Voting in National and European Parliamentary Elections: What Determines the Turnout Gap?

Abstract

The European Parliament is the only source of direct legitimacy of the European Union, as it is the only body directly elected by the citizens. Politics within the European Parliament has increasingly grown in importance, as its powers expanded progressively with each European Union treaty. The opposite happened with voter turnout. This paper builds on the idea that the European elections are perceived as less important by the voters’ parties and the media, and are in general characterized by a lower electoral participation with respect to National elections. We analyze turnout from two perspectives: individual and aggregate level. Individual electoral models are estimated using data from the European Social Survey and Standard Eurobarometer Survey, referring at electoral turnout at National and Supranational level, respectively. From an individual level perspective, we test if unequal participation exists concerning socioeconomic categories across “firstorder” National elections and “second-order” European elections in order to understand if a potential representation bias might exist. Empirical evidence highlights that inequality in participation exists only for the European Parliament elections. From the aggregate level side, an original panel data is used in order to understand the turnout gap across elections and test the “second-order” theory concerning the European Parliament elections as an opportunity to contest governing parties. Evidence shows that a vote share gap across the two election types exists, and that large as well as extremist and parties from European Monetary Union Member States lose votes across elections. Being an EMU member as well as being a net-payer at the European Union budget increases the electoral gap.