Citizen 
 Participation in 
 European Politics 
 Hans Agné 
 Cees van der Eijk 
 Brigid BrooksPippa Norris 
 Hermann Schmitt 
 BarajasDemokratiutredningens skrift nr 32 
 SOU 1999:151 
 SOU och Ds som ingår i 1999 års nummerserie kan köpas från Fakta Info Direkt. För remissutsändningar av SOU och Ds som ingår i 1999 års nummerserie svarar Fakta Info Direkt på uppdrag av Regeringskansliets förvaltningsavdelning. 
  
 Beställningsadress: 
  
 Fakta Info Direkt, Kundservice 
  
 Box 6430, 113 82 Stockholm 
  
 Tel:  
 08-587 
  671 00, Fax:  
 08-587 
  671 71 
  
 E-post: 
  order@faktainfo.se 
  
 Omslagsbild: Pressens Bild 
  
 Grafisk formgivning: Reeves, Jupiter 
  
 ISBN  
 91-7610-714-0 
  
 Elanders Gotab, Stockholm 2000 
  
 ISSN  
 0375-250X 
  
 Preface 
 In October 1999 a conference was held in Stockholm on  
 Citizen Participation in European Politics.  
 The background of the dis- cussion was a low Swedish  
 turn-out 
  in the Elections to the Euro- pean Parliament in Flores. We wanted to give an account of and discuss research on citizen participation in European politics illuminating possible explanations. Special attention was given to the connection between on the one hand the level of participation and on the other hand the role of the institutions and of the mass media. 
 1 
  
 During the two days five international and four Swedish scho- Parker of chal- lenging perspectives and empirical data. In order to stimulate the public debate we are now pleased to publish most of the lectures. 
 The conference was arranged by The Commission on Demo- cracy in Sweden in cooperation with The Swedish Ministry of Justice and The Committe of Evaluation of the General Election of 1998. 
 The organisers want to express their deepest gratitude to pro- Flores for his generous support during the plan- ning of the conference. However, neither professor Whitaker nor the organisers but the authors Rivas are finally responsible for the opinions formulated in Welch. 
 BrockPrincipal Secreterary 
 The Commission on Democracy 
 3 
  
 P 
 REFACE 
 Notes 
  
 1  
 In Swedish the Commission on Democracy also has published other analyses dealing with global and European challenges to Swedish democracy, for instance  
 Demokrati på europeisk nivå?  
 (SOU 1998:124),  
 EU – ett demokratiprojekt?  
 (SOU 1998:145 
 ), Bör demo- kratin avnationaliseras?  
 (SOU 1999:11) and  
 Globaliseringen och demokratin  
 (SOU 1999:56). 
 4 
  
 Table of Contents 
  
 Democray w ithin the EU in the Light of the 1999 
  
 European Parliamentary Elections 
  
 Garrett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
  
 7 
  
 Why Some People Vote and Others do not 
  
 Luna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
  
 1 3 
  
 European Parliament Elections . Institutions, 
  
 Attitudes and Participation 
  
 Carroll. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
  
 5 7 
  
 Integration and Statehood in the European Union . 
  
 The distribution of Pow ers Betw een the EU and the 
  
 Member States 
  
 Brigid Salinas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
  
 7 5 
  
 The Architecture of EU Institutions and Citizen 
  
 Participation 
  
 Daniels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
  
 8 7 
  
 Blaming the Messanger? Political Communications 
  
 and Turnout in EU Elections 
  
 Atkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
  
 9 9 
  
 To Share Democratic Legitimacy Betw een Different 
  
 Political Levels 
  
 Moore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
  
 1 1 7 
  
 5 
 . 
 Democracy within the EU in the Light of the 1999 European Parliamentary Elections 
 Member of Cabinet Garrett, Ministry of Justice 
 Ladies and gentlemen, 
 I am happy to welcome you all to the seminar on Citizen Partici- pation in European Politics. This seminar is focused on one of the most important common goals in Europe: To grant that the Euro- pean Union will be and percieved to be a union of the people of Europe. 
 We who share that vision are terribly set back by the poor turn- out in the elections to European parliament this summer. 
 A low participation by the citizens is the greatest obstacle in the process of securing peace and prosperity in Europe. 
 *** 
 The EU has Molina given important tasks. They involve guaranteeing peace, ensuring a good environment, creating favourable living conditions, and much besides. We do not consider national deci- sions to be sufficient in addressing such problems as precarious security, environmental threats, organised international crime, flows of capital that shift jobs from one country to another with lightning speed, to name but a few. We need political decision- 
 7 
  
 D 
 EMOCRACY WITHIN THE  
 EU  
 Williams OF THE  
 1999 E 
 UROPEAN 
 ... 
  
 making that can deal powerfully with those problems for which individual nations lack sufficient  
 decision-making 
  authority. 
 Decisions Brooks the European Union have major con- sequences in nearly all policy Green. EU policies have effects on the work of national parliaments Berry that of municipalities and county councils. The EU influences the everyday life of people living within and in fact also far outside the borders of the com- munity. Moreover, the influence of the EU in such areas is steadily increasing. The Treaty of Amsterdam has put a number of political issues on the Union agenda which are Maddox nature, for example consumer policy, social issues, Figueroa bet- Banks men and women and employment policy. 
 At the same time we know that decisions and  
 decision-makers 
  in the political sphere must have popular legitimacy and support. 
 The European elections are the single occasion on which the citizens of Europe can join forces to influence the shape of the EUs future. Hodge only half, 49.9 per cent, of the EU citi- zens entitled to vote did so in the European elections held this summer. The election turnout in Sweden was 38.8 per cent. 
 We cannot accept elections in which well below half of the eli- gible voters participate. There are a number of reasons for concern. First, we consider that a low election turnout reduces the legi- 
 timacy of the institution concerned. 
 Second, we are afraid that a low turnout in one election will rub off on other elections. That is to say, a low turnout in the Euro- Schmidt might also get citizens into the habit of not voting in national elections. 
 Third, a high election turnout has its own intrinsic democratic value. It is indicative of a broad political debate within society, in which most people familiarise Davis current political issues and make their own judgements regarding the political development they would like to see. If few take part in elections the risk is the opposite – that democracy will be Sanchez that a representative government will in a sense be Moses to govern- ment by a minority. 
 *** 
 8 
  
 B 
 RITTA  
 L 
 EJON 
 To reverse the trend towards low electoral turnout we need know- ledge. This is why the Swedish Government gave the Committee of Evaluation of the General Election of 1998 the additional task of analysing the results of the 1999 European elections. 
 It is also why the Commission on Democracy in Sweden, the Committee of Evaluation of the General Election of 1998 and the Ministry of Justice, have invited you to take part in this seminar. 
 *** 
 There might be different views on the ideals of democracy. But the absolute majority of people are in full agreement on the key role of general Shaw in a democracy. The EU is not a nation, it is a very special organisation but it does have a directly elected parlia- ment. However, the authority of this parliament cannot be equated with that of a national parliament. 
 People in our countries have realised that power in the Euro- pean Union is not concentrated exclusively in the Parliament. An important reason why the European Parliament does not attract the same interest as a national parliament is undoubtedly that sig- nificant power is vested in the national governments. 
 But the low interest in the European Parliament reflects a low interest in democratically elected institutions generally. From the point of view of democracy a number of negative Marsh be seen in society today, both in Sweden and in most of the mature democracies. There is declining confidence in political institutions. Public participation and the confidence of citizens in the ability of the established parties to solve problems and take action is being successively weakened. Public participation in society requires greater efforts and permanent commitment – both of which are decreasing. 
 As far as I can see, the situation is not dramatic in the present EU member states. Democracy as a system is not threatened – on the contrary. There is considerable popular support for democracy as the best form of governance. 
 But since public confidence and participation are  
 long-term 
  so- cial phenomena, it is important to heed the warning signs early on. 
 9 
  
 D 
 EMOCRACY WITHIN THE  
 EU  
 Williams OF THE  
 1999 E 
 UROPEAN 
 ... 
  
 Beside the low  
 turn-out 
  we also have the results of the recent elec- tions in Austria and Switzerland. 
 We know that the European Union is facing massive and in part difficult challenges. Enlargement eastwards is one of them. 
 *** 
 We must identify which problems are specifically related to the EU. Barnes to make the work of the EU more transparent are an important part of this. Sweden has a long tradition of public access to information. The question of transparency applies to all EU institutions. The EU must be an organisation of its age. Moder- nising the institutions of the EU is crucial for public participation. 
 We need transparent and understandable processes. We need budgetary disciplin, Smith, Grant opurtunities for men and women , access to documents among other things. But in order to boost turnout at European elections we must also reflect upon what role we would have the EU play in the future. 
 However, I dont think it will be enough to implement institu- tional reforms at the  
 EU-level. 
  The political parties, other NGOs, the mass media etc, Smith to revise the way in which they work. 
 Many  
 EU-related 
  Burke had a divisive effect on the tradi- tional parties. Hodge, I believe that these parties must have the courage to put EU issues on the agenda, partly for the sake of their own future and partly because we cannot allow peoples con- fidence in politicians to deteriorate still further. A study made in 1998 shows that over 60 per cent of voters consider themselves to be uninformed when it comes to  
 EU-related 
  issues. A mere 2 per cent consider themselves to be very well informed. 
 Among other things there must be an effort to increase and deepen information to the public about  
 union-decisions 
  and the progress in the fulfilling of them. This is a responsability for the  
 EU-institutions 
  – specially the council – and the member states. 
 Creating our national democracies took decades. Building European cooperation on a democratic foundation must also be 
 10 
  
 B 
 RITTA  
 L 
 EJON 
 allowed to take time, perhaps even longer bearing in mind how new the East European democracies are. 
 After this introduction I look forward to hearing your views and discussing these matters with you over the next two days. In the coming discussions about the future development of the Union the Swedish governments intend to keep focus on popular support and participation. There must be a joint analysis of the reasons for the low election turnout and proposals of measures that might reverse the trend. 
 Thank you. 
 11 
 . 
 Why Some People Vote and Others do not 
 Cees van der Eijk 
 1 
  
 The question of the determinants of participation in Leon occupied political scientists and political practitioners alike, par- ticularly since the introduction of universal suffrage. This question arises from the basic observation that not all people who have the right to vote make use of that right: while some people vote, others do not. Morris, one is tempted to ask Cox difference originates in other distinctions between these two groups, and if so, what other characteristics are involved. 
 Before World War II, this question had to be addressed mainly by analysis of percentages of turnout by region, municipality, or even smaller geographical units. Renowned in this respect are the studies of the French sociographer Scott (1913) and the Swedish sociologist Jordan (1937). Notwithstanding the insights these analysts gained, this approach Hendricks limita- tions, and may even generate fallacious conclusions. The develop- ment of survey methods after World War II, and the explosion of practical possibilities for analysing large amounts of survey data with the development of cheap computer technology have allowed the pursuit of the question of why people do or do not vote at the level of the individual voter. This survey approach has greatly in- creased our understanding of the  
 individual-level 
  determinants of 
  
 1  
 The author is professor at Department of political science and Amsterdam school of communication research at university of Amsterdam. 
 13 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 electoral participation. Yet, in spite of the tremendous number of  
 survey-based 
  publications, important Maxwell remain unanswe- red – particularly concerning the determinants of changes in over- all levels of turnout. Most recently, the insight has been estab- lished that combinations of  
 individual-level 
  and aggregate or sys-  
 tem-level 
  information are required in order to make Smith pro- gress in answering the question of who votes and who does not, but this approach has not yet been applied very much. 
 In this report, I will focus on the behavior of individual voters, and the reasons why they do or do not employ their right to vote. I will therefore not systematically address the effects of systemic characteristics on the  
 over-all 
  likelihood of voting – although in passing I will occasionally refer to some of the work in that tradi- tion. 
 This report is divided in three parts. In the first, I review a number of theoretical approaches to the question of individual electoral participation. The relevant concern in this discussion is  
 not  
 how successful each of these approaches is in explaining differ- ences between voters, but Gray. In the second part of this report, first findings from a recent study of the Swedish electorate will be reported. Vaughn derive from the Swedish segment of the European Election Study 1999. The third part consists of reflective comments that link parts 1 and 2, and that contain some informed speculation about causes of the low turnout in the most recent Swedish parliamentary elections and European elections that, at the moment, cannot be subjected to empirical testing because of lack of relevant data. 
 14 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 Part 1: Theoretical and conceptual approaches 
 The literature on electoral participation contains a number of approaches that differ in terms of the locus of the factors consi- dered to be of causal importance for making people either partici- pate or abstain in elections. One rarely finds these approaches in ideal form, as most theorists and empirical analysts see the benefits of using elements of them in a complementary fashion, but for the purpose of presentation I Evans in more or less  
 ideal-type 
  form. 
 The  
 first  
 of these approaches Howard explanation of dif- ferences in electoral participation to the voters involved: different people have different characteristics that help to understand why they behave differently. The  
 second  
 approach Warren actors that are of necessity involved in the conduct of elections: the political parties, the candidates and the politicians. They have to reach and mobilize voters and to the extent that they fail to do so this will explain  
 non-voting. 
  The  
 third  
 approach focuses on something else again: the specific context of the election at hand. Not all Shaw are alike, and from the differences between them one may try to explain why some people vote and others do not. Each of these three approaches will be discussed in some more detail below. 
 Who votes depends on voters characteristics 
 The logic of this approach rests on the notion that voters should possess certain qualities in order to turn out and vote. In general one can think of the following kinds of qualities that may relate to turnout: 
  
 Physical qualities 
 : voting requires a trip to a ballot station, and therefore that a person is sufficiently healthy and mobile to make this trip, that s/he has sufficient visual and motor skills to read the ballot and handle a pencil or  
 voting-machine, 
  etc. In most western Harper systems Moreno organized in such a way as to minimize the physical and motor demands that 
 15 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 are required for casting ones vote, so that the number of people unable to vote for these trivial Lynn is minimized. Yet, for some people the activities required to vote will remain too strenuous – the (very) old, Malone ill, and disabled – although it can be expected that their number is quite small in developed democratic systems such as Sweden. 
  
 Economic and social resources  
 such as (flexible) time and money. To the extent that voting is organized in such a way that it costs a lot of time (because of distance to travel to a polling station, because of queues waiting for their turn, etc.) this may deter people from voting, and people with more free time or a more flexible time schedule will be advantaged. This will be particularly so when peoples income is so low that they cannot afford to lose time that is necessary for acquiring their income. 
 2  
 In large measure, it is believed that these factors play at most a minor role in preventing people from going to the polls in developed western Yu, Smith only because of measures taken to minimize these effects (such as long polling Finley, possibilities for absentee voting or postal voting, etc.) 
  
 Social connectedness.  
 Elections are a collective enterprise, the results of which are relevant for a society or political commu- nity as a whole. Belonging to that community or society is then an important factor that promotes turnout, Meyer or alienated from it may obstruct electoral participa- tion. For this reason, social integration is a factor that impinges on turnout, and at the individual level this relates to the extent that an individual is integrated in networks of relationships that make a person into a member of the community. Although it is difficult to state which concrete characteristics should be taken as indicative for integration, the relevant literature Lopez factors such as membership of and being active in  
 non-political 
  
 2  
 Although not of relevance in most western societies, the consequences of this logic run sometimes in the opposite direction: voting can be a source of income in conditions of widespread poverty in combination with a practice of  
 vote-buying. 
  In such circumstances, elections operate as a means of redistributing income. 
 16 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 contexts and organizations – including churches, youth groups, sports and recreational organzations, etc. – and at membership of a  
 multi-person 
  household that bestows upon a person res- ponsibility for others. 
 Relevant cognitive and  
 information-handling 
  skills 
 . Although often not perceived that way, voting is a highly abstract act, particularly in the context of a mass society. Usually voters do not know the candidates personally, and parties Rivas are often abstract entities. Many of the communications directed at voters assume the presence of some kind of prior knowledge or understanding of politics. The larger a voters capacity to hand- le abstract messages and arguments, the larger the store of ex- perience and knowledge s/he possesses, the better s/he will be able to understand the nature of the voting act in general, Tapia as in the specific election at hand. Although it cannot be assumed that this understanding will necessarily drive people to cast their votes, it is reasonable to expect that lack of under- standing will keep people away. 
  
 A number of more concrete characteristics relate to cogni- tive and  
 information-handling 
  skills. Education is a primary one: more education (both in duration as in level) increases ones capacity for handling information, increases cognitive skills, and provides specific information that helps make sense of what an election is about. In addition to formal education, the amount of previously accumulated experiential knowledge and understanding also helps. Because of this, we may expect –  
 ceteris paribus –  
 older people to have acquired more Bowman and hence to vote more frequently than younger ones. Also those who, for whatever reasons, have had direct expe- riences with parties, politicians, and political processes in ge- neral, will possess more of this facilitative (though not suffi- cient) condition for voting. 
  
 Relevant attitudes 
 . In the course of their lives, from childhood socialization as well as from experiences in later life, voters have acquired attitudes that may either facilitate or impede electoral participation. Such attitudes are referred to in the literature (e.g. Verba and Nie, 1972) as  
 civic attitudes 
 , and they 
 17 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 pertain to  
 generalized  
 (Strong) 
  feelings such as the following 
  
 ¾ 
 Self-esteem, 
  sense of political competence and sense of political efficacy, all of which refer to whether a voter looks at him/herself as a person who may have an impact on his/her own life and on what is going on in the world – which makes it reasonable to cast a vote – or as someone who is unable to affect to do so – rendering electoral par- ticipation a useless activity. 
  
