sou · GNB3151 · 2000-01-01 00:00:00 — This is the question we now address: Whether and to what degree this already is apparent in Union. Effectiveness of Political Representation Union combines two distinct modes of government which are based on two different routes of socio-political linkage: intergovernmentalism and the confederal model of political repre- sentation and party government and the federal model of political representation (see Figures 2 and 3). The democratic quality of the EU political process cannot be adequately evaluated if we restrict our attention to just one of the two competing models of government in Union, the federal or the confederal. The same goes for the two electoral arenas involved, and the national. European Par- liament elections are just one, and not the most important, elec- toral event upon which an analysis of the democratic quality of the EU political process has to be based. The intergovernmental model of European political representation National Government 1 National Government 15 National Parliament 1 National Parliament 15 National Electorate 1 National Electorate 15 The federal model of European political representation THE ARCHITECTURE OF EU INSTITUTIONS AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION Previous research has established that the effectiveness of political representation in the EU does not differ much either way (1999, chap. Representation functions equally well or badly via (federal) as it does via the national (inter-governmental) channel of EU government. It is satisfactory with regard to the grand directions of public policy. While party elites are generally somewhat more to the left than their voters, the congruence between elites and voters ideological orientations is still considerable. (Figure 4). Effectiveness of representation regarding grand policy directions: left-right orientations Source: European Representation Study 1994–7. The political agreement between voters and party elites is equally profound regarding the principle of European unification though party elites are generally somewhat more Euro-positive than their Elites and voters of most parties meet in the Euro- positive angle. Only a few find one another in the Euro-critical corner. Mass-elite agreement is found less satisfactory only when we leave the grand political avenues and take the paths of specific EU policy measures. No matter what EU policy domain we look at – open borders, single market, or common currency – the effectiveness of political representation is here found to be deficient. Figure 6 displays the common currency issue as an example. Most party elites are strongly in favour of it, while their voters locate themselves more middle-of-the-road. This may be understood substantively as a more sceptic and critical view. It can however be that many voters feel poorly informed and are therefore undecided about rather than opposing Monetary Union. Effectiveness of political representation regarding specific EU policies: The currency question Source: European Representation Study 1994– 7. Political representation is less effective in view of more specific EU policies (and probably in view of specific policies in general) while it seems to work well regarding the grand policy directions – like THE ARCHITECTURE OF EU INSTITUTIONS AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION left or right, and pro- or anti-integration. Having said this, however, we still know nothing about how this solid base of poli- tical agreement between representatives and represented is brought about? Is it the elites that lead voters opinion, or are the voters the driving force? This can only be adequately assessed with a diachronic study design. Analysing voters and party elites average political pre- with regard to European unfication in 1979 and 1994, we find some initial evidence that it is the party elites who behave responsively in view of changing voter preferences (Figure 6). Somewhat in contrast to the findings of Essaiasons and study (1996) this seems to suggest that political representation in Europe might not be such an elite-driven process after all. Representation from above? A simple causal model linking elites and voters views about European unification in 1994 and 1979 Source: European Election Studies 1979 and 1994. Notes: N of cases (parties) = 18. The parties for which elite and mass data are available for both 1979 and 1994 are: CVP (B), SP (B), PVV (B), SD (DK), V (DK), FbmEF (DK), CDU (D), SPD (D), PS (F), UDF (F), MSI/AN (I), DC/PPI (I), CDA (NL), PVDA (NL), VVD (NL), Conservative Party (GB), Labour Party (GB), and Liberal Party/Liberal Democrats (GB). The model has been estimated with EQS; goodness of fit measures and test statistics are not reported as there was no intention to maximise the fit between model and data. Compared to national politics, participation of EU citizens in EU politics is poor and declining. This should not be taken as an indication of political disagreement between party elites and party voters on EU policies because abstention can have, and are repeat- edly found to have, other sources than policy disagreement. Fac- tors conducive to high turnout levels are: -high politicisation of the campaign, i.e. high saliency of issues. This is hard to achieve in a European Parliament election as EU issues are typical low salience issues in most places, and there is any disagreement between the major parties about them. -successful personalisation of issue/goal conflict. This again is hard to achieve as, for the time being, there is no transnational personalisation of political alternatives at the EU level. One procedural measure that could change this so some degree would be the direct election of the President of Commission in concurrence with the EP election. -the closeness of the electoral race, i. e. the likelihood of governmental change. This does presently not apply to European Parliament elections, as they do