive campaigners.
This article contributes to the debate about the introduction of the Spitzenkandidaten (lead candidates) in the 2014 European Parliament (EP) election. Focusing on parties’ efforts to make the candidates visible to voters, we argue that the multi-level character of these elections creates large differences concerning individual parties’ incentives to promote the Spitzenkandidaten in their campaigns. Analysing a novel dataset of campaign communication on Facebook, we find that only a few parties highlighted them, while many did not. In line with our theoretical argument, this variation is systematic and can be attributed to lacking incentives for most parties. Especially nominating a candidate at the European level only has a modest positive effect on national parties’ willingness to put the candidates in the spotlight. This lacking commitment to the nominated candidates should be considered in discussions about the reform of the current Spitzenkandidaten system for the 2019 EP elections.
Politisches Vertrauen ist in Demokratien eine zentrale Ressource. Daher stellt sich die Frage, ob es Wahlkampfformate gibt, die für Spitzenkandidaten in besonderer Weise geeignet sind, das Vertrauen der Bürger zu gewinnen. Auf der Basis von repräsentativen Bevölkerungsumfragen für die Bundestagswahlen 2002 bis 2013 und von zehn Landtagswahlen der Jahre 2011 bis 2017 untersuchen wir für Deutschland, ob die Rezeption von TV-Duellen zu einer Steigerung des Vertrauens in die politischen Spitzenkandidaten führt. Damit liegt erstmalig eine Analyse von TV-Duellen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland vor, die vergleichend sowohl mehrere Debatten auf Bundesebene als auch zahlreiche Debatten auf Landesebene in den Blick nimmt. Unsere Daten zeigen, dass Fernsehdebatten in Deutschland prinzipiell über das Potenzial verfügen, das Vertrauen in die Kandidaten zu erhöhen. Es zeigt sich jedoch, dass die genaue Wirkung von Merkmalen der teilnehmenden Kandidaten, Eigenschaften der Rezipienten und der politischen Ebene abhängt.
The Lisbon Treaty (2009) introduced key institutional changes to increase the relevance of elections to the European Parliament (EP). Among others, major political groups nominated different lead candidates, the so-called Spitzenkandidaten, for the 2014 EP elections. The aim of this article is to investigate how national political parties react to this new institutional setting. Using data from the 2014 Euromanifesto study, the article examines if and under what conditions political parties put emphasis on the Spitzenkandidaten system in their party manifestos and whether they take positive or negative stances when talking about it. The findings reveal that parties put little emphasis on the issue. Moreover, the factors promoting the Spitzenkandidaten system suggest that parties decide strategically upon emphasising that topic or take a positive stance on it if they expect to benefit from this.
That citizens of European Union countries differ in their attitudes regarding Europe is a commonplace of political commentary. Some favor their country’s membership in the EU, others oppose it. Some, while thinking that membership is generally a good thing, feel that steps toward unification have gone far enough – or even too far. Others believe that further steps should be taken.Citizens of EU countries also differ in terms of more traditional political orientations – attitudes to the proper role of government in society, welfare provision, and other matters which have increasingly over the past half-century come to be subsumed within a single orientation towards government action, generally referred to as the left/right orientation (Lipset 1960; Lijphart 1980; Franklin, Mackie, Valen, et al., 1992).These two orientations are often assumed to be orthogonal, with the newer pro-/anti-EU orientation cutting across the more traditional left/right orientation (see, e.g., Hicks and Lord 1998; Hooghe and Marks 1999). Our own research (van der Eijk and Franklin 1996; van der Eijk, Franklin, and van der Brug 1999; van der Brug, Franklin, and van der Eijk 2000) demonstrates that EU orientation does not currently have much impact on party choice at EU elections. Elections to the European Parliament have been described as “second-order national” elections at which the arena supposedly at issue (the European arena) takes second place to the national arena as a focus for issue and representational concerns (Reif and Schmitt 1980; Reif 1984, 1985; Marsh and Franklin 1996); and the national arena is quintessentially one in which left/right orientations dominate.