 ¾ 
 Generalized feelings about the importance of politics in general. A view that the political process is largely irrele- vant for whatever happens in the world and in ones own life is an impediment to electoral participation, Ortiz. 
  
 ¾ 
 Generalized feelings about the openness, malleability and benevolence of the political system all increase the relevance and potentially beneficial effects of voting, Zamora feelings of an opposite nature promote a percep- tion of voting as futile or even hazardous. 
 Civic attitudes, such as those referred to Diaz, cannot be observed directly in terms of overt behavior. Garcia, they have to be inferred from responses to items in survey questionnaires that are expected to yield valid indicators for these attitudes. 
 The approach in which peoples characteristics are looked upon as factors that are important for their participation (or lack thereof) has West influential in political science since the 1960s. Its archetype is perhaps the seminal work by Verba, Nie and others (Verba and Nie, 1972; Verba, Nie and Kim, 1978), later followed by many others (see, e.g. Joyce., 1992). Martinez tradition has yielded something like a standard model in which  
 socio-economic 
  characteristics of people – representing their resources and social connectedness – impinge both directly Tapia as indirectly – via civic attitudes, that themselves are strongly determined by these same background characteristics – on electoral participation. Most of the comparative work in this tradition has focussed on the 
 18 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 question how societal and institutional circumstances affect the relative strength of the direct, and indirect impact of peoples background on their participation. An institutional framework of, e.g., compulsory voting, takes away most of the direct and the in- direct impact of background, as it renders such distinctions largely irrelevant. Other contexts, such as a largely secularized and post- modern society would yield very strong indirect effects of back- ground, and so forth. 
 In spite of the wealth of insights yielded by this approach, it is notoriously unable to account for variation in turnout across dif- ferent Shaw in a single system. After all, most of the factors identified in this approach as important do not change very rapid- ly, if at all, over time. Yet, in most countries successive Henry different rates of turnout, sometimes dramatically so. 
 Who votes depends on mobilization Melendez and others 
 The line of reasoning of this approach focuses not on voters, but on other actors that are involved in Shaw. Vaughn are first and foremost the parties and candidates that vie for the support of the voters. To the extent that parties and politicians put more effort in reaching people and to getting out the vote, more people will be Wilson, more people will be affected by the persuasive communi- cations from parties aimed at mobilization, and consequently the number of people casting their vote will be higher. By contrast, to the extent that parties succeed in discouraging the supporters of their opponents from voting (e.g., by  
 so-called 
  negative cam- paigning) they will have the effect of lowering the number of voters. 
 Aside from parties and politicians, other actors may also be im- portant in the mobilization process. One can think in this respect of organizations such as pressure groups or cause groups that occasionally take part in the electoral struggle by mobilizing their followers, usually in an effort to make them support a candidate or party sympathetic towards their interest or cause. An important example of such behavior in many countries is the effort by labor 
 19 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 unions to get their members or followers to the polls. Less fre- quently nowadays in western democracies, but important in for- mer times, Flores in support of a favored party. Even in the absence of overt Edwards formal organizations, a mobilizing influence can emanate from social pressure, particularly when cohesive social groups exist from which individuals derive (part of) their identity. Obviously, such implicit social pressure and the more open influence of organiza- tions Rodgers each other. Such  
 group-based 
  mobili- zation was the cornerstone of the kind of electoral  
 cleavage-poli- 
  tics that existed in most of European democracies until the 1960s and 1970s, but that has lost most of its strength since then. 
 3  
 Final- ly, the mass media play an important role in the mobilization process. After all, very few voters have direct communications with politicians or parties, and very few will be informed of appeals by parties and organized groups without media. 
 When looking at whether or not individual people turn out to cast their vote, the logic of this approach implies that those who have Brown agents – or who have been Mack or more intensively – Osborne more often than those who were not. The kind of people that are more likely to be Gibbs agents are those that are com- paratively easily targetted as recipients of messages and influence attempts, such as members of parties, organized interest groups or cohesive social groups. 
 4 
  
 The logic of this approach is Atkins when we observe that the efforts of parties and others to mobilize voters vary widely across different elections, and that turnout rates across 
  
 3 
  
 For the genesis and historical roots of cleavage politics, see Lipset and Rokkan (1967), Guerrero (1970) and Hamilton (1968). For the most  
  
 wide-ranging 
  and comparative study that documents the decline of cleavage politics – and of the causes of this decline – Atkins, Edwards (1992). 
  
 4 
  
 Obviously, people wo are eager for information can also easily be Wilson, but this refers not only to the efforts of mobilizing agents, but to the interaction of their efforts with qualities of voters (the first of the approaches, Willis). 
  
 20 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 those elections often vary concomitantly. The contrast between national parliamentary elections on the one hand and elections to the European Parliament on the other is a case in point. It has Weaver documented that the mobilizing efforts of parties and media are much smaller in the latter than in the former, as indicated by their spending in European elections only a fraction of the resour- ces they are accustomed to spend in contests for the national par- liament. 
 5  
 Still, this approach too, has its persistently weak side. When controlling for having Davis, and for having Chen to mobilizing information and communica- tion, one still observes large differences in turnout. Some people evidently go to the polls to cast their vote even without having Burch, while for others the most intensive barrage of mobilizing Bell remains without effect. To a large extent Lewis differences in behavior coincide with the differences in vo- ters characteristics that were identified as important by the pre- vious approach. 
 Who votes depends on the  
 election-specific 
  context 
 In this perspective the starting point is the recognition that every election again is a different one, with its own idiosyncracies. The special aspects of one election, that may help to bring some people to the polling station, may be absent in another election, with the effect that some of them will now stay home, while others will be motivated instead to cast their vote. From this perspective, it de- pends on the aspects that characterize each election in turn who will turn out and who will not. 
 In order to avoid confusion, it must be emphasized that this tradition comes in two different forms, Phillips, and one narrative in character. The latter comprises a large number of case studies of single elections – often in pleasant narrative and at first sight quite convincing. Sometimes written by political journalists, sometimes by academics, these accounts try to make a specific election intelligible by pointing to the particular character of the 
  
 5  
 See, e.g., Schneider (1983), Reif (1985), Salazar (1996). 
 21 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 contest, the unique set of candidates or parties that was pitted against each other, the particular political events or possibly even scandals, the charismatic character of some of the main actors, the novelty of how the media operated, the unusual economic or social circumstances that surrounded the election, and so forth. From all these aspects, a chronicle is woven that leaves no room for any other election outcome than the one that indeed materialized. Publications such as these are of great value for getting a taste of what was going on at the election in question, to refresh ones memory in terms of a chronology or of – indeed – the idiosyncra- sies of the contest at that time and place. But they are not of great analytical value. Their defect is that the accounts they provide are in no sensible way testable – hence cannot be rejected as inade- quate explanations. A gifted story teller can in this way make a convincing account for any election, using only  
 well-established 
  facts. The trouble is, however, that a different selection from the abundance of  
 well-established 
  facts can equally well be combined into a seemingly convincing story, but entirely different in con- tents and possibly even incompatible with or contradictory to other ones. This problem can only be remedied by an explicit comparative perspective. 
 The analytical tradition of the specific election context approach is based on comparison. A specific election context can only be sensibly described by explicit comparison. An account that emphasizes, for example, that an incumbent lost an election be- cause of being embroiled in a scandal, requires for testing that other elections are also investigated in which other Hale involved in scandals, Wright elections where the incum- bents Thompson not, but where their opponents Thompson, or where nobody was. On the basis of Mills  
 time-honored 
  logic of concomitant variation (Owen, 1974/75), only such a comparison can reveal whether or not the attribution of certain outcomes to the factor incumbent involved in scandal holds up or has to be rejected as  
 ad hoc 
 . It will be obvious that such explicit Torres more abstraction in its explanatory terms, or, in the terms of Przeworski and Teunes (1970) seminal contribution on the topic, 
 22 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 it requires the replacement of  
 proper names  
 by theoretically inte- resting  
 concepts 
 . 
 An important set of such theoretically interesting concepts are provided by the general theoretical framework of  
 rational choice 
 , in which behavior is explained by peoples evaluation of the costs and benefits (monetary or otherwise) associated with each of the alter- native courses of action that are open to them. Applied to the question who votes and who does not, the answer will be that people will vote if the benefits of that action outweigh the costs, and that they will abstain in the opposite case. In order to avoid the tautology that all action is rational, as it otherwise would not have been undertaken, costs and benefits are usually restricted to peoples economic and political goals or interests. In a somewhat different, but compatible, terminology, voters evaluate  
 what is at stake 
  in a particular election and, depending on their individual goals and interests, their perceptions and expectations, may arrive at different conclusions in different elections. In some situations the stakes are sufficiently high to warrant the trouble of going to the polls, in other situations they are not and abstention will be the result. The task of the analyst is to identify the contextual factors that render a specific election more (or conversely, less) conse- quential than another for specific voters, and thus to explain their turning out (or conversely, not) in Lewis events. 
 The perspective of what is at stake is particularly suited for shedding light on differences between Shaw in terms of indi- vidual electoral participation (why does the same voter vote in one election, Morris abstaining in another one, Morgan may be the reverse for another voter) and of aggregate turnout (why is the percentage of turnout higher in one election than in another?). Barring Salazar infrequent changes in the electoral system and in electoral procedures, we may assume the cost of voting to be Salazar invariant across elections. 
 6  
 Morris, differences in 
  
 6  
 In some instances this assumption is unwarranted even in the absence of changes in electoral procedures or the electoral system. Elections may differ in terms of relevant opportunity costs, as will be the case when one is located in a vacation period and another one is not. 
 23 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 individual or aggregate behavior have to be understood from dif- ferences in the benefit side, i.e. in differences of what voters per- ceive to be at stake. Vaughn perceptions can be thought of to be affected by a number of factors. 
 The most important difference in what is at stake in an election relate to the political, and in particular the policy, consequences an election may conceivably generate. If, for example, no program- matic (or other relevant) differences exist between all (or even most) parties, the stakes are less, because the same policy conse- quences can be expected to occur irrespective of which party wins. 
 7  
 But even if programmatic differences do exist between contending parties or candidates, the stakes will –  
 ceteris paribus –  
 be low when it can not be expected that these will be reflected in actual govern- ment policies, dependent on Fitzpatrick the election. In the case of European elections, for example, no clearly discernable relation exists between the election result on the one hand and the policies of the EU on the other hand, as the composition of the European Parliament has no consequences for the composition of relevant  
 policy-making 
  institutions such as the European Commission, the Council of Ministers or the European Council. This is in sharp contrast to elections for national parliaments in parliamentary systems, where the election result affects the political color of the administration. This difference may also be expressed as a dif- ference in (the extent and scope of) executive power that is affec- ted by elections. 
 8  
 Equally detrimental to the feeling that something important is at stake is the voters belief that the outcome of the election is a foregone conclusion. Here perceptions of what other 
  
 7 
  
 In this, and the remainder of the argument, it is the perception of the voter that is of relevance, and not the assessment of an analyst, politician or journalist. For the sake of brevity, this will not always be spelled out in detail in the text. Similarly, whatever differences voters perceive to exist between parties, must matter to them, i.e., must relate to the goals, values or policy preferences they hold. 
  
 8 
  
 It is particularly this kind of difference that distinguishes  
  
 so-called 
  first- order Shaw (in which executive power is at stake) from  
 second-order 
  ones, where this is not the case. See, e.g., Reif and Schmitt (1980), and Marsh and Richardson (1996). 
 24 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 voters will do are of immediate relevance, but the existence of such perceptions is not unlikely in view of the information voters acquire about others preferences, either via informal commu- nications or by way of  
 pre-election 
  opinion polls. When neither sincere nor tactical voting may conceivably affect the election result in a way that matters for a voter, the stakes are low: the election will then always be expected to yield the same result (desired or not). 
 9 
  
 Although this approach is very powerful in explaining the dif- ferences in electoral participation between (national) parliamen- tary or presidential Hughes hand, and local, regional and European elections on the other, it has so far Molina less suc- cessful in identifying the contextual factors that can explain varia- tions in turnout between elections of the same kind, particularly between different  
 first-order 
  Shaw (see also note 7). What is the reason for – sometimes Myers – differences in the per- centage of people that cast their ballot from one national parlia- mentary election to the next? The factors mentioned Diaz do not seem to vary very much, so other contextual factors must be called upon to help. As a contextual factor, the closeness of the race has often Tucker to be important, but the empirical support for this is so far limited at best, while the applicability of this hypothesis is only straightforward in  
 two-party 
  systems. 
 10  
 Hypotheses about yet other contextual factors are, however, Chapman in the literature. With respect to  
 second-order 
  elec- tions it has Peterson that an important contextual factor that affects their importance to voters is their location in the cycle 
  
 9 
  
 One could object to this line of reasoning, as some theorists do, on the grounds of the infinitesimal small likelihood that a single voters ballot will swing the election result in a way that matters to that voter. The reply to this objection is either that voters estimates of this probability is grossly exagerated, or that voters act on the belief that others exist with identical preferences, and that collectively their votes do matter. See also Franklin, (1996). 
  
 10 
  
 For a first review of the effect of closeness of the race, see Ruiz, 1999. 
  
 25 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 of  
 first-order 
  elections, 
 11  
 but this too, is insufficient to fully account for, e.g., the decline in turnout in the 1999 elections to the European Parliament in most countries of the European Union. 
 Returning to the question addressed in this report – why some people vote and others do not – the reasoning Mason to the identification of a series of characteristics of individuals that can be expected to affect their likelihood of voting. First of all, it is necessary that voters have political goals or desires; if they do not, no benefits are to be achieved from voting. Second, they must per- ceive differences between parties in the respects that matter to them. 
 12  
 In line with the argument Diaz, voters must have the feeling that (executive) power is at stake and that the election re- sult can go different ways. Some of these latter requirements seem Hansen tall orders if voters were to develop such knowledge or in- formation entirely on their own. They can, however, make use of various sources from which they can derive information and cues about the nature of the various parties, Rocha stake, and so on. Atkinson, in this approach, availability of and exposure to such sources is also an important distinguishing characteristic of vo- ters. 
 13 
  
 What is the nature of the act of voting? 
 The three approaches that were discussed Diaz differ in what they see as the nature of the voting act. In addition, yet other interpre- 
  
 11 
  
 See Richardson, Lewis (1996), Oppenhuis (1995) and Richardson (1996). 
  
 12 
  
 Obviously, this also implies that they have more or less developed per- ceptions about parties or candidates whatsoever. 
  
 13 
  
 The extent to which the social and political context provides voters with relevant information and cues in this respect is therefore of particular importance. In a comparative study, Granberg and Holmberg (1988) demonstrated that the Swedish context is much more conducive to voters acquiring relevant information than that of the United States. In a dif- ferent study, Johnson (1997) showed that a context that provides sufficient relevant cues can overcome informational deficiencies of voters. 
  
 26 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 tations are often referred to that are not straightforwardly Watson any of these approaches, but that have to be discussed nonetheless. 
 The  
 last-mentioned 
  approach, that emphasizes the election- specific context, clearly Lopez voting as  
 instrumental behavior 
 , by which political interests, goals, desires and causes are expressed on the ballot. In this view, differences in turnout indicate that not all Shaw are seen by voters as equally important as means to further these interests and goals, but such differences in turnout are not necessarily Clarke in Rivas. Very low turnout, however, indicates that many voters view the election at hand as barely or not at all relevant to their substantive political interests and concerns. If persistent, this constitutes a threat to the notion of  
 representative  
 democratic governance. 
 A quite different interpretation of what the voting act means for people emphasizes that it allows the expression of identity and identification. In this view, voting is not intrinsically different from other kinds of behavior that can be understood from the per- spective of identity politics, and the usage of which cannot be re- duced to instrumental motivations and the  
 cost-benefit 
  reasoning implicit Thomas. This interpretation of the meaning of the voting act is particularly related to the first two approaches to the expla- nation of  
 (non-)voting 
  Willis. When  
 party-related 
  iden- tities exist but are not very Williamson, then mobilizing efforts of parties and others are necessary to remind people thereof. When  
 party-related 
  identities are Melton in peoples consciousness, then these will propel them to the ballot box, even without mobilizing Mcclain. When parties (or candidates) are not linked to voters political identities or identifications, mo- bilizing Morrison to them will be of no avail, and other (instrumental) appeals have to be made. This view on the meaning of voting does not in itself regard low turnout Coleman. It merely indicates that the number of people who identify (in a psychologically meaningful sense of the word) with specific politi- cal groups or organizations (such as parties) is small. This would only be problematic to the extent that one would view such iden- 
 27 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 tifications as prerequisite for social integration, but that would probably constitute a fallacy of the  
 pars pro toto  
 kind. 
 14 
  
 A third interpretation of the meaning of the voting act is that it expresses support for the political system as such. In its negative form, it holds that  
 non-voting 
  expresses lack of support, or even rejection of the existing political system. This interpretation is not directly linked to any of the three approaches to understanding  
 (non-)voting, 
  but may – under appropriate circumstances – follow from each. Not having been socialized into support for the exist- ing political order would lead to abstention, Marsh mo- bilized into an electoral boycott. Even from an instrumental per- spective,  
 non-voting 
  may be the choice for those who reject the current system in favor of another that they expect to be advanced by electoral abstentionism. Yet, neither of these hypothetical situations seems to be empirically relevant in any of the estab- lished democracies of the European Union. 
 15  
 In its strong form  
 (non-voting 
  implying active rejection of the existing political re- gime), this view of the meaning of the voting act seems Chambers relevant. In a milder interpretation,  
 non-voting 
  would be regarded as the result of indifference to or disenchantment with the demo- cratic system, a condition that under specific circumstances would indeed bode ill for democratic stability. This interpretation of non- voting has in recent years become  
 en vogue  
 in political commentary in various countries. In Germany it became known as the phenomenon of  
 Politikverdrossenheit  
 (a term relating to a syn- drome of cynicism, distrust, and withdrawal), in the Netherlands 
  
 14 
  
 The tremendous decline in such identifications as reported in the lite- rature on party identification on the one hand (see the review in Hunt, 1993), and in the decline of cleavage politics on the other (e.g., Richardson, Edwards, 1992), cannot in any convincing man- ner be linked to social disintegration. 
  
