Puolueiden vaalikampanjat vuoden 2004 europarlamenttivaaleissa

Authors

• Teija Tiilikainen
• Hanna Wass

Abstract

During the past few decades, electoral campaigning has faced several changes stemming from the growing role of the mass media, the professionalisation of campaign staff and the personification of politics. While these characteristics also apply to euro-elections, there are some election- specific features due to the logic of second-order elections, such as the greater importance of campaigns. This article examines the election campaigns of four Finnish parties. The results show that campaigns were much more vital than in 1999 in the sense of stakes invested by parties and attention paid by media. Still parties’ campaigns were somewhat colourless and had a clearly national focus albeit that some parties tried to raise a European agenda. Voters’ expectations – emphasising the protection of national objectives and values – affected party profiles in this respect. Consequently, the euro-elections still seem to be submitted to the national context.