not now result in government formation. However, the investiture of a new Commission by a newly elected European Parliament could be one step in this direction. -numerous and strong party attachments/party loyalties. Quite generally, party attachments tend to decline. In this perspec- tive, declining turnout rates in European and national elections are a result of the same socio-political processes. -technical measures like compulsory voting, Sunday voting and easiness of the electoral system more generally, and the dis- tance to 1st order election day. These factors tend to explain variance in turnout between countries. THE ARCHITECTURE OF EU INSTITUTIONS AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION Political representation is found to be well-functioning in view of the grand directions of public policy, both generally and in view of European unification. It is found to be ineffective in view of EU policies both in European and in national elections. Thus we conclude that: -national elections are as poor a mechanism for generating voter-party agreement on EU policies as European Parliament elections are (and European Parliament elections are as good a mechanism for common concern issues as national elections are). -elections generally seem to translate voter preferences about the grand directions of public policy, rather than those about specific policies, into elite attitudes and behaviours. Blondel, , and (1998) People and Parliament in Union. Participation, Democracy, and Legitimacy. , and (1996) Representation from Above: Members of Parliament and Representative Democracy in . , and (1980) national second-order elections: A systematic framework for analysis of European elections results; together with K. ), 8,1: 3–44 , and , eds. (1999) Political Representation and Legitimacy in Union. , and (1991) About Voting and Non-Voting in Elections of 1989 in 19,1:31–54. , Cees, Franklin, ., et al. (1996) Choosing Europe? Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union. Blaming the Messenger? The erosion of turnout evident in the 1999 elections to Parliament has set widespread alarm bells ringing in , and as further evidence that the public is becoming disenchanted and disengaged with the Euro- pean Union. The level of voting participation fell from almost two-thirds () of the electorate in the first direct elections in 1979 to just under half () of European citizens in 1999, its historical nadir (see Figure 1). The decline over successive election is particularly clear in the and , as well as in , and , which saw a sharp drop after their first founding European elections. There are also stark national differences, in the most recent elections of Belgian citizens voted compared with only one quarter () of the British electorate (see Table 1). As Franklin and his colleagues have argued2, the institutional system of electoral laws provides much of the explanation for these persistent systemic differences, notably the use of compulsory voting (in , 1The author is professor at . 2Mark Franklin, and . The Institu- tional Context: . In Choosing Europe? Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union, edited by and . , MI: . BLAMING THE MESSENGER? and ), Sunday polling day (, , , , , , , , , and Swe- den), and the majoritarian first-past-the-post electoral system (used in mainland until the 1999 contests). Turnout EU Elections 1979–99 in a broader context, the decline in the EU turnout is even more worrying because it proves contrary to trends elsewhere. Many assume that there has been a general decline in voter parti- cipation but in fact in established democracies levels of turnout have remained fairly stable during the last two decades; of voting age population participated in elections in these states in the 1990s, down only from the 1970s3. As is well known, despite similar socioeconomic and political developments in post- industrial societies, there are persistent cross-national disparities in levels of electoral participation. Some countries like , and the have experienced substantial long- term falls (see Figure 3). In American presidential elections, in 1996 less than half () the voting age popular cast a ballot, down from almost two-thirds () in 1960. If we calculate average turnout in 171 countries worldwide, in all national elec- tions from 1945 to 1998, ranks 137th, the US ranks 138th, and ranks 139th. Change in EU Turnout –99 But, within this context, can the news media or party campaigns be blamed for the downward trend in European participation? If there were a systematic negative bias in the media – if news headlines Voter Turnout from 1945 to 1998. . BLAMING THE MESSENGER? highlighted corruption at the Commission, bureaucratic over regulation in , and junkets for parliament – it would not be surprising if voters deserted the polling stations. Turnout in European Elections, 1979–1999 To examine this issue the first section of this paper outlines the theoretical framework in the literature, the next considers the evi- dence for the association between attention to campaign commu- nications and turnout in European elections in 1989, 1994 and 1999. The conclusion briefly summarizes the theory of a virtuous circle to explain the major findings and speculates about the im- plications for participation in EU affairs. Postwear Mean Turnout Per Decade Explanations of political participation focus on four sets of fac- tors. The institutional perspective stresses the importance of the legal context including the level of political rights and civil liber- ties, the type of electoral system, the facilities for registration and voting, the expansion of the franchise, the frequency, level and timing of elections, and the competitiveness of electoral politics4. In Democracy at the Polls, edited by and . , DC: ; BLAMING THE MESSENGER? In one of the most thorough comparative studies, Jackman and examined voter participation in twenty-two democracies and found that