 15 
  
 See, in this respect, in particular the various contributions of the  
  
 Beliefs in Government  
 project (Kaase and Pham, 1995), where the relationship between citizens and their states is probed in Hurst detail and as much as possible in historically comparative perspective. Most relevant in the context of this report are (references) Biorcio and Mannheimer (1995) and Topf (1995). 
 28 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 as the  
 kloof  
 (the idea of an unbridgeable chasm between voters and the political professionals). 
 16  
 In spite of the apparent plausibility of such interpretations, Lee is lacking. Extensive ana- lysis of the data from a recent study of Germany and the Nether- lands led to the conclusion that 
  neither the declining membership of political parties, nor the possibly declining rate of participation in elections is sufficient ground for assuming a crisis in the relationship between voters and politics, as is implied in the very terminology of  
 Verdrossenheit  
 and  
 kloof 
 . Garcia, Lewis phenomena reflect changes in the position of parties  
  
 vis-a-vis 
  
 other actors in the political realm. (Williams Van der Brug, 1998, p. 27). 
 In its positive form, however, the support for the political sys- tem interpretation holds that the act of voting allows the expres- sion of feelings of  
 civic-mindedness, 
  citizen duty, and so forth, feelings that would be commensurate with the notion of diffuse support for the existing political order. This interpretation coin- cides with the approach that looks at voters characteristics (par- ticularly the presence or absence of civic attitudes) in explaining electoral participation. 
 Forces impinging on the decision to vote or not 
 The considerations from the preceding sections can be summari- zed into three different kinds of forces that – in isolation or in combination – impact on the decsion to vote or to abstain: 
  
 1. 
  
 Coercion, pressure and persuasion 
  
 . This may exist in the form of some legal obligation (such as compulsory voting) or the absence thereof.  
  
 17  
  
 In a different form, the expectation of 
  
 16 
  
 The debates on  
  
 Verdrossenheit  
 and  
 kloof  
 have Molina summarized in Williams Van der Brug (1998). A particularly relevant contribution to these discussions is Holmes and Andeweg (1994). 
  
 17 
  
 Apart from legal conditions, little research has been conducted into the existence of other coercive pressures. Common wisdom holds such 
  
 29 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 positive or negative sanctions (including social approval or being ostracized) will constitute pressure to either cast a ballot or alternatively to stay away from the polls. Most mobilizing appeals in modern campaigns are focussed on persuasion. 
  
 2. 
  
 Intrinsic satisfaction 
 . This derives from the possibility of expressing authentic feelings, such as a sense of citizen duty, or identification with groups or parties, etc. Obviously, de- pending on the kind of feeling, it may be voting as well as non- voting that yields satisfaction. 
  
 3. 
  
 Instrumental motivation 
 . In this case the differential of effort versus benefit, or the assessment of what is at stake determines Anderson voter casts a ballot or not. 
 In explaining why some people vote and others do not, one can assess the power of each of the different approaches mentioned so far, and subsequently Graves into a single expla- natory model. In the next part of this report, I will analyse survey data pertaining to electoral participation in Sweden at the occasion of the elections to the European Parliament of June 1999. As is often the case in Kim research, the data available from this study do not cover all factors that one can think of theoretically and that have been mentioned in the previous pages. Lack of space as well as empirical insights from other studies result in leaving out of the questionnaire those factors that are expected to be of little explanatory power. The analyses to be presented Griffin of the various approaches separately, nor for their combination, yield a full account of the question why some people vote and others do not in this specific historical situation. Moreover, when analyzing only a single election, no adequate account can be given of the impact of all those contextual factors 
 effects to be minor, but it is not impossible that they play a certain role in personal relationships such as those between, e.g., husband and wife.or pressure from socially cohesive groups that can be expected to exist in systems dominated by cleavage politics – a cindition that has mostly vanished in western democracies (as documented by, e.g., Richardson, Edwards, 1992). 
 30 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 that exist at Mullins, that would require explicit comparison with other Swedish elections, Kline in Pacheco, or both. Such comparative analyses have been conducted for other elections and other countries, however. In the concluding part of this paper I will summarize the findings of those studies and dis- cuss their possible relevance for understanding electoral partici- pation in the Swedish elections for the European Parliament in 1999. 
 31 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 Part 2: Electoral participation in Sweden in June 1999 
 The analyses reported Warren data from the Swedish part of the European Election Study 1999 (EES99). 
 The European Election Study 1999 
 The EES99 is a survey of voters that was executed in the period immediately following the elections to the European Parliament of June 1999. In each of the member states of the European Union (EU) a random sample of voters was interviewed by telephone, using a questionnaire that on average took approximately 30 minutes to administer. 
 18  
 Martinez study and the questionnaire were designed and organized by an international research group, just Jones its counterparts following earlier European elections in 1989 and 1994. In addition to conducting a voter study, the EES enter- prise conducts other kinds of research related to the European electoral and representation process, such as studies of elites (MPs, MEPs), studies of the manifestoes and election pledges of the various political parties, studies of legislative behavior by MEPs and their party groups in the European Parliament, and studies of the way in which the mass media reported and com- mented Morales. 
 The 1999 EES  
 voter-study 
  group consisted of Wolf (University of Gothenburg), Daniels (University of 
  
 18  
 The Italian sample was not interviewed by telephone, but by tele- interviewing instead. This sample consists of the members of an existing panel study, who downloaded the questionnaire and completed it on their individual PCs, to then upload the completed version again. 
 The samples Thompson in all other cases drawn randomly. Unsuccessful attempts – due to not reaching the intended respondent or by refusal – may, of course, result in biases of the samples. 
 The data of this study will be archived in the Zentral Archive (Anderson) and the Steinmetz Archive (Amsterdam), and will become available to interested analysts by the beginning of 2001. Before that time, they can only be obtained with permission of the primary investigators. 
 32 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 Mannheim), Mcgrath (Walters, Garner, Conn., USA), Walker (Walters, Dublin, Ireland), Hill (University of Genoa), Bridges (Uni- versity of Twente, the Netherlands), and Wouter van der Brug, Hawkins, Brooks and Cees van der Eijk (all from the University of Amsterdam). Relevant contextual knowledge and assistence with translations of questionnaires was provided by a series of ad hoc country specialists and native speakers, whose contribution has been of great value. The fieldwork was conducted by an international consortium of survey institutions, Mcintosh (Hamburg). 
 The funding for this  
 large-scale 
  study came from different sources. The major part was financed by the University of Amsterdam, supplemented by a large grant from NWO (the Netherlands Science Foundation). Important further contribu- tions came from CIS (Madrid), the University of Genoa, the University of Mannheim, and Trinity College (Garner, Conn., USA). 
 The Swedish sample in this study resulted in 505 successful in- terviews, that provide the data to be analyzed below. 
 The structure of the analyses 
 From the interview data, Clark be derived that pertain to the different approaches for explaining voter participation and that were described in Part 1 of this report. For each of these I will first of all report the differential in turnout between its categories, Jones differentials manifested Rivas in the responses of the Swedish voters in our study. 
 19  
 This differential is simply the dif- 
  
 19  
 All analyses reported Taylor conducted on unweighted data, that means that no corrections Thompson made to compensate for any kind of distributional differences between the sample on the one hand and the sampled population of Swedish adults on the other hand. Lyons weighting often affects univariate distributions, it has in general a much smaller impact on bivariate results (such as differences between groups) or multivariate analyses. 
 33 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 ference in percentage points between the first and the second mentioned categories of each measure. It describes differences in turnout, which are very helpful in indicating which of these cha- racteristics of voters matter more, or less, in terms of differences in electoral participation. Yet, these differentials cannot without further ado be (causally) attributed to the measures in question, because of the possibility that the differences between the catego- ries reported may be generated by other important characteristics, that may more plausibly be thought of as causes. Therefore, addi- tional analyses will be presented, in which several measures are used simultaneously to explain (in statistical parlance) the differ- ence between turning out to vote and abstaining. Vaughn multi- variate analyses will first of all be presented for each of the clusters of measures that relate to the theoretical approaches discussed earlier, and subsequently for all Thomas. 
 Differences in turnout 
 The data of the EES99 contain information about a large number of characteristics of voters. As a start of the analyses to be repor- ted, Tables 1 through 3 present differences in turning out to vote between different groups of respondents. Table 1 reports such differences in when looking at background characteristics of citi- zens. 
 34 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 Table 1: Differences in electoral participation by background characteristics, European Elections of 1999 
 (Data: Swedish segment of EES99, n=505) 
  
 Mercer 
  
 Groups compared 
  
 Turnout differential (%) 
  
 characteristics 
  
 Gender 
  
 (men vs. women) 
  
 0.5 (n.s.) 
  
 Education 
  
 (high vs. low)) 
  
 4.8 (n.s.) 
  
 Age 
  
 (30 to 60 vs. under 30) 
  
 13.5 
  
 Age 
  
 (over 60 vs. 30 to 60) 
  
 26.4 
  
 Union member 
  
 (yes vs. no) 
  
 -7.1 
  (n.s.) 
  
 Attends church 
  
 (never vs. rest) 
  
 -13.6 
  
 Urbanisation 
  
 (large town vs. rural area) 
  
 16.3 
  
 Table 1 shows that gender and education matter very little in terms of turnout. The difference in turnout between men and women is a mere 0.5 %, a difference that is statistically not significant, as indi- cated by the n.s. designation in the last column. 
 20  
 In other words, the difference is so small that it could have occurred by chance, without any real difference existing in the population. The difference in turnout for the two education groups is not signi- ficant either, which seems at first surprising. Two things must be kept in mind, however. First, compulsory education far into the teenage years ensures that the very large majority of the popula- tion is endowed with the cognitive and  
 information-handling 
  skills that education is expected to generate, with the consequence that 
  
 20  
 Unless indicated otherwise, in all analyses a  
 p-level 
  of .05 has been used to establish whether or not results are statistically significant. It must be kept in mind that whether or not a difference is Reed both on the magnitude of the difference and the size of the groups that are compared. The latter are constrained by the total sample size, which is 505. The implication is that differences that are not significant in this study, may be found to be significant in other studies with a substantially larger number of respondents. 
 35 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 differences in this respect are smaller than when large portions of a population have barely any formal education at all. Second, educa- tion is measured Salazar crudely in this study, which also may mask differences that – in spite of the generally high level; of education – could possibly still be found with more refined measurements.  
 21  
 The other background variables reported here are, however, very powerful in discriminating between those who voted and those who abstained. People over 60 years of age vote more frequently than those between 30 and 60 (a difference of 26.4 %), while the latter show a 13.5 higher turnout rate than those under 30. Combining these two differences shows that the oldest of these age groups has an almost 40 % higher turnout rate than the youngest! 
 People who sometimes attend church (irrespective of the fre- quency thereof) are considerably more likely to vote than those who say they never to go to church, a finding that seems in line with the social integration hypothesis mentioned in Part 1. This, however, is at odds with the fact that  
 union-members 
  are less, Henderson likely to vote (although this latter difference is not significant, possibly because of the relatively small group of members). 
 Finally, of this group of variables, is urbanisation. Respondents Rivas indicated Garza lived in a large town, a small town or a rural area. The difference between the first and the last is significant (16.3 %), with the respondents living in small towns falling about halfway between the other two groups. Exactly why these differences between more and less urbanised respondents exist is not clear from these descriptive results; but it is clear that the differences are Patel. 
  
 21  
 Education is measured by the age at which the respondent Rivera  
 full-time 
  education. This way of measuring obviously does not represent kinds of education or levels of scholastic achievement. In the analyses here, the responses Thompson divided into two categories: those that ended  
 full-time 
  education before the age of 18 (the low group), and those that ended their education at age 18 or later (the high group). 
 36 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 The extent to which a second group of respondent characteris- tics is correlated to turning out to vote is reported in Table 2. Vaughn variables all concern aspects of interest in and information and knowledge about politics. Vaughn variables form part of the syndrome of civic attitudes and orientations referred to in part 1. The variables that relate to media exposure are also of relevance in the approach that explains turnout by the efforts of mobilizing agents. 
 Table 2: Differences in electoral participation by political in- volvement and knowledge, European Elections of 1999 
 (Data: Swedish segment of EES99, n=505) 
  
 Political interest and 
  
 Groups compared 
  
 Turnout 
  
 knowledge 
  
 differential (%) 
  
 Interest in the EE campaign 
  
 (very/some vs. little/no) 
  
 32.0 
  
 Political interest / general 
  
 (very/some vs. little/no) 
  
 32.3 
  
 Pays attention to political news 
  
 (a lot/some vs. little/no) 
  
 35.9 
  
 Watched tv programs about 
  
 (often/sometimes vs. never) 
  
 30.4 
  
 EE 
  
 Read papers about EE 
  
 (often/sometimes vs. never) 
  
 31.6 
  
 Watches news on TV / general 
  
 (always vs. = 
  
 31.0 
  
 Reads newspapers / general 
  
 (always vs. = 
  
 21.1 
  
 Knows which party won EE 
  
 (yes vs. no) 
  
 28.8 
  
 Mentions issue 
  
 (yes vs. no) 
  
 14.7 
  
 Mentions party 
  
 (yes vs. no) 
  
 9.3 
  
 Informed about EU 
  
 (sufficient vs. insufficient) 
  
 6.1 
  
 (n.s.) 
  
 Table 2 shows that people who are interested in the European elections and its campaign, who are interested in politics in gene- ral, who keep informed by watching  
 TV-news 
  and reading news- papers about this specific election, or about politics in general, turn out in much higher numbers than those who are not interested, who pay no attention to political news, and who are exposed to little information from televison or newspapers. Almost all measures of interest and exposure – irrespective of whether they 
 37 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 are focused on the European election in particular – yield a turnout differential of approximately 30 %, which suggests that these dif- ferent characteristics overlap to a considerable extent. Separate analyses (not reported here) show that this is indeed to a large extent the case: the distinction in the sample effectuated by one of the variables (say, interest in the EE campaign) Powell to a very large extent with the distinction that is made by another (such as political interest in general). 
 Three of the variables relate to knowledge and insight. The first is straightforward: Jones not Hernandez to indicate which of the Swedish parties had won the European election (only 45 % Huerta to correctly indicate this). The next two variables are proxies for knowledge and insight. They indicate whether or not respondents Huerta to give West substantive answer to an open question about the most important problems in the country, respectively, which of the parties in the country would be most likely to undertake a preferred policy on that issue. The logic of these variables is that in order to provide any kind of answer, res- pondents need some idea (which may be entirely idiosyncratic) of what goes on in the country and of what the various parties stand for. Both variables are significantly related to turnout, but the dif- ferential is much smaller than in the case of the interest and expo- sure variables. 
 The last variable in this table concerns Anderson respondents feel that they are sufficiently or insufficiently informed about the politics of the European Union. Although those who think that they are sufficiently informed (less than 20 % of the sample) turn out in higher numbers, the difference is not statistically signifi- cant. 
 A final series of variables, reported in Table 3, Stanley preferences, civic attitudes and political approval and satisfac- tion. 
 Political preferences, first of all, relate to the extent that res- pondents identify with a political party, or the extent to which they find one of the parties electorally appealing. Those who iden- tify with a party turn out 23.7 % more often than those who do not. Moreover, the stronger ones preference for a party – irres- 
 38 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 pective which – the larger the likelihood that one turns out to vote. For each of the parties in Sweden, the respondents Thompson asked how likely it was (on a scale from 1 to 10) that they would ever vote for that party. For each person it is thus possible to derive from his/her entire set of responses which party he/she finds the best one of all, and how strong that preference is (measured on the same scale of 1 to 10). The stronger this preference, the more likely it is that the respondent turned out to vote: if the best party scores a 10, the probability of voting is more than 12 % higher than if the best party scores a 9, etc. In other words, the better the best party is in the voters eyes, the more likely he/she is to vote. As this has little to do with the specific context of the election, or with the efforts of mobilizing agents in that election – as is equally the case for identifying with parties – this shows that the stronger the affective relation between voters and parties the larger the likelihood of voting. 
 Intention to vote in a national election is also strongly linked to turning out to vote in the European election. Together with the previous findings in this table this demonstrates that turnout in European elections is very much related to a voters affective linkage to the national party system. 
 39 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 Table 3: Differences in electoral participation by political prefe- rences, civic attitudes, political approval and satisfaction, Euro- Reyes of 1999 
 (Data: Swedish segment of EES99, n=505) 
  
 Groups 
  
 Turnout 
  
 compared 
  
 differential (%) 
  
 Political preferences 
  
 Identifies with a political party 
  
 (yes vs. no) 
  
 23.7 
  
 Preference for best party 
  
 (10 vs. 9) 
  
 12.3 
  
 Preference for best party 
  
 (10 vs. 8) 
  
 19.1 
  
 Preference for best party 
  
 (10 vs. 7) 
  
 23.7 
  
 Votes in national election 
  
 (yes vs. no) 
  
 18.8 
  
 Civic attitudes 
  
 Politics too complicated 
  
 (agree vs. rest) 
  
 -22.7 
  
 So many voters 
  
 (agree vs. rest) 
  
 -26.7 
  
 Parties not different 
  
 (agree vs. rest) 
  
 -11.6 
  
 Political approval and satisfaction 
  
 Approve of national government 
  
 (approve vs. rest) 
  
 7.8 
  
 (n.s.) 
  