In the run-up to the elections to the European Parliament in 2014, EU citizens had the unprecedented opportunity to watch televised debates between the candidates running for president of the European Commission. The most important debate was the so-called “Eurovision debate”, which was broadcasted in almost all EU member states. In this study we explore the responses of a sample of 110 young German voters, who watched this debate, to the candidates’ messages and whether exposure to the debate caused a shift in the respondents’ attitudes towards the EU. Combining data from a quasi-experiment, real-time response data, and data from a content analysis of the debate, we find that respondents’ reactions to the candidates’ statements were—on average—positive and that some respondents displayed attitudinal changes resulting in more favorable views towards the EU. Although the direct connection between real-time responses and post-debate attitudes is not as strong as expected, most of the measured effects indicate that a positive evaluation of the candidates’ messages usually results in more pro-European attitudes. Furthermore, we find no strong evidence that political knowledge moderates debate effects. In general, differences between political ‘novices’ and political ‘experts’ tend to be rare.
This study responds to The Racine Group's (2002) call for campaign, debate research that explores "the trans-campaign effects of debates on such matters as voting behavior, image formation, and attitude change" (p. 199). Our analysis of debate effects from 2000 to 2012 provides a number of important insights into how presidential campaign debates function in different campaign contexts. Specifically, we examine debate effects across multiple campaign periods, including analysis of the presidential election cycles and debates in 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012; and we also explore campaign contexts in which incumbents are seeking reelection (2004 and 2012) as well as "open" races with no incumbent president engaged in general election debates. Finally, our analysis allows for comparative assessments across different types of debates as we include viewer responses to both Democrat and Republican primary and general election debates, as well as vice presidential debates. Overall, our findings support existing presidential debate research, provide a greater understanding of specific debate effects, and also raise a number of intriguing questions for future research.
A key component of democratic accountability is that citizens understand 'who is to blame'. Nonetheless, little is known about how citizens attribute responsibility in the European Union or how those perceptions of responsibility matter. This book presents the first comprehensive account of how citizens assign blame to the EU, how politicians and the media attempt to shift blame and finally, how it matters for electoral democracy. Based on rich and unique data sources, Blaming Europe? sheds light on all three aspects of responsibility in the EU. First, it shows that while institutional differences between countries shape citizen judgements of EU responsibility, those judgements are also highly determined by pre-existing attitudes towards the EU. Second, it demonstrates that neither politicians nor the media assign much blame to the EU. Third, it establishes that regardless of whether voters are capable of accurately assigning responsibility, they are not able to hold their EU representatives to account via the ballot box in European elections due to the lack of an identifiable 'European government' to reward or punish. As a consequence, when citizens hold the EU responsible for poor performance, but are unable to sanction an EU incumbent, they lose trust in the EU as a whole instead. In conclusion, it argues that this 'accountability deficit' has significant implications for the future of the European Union.
Experiments using economic games are becoming a major source for the study of human social behavior. These experiments are usually conducted with university students who voluntarily choose to participate. Across the natural and social sciences, there is some concern about how this "particular" subject pool may systematically produce biased results. Focusing on social preferences, this study employs data from a survey-experiment conducted with a representative sample of a city's population (N = 765). We report behavioral data from five experimental decisions in three canonical games: dictator, ultimatum and trust games. The dataset includes students and non-students as well as volunteers and non-volunteers. We separately examine the effects of being a student and being a volunteer on behavior, which allows a ceteris paribus comparison between self-selected students (students*volunteers) and the representative population. Our results suggest that self-selected students are an appropriate subject pool for the study of social behavior.
Given that US-style televised debates were held for the third time in a row in a German federal election campaign, it seems fair to say that they have become institutionalized features of German campaigns. Although a number of studies have analyzed (single) German debates, comparative work covering the full set of debates is still lacking. Within this paper, our aim is to reveal patterns and trends in a) debate exposure, b) the evaluation of the candidates’ debate performances and c) debate effects. To do so, we analyse a pooled data set for the 2002, 2005 and 2009 debates. We find consistent evidence that cognitive as well as partisan mobilization increases the probability of watching debates. Concerning the impact of debates, we find that debate exposure has a mobilizing effect – specially among people less interested in politics. In addition, we find a considerable impact of debates on party choice – with the effects reflecting patterns of ‘reinforcement’ as well as ‘conversion’. The largest debate effects can be observed for independent voters. Given these results, televised debates are not only institutionalized features of German campaigns, but also powerful and hence possibly decisive ones.
This paper focuses on an important aspect of presidential debates: the degree to which voters are able to glean candidate information from them. Using an open-ended measure of candidate information, the analysis tests hypotheses concerning the impact of debates on information acquisition among the mass public for all debates from 1976 to 1996. The findings indicate that people do learn from debates and that learning is affected by the context in which the information is encountered. Specifically, early debates generate more learning than do subsequent debates, and the public tends to learn more about candidates with whom they are relatively unfamiliar than about better-known candidates.