political institutions and electoral laws provided the most plausible explanation for variations in voter turnout, including levels of electoral participation and proportionality, multi-partyism and compulsory voting5. Franklin, van der Eijk and Oppenhuis argue that variations in participation in European elec- tions can be attributed in large part to differences in systemic fac- tors, notably the use of compulsory voting, the proportionality of the electoral system, and the closeness of European to nation elec- tions6. In the , as well, the legal hurdle of registration requirements and the frequency of elections are widely believed to depress American turnout7. At individual-level, the cultural perspective based on survey analysis has emphasized the importance of individual resources, like education, age, socioeconomic status and time, combined with motivation, meaning the attitudes people bring to the electoral process like a sense of efficacy, political interest and party identi- fication. Almond and Verba stressed the importance of civic va- lues learnt through the early socialization process8. Cultural attitudes towards the political system vary substantially across European states, notably support for the regime and representative Unequal Participation: Democracys Unresolved Dilemma. 91: 1–14. 5Robert W. Jackman and . . Voter Turnout in the Indu- strial Democracies During the 1980s. Comparative Political Studies, 27: 467– Democracy and Elections. 6Mark Franklin, and . The Institu- tional Context: . In Choosing Europe? Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union, edited by and . , MI: . 7Raymond Wolfinger and . 8Gabriel Almond and . The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. , NJ: . In a long series of studies, Verba has demonstrated how various forms of participation make different demands of skills, money or time, so that political participation can best be understood as a multidimensional phenomenon10. That is, people who regularly money to campaigns, or contact their representative, are not necessarily involved in other dimensions like party work, or community activism. There are different costs and benefits associated with different types of participation. The main categories distinguished by Verba and his colleagues concern voting, campaign work, communal activity, and contact specialists. In addition a few citizens are across all dimensions, while some are involved in none. Lastly, the organizational perspective has stressed the role of mobilizing agencies, referring to the electoral functions of party and candidate organizations, group networks like churches, volun- tary associations and trade unions, social networks of families, friends and colleagues, and the role of the news media11. has argued that the decline of dense networks of local associations and community organizations has reduced social capital and contributed towards a long-term erosion of American turnout among the post-war generation. Verba found that churches and voluntary organizations provide networks of recruitment, so that those drawn into the political process through these associations develop the organizational and communication skills that facilitate further activity12. In the , Aldrich and Wattenberg Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Gover- nance. 10See , and . Participation in : Political Democracy and Social Equality. : and Row; , , and . Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. , MA: . 11See, for example, . Rosenstone and . Mobilization, Participation and Democracy in . 12Sidney Verba, , and . Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. , MA: . BLAMING THE MESSENGER? suggest that the decline of party organizations, and their replace- ment by entrepreneurial candidates, has been critical to this pro- cess13. The role of political communications via parties and the news media fall into this latter category of factors. Parties act as mobili- zing agencies through direct communications with voters, inclu- ding traditional grassroots activities such as canvassing, leafleting and contacting voters, as well as holding party meetings and cam- paign rallies, and using national advertising or party political broadcasts. The news media serve this function through providing information about parties, candidates and policies that can help to crystallize voting choices, and the partisan press, in particular, has long been thought to help reinforce party support. In these activi- ties through positive messages both parties and the news media can serve to increase party and candidate support among electors, and the propensity to turnout, or they can convey negative messages that function to depress participation. The literature is divided about the effects of media activity. In the traditional model, partisan-leaning newspapers and party campaigns were seen as playing a vital role in reinforcing support and getting out the vote: The more that people read about or listened to the campaign on the mass media, the more interested they became in the election and the more strongly they come to feel about their candidate...Media exposure gets out the vote at the same time that it solidifies preferences. It crystallizes and reinforces more than it converts.14 The model conceptualized attention to political communications somewhat differently, as itself a minor form of activism, instead of an independent factor capable of influencing turnout. This perspective became so influential that it developed into the mainstream view in studies of political partici- : ; . Wattenberg. The Decline of American Political Parties: 1952– 1994. , MA: . 14Bernard R. Berelson, and . McPhree. Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. 