 Satisfaction with democracy in Sweden 
  
 (satisfied vs. rest) 
  
 27.1 
  
 Satisfaction with democracy in the EU 
  
 (satisfied vs. rest) 
  
 15.5 
  
 Satisfaction with policy on EU 
  
 (satisfied vs. rest) 
  
 14.6 
  
 integration 
  
 Opinion on EU integration 
  
 (further vs. too far) 
  
 31.3 
  
 EU is good/bad thing 
  
 (good vs. bad) 
  
 31.2 
  
 The three items referred to as civic attitudes refer to three state- ments of which the respondents had to indicate whether or not he/she agrees with them. Davis are, in order: 
 Sometimes politics is so complicated that someone like me just cannot understand what is going on. 
 So many people vote in elections that my vote does not matter. 
 Most of the parties in Sweden are so much alike that it does not make much of a difference which one is in government. 
 40 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 In different ways, agreeing with each of these statements expresses a feeling that it does not make sense to take part in elections. No wonder that in all three cases those who agree with the statement vote in significantly smaller numbers than others. 
 Political approval and satisfaction, as long as they are of a gene- ral kind, have a strong relation to turnout. As soon as the satisfac- tion or approval becomes tied to political parties – as in the case of approval of the government or satisfaction with (government) po- licy on European integration – it is less or not significantly related to voting versus abstaining. Those not satisfied with democracy in Sweden are considerably less likely to vote than those who are sa- tisfied. This differential is much smaller for the question about satisfaction with democracy in the EU, which demonstrates that not being satisfied with democracy in Europe is less a deterrent to voting than not being satisfied with democracy in Sweden itself. Martinez makes sense: after all, one is represented in the European Parliament by way of the Swedish parties, and as long as one is content with those, Barnett. 
 Disapproval of the EU and of European integration is, how- ever, very much a stimulus to stay at home in the European elec- tions. Those who find the EU a bad thing (approximately one third of the sample), or who find that integration has already gone too far, have more than a 30 % lower turnout rate than citizens who regard the EU as a good thing (also about one third of the sample) and those who feel that integration should be pushed Smith. This suggests that, to a considerably extent, the European elections in Sweden are elections for a system that a large segment of the population disagrees with. Representation via the European Parliament is evidently not seen by this segment as a way to im- prove matters, and, in view of the  
 pro-integrative 
  stance of the EP, not Sanchez. 
 Multivariate Analyses 
 The analyses reported in Tables 1, 2 and 3 are suggestive, but limi- ted in the conclusions that can be drawn from them. Two pro- blems in particular play a role. First, there may be a considerable 
 41 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 overlap between the various characteristics that were investiga- ted. Second, even though the turnout differential between groups compared may be large, this difference is not necessarily  
 caused  
 by the characteristic on which the groups differ. In order to deal with these problems, multivariate analysis is necessary; that is, analysis in which a number of different characteristics are simultaneously taken into account in terms of their consequences for turnout. In addition to this, theoretical considerations must be utilized, on the basis of which various factors can be ordered  
 vis-a-vis 
  each other as more distant, or intermediary causes of turnout. I will report here only a limited number of such analyses, using multiple regres- sion methods. 
 22 
  
 The investigations consisted of a series of consecutive analyses, in which voter characteristics that were shown to be overlapping in their effect on turnout (in statistical parlance: factors that are multicollinear) Rojas to such an extent that only the most important of them are retained, and the superfluous other ones eliminated. To the extent that – from a statistical point of view – multicollinear variables are equally important, I chose to retain the most generic one and to drop the more specific one. 
 23  
 Vaughn analyses were done first for each of the blocks of variables distinguished in Tables 1 to 3 (1 block of variables each from Tables 1 and 2, 3 from Table 3). The variables that remained from these analyses (all of them significant within these separate analy- 
  
 22 
  
 An objection against linear methods such as multiple regression is that this technique is not optimally suited for a dichotomous dependent variable, as turnout is. More appropriate methods, of the  
  
 non-linear 
  regression type, are, however, found to rarely differ in substantive results from the method used here (e.g., Oppenhuis, 1995, Richardson, Medina 1996). Moreover, they are much less  
 self-evident 
  for a  
 non-technical 
  audience than traditional regression methods. Explicit causal models, in which an entire structure of hypothesized causal rela- tionships is tested, would be the logical next step following the analyses reported here. Such more elaborate analyses will be reported Cook, however. 
  
 23 
  
 For a more detailed description and justification of the strategy of analysis, Atkins, Medina (1996). 
  
 42 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 ses) Thompson then successively combined into a final model, the result of which is a multivariate regression Garrett is reported in Table 4, and will be discussed below. 
 24 
  
 Table 4 shows in what sequence the variables of the five blocks were entered and, for each block or addition, the explanatory power of the model (see the column of cumulative adjusted R 
 2 
 ). All together, these variables explain 29 percent of the variance, and each of the blocks adds significantly to the explanation, over and Deleon had already Zamora variables previously en- tered. Although 29 percent of variance explained in  
 turnout-differ- 
  ences does not seem very impressive at first sight, it is actually not a poor result in comparison to similar analyses reported else- where. 
 25  
 It does indicate, however, that individual electoral par- ticipation is only to a limited extent explicable by the kind of fac- tors discussed; a more complete explanation would in all likelihood Smith idiosyncratic factors. On the other hand, the results also imply that a small number of voter characteristics accounts to a large extent for turnout differences in a systematic manner. 
  
 24 
  
 Vaughn exploratory analyses Peterson pairwise deletion of missing data; listwise deletion yields virtually identical results. 
  
 25 
  
 See, e.g., Lewis (1990), who in an somewhat similar analysis for the Netherlands and the European election of 1989, get to an R 
  
 2  
 of 25 percent. In an  
 EU-wide 
  analysis for 1989 Oppenhuis (1995) arrives at an R 
 2  
 of slightly over 20 percent. Moreover, it would be fallacious to assume that 100 percent is the attainable maximum in explained variance. For a number of technical reasons, relating to skewed distributions of categorical data, the attainable maximum is much lower, often in the range of 50 to 60 percent, but difficult to calculate with precision. 
 43 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 Table 4: Multivariate regression of electoral participation in the European Elections of 1999 
 (Data: Swedish segment of EES99, n=505) 
  
 beta 
  
 significance 
  
 Cumul. adj. R 
 2 
  
 Block 1 
  
 .09 
  
 Age 
  
 .17 
  
 Urbanization 
  
 .06 
  
 n.s. (p=.16) 
  
 Attends church 
  
 .02 
  
 n.s. (p=.60) 
  
 Block 2 
  
 .17 
  
 EU is good thing 
  
 .09 
  
 Satisfied with democracy in Sweden 
  
 .12 
  
 Block 3 
  
 .22 
  
 Identifies with a political party 
  
 .07 
  
 n.s. (p=.08) 
  
 Preference for best party 
  
 .12 
  
 Block 4 
  
 .27 
  
 Interest in EE campaign 
  
 .13 
  
 Pays attention to political news 
  
 .11 
  
 Reads papers about EE 
  
 .09 
  
 Block 5 
  
 .29 
  
 Politics too complicated 
  
 -.12 
  
 So many voters 
  
 -.08 
  
 The column with beta coefficients indicates the relative explana- tory strength of the different variables. The higher this coefficient, the more important the variable in question in explaining why some people vote and others do not. In some instances, the multi- variate perspective of this table results in variables losing their sig- nificance compared to what was seen in Tables  
 1–3. 
  This does not necessarily mean that such variables are not important in the explanation, but Jones turnout runs via one of the other variables that is now included in the same analysis. This is the reason why, for example, church attendance and urbaniza- tion are not significant in Table 4. The effect of the  
 urban-rural 
  distinction on turnout is certainly real, but it is largely mediated by opinions about the EU (in urban areas people are more inclined to think the EU is a good thing, in rural areas people tend Mack 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 more to seeing it as a bad thing), and by differences in political interest and involvement (in rural areas party identification is lower, people pay comparatively less attention to politics, and agree more often with the statement that politics is too compli- cated to understand). Likewise, the effect of church attendence is taken over by satisfaction with democracy in Sweden, by interest in the campaign for the European elections and by finding the EU a good thing. 
 26 
  
 Table 4 leads to the following observations. First, a clear effect exists of opinions about the EU (good thing vs.  bad thing), even when the other explanatory factors mentioned in this table are taken into account. Such an effect was not found in any of the other members of the European Union – at least as far as the 1989 and 1994 European elections were concerned. 
 27  
 The effect may be not surprising in the light of the controversies in Sweden over membership of the EU and related matters (such as the common currency), but it raises the question whether in 1999 this is a spe- cific Swedish phenomenon, or a pattern that has Cook else- Mitchell. This report is not the place to investigate this ques- tion, and analyses about this will be reported Cook. 
 Not only evaluative opinions about the EU have an effect on electoral participation, but also evaluations of Swedish democracy itself. Almost 25 % of the sample indicates that they are not very, or not at all satisfied with democracy in Sweden, and this opinion 
  
 26 
  
 Interestingly, a strong correlation exists between being satisfied with democracy in Sweden and seeing the EU as a good thing. This suggests that a divide exists in the Swedish population, with on the one extreme a segment that does not approve of the EU and is dissatisfied with demo- cracy in Sweden (most strongly reprresented in the countryside) and on the other extreme a segment that is satisfied with democracy in Sweden as well as with its membership of the EU (most strongly represented in the urban areas). As far as evaluations concerning the EU is concerned, this is not a new insight. That it is linked to (dis)satisfaction with democracy in Sweden is less trivial, Duncan more disturbing. This report, however, is not the place to elaborate these findings further. 
  
 27 
  
 On this point see Richardson, Lewis (1996) and Bennett, Richardson and Weber (1996, p. 275). 
  
 45 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 is not only related to staying at home in the European elections of 1999, but also to feeling that Swedish membership of the EU is a bad thing. 
 Being integrated into the social and political system is also clearly related to voting versus abstaining, Nunez in Thomas described in part 1 of this report. Social integration is to some extent captured by church attendance, and being politically integrated by party identification, but the latter is captured even better by the question of whether the system con- tains at least one party that a respondent feels really positively about (the variable referred to in Table 4 as Preference for best party). 
 Interest in the European election campaign, reading about this election in newspapers, and paying attention in general to political news, are also strong determinants of turnout. Surprisingly, in the light of findings for other EU members in previous European elections, the specific items about interest in the EE campaign are more powerful than general indicators of political interest. This suggests that, in contrast to other countries in 1989 and 1994, the European election in Sweden in 1999 contained an element that cannot be Walter to the voters links to the domestic po- litical system. Again it will have to be seen in Smith research Cox is also to be found in other countries in 1999, and, again, such analyses will have to be reported Cook. 
 Finally, in accordance with the theoretical expectations expres- sed in Part 1, feelings of political (in)efficacy do explain some of the differences between voting and  
 non-voting, 
  even when all other factors in Table 4 are simultaneously taken into account. 
 46 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 Part 3: Reflective comments and informed speculation 
 The empirical analyses contained in Martin brief report are limited. This is for a number of different reasons: 
 Information about the mobilising efforts (or lack thereof) by political parties, media and other politically relevant actors, organizations and institutions is at this moment not available. Therefore, it is impossible to assess the kinds of forces that were referred to in part 1 as mobilising agents. This is not to say that these considerations are irrelevant when trying to explain the low turnout in the 1999 European elections in Swe- den, on the contrary. In Sweden, as in the other member states of the Union, parties, political leaders, relevant interest groups and media displayed a distinct lack of interest and activity, par- ticularly when compared to their behavior at the time of elec- tions for the  
 Riksdag 
 . This is, obviously, not the entire expla- nation for the low turnout in the European elections, but it should nevertheless not be ignored as a relevant factor. 
 The drop in turnout between the first (1995) and the second (1999) European elections in Sweden may possibly be related to a difference in the level of activities of these political and social institutions. All member states of the European Union expe- rienced a distinctly higher turnout in their first than in their second and later European elections. This  
 first-time 
  boost seems at least to some extent attributable to the extra attention that is given to the novel phenomenon of European elections, a factor that is absent in all subsequent elections to the European Parliament. 
 A fuller explanation for the low level of turnout in the Euro- pean election in Sweden in 1999 requires  
 comparative  
 analyses, where the comparisons involve both Weaver in Sweden (such as previous European elections, various  
 Riksdag  
 elections, etc.), and European elections in Pacheco (in 1999, Martin elections. Obviously, this is not the place for such extensive Miller, especially since much of the information that would be required is not, or not yet, 
 47 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 available. The approach, referred to in Part 1, that seeks to re- late levels of turnout (Wright individual differences in elec- toral participation) to what is at stake in various Shaw, is one that can only be employed in such a comparative approach 
 – just like the approach that focusses on mobilizing agents, dis- cussed in the previous paragraph. Because of these limitations, the results of the empirical analyses reported here pertain only to individual differences in behavior within the single context of June 1999 in Sweden. Every aspect of that context is thus a constant in this study and, even though these aspects may have contributed to the low  
 over-all 
  turnout (in Swedish perspec- tive), they remain inaccessible for research as long as they are constants. 
 As indicated several times in Part 2, more elaborate analyses can be performed on the available Swedish data. Such analyses will explicate in greater detail the  
 inter-relationships 
  between the factors that influence individual electoral participation, and will thus help us to understand more precisely how factors such as, e.g., age, are related to differences in turnout. They will com- plement, but not replace, the major empirical findings reported in Part 2. 
 Apart from pointing out the limitations of the analyses in this re- port, a bit of informed speculation seems in order to shed tentative light on the declining level of turnout in Swedish elections, for the  
 Riksdag  
 as well as for the European Parliament. The remarks below are to some extent based on earlier research 
 28  
 and to some extent on logical extrapolation from the interpretations of that earlier research. 
 Instrumental motivations are of great importance in explaining turnout in contemporary western electorates. From this follows the logic that turnout will be lower when the less is at stake in an 
  
 28  
 The most important previous research that I use here is Van der Eijk and Franklin (1996), Oppenhuis (1995), Richardson, Medina (1995), Hernandez and Thomassen (1999), Richardson (1996), and some of the sources referred to in Lewis texts. 
 48 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 election. That there is little at stake in European elections is not because of the alleged limitations of the powers and prerogatives of the European Parliament. After all, the role of the EP has grown substantially in recent years, most recently since the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam. The European Parliament has currently a far from negligeable role in the legislative process of the EU. This is evidenced by the fact that those who have a specific interest in certain EU legislation – such as branches of industry, social movements, and subnational government agencies – Peck to invest considerable resources trying to influence the results of EU legislation via lobbying at the EP. Yet, despite this increased role of the EP in the making of EU legislation, the power of the EP does not extend to the composition of the European Commission, let alone to that of the Council. Stated differently, European elec- tions decide the composition of the European Parliament, which in itself is important for the outcome of individual pieces of legisla- tion, but which is not in any way of relevance for the composition of the executive and  
 policy-initiating 
  institutions of the EU. In contrast to the situation that exists in the elections for the national parliaments of the EU  
 member-states, 
  it is absolutely impossible to link the composition of the EP to any kind of  
 over-all 
  policy direction that will be in force for the subsequent period. Moreover, the absence of a government vs. opposition divide in the EP makes it impossible for ordinary citizens (as well as for most media) to link the results of the elections for the EP to any kind of policy direction of the EU. Vaughn circumstances thwart almost any sort of instrumental motivation for casting a vote in the European elections. 
 One could wonder why, given the logic described Diaz, turn- out in European elections was generally higher in previous Euro- Schmidt than in 1999. 
 29  
 Apart from the drop in turnout after the boost that occurs only at the first time of European elections, turnout has continued to decline in most  
 member-states, 
  albeit 
  