Giandomenico Majone and Andrew Moravcsik have argued that the EU does not suffer a 'democratic deficit'. We disagree about one key element: whether a democratic polity requires contestation for political leadership and over policy. This aspect is an essential element of even the 'thinnest' theories of democracy, yet is conspicuously absent in the EU. Copyright 2006 The Author(s).
This study focuses on the historical configuration of territorial borders and functional boundaries of the European nation states, and interprets integration as a process of transcendence, redefinition, and shift of those same boundaries that alters the nature of the nation states’ domestic political structures. The core of the argument concerns the relationship between the institutional design of the new Brussels centre, the boundary redefinitions that result from its political production, and the consequences of both these processes on the established national and emerging European political structures. The EU is interpreted through three key conceptual tools: ‘centre formation’, ‘system building’, and ‘political structuring’. The ‘centre formation’ — with limited administrative and fiscal capabilities and strong regulatory and judicial capabilities — is not accompanied by ‘system building’ in the field of cultural integration, social sharing institutions, and participation rights, that is, by institutions forcing its components to stay within it beyond the mere instrumental calculations. Given that for any new centre a balance must exist between its system building capacity and the scope and reach of its political production, the argument is that the ambitious political production of the EU is clearly out of balance with its weak system building capacity. As far as the ‘political structuring’ is concerned, this work argues that the institutional design of the Union and its weak system building militate to date against any stable form of political structuring for its representative actors, while its growing political production tends to undermine national mechanisms of political representation and legitimation. Under these conditions, any institutional democratization without political structuring may turn into facade electioneering, at best, or dangerous experiments, at worst. In the view of classical sociology — that takes the existence of a certain overlap between social identities, political boundaries, and social practices as a precondition for establishing political agency and a ‘rational’ political order — the EU is both a source of problems but also a possible solution to them. It can be seen as a project for regaining some degree of coherence between extended social practices, social identities, solidarity ties, and rules of deliberation at the European level. Most of the ideas expressed in this book show how problematic this project is believed to be.
This chapter takes stock of the empirical evidence and the lessons learned in the book. The chapter distinguishes between intended consequences of European Parliament elections that in fact materialized, those intended consequences that did not materialize, and consequences of EP elections that were unintended. The results of this volume provide a balanced picture, as some intended consequences did materialize while others did not. Also, European elections have unintended and in some respects undesirable consequences. After discussing some of the theoretical implications, the chapter focuses on the practical implications as well. It concludes by providing a look into the future of EP elections.
The European Parliament elections in May 2014 will be the most important such elections to date. In addition to providing European citizens with an opportunity to express their views about how the EU has tackled the Eurozone crisis, the elections will produce a new political majority in the European Parliament. With the new powers of the European Parliament under the Lisbon Treaty, this new majority will shape EU policies in many important areas, from regulation of the single market to the free movement of persons, international trade agreements, reform of the common agricultural policy, carbon taxes, and so on. The new majority will also for the first time formally “elect” the next Commission President. To illustrate what is at stake next May, this analysis looks at how the political composition of the current Parliament, EP7, has shaped EU policies. The paper first looks at how party-political coalitions have varied across policy areas, before focusing on what happened in “ten key votes”. These votes demonstrate the broad range of policy issues on which the European Parliament has power. They also highlight how the political make-up of the Parliament and the types of coalitions determine EU policy outcomes on many salient issues.
The present study analyzes the 2006 Italian General Election debate between Berlusconi and Prodi. While watching the debate live on TV, 65 subjects using a self-report questionnaire evaluated, for each answer, each politician’s performance (as persuasive, pleasant, expert, calm) and answer (as understandable, credible, interesting); subjects were also queried about their political orientation, vote intention and possible change at the end of debate. Then blind observers examined and coded each politician’s rhetoric and gestures. Results show that rhetoric and gestures of Berlusconi were different from Prodi’s. Correlation analyses between objective measures (coding) and subjective measures (self-report) show that verbal and gestural styles used in each answer by the two politicians had different persuasive effects on different politically oriented audiences. The different evaluations of these communicative parameters and their persuasive effect are discussed.