246–248. pation, which rarely treated the media as an important causal factor in their models15. A range of more recent studies has credited the media with boosting public participation16. In contrast, in recent years many popular commentators com- monly suggest that the public has become disengaged through negative messages. There are two separate issues here. One con- cerns the effects of the use of negative or attack ads by politici- ans where candidate or party campaigns criticize their opponents character or record17. In the , Ansolabehere and Iyengar provide some of the most convincing experimental evi- dence that the use of negative or attack television campaign ads, meaning those designed to criticize the opponent, has the ca- pacity to turn off American voters at the ballot box. Negative advertising drives people away from the polls in large numbers Negative advertising breeds distrust of the electoral process and pessimism about the value of an individuals own voice. 15See , , and . The American Voter. See also , . Nie and Jae-On . Participation and Political Equality. : ; Geraint , and . Political Participation and Democracy in . 16Brice E. Pinkleton, and . Media and Partici- pation: Breaking the Spiral of Disaffection. In Engaging the Public: How Government and the Media can Invigorate American Democracy. . , and . Hays. : ; and . Stempel III. How media use and reliance affect knowledge level. 13:579–602; . media use, issue knowledge and political involvement. Public Opinion Quarterly. 44: 241–48. 17See, for example, . Jamieson. : ; . Jamieson. Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Advertising. : ; and . Copeland. Negative Political Advertising: Coming of . Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 18Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar. Going Negative: How Political Advertisments Shrink and Polarize the Electorate. : Free Press. BLAMING THE MESSENGER? difficult to know how far we can generalize from these findings more broadly in part because of the different institutional context of advertising in European campaigns19. Commercial political ad- vertising has come late to most European countries. In some, like , negative advertisements are banned by law. In others like the , although ads are allowed, few are aired because parties have limited financial resources. And in still others like it is difficult to compare the effects of a five to ten minute party political broadcast, shown once per channel, with the effects of repetitive 30-second ads common in the . Lacking systematic comparative data on exposure to negative ads, we can- not pursue these claims further here. The other concern claim relates to common practices origina- ting in the news media, which we can examine, such as where rou- tine headlines emphasize political scandals, government incompe- tence and/or partisan conflict20. For example, suggests that American voters are turned off by the medias routine empha- sis on the game schema, characterized by horse race journalism (whos ahead, whos behind) and extensive coverage of opinion polls21. He argues that changes in journalism in the 1960s produce a shift towards game-immersed news, strengthening voters mis- trust of the candidates and reducing their sense of involvement. For Cappella and Jamieson strategic frames for political news acti- vate cynical responses to politicians, governance and campaigns22. Yet others argue that a strategic focus and horse race polls func- tion in a positive way, by increasing the American publics atten- tion to issue information and political knowledge. and Beske conclude that coverage of opinion polls is complimentary to issue Political Advertising in Western Democracies. Thousand Oaks, CA: . Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good. Out of Order. Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good. coverage, stimulating rather than displacing attention23. It seems equally plausible that what matters for electoral participation is what the polls report, not the extent of their coverage per se. In , for example, and found that the closeness of the race, as monitored by reported opinion polls, is one of the best predictors of turnout24. Neck-and-neck contests increased the incentive to vote. In addition, the effects of negative news are not well established. In the British context, for example, large-scale experiments in the 1997 election demonstrated that exposure to negative television news about the major parties had no influence on party images or propensity to vote, whereas positive news did have a significant impact on voters25. Therefore we need to go further to understand the effects of political communications on public participation. Since most of the research has been conducted within the context of American campaigns, which are atypical of most established democracies, it is useful to reexamine the evidence in a broader range of post-in- dustrial societies. This study focuses on political participation in European elections, which allow us to explore the effects of cam- paign communications across the fifteen member states, control- ling for some of the major cultural and the structural factors al- ready discussed. Political participation involves many different types of activity, from contacting representatives to becoming ac- tive in community organizations, political parties, or interest 23 Xinshu and . Beske. Horse-Race Polls and Audience Issue Learning. 3(4): 13– 34; and . Pre-election Polls and Issue Knowledge in the 1996 U.S.Presidential Election. 3(4):35–43. Media Performance: and the Public Interest. Turnout and Registration. Critical Elections: Voters and Parties in Long-term Perspective, Edited by and Pippa . 25See Pippa et al. On Message: Communicating the Campaign. BLAMING THE MESSENGER? In this study we focus on comparing voter turnout, one of the least demanding forms of activity but also one of the most . For many people, casting the ballot provides their only form of political expression. This measure is also comparable across established democracies, unlike involvement in parties or interest groups that may mean very different things in different institutional settings.