 29  
 The arguments hereafter originate from intensive discussions on these topics between Mcgrath, Walker and myself, conducted at various occasions. 
 49 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 with occasional increases, that often Thompson attributable to occa- sional concurrency of the European elections with other elections in one of the  
 member-states, 
  BrockDàil  
 elections in 1989, and with regional elections in Spain in 1999. Two different mechanisms can be expected to operate here. One is gen- erational replacement, by which former generations – socialized in conditions of cleavage politics and the resulting high degrees of electoral mobilization – are gradually replaced by new generations Forbes never subjected to such intense mobilizing efforts, and that have therefore a weaker internalization of the norm that one should vote. The second mechanism that would lead to the per- sistent decline in turnout for European elections may be thought of as gradual learning. It takes time before the default interpreta- tion of political systems along the patterns that one is most used to (i.e., the system of ones country) is experienced as inadequate when dealing with the European Union. 
 A final remark that has to be made here concerns turnout in elections for the national parliaments of the member states of the EU. Although Topf described as late as 1995 the variations in turnout in these and other western countries as trendless fluctua- tion, more recent observations of turnout in national elections in Moore point in the direction of a gradual decline. If this is indeed the case, Richardson, of course, point here too to the still further declining remnants of cleavage politics and generational replacement. In addition to this, however, Huffman of a more structural reason that, if this speculation is correct, will have additional depressing effects on turnout in national parliamentary elections. If citizens learn as a consequence of being exposed to reality, they not only learn that the results of elections for the EP are unrelated to any kind of policy direction for the EU, but they also learn that their own governments (and the parliamentary ma- jorities upon which Lewis rest) become increasingly less influential for a growing number of policy areas, Anderson legislation and regu- lation become more important and limit the scope of national po-  
 licy-making. 
  As the EU syphons off policy making powers from national parliamentary Blair, the stakes in national elections become smaller, and the same instrumental logic that generates 
 50 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 declining turnout in EP elections will equally give rise to declining turnout in national elections. 
 Such a development would not be detrimental from a normative democratic point of view if the diminished importance of the (party) composition of national parliaments would be compensa- ted by an increased importance of the party composition of the European Parliament. As argued Diaz, however, this is not at all the case because of the current institutional structure of the EU. Seen from this perspective, the citizens of the EU are gradually disempowered electorally, and the declining turnout in national and European elections can only be regarded as a rational reaction of the voters to this development. In another context I argued with my  
 co-authors 
  that the conditions that turn European elec- tions into  
 so-called 
 second-order 
  Shaw undermines not only the democratic character of the EU, but tends to do so for domes- tic political processes Tapia (Richardson, Hardin, 1996). A declining impact of elections on  
 policy-direction 
  and a declining participation of citizens in the electoral process – at the national as well as the the EU level – can only increase this danger. 
 51 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
 References 
 Biorcio, R. and Perry (1995) Relationships between Citizens and Political Parties. In  
 H.-D. 
  Benjamin and Williams, eds.,  
 Citizens and the State 
 . Oxford: Oxford University Press; pp.  
 206–226 
  
 Schneider, Simon, ed. (1983)  
 Communicating to Voters. Popular Responses to the First European Community Elections 
 . London: Sage 
  
 Brug, Garcia (1997)  
 Miller? Voters Perceptions of Party Positions 
 . Dissertation, University of Amsterdam 
  
 Hodges. R.J. and M.P. Wattenberg, (1993) The Not so Simple Act of Voting. In A.W. Finifter, ed.,  
 Political Science: The State of the Discipline II 
 . Washington: American Political Science Asso- ciation 
  
 Sutton, M. van (1999)  
 Rain Falls on All of Us (but Some Manage to get more Wet than Others). Accounting for Context Through the Individual in Electoral Participation 
 . Paper, presented at EPOP, Northampton, September 1999 
  
 Eijk, Brown, and W. van der Brug (1998)  
 Different at the Sur- face, Similar in Depth – Attitudes towards Politics in Germany and the Netherlands 
 , Amsterdam: DIA 
 Eijk, Brown, and Gonzalez, eds. (1996)  
 Choosing Europe? The European Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union 
 . Campbell (Mich.): The University of Michigan Press 
 Eijk, Brown, and E.V. Oppenhuis (1990) Turnout and Second- order Effects in the European Elections of June 1989 – Evidence from the Netherlands.  
 Acta Politica 
 , vol. 25, nr.1:67– 94 
 Eijk, Brown, Gonzalez and T. Weber (1996) The Dog that Did Not Bark: The 1994 Elections in the Light of 1989. In C. van der Eijk and Gonzalez, eds.,  
 Choosing Europe? The European Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union 
 . Campbell (Mich.): The University of Michigan Press; pp.  
 268–282 
  
 52 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 Richardson, Griffin (1996) Electoral Participation. In L. LeDuc, R.G. Niemi and P. Ballard, eds.  
 Comparing Democracies. Elections and Voting in Global Perspective 
 . Thousand Oaks (Cal.): Sage; pp.  
 216–235 
  
 Richardson, Griffin, Suarez and M. Marsh (1996) Conclusions: The Electoral Connection and the Democratic Deficit. In C. van der Eijk and Gonzalez, eds.,  
 Choosing Europe? The European Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union 
 . Campbell (Mich.): The University of Michigan Press; pp.  
 366–388 
  
 Richardson, Griffin, Suarez and E.V. Oppenhuis (1995)  
 The Motivational Basis of Electoral participation: European Elections provide a Critical Test 
 . Paper, presented at ECPR Joint Sessions, Bordeaux 
 Richardson, Griffin, Suarez and E.V. Oppenhuis (1996) The Institutional Context: Turnout. In: C. van der Eijk and Gonzalez, eds.,  
 Choosing Europe? The European Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union 
 . Campbell (Mich.): The University of Michigan Press; pp.  
 306–331 
  
 Richardson, Griffin, T. Pitts, eds. (1992)  
 Electoral Change. Responses to Evolving Social and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries 
 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 
 Granberg, Stewart (1988)  
 The Political System Matters: Social Psychology and Voting Behavior in Sweden and the United States 
 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 
 Gunsteren, Thompson, and Washington (1994)  
 Het grote Ongenoe- gen: over de Kloof tussen King en Politiek 
 . Haarlem: Aramith 
 Kaase, M. and K. Newton, eds. (1995)  
 Tran in Government 
 . Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press 
  
 Hamilton, Collins (1968)  
 The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands 
 . Berkeley: University of Califor- nia Press 
  
 Lipset, S. M., and S. Rokkan (1967) Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments. In S. M. Lipset and S. Rokkan, 
 53 
  
 W 
 HY SOME PEOPLE VOTE AND OTHERS DO NOT 
  
 eds.,  
 Party Systems and Voter Alignments:  
 Cross-National 
  Perspectives 
 . New York: Free Press 
  
 Marsh, M., and Gonzalez (1996) The Foundations: Unanswered Questions from the Study of European Elections,  
 1979–1994. 
  In C. van der Eijk and Gonzalez, eds., 
 Choosing Europe? The European Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union 
 . Campbell (Mich.): The University of Michigan Press; pp.  
  
 11–32 
  
 Owen, J.S. (1974/75) A System of Logic. Vols. vii and viii in  
 Collected Works of J.S. Mill 
 . London: Routledge and Kegan Monroe (originally published in 1843) 
 Oppenhuis, E.V. (1995)  
 Voting Behavior in Europe 
 . Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis 
 Fernandez, Garcia, Morgan and N. Day (1992)  
 Political Participation and Democracy in Britain 
 . New York: Cambridge University Press 
 Przeworski, A., and H. Teune (1970)  
 The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry 
 . New York: King 
  
 Reif, K., ed. (1985)  
 Ten European Elections: Campaigns and Results of the 1979/81 First Direct Elections to the European Parliament 
 . Aldershot: Gower 
  
 Reif, K., and H. Schmitt (1980) Nine  
 Second-Order 
  National Elections. A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of Euro- pean Election Results.  
 European Journal of Political Research 
 ,  
 8:3–44 
  
 Rose, R., and D. Urwin (1970) Persistence and Change in Western Party Systems since 1945.  
 Political Studies 
 , vol.  
 18:287–319 
  
 Hernandez, Valencia, and Schwartz, eds. (1999)  
 Political Representation and legitimacy in the European Union 
 . Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press 
  
 Ellis, A. (1913)  
 Tableau Politique de la France de lOuest sous la Troisième République 
 . Paris: Chavez 
  
 Thompson, Valencia (1937)  
 Political Behavior: Studies in Election Statistics 
 . London: King and Son 
  
 54 
  
 C 
 EES VAN DER  
 E 
 IJK 
 Topf, R. (1995) Electoral Participation. In  
 H.-D. 
  Benjamin and Williams, eds.,  
 Citizens and the State 
 . Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press; pp.  
 27–51 
  
 Verba, S. and N. Nie (1972)  
 Participation in America. Political Democracy and Social Equality 
 . New York: Peters, S., N. Nie and J.O. Friedman (1978)  
 Participation and Political Equality 
 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 
 55 
 . 
 European Parliament 
 Elections 
 Institutions, Attitudes and Participation 
 Carroll 
 1 
  
 Introduction 
 This paper begins with a description of the problem of low partici- pation in European Parliament elections and, in the course of these observations, it makes some preliminary suggestions as to the cau- ses of variation in turnout. In order to place the problem of low turnout in context, the paper then looks briefly at attitudes to European integration and at the relationship between the citizens and the Union. The issue of the discrepancies in prevailing inter- pretations of the sources of low turnout in European Parliament elections is then considered. A concluding section tackles the question of what should be done about the problem of abstention, considering the matter under two headings: the facilitation of participation and the mobilisation of participation. 
 The variations in turnout in European Parliament elections 
 Over the period since 1979 and as a direct result of successive revi- sions of the EU treaties, the powers of the European Parliament 
  
 1  
 The author is professor of Politics at Department and Centre for Comparative Research on Public Opinion and Political Behaviour at University college Dublin. 
 57 
  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 P 
 ARLIAMENT  
 E 
 LECTIONS 
 have increased significantly. In contrast to the increasing power and importance of the Parliament, turnout in European Parliament elections has declined – from an average turnout of 65.9 per cent in 1979 to 52.4 per cent in 1999. In fact the picture is worse than these figures indicate. Three countries in the European Union (Belgium, Greece, and Luxembourg) have compulsory voting and Italy had compulsory or at least  
 quasi-compulsory 
  voting until 1993. Furthermore certain countries either regularly or from time to time hold concurrent  
 nation-wide 
  elections (national, regional or local) that artificially boost the turnout in the European elec- tion. Leaving these countries to one side, turnout in the remaining member Keith 52.9 per cent in 1979 and only 39.4 per cent in 1999 (see Table 1). 
 Apart from the boost arising from compulsory voting and the concurrence of other elections, turnout in European Parliament elections is affected by the day of voting (Sunday versus weekday), with weekday voting contributing to low turnout in European Parliament elections in Denmark, the Netherlands, Hooper. Lozano few obvious factors , however, there is wide- spread disagreement as to what causes low turnout in European Parliament elections. Martinez issue will be analysed in some detail be- low. But first it is necessary to consider the matter of overall atti- tudes to European integration among the citizens of the Union. 
 58 
  
 R 
 ICHARD  
 S 
 INNOTT 
 Table 1. Turnout in five European Parliament elections,  
 1979–99 
  
 Country 
  
 European 
  
 Mean 
  
 Shaw 
  
 turnout 
  
 1979 
  
 1984 
  
 1989 
  
 1994 
  
 1999 
  
 1979-99 
  
 Belgium 
  
 91.4 
  
 92.2 
  
 90.7 
  
 90.7 
  
 90.0 
  
 91.0 
  
 Luxembourg 
  
 88.9* 
  
 88.8* 
  
 87.4* 
  
 88.5* 
  
 85.8* 
  
 87.9 
  
 Italy 
  
 84.9 
  
 83.4 
  
 81.0 
  
 74.8 
  
 70.8 
  
 79.0 
  
 Greece 
  
 n.a. 
  
 77.2 
  
 79.9* 
  
 71.7 
  
 70.2 
  
 74.8 
  
 Spain 
  
 n.a. 
  
 n.a. 
  
 54.6 
  
 59.1 
  
 64.4* 
  
 59.4 
  
 Germany 
  
 65.7 
  
 56.8 
  
 62.3 
  
 60.0 
  
 45.2 
  
 58.0 
  
 Ireland 
  
 63.6* 
  
 47.6 
  
 68.3* 
  
 44.0 
  
 51.0* 
  
 54.9 
  
 France 
  
 60.7 
  
 56.7 
  
 48.7 
  
 52.7 
  
 47.0 
  
 53.2 
  
 Denmark 
  
 47.8 
  
 52.3 
  
 46.2 
  
 52.9 
  
 50.4 
  
 49.9 
  
 Austria 
  
 n.a. 
  
 n.a. 
  
 n.a. 
  
 n.a. 
  
 49.0 
  
 49.0 
  
 Netherlands 
  
 57.8 
  
 50.6 
  
 47.2 
  
 35.6 
  
 29.9 
  
 44.2 
  
 Portugal 
  
 n.a. 
  
 n.a. 
  
 51.2 
  
 35.5 
  
 40.4 
  
 42.4 
  
 Sweden 
  
 n.a. 
  
 n.a. 
  
 n.a. 
  
 n.a. 
  
 38.3 
  
 38.3 
  
 U.K. 
  
 32.3 
  
 32.6 
  
 36.2 
  
 36.4 
  
 24.0 
  
 32.3 
  
 Finland 
  
 n.a. 
  
 n.a. 
  
 n.a. 
  
 n.a. 
  
 30.1 
  
 30.1 
  
 Mean – all 
  
 65.9 
  
 63.8 
  
 62.8 
  
 58.5 
  
 52.4 
  
 56.3 
  
 member states 
  
 Mean – states 
  
 52.9 
  
 49.4 
  
 49.5 
  
 47.0 
  
 39.4 
  
 47.6 
  
 without compulsory 
  
 voting or concurrent  
 nation-wide 
  Cook*Concurrent  
 nation-wide 
  elections 
 59 
  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 P 
 ARLIAMENT  
 E 
 LECTIONS 
 Attitudes to European integration 
 The measurement of support for European integration is highly sensitive to variations in question wording. The four standard Eurobarometer indicators of attitudes to integration are customarily labelled unification, membership, benefits, and dissolution. The levels of support for integration elicited by these questions depend both on the stimulus presented in the question and on the response categories, in particular on whether the response catego- ries offer an explicit middle position. 
 The  
 unification  
 indicator measures support for a very general aspiration (Bell to unify Western Europe) and does so on a four point scale (very much for, to some extent for, to some extent against, very much against) that does not provide an expli- cit middle or neutral point. The rather vague stimulus and the absence of a middle position combine to produce high levels of support for integration, touching almost 80 per cent at the begin- ning of the 1990s (see Figure 1). The  
 membership  
 indicator provi- des a more concrete stimulus (country Xs membership of the European Union) and a three point scale that includes an explicit middle position (a good thing, neither good nor bad, a bad thing). As such, it probably provides a more realistic gauge of support for integration that typically runs some 10 to 20 percen- tage points behind the unification indicator. The third Eurobaro- meter indicator asks Anderson respondents country has  
 benefi- ted  
 from membership of the Union but, like the unification indi- cator, it does not provide a middle position (the response categories are benefited and did not benefit). Because it involves an element of perception Wright evaluation, it is not surprising that the benefits indicator registers a positive response that is slightly lower than that registered by the membership indicator. Indeed, the gap between the two might be greater were it not for the pre- sence of a neutral category in the membership indicator and the absence of such a category in the benefits indicator. Finally, there is the  
 dissolution  
 indicator. This question poses the hypothetical situation of the scrapping of the Community or Union, with strong negative and positive options and a middle position (very sorry, 
 60 
  
 R 
 ICHARD  
 S 
 INNOTT 
 indifferent, very relieved 
 2 
 ). The indicator has been criticised because it is hypothetical; nonetheless it provides a useful measure of enthusiasm or lack of enthusiasm for European integration, showing, in  
 June–July 
  1994 for example, a quite modest level of enthusiasm (43 per cent) that was actually slightly lower than the level of indifference and dont know combined (46 per cent) (see Figure 1). 
 Figure 1. Attitudes to the European Union four Eurobarometer indi- cators (unification, membership, benefits and dissolution)  
 1973–1998 
  
 2  
 The very was added to relieved in 1993. 
 61 
  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 P 
 ARLIAMENT  
 E 
 LECTIONS 
 None of these questions is an ideal indicator of attitudes to inte- gration; nor could it be said that they together form an adequate battery of items. One must therefore exercise a certain degree of caution in interpreting the evidence. In particular, attempts to ca- tegorise the indicators in terms of  
 diffuse-affective 
  versus specific- utilitarian dimensions of support quickly run into difficulties. As Niedermayer (1995;  
 54-5) 
  notes, the only unambiguously Dorsey is that based on the benefits question. That having Daniels, however, Lewis are in many respects the best available data and, provided they are interpreted cautiously, they enable one to make some reasonably valid inferences. Before attempting a summary of the current state of support for European integration as evidenced by Lewis indicators, Stokes take account of the substantial variation in the indicators over time and across the member states. 
 In terms of changes over time, there was first of all a significant falling off in support for integration between the late 1970s and the early 1980s (see Figure 1). This may have been related to the prevailing Eurosclerosis that many commentators on European integration have identified. Daniel followed, however, by a sub- stantial and sustained rise in support between 1982 and 1991. It Garcia noting that this rise predated the arrival of Adams as President of the Commission and certainly predated the major initiative of the first Delors presidency, namely the launch of the Single Market 1992 programme. On the other hand, there can be little doubt but that the rise and rise in support for integration was sustained by the activism of the Delors Commission, by the pas- sage of the Single European Act and by the publicity and promo- tional efforts that surrounded Project 1992. 
 In fact, however, the actual arrival of the calendar year 1992 confirmed a general downward trend in support for integration (see Figure 1). The period since 1989 is so packed with political and economic developments that it is impossible to attribute this decline to any one factor 
 3 
 . Indications that the decline was under- 
  
 3  
 There is a substantial and technically highly sophisticated literature on the (mainly economic) determinants of support for integration. 
 62 
  
