Government coalitions and Eurosceptic voting in the 2014 European Parliament elections

The 2014 European elections were characterized in many countries by growing support for Eurosceptic parties. This growth was not uniform and not clearly associated with the economic performance of these member states. In this article, we investigate the role played in the 2014 European Parliament el...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Camatarri, Stefano|||0000-0002-7233-5876, Zucchini, Francesco
Format: article
Publication Date:2019
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repository:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:301763
Online Access:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/301763
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1177/1465116519851566
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:European Parliament elections
Eurosceptic parties
Government coalitions
Veto players
Voting Behavior
Description
Summary:The 2014 European elections were characterized in many countries by growing support for Eurosceptic parties. This growth was not uniform and not clearly associated with the economic performance of these member states. In this article, we investigate the role played in the 2014 European Parliament elections by a country-specific factor - the composition of government coalitions - different from economic performance. In particular, we argue that in those countries where moderately Eurosceptic parties were more involved in the government, citizens with negative attitudes toward the European Union were more likely to vote for highly Eurosceptic parties. This was especially the case when the governments also included strongly pro-EU parties. The empirical analysis, which is based upon the 2014 European Election Voter Study, the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, and the Parliaments and Governments database, confirms our hypotheses.