The 2014 European Parliament elections were the first elections where the major political groups each nominated a lead candidate (Spitzenkandidat) for the Commission presidency in the hope that this would increase the visibility of the elections and mobilize more citizens to turn out. Using data from the 2014 European Elections Study, an EU-wide post-election survey, we analyse whether and how the presence of the lead candidates influenced the individual probability to participate in these elections. Our findings show that the recognition of the candidates increased the propensity to turn out, even when controlling for a host of other individual-level factors explaining turnout and the context factors known to facilitate participation. Furthermore, the campaign efforts of the lead candidates are associated with higher turnout levels and are reinforced by candidate recognition.
Despite the growing literature on the history of European integration, scholars have not reached a general consensus on the rationale for the introduction of direct elections to the European Parliament. This review article analyses representative books and articles through three levels of analysis: the evolution of the European Community institutional framework; the role of national governments; and the contribution of European federalist movements. In doing that, the article highlights the lack of a clear synthesis and the need to investigate the role and perception of the European Parliament before its direct elections. Indeed, the controversy over direct elections demonstrates that, far from being a useless talking shop, the European Parliament was a creative institution and a target for both federalists' hopes and national governments' fears. The former considered the introduction of elections as a trigger to democratise and federalise Europe; the latter suspected to lose their power as the only depositaries of national sovereignty.
Zum ersten Mal in einem Wahlkampf zum Europäischen Parlament wurde am 15. Mai 2014 eine europaweit in den nationalen Fernsehsendern übertragene TV-Debatte veranstaltet. Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäft igt sich mit den demokratietheoretisch wünschenswerten Eff ekten von TV-Debatten und untersucht diese am Beispiel der Eurovision Debate im europäischen Kontext. Es wird versucht, die Fragen nach der mittelfristigen Wirkung der debate auf die Einstellungen sowie ‚Emotionen und Bilder von Europa‘ bei den Zuschauerinnen und Zuschauern zu beantworten. Dabei stützt sich der Aufsatz auf die Kombination von quantitativer (Fragebögen in einem Pre-Post-Design) und qualitativer (ermittelnde Gruppendiskussionen) Datenerhebung im Rahmen einer Studie mit 50 Teilnehmern an der Universität Duisburg-Essen. Die Autoren konnten so zeigen, dass die Eurovision Debate das Potenzial besitzt, ein Bild der Nähe zu produzieren und Politik über Gesichter greifb ar erscheinen zu lassen. Diese Wirkung wurde bei den Teilnehmern der Studie jedoch durch einen als gering empfundenen Informationsgrad sowie „Wut und Ärger“ über organisatorische wie gestalterische Unstimmigkeiten des Fernsehformats überlagert. So kann von einer nur gedämpft en Wirkung der Debatte ausgegangen werden.
Die EU hat in den vergangenen Jahren Vertrauen verloren. Verfehlte Politik, mangelnde Identifikation, negative Kommunikation, fehlender politischer Wettbewerb-das sind die vermuteten Ursachen. Im Europawahlkampf 2014 wurde erstmals eine TV-Debatte der Kandidaten für das Amt des EU-Kommissionpräsidenten durchgeführt. Ob es der Debatte gelungen ist, verlorenes Vertrauen zurückzugewinnen und welche Rolle dabei die Kommunikation über die Debatte in den sozialen Medien spielt, untersucht der vorliegende Beitrag.
As the writings of Packard (1957), McGinniss (1969), and others indicate, political candidates are often "packaged" and "sold" much as are consumer products. One increasingly important element in this packaging mix, in terms of influencing voter opinion and behavior, is the televised political debate. This investigation examined the extent to which viewers comprehended material taken from the 1980 televised debate between presidential candidates Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. The data show that nearly one fourth of the material was miscomprehended.
This study evaluates the impact of the first presidential debate of 1976 on the rationality of voting decisions. Using data from a panel of eligible voters in Williamsburg-James City County, Virginia, three models of attitude consistency are tested: rational voting, selective perception, and persuasion. Rational voting is defined as choosing a candidate on the basis of issue positions. The debate increased voter awareness of Ford's and Carter's positions on the issue of unemployment, one of the key issues in the debate. However, there is no evidence of changes in candidate preference based on this issue. There is strong evidence of persuasion: voters adopted the position taken by their preferred candidate.
The European Parliament promised voters that the 2014 elections would be different. According to its interpretation of the Lisbon Treaty, a vote in these European elections would also be a vote for the President of the Europe's executive, the Commission. To reinforce this link between the European elections and the Commission President, the major political groups each nominated a lead candidate, Spitzenkandidat, for the post. This article examines how this innovation affected the 2014 elections. It concludes that the presidential candidates did not play a major role in the election campaigns, except in a handful of countries, and thus had a limited impact on voter participation and vote choices. However, the European Parliament was very successful in imposing its interpretation of the new modified procedure for electing the Commission President, not shared by all national governments, and this will have important implications for the inter-institutional dynamics in the Union and the future of European democracy.