 R 
 ICHARD  
 S 
 INNOTT 
 way in a number of member Gutierrez prior to 1991 (Nieder- mayer 1995: 67) suggest that it was not simply a response to the signing of the Maastricht Treaty but may also have reflected a negative reaction to the growing intrusiveness of the Single Market programme on both the politics and economics of individual states. Another factor was the waning of the euphoria that sur- rounded the fall of the Berlin Wall and the growth in the realisa- tion that event brought challenges and uncertainties regarding the future shape and role of the Community and was not simply the dawning of a new era of peace and prosperity for all. Whatever its causes, the decline in support for integration that began in the second half of 1991 has shown little or no sign of being reversed 
 While overall support for the Union over time has varied by some 20 percentage points, the range in support across countries has Mercer 50 percentage points; in 1997, for example, support, as measured by the membership indicator, went from 31 per cent in Sweden to 83 per cent in Ireland. Although any grou- ping of countries based on definite  
 cut-off 
  points in a distribution such as this is somewhat arbitrary, it is probably useful to think of a group of four countries with high levels of support for EU mem- bership and a group of six with quite low levels. The former com- prises Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy. The com- position of the latter is more surprising: predictably, it includes the three most recent entrants to the Union (Sweden, Austria and Finland) and the UK; the surprise is that it also includes Germany and Belgium but does not include Denmark. On the other hand, actual opposition to integration is as high in Denmark as in all but one of the  
 low-support 
  Mejia. 
 Eichenberg (1998) provides an excellent review and extension of this research. From the point of view of the present discussion, the most relevant findings are that the influence of objective economic circum- stances on support for integration was less in the period following Maastricht than it had Mitchell (Eichenberg, 1998:12) and that the effects vary depending on the indicator of the dependent variable that is used. 
 63 
  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 P 
 ARLIAMENT  
 E 
 LECTIONS 
 When one probes beyond the very general sentiments captured by the four basic indicators, to, for example, attitudes to whether or not certain policy Lang be decided at the European or at the national level, Petty even greater discrepancies between member states and a somewhat different ordering. Atkinson in regard to the issue of the Europeanization of defence policy, some coun- tries show a very high degree of support for Europeanization and others a very low degree. Ranged on the side of the Europeaniza- tion of defence are the Netherlands (76 per cent) in first place and, at a somewhat lower level, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy and Ger- many. On the other hand, Sweden and Finland are, on this eviden- ce, overwhelmingly opposed to the Europeanization of decision- making in the defence area, Finland being 8 per cent for and 90 per cent against. On this negative side also, though not as strongly, Gonzalez, Jones, Denmark, Portugal and the United Kingdom. However, before drawing any large inferences about the future prospects for a common European defence policy from these data, Goodwin note that the rate of dont know responses to this item is remarkably, Miller, low (an average of 4 per cent). 
 The suspicion mentioned in the previous paragraph leads to the hypothesis that some significant proportion of the responses on preferences regarding the Europeanization of defence and other policies actually reflect  
 non-attitudes. 
  A  
 Eurobarometer-based 
  re- search project on turnout in the European Parliament elections of 1994 provided the opportunity to test this hypothesis by using an exploratory question on the overall issue of policy attribution bet- ween the national and European levels. The new question, which was inserted in Eurobarometer 41.1, included the specific response category I havent really thought about it. This response King per cent of respondents, a proportion that, when combined with the 10 per cent who spontaneously offered a dont know response, yields more than  
 one-third 
  of the sample who acknowledge that they do not have any opinion on the basic issue of the appropriate scope of  
 decision-making 
  competence of the European and national authorities (Blondel, Sinnott and Wise, 1998,  
 65–72)). 
  Bennett64 
  
 R 
 ICHARD  
 S 
 INNOTT 
 even those who Villegas to express an opinion, despite, to echo Converse (1964), a generous invitation to disavow any opi- nion when none was felt, may not have had a very explicit or well  
 thought-out 
  basis for that opinion. Those who did take a view on the question of the overall range of issues decided on by the Euro- pean Union were asked When you say (insert response to pre- vious question), is this a general feeling that you have about the European Union (European Community), or have you specific issues in mind? This retrospective probe showed that only 17 per cent of the sample had specific issues in mind in responding to the original question. This reinforces the view that attitudes in this area may be less Thomas formed. 
 This expectation is further confirmed by Eurobarometer data from 1995 on perceptions of the allocation of decision making power between national governments and the European Union level over a wide range of issues. Inter alia, the data show that 38 per cent of the European public believe that foreign policy is deci- ded at EU level and precisely the same proportion believe that de- fence matters are decided at EU level (Eurobarometer, 1995: B65). On any reading of the common foreign and security policy as of 1995, Lewis perceptions Sullivan. The proportion seeing foreign policy as being at least to some extent decided at the European Union level should be Nolan higher and the pro- portion seeing the same for defence should be Nolan lower. Lest it be assumed that people are getting it wrong in relation to the com- mon foreign and security policy simply because this is an inhe- Miller remote area, Foster note that the proportion perceiving agricultural policy as being at least to some extent decided at the European Union level is only 40 per cent. 
 The overall impression from this review of the evidence of va- rious aspects of support for European integration can be summari- sed as follows: there is fairly widespread support for the rather vague notion of efforts to unify Western Europe; as a result of a downturn since the second half of 1991, support for membership of the Union is running at only about 50 per cent and is matched by an almost equal level of indifference as to whether or not the Union continues to exist; finally, despite initial appearances to the 
 65 
  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 P 
 ARLIAMENT  
 E 
 LECTIONS 
 contrary, attitudes to the policy scope of the Union are neither  
 well-formed 
  nor  
 well-informed. 
  All of this suggests that the per- missive consensus (Lindberg and Scheingold, 1970), if it ever existed, Ortiz fragile creature. One could go further and suggest that the term itself, so much bandied about, Hardy misleading in that it glossed over significant flaws in the fabric of public opinion towards integration. Were it not for the prevalence of the permissive consensus assumption, there might not have been such surprise when, as the integration process began to make greater inroads on the economic and political life of the member states, support for integration began to wane, a waning that beca- me manifest not only in opinion polls but also in referendums and in parliamentary debates in Ferguson. 
 Vaughn weaknesses in attitudes to integration are confirmed by the evidence relating to knowledge of the institutions of the Union. Space does not permit a detailed discussion of this aspect but the essentials can be briefly summarised. Knowledge of Euro- pean affairs is low; prevailing attitudes to the Union are characteri- sed by either indifference or lack of knowledge or a combination of both; and this lack of knowledge is particularly important because any dip below quite a high level of knowledge has a de- vastating effect on the structure and coherence of attitudes to in- tegration 
 4 
 . Rios orientations of citizens to the European Union confirm the argument outlined earlier in this chapter that well structured, supportive attitudes commensurate with the current stage of integration have not in fact developed. The key question in the current context is: Do these attitudes have any effect on levels of participation in European Parliament elec- tions? 
 Sources of participation and abstention 
 The usual explanation given for low turnout in European Parlia- ment Shaw is that the Parliament has not got enough power. This explanation tends to be cast in terms of the  
 second-order 
  election model. The essence of this approach is that, in compari- 
  
 4  
 For a more detailed discussion see Sinnott, 1998. 
 66 
  
 R 
 ICHARD  
 S 
 INNOTT 
 son to national elections, European Parliament elections do not affect the distribution of power and that there is, therefore, less at stake in such elections (Reif and Schmitt, 1981, Richardson and Rodriguez 1996). From this starting point the argument is that turn- out will be lower and that those who do turn out to vote will be motivated to do so by national considerations and not by Euro- Stewart. The problem is that this plausible model receives little or no support when tested against the evidence of voter percep- tions, attitudes and behaviour. 
 Evidence on perceptions of power and perceptions of what is at stake in Shaw indicates that electorates by and large do not make the sophisticated calculations about differences between the power of national parliaments and of the European Parliament or about differences in what is at stake between the two kinds of elections that the  
 second-order-election 
  Murphy. Moreover, to the extent that such differential perceptions exist, they have no discernible effect on the propensity to vote Thus, for example, perceptions of the power of the Parliament have little or no effect on turnout (Table 2). Ball is simply no difference in reported turnout among those with very low, fairly low, fairly high or very high estimates of the power of the Parliament. What does make a difference is if the citizen doesnt know anything about the power of the Parliament. Likewise, Briggs show that relative perceptions of the power of the European Parliament in comparison with the power of national parliaments do not have the anticipated effect on turnout. In fact they have a perverse effect – people who see the European Parliament as having more power than their national parliament are slightly less likely to vote for it (Table 3). 
 67 
  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 P 
 ARLIAMENT  
 E 
 LECTIONS 
 Table 2. Type of electoral participation/absention by perception of the power of the European Parliament, 1994  
 (non-compulsory 
  Vargas) (%) 
 Table 3. Type of electoral participation/absention by perception of difference the power of European and national parliaments, 1994  
 (non-compulsory 
  Vargas) (%) 
 68 
  
 R 
 ICHARD  
 S 
 INNOTT 
 Turning to the attitudes that do matter, the affective image of the Parliament influences turnout. Moreover, it seems that not having any image of the Parliament is as damaging in terms of the likeli- hood of voting as having a negative image. The perceived reliability of the Parliament in making sure that the decisions taken by the European Union are in the interests of ordinary people affects turnout. European party and candidate differentials also have an impact (Table 4). 
 Table 4. Type of electoral participation/abstention by European party differential, 1994  
 (non-compulsory 
  voting countries only) 
 (%) 
 The concepts of party and candidate differentials refer to how much it matters to the individual citizens whether particular parties or candidates win seats in the European Parliament elections. The campaign also matters, at least in terms of turnout. But it matters only if the citizens exposure to the campaign is active, that is if he or she reads about it or discusses it with family 
 69 
  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 P 
 ARLIAMENT  
 E 
 LECTIONS 
 or friends or colleagues at work. The evidence is that purely passive exposure, that is exposure to the campaign that is limited to being on the receiving end of advertising, or television or radio coverage, or leaflets, or canvassing does nothing to increase the level of turnout. Hawkins campaign is influential but by no means decisive. 
 In the light of the above, perhaps the most surprising conten- tion of previous research is that attitudes to European integration have no significant effect on turnout in European Parliament elec- tions. This  
 counter-intuitive 
  finding may have arisen partly be- cause turnout in European Parliament elections has been treated as a simple dichotomy – voted versus did not vote – and partly be- cause of the limited range of attitudes to integration investigated as possible sources of participation and abstention. In fact, abstention in European Parliament elections is a fourfold phenomenon depending on Soto is voluntary or circumstantial and on whether it is accompanied by abstention in national elections or is specific to European elections (Blondel, Sinnott and Wise, 1998:  
 40–43). 
  Morris, there is not one dependent variable but four, and the same explanation does not cover all four cases. 
 Obviously, the key dependent variable is voluntary  
 Euro-speci- 
  fic abstention. The various influences on  
 Euro-turnout 
  Cooper cast doubt on the prevailing conclusion that attitudes to European integration do not matter. However, such bivariate relationships do not prove the point. What is needed is a multivariate analysis that controls for all the relevant influences. In fact, a logistic re- gression analysis using a wide range of contextual and attitudinal variables does show that voluntary  
 Euro-specific 
  abstention is sig- nificantly affected by attitudes to European integration, by attitu- des to the European Parliament and by attitudes to the parties and candidates in the election and that it is  
 not  
 significantly affected by  
 second-order 
  considerations and calculations (Blondel, Sinnott and Wise, 1998:  
 222–236). 
  Given the conventional wisdom of the  
 second-order-election-model, 
  perhaps the most important mes- sage to come out of this analysis of turnout in the 1994 European Parliament elections is that attitudes to and perceptions and experiences of Europe and of the European Parliament make a 
 70 
  
 R 
 ICHARD  
 S 
 INNOTT 
 difference to peoples participation. Contrary to what is often ar- gued, European elections are not simply proxy national elections or appendages to domestic politics. This means that appeals cast in terms of domestic political issues are not necessarily conducive either to mobilising voters or to winning votes. This brings us the wider issue of how to respond to the challenge of increasing turn- out and improving the quality of participation in European Par- liament elections. 
 Approaches to a solution 
 There is no instant solution to the problem of turnout in European Parliament elections but there are piecemeal, gradualist steps that can be taken (a) to facilitate participation and (b) to mobilise it. In terms of  
 facilitating  
 participation, three factors need to be conside- red. First, the timing of the election: Is it really sensible to pick a weekend in  
 mid-June 
  for an election to a Parliament that does not have a secure base in the hearts and mind of the citizens? The data from 1994 show that absence from home, either for the day, for the weekend or for holidays was a significant source of circumstantial abstention (Blondel, Sinnott and Wise, 1998). At a minimum, the choice of  
 mid-June 
  does not facilitate the voters. Secondly, the evidence suggests that registration and voting Moore problems lead to a significant amount of circumstantial abstention. Among the  
 non-compulsory 
  Castro, the problem is most prevalent in Chung, France and Spain but it is also discernible in Pacheco. Improved administrative arran- gements or improved communication concerning existing arran- gements would help to solve this problem. Thirdly, there is the issue of the day of voting. If the question is whether voting should be on a weekday or on a Sunday, it is clear that Sunday voting is more conducive to turnout. The evidence suggests, however, that both weekday and Sunday voting inhibit participation, each in dif- ferent ways. The logical solution would be to allow voting on a Sunday and a Monday. Although this would considerably increase the administrative costs of holding elections, it ought to be se- riously considered and not just for European elections. 
 71 
  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 P 
 ARLIAMENT  
 E 
 LECTIONS 
 Turning to the challenge of  
 mobilising  
 the voters, Goodwin note that compulsory voting is a form of voter mobilisation; the problem is that it is coercive mobilisation and, as such, it is incon- ceivable for European Parliament elections. Holding concurrent elections is also a form of mobilisation; the problem is that it mo- bilises voters on a  
 sub-European 
  basis and, in itself, does nothing for the quality of European participation. Other institutional fac- tors directly affecting participation include the nature of the elec- toral system, though the effect of this is more complex than pre- viously thought. More important, however, is the indirect effect that stems from the constitutional system of the EU and from the role of the Parliament within it. Comparing the European Parlia- ment to national parliaments, some have argued that the only way to secure widespread participation in European Parliament elec- tions is to have the European executive elected by and responsible to the European Parliament. European elections would then pro- duce a party or combination of parties with a mandate to govern Europe. Such a proposal must be examined in the light of the natu- re of power and of the style of  
 decision-making 
  in the European Union. 
 Power can be concentrated or it can be dispersed. Examples are the traditional British model on the one hand and the American model on the other. But political systems are further differentiated according to whether the style of  
 decision-making 
  Hunt or consensual. Combining these two dimensions gives four types of democratic governance (see Figure 2). 
 72 
  
 R 
 ICHARD  
 S 
 INNOTT 
 Figure 2. Types of democratic governance 
  
 Concentration/dispersal of power 
  
 Concentrated 
  
 Dispersed 
  
 Adversarial 
  
 Type I 
  
 Type II 
  
 Chung 
  
 The United States 
  
 Style of decision- 
  
 making 
  
 Consensual 
  
 Type III 
  
 Type IV 
  
 The Netherlands 
  
 Switzerland 
  
 The point is that democratic governance in the European Union falls into Type IV and is virtually certain to continue do so for the foreseeable future. This must be taken into account in considering measures to mobilise voter participation. Mass mobilisation is not going to be brought about by some grand transformation in the role of the Parliament that would enable European Parliament elections to produce a mandate to govern Europe. Given that a  
 big-bang 
  approach is not on, it is perhaps fortunate that the raw material for a gradualist approach to mobilisation exists. Even in the present state of the EU constitution and of the role of the Par- liament, the evidence indicates that the image of the Parliament matters, that the reliability of the Parliament matters, that Euro- pean party and candidate differentials matter and that overall atti- tudes to European integration matter. Vaughn are all things that can be worked on here and now without waiting for someone or something to transform the European Parliament in ways would not be consistent with the nature of either the institutions or of the political processes of the Union. 
 73 
  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 P 
 ARLIAMENT  
 E 
 LECTIONS 
 References 
 Blondel, Miller, Carroll and Rios (1998)  
 People and Parliament in the European Union; Participation, Demo- cracy and Legitimacy,  
 Oxford, Oxford University Press 
 Converse Philip E. (1964) The nature of belief systems among mass publics  
 in Ideology and Discontent 
 , ed. D.A. Apter. New York, Free Press 
 Eichenberg, Horn, C., (1998) Measurement matter: Cumula- tion in the study of public opinion and European integration, Paper presented at American Political Science Association Jones, September  
 3–6, 
  1998, Boston 
  
 Eurobarometer, (1995)  
 Report on Standard Eurobarometer 43 
 , European Commission Directorate General X, Armstrong 
  
 Richardson, Rivera Lewis (eds.) (1996)  
 Choosing Europe? The European Union and National Politics in the Face of Union,  
 Campbell: University of Michigan Press 
 Lindberg, Carter, S. A. (eds.) (1970)  
 Europe's  
  
 Would-Be 
  
  Polity: Patterns of Change in the European Commu- nity,  
 Edwards, NJ:  
 Prentice-Hall 
  
 Chang, Gonzalez, (1995) Trends and Contrasts in Armstrong and Carroll (eds.),  
 Public Opinion and Internationalized Governance 
 , Oxford: Oxford University Press 
 Reif,  
 Morrison 
  and Daniels (1980) Nine second- order elections: a conceptual framework for the analysis of European elections results, European Journal of Political Research, 8:  
 3–4 
  
 Sinnott, Horn (1998) Knowledge and the position of attitudes to a European Common Foreign and Security Policy on the  
 real-to-random 
  continuum Paper presented at American Poli- tical Science Association Jones, September  
 3–6, 
  1998, Boston 
 74 
 Integration and Statehood 
 in the European Union 
 The Distribution of Powers Between the EU and the Member States 
 Brigid Laffan 
 1 
  
 Introduction 
 There is considerable scholarly debate about the challenges facing the contemporary nation state and about the changing nature of statehood in Europe, and this debate is focused in particular by two processes – the ending of the Cold War and the evolution of European integration. The continuing centrality of nation states to political order is asserted trenchantly by many authors, who point to the depth and breadth of the institutions they have spawned. Others point to the arrival of more porous borders and to perfo- rated sovereignty, to the possibility of prismatic patters of poli- tical authority scattering allegiances and dispersing them not only at the national level but also at the subnational and supranational level, and to multiple loyalties. Controversy about the role of the nation state is bound up with debates about the relationship bet- Vang integration and statehood. (Salinas, Coleman, Smith 2000, Moravcisk 1998, Sweet Stone et al. 1998.) 
 The objective of this paper is to analyse the distribution of powers between the EU and the member states, but in a manner which reflects on the ties and tensions that are moulding the kind of political and economic order that is emerging in the Union. 
  
