Euroopan parlamentin vaalien äänestysaktiivisuuteen vaikuttavat tekijät

Authors

• Hanna Wass

Abstract

Van der Eijk et al. (1996) suggest that European parliamentary elections can either be examined in the framework of the second-order elections or, alternatively, in a comparative manner as an exceptional opportunity to study participation in elections held simultaneously in 27 member states with different institutional and electoral contexts. While the first individual-level analyses on EP elections utilised the variables characteristic to national election studies, macro-level analyses have mainly included factors relevant specifically to EP elections. More recently, some European-specific models have also been introduced at the micro-level. The other approach, i.e. treating EP elections as a special case to examine turnout, has in turn been to large extent neglected. This article first reviews various macro- and micro-level factors accounting for turnout in the EP elections and then presents the results from a recent study (Söderlund et al. 2011) analysing simultaneously the demand- and supply-side factors in first- and second-order elections.