This study examined the influence of intraparty political debates during the 1984 presidential campaign. The results indicated that intraparty debates exert significant influence on viewer attitudes about participating candidates and on viewer interest in the political campaign. The study demonstrated that candidate violations of viewer expectations provide a useful theoretical explanation for significant shifts in viewer attitudes and preferences.
Abstract On the assumption that 'political learning' comprises more than formal instruction, this article investigates the attitudinal
impact of exposure to the 1976 televised debates between American presidential candidates. Following Robinson's (1976) finding
that exposure to 'bad news' decreases confidence in the political system, the study examines the possibility that viewing
the first Carter-Ford debate contributed significantly to changes in the respondents' sense of political efficacy, trust in
government, level of cynicism, orientation to the campaign, and intent to vote. Data from an experimental study indicate only
a limited impact from viewing the debate, which is attributed both to general problems of attitude change and the specific
content of the debates.
Televised debates are now an expected component of the American presidential election campaign. A meta-analysis was used to cumulate the research on the effects of watching presidential debates. General campaign debates increase issue knowledge and issue salience (the number of issues a voter uses to evaluate candidates) and can change preference for candidates' issue stands. Debates can have an agenda-setting effect. Debates can alter perceptions of the candidates' personality, but they do not exert a significant effect on perceptions of the candidates' competence (leadership ability). Debates can affect vote preference. Primary debates increase issue knowledge, influence perceptions of candidates' character, and can alter voter preferences (the effect sizes for these variables are larger in primary than general debates). The effect sizes for the dependent variables with significant effects were heterogeneous (except for effects of debates other than the first on vote preference). No support was found for several possible moderator variables on issue knowledge, character perceptions, candidate competence, and vote preference: nature of subject pool (students, nonstudents), study design (pretest/posttest, viewers/nonviewers), number of days between debate and election, or data collection method (public opinion poll or experimenter data). The first debate in a series had a larger effect on vote preference than other debates, but was not a moderator for other dependent variables. The possibility that other moderator variables are at work cannot be rejected.
Previous research on televised presidential debates tends to minimize their effectiveness as agents of mass attitude change, suggesting that they serve merely to reinforce existing preferences. Much of this work, though, stems from analyses of vote decisions during the closing stages of the general election campaign when preferences are anchored by 9 months of prior information. Using an experimental design that controls for debate viewership, we assess the impact of an early primary season debate—when voters possess limited information and potentially malleable political attitudes—on a broad range of political predispositions. The results demonstrate that debates possess the capacity to influence viewers' campaign engagement, issue appraisals, and candidate evaluations, suggesting that the impact of debates may be dramatically understated.
This study examines the relationships of exposure and attention to various news media, including the Internet, with information learned about the issue positions of candidates George Bush and Al Gore, interest in the 2000 election campaign, and intention to vote among a random sample of adult residents of Indiana who were interviewed by telephone in October and November 2000. The findings are compared with those of previous studies of the 1988, 1992, and 1996 presidential elections. They confirm the importance of television news and television debates as sources of issue information, despite criticisms, and the importance of paying attention to newspaper campaign news for voting. David Weaver is the Roy W. Howard Research Professor in the School of Journalism at Indiana University, where Dan Drew is professor and associate dean for Graduate Studies. They appreciate the support of the Roy W. Howard Chair, the Research & University Graduate School, and the School of Journalism for this research. They especially appreciate the data analysis help of Sung Tae Kim of DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois.
One of the most remarkable democratic developments in Europe in recent decades has been the empowerment of the only directly elected supranational assembly in the word: the European Parliament (EP). We first review the development of the legislative powers of the EP vis-à-vis the other European Union (EU) institutions, discussing the theoretical models of the power of the EP and the main empirical methods that have been used to evaluate these models. We then turn to the impact of the growing power of the EP on political organization and behavior inside the legislature. We demonstrate that the electoral connection is weak and discuss what this means for understanding legislative politics in the EP. The concluding section demonstrates differences in behavior across policy-areas have received scant attention and suggests avenues for further research . Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science Volume 16 is May 10, 2013. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/catalog/...