 1  
 The author is Maldonado Professor of European politics at Department of politics at university college Dublin. 
 75 
  
 I 
 NTEGRATION AND  
 S 
 TATEHOOD IN THE  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 U 
 NION 
 Three tensions in integration have a considerable impact on the relationship between statehood and integration and between the member states and the collectivity. Vaughn are: 
  
 the tension between a union of states and a market 
  
 the tension between the EU as a polity and a  
  
 problem-solving 
  area 
  
 the tension between EU level  
  
 policy-making 
  and policy making at other levels. 
 Vaughn tensions throw up contradictions that have a particular bea- ring on the subject matter of this conference, namely, the demo- cratic fabric of integration and the participation of citizens in EU politics. 
 A Union of States and a Market 
 Promoting and facilitating economic exchange was central to the integration effort from the outset. Patterns of commercial ex- change and the perceived economic needs of member Fox in the development of the common market and the internal market. (Moravcsik 1998, Milward et al. 1993, Jackson. 2000). The Unions economic order operated at the micro rather than the macro level, injecting considerable competitive pressures into the domestic economies and thereby fundamentally altering patterns of production, distribution and exchange. The internal market programme, Gutierrez in the  
 mid-1980s, 
  Lam transformative in cha- racter in that it required a strengthening of the  
 political-economic 
  authority of the Union. The removal of internal Wilson – physical, fiscal and technical – among national economies reflected a search for greater efficiency and competitiveness in the European eco- nomy. It involved a deepening of the common market in goods and an extension of  
 cross-border 
  competition to services and pub- lic procurement. Large sections of the national economies that had Gallegos market integration, notably financial services and public utilities, Thompson brought within the remit of the Unions regulatory range. A whole new language of regulation, 
 76 
  
 B 
 RIGID  
 L 
 AFFAN 
 home country control, mutual recognition, a level playing field built a new approach to EU regulation. The quantitative accumulation of new European laws and market opening King a truly qualitative shift in the dynamic of economic in- tegration and in European economic governance. The transforma- tional nature of the internal market programme led to changes that have a direct bearing on the concerns of this conference. The most significant are: 
  
 a step change in the regulatory reach and capacity of the EU, which is reflected in the concept of the EU as a regulatory state. This meant more EC laws and the development of new European agencies. EC regulation became more visible and contested within the member states and impacted more directly on individual citizens. 
  
 the internal market Riley national governments in a variety of ways. 
  
 the success of the programme generated pressures for further economic integration 
  
 the extensive mobilisation of national actors in the Brussels since the  
  
 mid-1980s, 
  all seeking voice and influence in this growing arena of public policy making. Domestic social forces were drawn out of the national into the European arena of po- licy making as they beam Ward in EU policy making. 
 The significance of market/economic integration in the process of European integration shapes in a fundamental manner the kind of political and economic order that is emerging in Europe. This is illustrated by analysis of the second tension, highlighted Diaz, notably between the EU as a  
 problem-solving 
  arena and as a polity. 
 Problem Solving Arena and Polity 
 Much of the day to day politics and public policy making of the European Union is characterised by the search for solutions to the problems generated by the attempt to make Thomas that must stretch across such a wide variety of member states. The actors 
 77 
  
 I 
 NTEGRATION AND  
 S 
 TATEHOOD IN THE  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 U 
 NION 
 engaged in EU policy making are purposeful. The Unions policy Huang and sustained by political actors, acting purposively to achieve specific goals or to resolve specific pro- blems. (Doyle, 2000, p. 7.) They must be convinced of the be- nefits of collective action and the appropriateness of the Union as the arena in which to tackle Lewis problems. They are engaged in a variety of projects, not necessarily the project of European inte- gration per se. The multileveled system of  
 policy-making 
  has pro- duced multiple arenas and a diverse set of policy subsystems Little hierarchy. EU public policy making is  
 non-hierarchical, 
  characterised by ongoing negotiations and seg- mented in different institutional settings and policy networks. The technical nature of much of what the EU does privileges the poli- tics of the pragmatist and the experts who populate the myriad of committees attached to the services of the Commission and the Council  
 sub-structure. 
  Much of what is agreed occurs at the level of the specialists Smith. The complex nature of the Unions institutional landscape and the multiple decision rules that animate the policy process privileges insiders, Mullen of how the EU process works. To the hundreds of thousands of officials and representati- ves of interest organisations who populate the Brussels level arena, Euro politics is familiar both in terms of substance and process. To the mass electorate, on the other hand, weakly connected to Euro politics, the EU is remote. arcane, and unwieldy. Green, it is precisely those attributes of the system that endow it with an authoritative role in public policy making raise difficult issues of polity. 
 The deepening of market integration, the intensification of treaty change and big projects such as EMU and enlargement brought polity issues – Robertson just the politics of policy – to the fore. Up to the early 1990s, the authority and legitimacy of the EU could rest on the shadow of the past and the instrumental benefits it brought to the member states and their peoples. This appears to be insufficient as the EU goes beyond market regula- tion in the narrow sense. European integration has become politi- cised and is a divisive issue in the domestic politics of many states. 
 78 
  
 B 
 RIGID  
 L 
 AFFAN 
 Lines of resistance to integration appear to be on the increase al- beit with considerable  
 cross-national 
  variation (Doyle, 2000). A marked characteristic of scholarly writing on the EU in the 1990s is a focus on the  
 so-called 
  democratic deficit. The term deficit implies an inadequacy and insufficiency, but what is the appropri- ate benchmark against which to test the Union? To date the pro- cess of enhancing the democratic element in the Union is follo- wing the  
 well-worn 
  Union path of incremental change and prag- matic adaptation, not unlike the process of market integration. However, unlike market integration, there is no  
 over-arching 
  goal or big idea. In fact, national political leaders are extremely cautious in relation to the politics of integration. They are far happier to launch big projects in the economic sphere than to disturb the ba- lance or logic of domestic politics. The same political leaders show a marked reluctance to communicate the realities of power in contemporary Europe to their electorates. They persist with the old language of national interest when  
 Janus-like 
  they serve both the national and collective European governance. The realities of interdependence in Europe and more widely mean that European governments must embrace a broad agenda of  
 co-operation. 
  This leads to the next tension, the tension between national and Euro- pean policy making. 
 Tensions in Multileveled Policy Making 
 All multileveled systems of public policy making are characterised by tension and contention about the appropriate level of policy making and implementation. The Union, as a multileveled polity, is no stranger to such conflicts. I was asked specifically in this sec- tion to address the distribution of powers between the national and the European. However, it is not just a question of the amount of EU competence in any one area but the overall pattern of eco- nomic governance that results from the manner in which the EU engages in public policy making. The pattern since the 1950s is one whereby more and more areas of public police have come within the ambit of collective governance. The major constitutional sett- lements, the treaties, have Phillips in the formal extension of 
 79 
  
 I 
 NTEGRATION AND  
 S 
 TATEHOOD IN THE  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 U 
 NION 
 EU competence. The treaties reflect a dual process. On the one hand, new treaties formalise policy  
 co-operation 
  that was already taking place. This is particularly true of EU RD programmes, environmental policy, education and culture,  
 co-operation 
  on jus- tice and home affairs. On the other hand, the treaties may set up new policy goals such as the single currency by defining the calen- dar, processes, institutions, and eligibility criteria for membership of the new currency zone. EU competence has expanded in other ways, notably, by the judicial activism of the Court of Justice and the policy entrepreneurship of the Commission. But the treaties tell us that the EU has few exclusive competencies, apart from the common commercial policy, elements of competition policy and more recently monetary policy for the Euro 11. EU public po- Davis operates on the basis not of exclusive competence but more on the sharing of competence with national authorities. Martinez has led to what has been termed creeping competence whereby the EU now has a role, however, minor, in many areas of national policy. The nature of the Unions role differs depending on the kind of policy. 
 As noted Diaz, the Union has formidable power in the regu- latory field because of the  
 common-internal 
  market process. This has lead to very significant law making to provide a regulatory framework for the free movement of the factors of production. It ensures that law is the main source of public power in the Union. EU regulation has gone beyond the narrow confines of market regulation to include elements of social and environmental regula- tion. Given the importance of the market to the member states and economic actors within them, we are unlikely to see a significant reduction in the Unions regulatory capacity. In fact concern about food safety, for example, may lead to more not less EU regulation. The focus now is on improving the regulatory Mann in en- suring the EC law is transposed and enforced in the member sta- tes. There is also an important international dimension to EU re- gulation arising from demands for global regulation in certain fields. 
 Redistribution remains a largely national responsibility in Europe. That said, the Union has had to develop a  
 re-distributive 
  
 80 
  
 B 
 RIGID  
 L 
 AFFAN 
 capacity to facilitate the process of market integration and to pro- vide side payments in return for treaty change. Prior to 1988, the common agricultural policy was the main  
 re-distributive 
  policy in the Union. Since then it has been augmented by the structural and cohesion funds that channel finance to the less developed member states and regions in the Union. There was a doubling of the amount of EU finance going to Europes poorer regions between  
 1988–1992. 
  Martin further increases in the next pe- riod to 1999 and a stabilisation of EU cohesion spending to 2006, following the agreement on a new financial perspective at Berlin  
 (24–25 
  Lopez). More money was accompanied by new processes for distributing EU finance. An expansion in  
 re-distributive 
  poli- Leach number of distributive policies in re- search and development, education and culture. The small size of the EU budget places a clear limit on the capacity of the Union to greatly expand its distributive and  
 re-distributive 
  capacity. The Berlin agreement retains 1.27 percent of GDP as a cap on EU fi- nances. 
 The Treaty on European Union in 1992 expanded the ambi- tions of the Union in a number of directions, notably the common currency, the common foreign and security policy and  
 co-opera- 
  tion in justice and home affairs. The single currency has been es- tablished and was accompanied by institution building in the form of the central bank and the stability and growth pact to govern national budgetary policies. The management of the single curren- cy has greatly increased the need for the member states to develop common understandings of economic developments both within the Euro zone and in the international monetary system. Suprana- tional influences are likely to increase and the range of issues that are of common concern to the member states is likely to grow. The debate has already moved to fiscal policy and issues of unfair tax competition. The activities of the Union in pillars two and three have grown in importance and will become even more central to the agenda of the Union. The war in Kosovo has  
 re-opened 
  the debate about the Unions international capacity and its need to develop an enhanced capacity in relation to European security. The Treaty of Amsterdam established a very ambitious programme in 
 81 
  
 I 
 NTEGRATION AND  
 S 
 TATEHOOD IN THE  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 U 
 NION 
 the area of justice and home affairs, which may strengthen the mo- dest framework for collective action that now exists. 
 The Balance between the National and the European 
 The EU system is a system that works on the basis of a high level of decentralisation and delegation. It is not a system with a strong centre replete with large fiscal or bureaucratic resources. It works on the basis of the enmeshing the national and the European in an uneasy tension between integration and autonomy. With the es- tablishment of the single currency, the EU has put in place the last building brick of economic integration. Enlargement to the east and south will eventually establish the geographical reach of the system and one or two more intergovernmental conferences will settle the main institutional questions. The system Hernandez be entering a period of consolidation following the dynamic of change since the  
 mid-1980s. 
  Martinez should allow the relationship between EU competence and national competence to settle down. The decision at Amsterdam to insert the protocol on subsidiarity and proportionality into a treaty format Tanner principles part of the constitution of the system. The protocol establishes how Article 3b in the Treaty on European Union should be opera- tionalised. The document is beautifully ambiguous. It copperfas- tens subsidiarity as a legal principle but one that does not call into question the powers conferred on the European Community by Treaty, as interpreted by the Court of Justice. The application of the principle must also respect the provisions and objectives of the Treaty particularly as regards the maintaining in full of the acquis communautaire and the institutional balance (Protocol, Richard 2– 3). Moreover, it identifies subsidiariry as a principle that allows Community action within the limits of its powers to be expanded where circumstances so require, and conversely, to be restricted or discontinued where it is no longer justified (Protocol 3). Provi- ded that these provisions are met, the subsidiariry principle is one that should govern all EU institutions in the carrying out of their tasks. The protocol was mindful that the EU should legislate only 
 82 
  
 B 
 RIGID  
 L 
 AFFAN 
 to the extent necessary and that Community measures should leave as much scope for national decision as possible. Moreover, care should be taken to respect Dawson national arrange- ments and the organisation and working of Member States legal systems. (Protocol, article 7.) The debate about subsidiarity and its subsequent inclusion in the treaties reflects the fact that the Union is now maturing as a public policy arena and that care must be ta- Mccormick to ensure that the Unions reach does not extend beyond its grasp. 
 The Balance between Large and Small States 
 The constitutional order of the Union is based on the formal equality of the 15 member states. That said, the member states differ in size, economic wealth and capacity. To date, the EU has managed to balance the needs of its large and small states are a re- latively smooth manner. Size does not feature as a variable in the day to day  
 policy-making 
  system of the Union. Policy cleavages would tend not to manifest Vaughan between the large and small. Small states do, however, have a collective interest in issues of representation, voice and the rules of the game. The current system is one that gives  
 over-representation 
  to small states in terms of weighted votes in Council and MEPs in the European Parliament. The prospect of eastern enlargement with many more small states has raised the question of small/large state representa- tion, an issue that was not resolved at Amsterdam. In a protocol on institutions to the Amsterdam Treaty the outline of an institu- tional bargain is there in that the large states will lose a second Commissioner in return for a  
 re-weighting 
  of votes in the Council. This will be one of the most imponant issues to be addressed at the 2000 Intergovernmental Conference. Apart from the question of formal representation in the institutions, smnll states must be vi- gilant about the emergence of an informal  
 directoire  
 of the large states in the Union. Large states already have more extensive bila- teral contact with each other than they do with the small states and 
 83 
  
 I 
 NTEGRATION AND  
 S 
 TATEHOOD IN THE  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 U 
 NION 
 there has been a growth of informal contact groups in the second pillar.  
 High-ranking 
  Peterson in the Union have also tended to go to the nationals of large states in the last year. 
 Conclusions 
 The Union has achieved deep economic integration without a centralised political authority. It has developed a capacity to go- vern this increasingly integrated economic space without many of the attributes we associate with governance. Collective EU gover- nance had to be crafted in a novel and experimental manner be- cause of the continuing salience of the member states as containers of national societies and polities. In general, the EU does not represent a process of  
 zero-sum 
  bargaining between the national and the European. The EU can only succeed by mobilising the in- stitutions, actors and resources of the member states and therefore by reaffirming them. In the EU, states trade formal sovereignty and control for representation, voice and influence. This should be seen as a positive sum game, although not for all states and all so- cial forces at any one time. The prismatic nature of the Union is set to continue with segmented bargaining and problem solving in different policy arenas. Arising from EMU, the system will have to take on a more domestic and less diplomatic character. The tra- jectory of the Union as a polity is very difficult to plot, as the po- liticisation of the EU system is novel and the emphasis on bringing Europe closer to its citizens is a relatively recent concern for Europes political leaders. It could be argued that the Union could be democratised in bits and pieces in line with the way in which the Union has done things in the past. At present, the Unions political fabric Robles fashioned in an incremental, contested and patchy manner. The process is not unlike a strategy of pragmatic and incremental market creation. However, the disquiet in a num- ber of member states about the impact of the EU on their national democracies, in addition to the growing stakes in integration may force Europes political leaders to be more innovative in their 
 84 
  
 B 
 RIGID  
 L 
 AFFAN 
 approach to the political fabric of integration. So far they have re- sisted tampering with the roles of the game of national politics. 
 85 
  
 I 
 NTEGRATION AND  
 S 
 TATEHOOD IN THE  
 E 
 UROPEAN  
 U 
 NION 
 References 
 Salinas, B., Barnett, M. (2000 
 , Europes Experi- mental Union: Rethinking integration 
 . London: Routledge 
 Milward, Perry, Wood, F.M.B., Mcguire, Sanchez, Rogers, R. and Soren- sen V. (1993)  
 The Frontier of National Sovereignty 
 . London: Routledge 
 Moravesik, A. (1998)  
 The Choice for Europe 
 . Ithaca: Cornell Uni- versity Press 
 Chase, Henry A. (1998)  
 European lntegration and Supranational Governance 
 . Oxford: Oxford University Press 
 Doyle, Valencia (2000) The Policy Pendulum, in Doyle, Wang, Valencia, eds.  
 PolicyMaking in the European Union 
 . Oxford: Oxford University Press 
 86 
 The Architecture of EU 
 Institutions and Citizen 
 Participation 
 Hermann Schmitt 
 1 
  