Representative democracy has been accorded constitutional status with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. The European Parliament (EP) and the history of its empowerment embody this constitutional principle and its gradual institutionalization. To shed light on the EP's empowerment and the institutionalization of the principle of representative democracy in the EU, this article adopts a ‘domain of application’ approach. Instead of presenting rival theoretical approaches competing for explanatory superiority, the article shows that a more comprehensive picture of the EP's empowerment can be obtained by distinguishing between three types of institutional choice and associated explanations. Institutional creation, institutional change and institutional use are introduced as different types of institutional choice, and it is argued that each type gives primacy to particular explanatory mechanisms and dynamics to analyze the EP's empowerment.
We investigate the extent to which using students as experimental participants creates problems for causal inference. First, we discuss the impact of student subjects on a study’s internal and external validity. In contrast to common claims, we argue that student subjects do not intrinsically pose a problem for a study’s external validity. Second, we use simulations to identify situations when student subjects are likely to constrain experimental inferences. We show that such situations are relatively limited; any convenience sample poses a problem only when the size of an experimental treatment effect depends upon a characteristic on which the convenience sample has virtually no variance. Third, we briefly survey empirical evidence that provides guidance on when researchers should be particularly attuned to taking steps to ensure appropriate generalizability from student subjects. We conclude with a discussion of the practical implications of our findings. In short, we argue that student subjects are not an inherent problem to experimental research; moreover, the burden of proof - of student subjects being a problem - should lie with critics rather than experimenters.
The composition of the directly elected European Parliament does not precisely reflect the “real” balance of political forces in the European Community. As long as the national political systems decide most of what there is to be decided politically, and everything really important, European elections are additional national second-order elections. They are determined more by the domestic political cleavages than by alternatives originating in the EC, but in a different way than if nine first-order national elections took place simultaneously. This is the case because European elections occur at different stages of the national political systems' respective “electoral cycles”. Such a relationship between a second-order arena and the chief arena of a political system is not at all unusual. What is new here, is that one second-order political arena is related to nine different first-order arenas. A first analysis of European election results satisfactorily justifies the assumption that European Parliament direct elections should be treated as nine simultaneous national second-order elections.
Do televised presidential debates affect audiences’perception of candidates’images more than their knowledge of candidates’issue positions? Existing communication theories offer two competing predictions, with one in favor of the effects on image perception and the other in favor of the effects on issue knowledge. Empirical studies have provided mixed evidence for both predictions. This article reports results of a new study of the effects of the first presidential debate in the 1992 election. Based on a review of various methodological weaknesses in previous studies, the current study used a between-subjects design involving repeated measures of issue knowledge and image perception. Results show that the viewers learned a great deal about candidates’issue positions that were discussed in the debate, but no learning took place of issues that were not debated. The debate did not affect the viewers’perception of the two well-known candidates'personalities but did improve the perception of the least well-known candidate, Ross Perot, on several debate-related personality traits.
The European Union seems incapable of undertaking economic reforms and defining its place in the world. Public apathy towards the EU is also increasing, as citizens feel isolated from the institutions in Brussels and see no way to influence European level decisions.
Taking a diagnosis and cure approach to the EU's difficulties, Simon Hix tackles these problems with distinct clarity and open-mindedness. What the EU needs, Hix contends, is more open political competition. This would promote policy innovation, foster coalitions across the institutions, provide incentives for the media to cover developments in Brussels, and enable citizens to identify who governs in the EU and to take sides in policy debates. The EU is ready for this new challenge. The institutional reforms since the 1980s have transformed the EU into a more competitive polity, and political battles and coalitions are developing inside and between the European Parliament, the Council, and the Commission.
This emerging politics should be more central to the Brussels policy process, with clearer coalitions and identifiable winners and losers, at least in the short term. The risks are low because the EU has multiple checks-and-balances. Yet, the potential benefits are high, as more open politics could enable the EU to overcome policy gridlock, rebuild public support, and reduce the democratic deficit. This indispensable book will be of great interest to students of the European politics, scholars, policy makers and anyone concerned with the future of the European Union.
The author looks into the role of TV debates in presidential campaigns, how the pioneering attempt at their production in Croatia in 2005 was received by Croatian voters and how these TV debates differed from the American model. Namely, a novelty in the Croatian 2005 presidential campaign were three TV debates between the leading contenders, Sjepan Mesić and Jadranka Kosor, who competed in the run-off ballot. The debates were organized by the three national TV networks (HRT, RTL and Nova TV) and the ratings were high.
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