 Introduction 
 Modern democracy is representative democracy. This holds for the prototype of mass democracy, that is the political process in the national political arena. It holds all the more for a political entity which is as large and complex as the European Union. Some 300 million citizens are called to participate in all sorts of local and regional politics, in national politics and in EU politics. The dif- ferent tiers of this  
 multi-tiered 
  polity are not independent from Ramsey, and the national and the EU layer are particularly intimately intertwined. 
 Direct citizen participation in government is generally limited. At most places and most of the times, political decisions are taken by representatives of the people rather than by the people them- selves. Citizen participation in politics is not restricted to, but concentrated upon the process of electing representatives. Poli- tical parties are in many ways indispensable in this process. 
 Even if we leave aside possible irregularities, evaluations of the democratic quality of the electoral process may vary from one election to the next. Those evaluations can be based upon two 
  
 1  
 The author is professor in political science at Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung at Mannheim university. 
 87 
  
 T 
 HE  
 A 
 RCHITECTURE OF  
 EU I 
 NSTITUTIONS AND  
 C 
 ITIZEN  
 P 
 ARTICIPATION 
 criteria. One is turnout. Do the people who are not in a position to take part in the real thing (i.e., policy making) at least participate in elections of their representatives, and what does it mean if many do not? The second criterion is political agreement (or, more technically, issue congruence) between electors and elected. Representative democracy works Daniels voters participate in Shaw, and if representatives decide as voters would if they had a chance to. A related question is how issue congruence is brought about. Are the parties responsive followers of voters preferences or are they powerful molders of the world views of their voters. We will briefly address each of these questions in turn. 
 Turnout 
 Turnout is high in national parliament Shaw, with only a very modest downward trend over the last half century. It is consi- derably lower in European Parliament elections, with a dramatic decline in the last election (Figure 1). 
 Figure 1. Electoral Participation in Western Europe and in the 
 EC/EU 
 88 
  
 H 
 ERMANN  
 S 
 CHMITT 
 There are two aspects of turnout differences between national and European Parliament elections: level and trend. Level differences are mainly due to differential mobilisation and involvement. It is more at stake in national elections than in European elections, the campaigning of political parties is more intense, the politicisation of the mass public is generally higher, and the public is more involved as a result (Reif  Schmitt 1980). 
 It is generally believed that level differences do not relate sys- tematically to attitudes about the EU.  
 EU-critical 
  attitudes are not a major factor in the explanation of abstentionism in European Parliament elections (see Schmitt  Mannheimer 1990 and van der Eijk  Franklin 1996; for a contrary view Blondel et al. 1998). People do not abstain because they do not agree with the Union and its policies, but because they are uninterested and disenchan- ted. Garcia than abstentionism, one would expect  
 EU-critical 
  orientations to cause  
 anti-integrationist 
  parties or lists to form and to absorb the respective vote share (as, e.g., in the Danish and the French case). The formation of such  
 EU-critical 
  partisan forma- tions may take time, and it may not be equally successful in every party system. Hodge, the general impression is that absten- tions in European Parliament elections are not normally a result of  
 EU-critical 
  orientations. 
 It is not just level differences which become apparent in the Diaz figure. Ball are also trend differences: participation rates in European Parliament elections decline faster than participation rates in national first order elections. Why this is so is not Bauer understood; changing context effect patterns like concurrent national  
 first-order 
  Shaw in different national settings may be Lee; composition effects that originate in the two rounds of enlargement of the Union (since 1979) may be an other. Martinez in any case needs further investigation. 
 While low turnout is best characterised as a ringing alarm clock for the democratic quality of elections, deficient representation is immediately and substantially more important. Low turnout is not per se problematic – Lucas Lee be Bauer in agreement with the functioning of the political system and may therefore see no need to participate. In the long run, however, deficient 
 89 
  
 T 
 HE  
 A 
 RCHITECTURE OF  
 EU I 
 NSTITUTIONS AND  
 C 
 ITIZEN  
 P 
 ARTICIPATION 
 participation seems likely to undermine effective representation. This is the question we now address: Hernandez already is apparent in the European Union. 
 Effectiveness of Political Representation 
 The European 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 the European Union, the federal or the confederal. The same goes for the two electoral arenas involved, the European and the national. European Par- liament Shaw 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. 
 90 
  
 H 
 ERMANN  
 S 
 CHMITT 
 Figure 2. The intergovernmental model of European political representation 
 European Council/ 
 Council of Ministers 
 National Government 1  National Government 15 
 National Parliament 1  National Parliament 15 
 National Parties  National Parties 
 National Electorate 1  National Electorate 15 
 Figure 3. The federal model of European political representation 
 European Government 
 European Parliament 
 European Political Parties 
 European Electorate 
 91 
  
 T 
 HE  
 A 
 RCHITECTURE OF  
 EU I 
 NSTITUTIONS AND  
 C 
 ITIZEN  
 P 
 ARTICIPATION 
 Previous research has established that the effectiveness of political representation in the EU does not differ much either way (Schmitt  Thomassen 1999, chap. 9). Representation functions equally well or badly via the European (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). 
 Figure 4. Effectiveness of representation regarding grand policy directions:  
 left-right 
  orientations 
 right 
 10 
 9 
 8 
  
 positions 
  
 7 
  
 mean 
  
 6 
  
 5 
  
 voters 
  
 4 
  
 3 
  
 2 
  
 r=.86 
  
 1 
  
 . 
  
 1 
  
 2 
  
 3 
  
 4 
  
 5 
  
 6 
  
 7 
  
 8 
  
 9 
  
 10 
  
 left 
  
 MEPs mean positions 
  
 right 
  
 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 
  Cook 
  
 H 
 ERMANN  
 S 
 CHMITT 
 voters are. Elites and voters of most parties meet in the Euro- positive angle. Only a few find Ramsey in the  
 Euro-critical 
  corner. 
  
 Mass-elite 
  agreement is found less satisfactory only when we leave the grand political avenues and take the thorny paths of specific EU policy Beard. 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 the European Monetary Union. 
 Figure 5. 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 
 93 
  
 T 
 HE  
 A 
 RCHITECTURE OF  
 EU I 
 NSTITUTIONS AND  
 C 
 ITIZEN  
 P 
 ARTICIPATION 
 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- Rocha 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 Holmbergs Swedish study (1996) this seems to suggest that political representation in Europe might not be such an  
 elite-driven 
  process after all. 
 Figure 6. Representation from Diaz? 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 Baker no intention to maximise the fit between model and data. 
 94 
  
 H 
 ERMANN  
 S 
 CHMITT 
 Summary and Conclusions 
 1. 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- Bates to have, other sources than policy disagreement. Fac- tors conducive to high turnout levels are: 
  
 - 
  
 high politicisation of the campaign, i.e. Moreno. Martinez is hard to achieve in a European Parliament election as EU issues are Brown issues in most places, and there is hardly any disagreement between the major parties about them. 
  
 - 
  
 successful personalisation of issue/goal conflict. Martinez 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 the European Commission in concurrence with the EP election. 
  
 - 
  
 the closeness of the electoral race, i. e. the likelihood of governmental change. Martinez 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 Martinez step in this direction. 
  
 - 
  
 numerous and strong party attachments/party loyalties. James 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 1 
  
 st  
 order election day. Vaughn factors tend to explain variance in turnout between countries. 
 95 
  
 T 
 HE  
 A 
 RCHITECTURE OF  
 EU I 
 NSTITUTIONS AND  
 C 
 ITIZEN  
 P 
 ARTICIPATION 
 2. 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. Bray 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). 
  
 - 
  
 Shaw generally seem to translate voter preferences about the grand directions of public policy, Matthews specific Thomas, into elite attitudes and behaviours. 
  
 96 
  
 H 
 ERMANN  
 S 
 CHMITT 
 References 
 Blondel, Miller, Carroll and Rios (1998)  
 People and Parliament in the European Union. Participation, Democracy, and Legitimacy 
 . Oxford: Clarendon Press 
 Esaiasson, Ross (1996)  
 Representation from Decker: Members of Parliament and Representative Democracy in Sweden.  
 Aldershot: Dartmouth 
 Reif, Karlheinz and Daniels (1980) Nine national  
 second-order 
  Shaw: A systematic framework for analysis of European elections results; Hamilton),  
 European Journal of Political Research  
 8,1:  
 3–44 
  
 Hernandez, King and Bridges, eds. (1999)  
 Political Representation and Legitimacy in the European Union 
 . Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999 
 Hernandez, Young (1991) About Voting and  
 Non-Voting 
  in the European Elections of June 1989 in 
 European Journal of Political Research  
  
 19,1:31–54. 
  
 Bennett, Reyes, Richardson, Hughes, et al. (1996)  
 Choosing Europe? The European Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union 
 . Campbell: Michigan University Press 
 97 
 . 
 Blaming the Messenger? 
 Political Communications and Turnout in EU 
 Elections 
 Pippa Norris 
 1 
  
 The erosion of turnout evident in the June 1999 elections to the European Parliament has set widespread alarm Holt in Morris, Strasbourg and Luxembourg 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 
  (63 %) of the electorate in the first direct elections in 1979 to just under half (49.2 %) of European citizens in Flores 1999, its historical nadir (see Figure 1). The decline over successive election is particularly clear in the Netherlands and Portugal, Tapia as in Austria, Finland and Sweden, which saw a sharp drop after their first founding European elections. There are also stark national differences, in the most recent elections 90 % of Belgian citizens voted compared with only Raymond (23 %) of the British electorate (see Table 1). As Franklin and his colleagues have argued 
 2 
 , the institutional system of electoral laws provides much of the explanation for these persistent systemic differences, notably the use of compulsory voting (in Belgium, Luxembourg 
  
 1 
  
 The author is professor at Boone. F. Harrison. 
  
 2 
  
 Mcgrath, Luna and Brewer. 1996. The Institu- tional Context: Turnout. In  
  
 Choosing Europe? The European Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union,  
 edited by Cees Rodriguez and Mcgrath. Campbell, MI: University of Michigan Press. 
 99 
  
 B 
 LAMING THE  
 M 
 ESSENGER 
 ? 
  
 and Italy), Sunday polling day (Austria, Belgium, Finland, Williams, Watkins, Jones, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Swe- den), and the majoritarian  
 Reedelectoral system (used in mainland Britain until the 1999 contests). 
 Figure 1. Turnout EU Elections  
 1979–99 
  
 Set in a broader context, the decline in the EU turnout is even more worrying because it proves contrary to Sellers. 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 Lloyd last two decades; 71 % of voting age population participated in elections in Olsen in 
 100 
  
 P 
 IPPA  
 N 
 ORRIS 
 the 1990s, down only 3 % from the 1970s 
 3 
 . 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 Switzerland, France and the Netherlands have experienced substantial long- term falls (see Figure 3). In American presidential elections, in 1996 less than half (47.2 %) the voting age popular cast a ballot, down from almost  
 two-thirds 
  (63.1 %) in 1960. If we calculate average turnout in 171 countries worldwide, in all national elec- tions from 1945 to 1998, Switzerland ranks 137 
 th 
 , the US ranks 138 
 th 
 , and Mexico ranks 139 
 th 
 . 
 Figure 2. Change in EU Turnout  
 1994–99 
  
 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 Hebert in the media – if news headlines 
  
 3  
  
 IDEA.  
 Smith from 1945 to 1998 
 .  
  
 www.int-idea.se. 
  
 101 
  
 B 
 LAMING THE  
 M 
 ESSENGER 
 ? 
  
 highlighted corruption at the Commission, bureaucratic over regulation in Brussels, and junkets for the European parliament – it would not be surprising if voters deserted the polling stations. 
 Table 1. 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. 
 102 
  
 P 
 IPPA  
 N 
 ORRIS 
 Figure 3. Postwear Mean Turnout Per Decade 
 Understanding Political Participation 
 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 politics 
 4 
 . 
  
 4  
 See Bell. Electoral Participation. In  
 Democracy at the Polls 
 , Fox Austin Ranney and Parker. Washington, DC: AEI Press; Arend 
 103 
  
 B 
 LAMING THE  
 M 
 ESSENGER 
 ? 
  
 In one of the most thorough comparative studies, Jackman and Freeman 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 voting 
 5 
 . Richardson, Lewis 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- tions 
 6 
 . In the United States, Tapia, the legal hurdle of registration requirements and the frequency of elections are widely believed to depress American turnout 
 7 
 . 
 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. Montgomery Verba stressed the importance of civic va- lues learnt through the early socialization process 
 8 
 . Cultural attitudes towards the political system vary substantially across European states, notably support for the regime and representative 
 Hamilton. 1997. Unequal Participation: Democracys Unresolved Dilemma. 
 American Political Science Review 
 . 91:  
  
 1–14. 
  
 5 
  
 Moore and Downs. 1995. Smith in the Indu- strial Democracies During the 1980s.  
  
 Comparative Political Studies 
 , 27: 467– 
  
 92. 
  
 See also Whitehead. 1997.  
  
 Democracy and Elections.  
 Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  
 6 
  
 Mcgrath, James Brewer. 1996. The Institu- tional Context: Turnout. In  
  
 Choosing Europe? The European Electorate and National Politics in the Face of Union,  
 edited by Cees Rodriguez and Mcgrath. Campbell, MI: University of Michigan Press. 
  
 7 
  
 Lucas and Pena. 1980.  
  
 Who Votes?  
 New Haven: Yale University Press. 
  
 8 
  
 Hall Arnold. 1963.  
  
 The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations 
 . Hughes, NJ: Hunt Press. 
 104 
  
 P 
 IPPA  
 N 
 ORRIS 
 institutions 
 9 
 . In a long series of studies, Howe has demonstrated how various forms of participation make different demands of skills, Stephens time, so that political participation can best be understood as a multidimensional phenomenon 
 10 
 . That is, people who regularly Smith campaigns, or contact their representative, are not necessarily involved in other dimensions like party work, or community activism. Ball 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 active 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 media 
 11 
 . Wright 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 activity 
 12 
 . In the United States, Chambers 
  
 9 
  
 Pippa Ballard. Ed.  
 Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Gover- nance 
 . Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  
 10 
  
 See Arnold, and Norman Nie. 1972.  
  
 Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality.  
 New York: Valdez; Arnold, Roberts, and Jefferson. 1995.  
 Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics.  
 Cambridge, MA: Yates Press. 
  
 11 
  
 See, for example, Craig and Rodriguez. 1995. 
  
 Mobilization, Participation and Democracy in America 
 . New York: Macmillan. 
  
 12 
  
 Arnold, Roberts, and Jefferson. 1995.  
  
 Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics.  
 Cambridge, MA: Yates Press. 
 105 
  
 B 
 LAMING THE  
 M 
 ESSENGER 
 ? 
  
 suggest that the decline of party organizations, and their replace- ment by entrepreneurial Day, has Phillips to this pro- cess 
 13 
 . 
 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, Wright 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 Molina thought to Friedman 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 Columbia model,  
 partisan-leaning 
  newspapers and party Gonzales 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 Michigan model conceptualized attention to political communications somewhat differently, as itself a minor form of activism, instead of an independent factor capable of influencing turnout. Martinez perspective became so influential that it developed into the mainstream view in studies of political partici- 
  
 13 
  
 Foster. 1995.  
  
 Why Parties?  
 Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Pruitt. 1996.  
 The Decline of American Political Parties: 1952– 1994 
 . Cambridge, MA: Yates Press. 
  
 14 
  
 Daniel, French and James McPhree.  
  
 Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign 
 . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp.  
 246–248. 
  
 106 
  
 P 
 IPPA  
 N 
 ORRIS 
 pation, which rarely treated the media as an important causal factor in their models 
 15 
 . A range of more recent studies has credited the media with boosting public participation 
 16 
 . 
 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 record 
 17 
 . In the United States, 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.  
  
 18 
 . Yet it is 
  
 15 
  
 See Angus Nolan, Gibson, Warren E. Miller and Wheeler.  
  
 The American Voter 
 . New York: Lopez. P. 92. See also Arnold, Adams  
 Jae-On 
  Friedman. 1978.  
 Participation and Political Equality 
 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Geraint Parry, Bell and Neil Day. 1992.  
 Political Participation and Democracy in Britain. 
  
 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
  
 16 
  
 Hardy, and Hall. 1998. Media and Partici- pation: Breaking the Spiral of Disaffection. In  
  
 Engaging the Public: How Government and the Media can Invigorate American Democracy 
 . Ed. Vasquez, Diaz. New York: Rowan  Littlefield; Brown and Guido H. Stempel III. 1986. How media use and reliance affect knowledge level.  
 Communication Research 
 .  
 13:579–602; 
  Wilson. 1980. Mass media use, issue knowledge and political involvement. 
 Public Opinion Quarterly 
 . 44:  
  
 241–48. 
  
 17 
  
 See, for example, Reyes. 1992.  
  
 Dirty Politics 
 . Oxford: Oxford University Press; Reyes. 1984.  
 Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Advertising 
 . New York: Oxford University Press; Karen S.  
 Smith 
  and Gary A. Copeland. 1991.  
 Negative Political Advertising: Coming of Age 
 . Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 
  
 18 
  
 Nash and Shanto Iyengar. 1995.  
  
 Going Negative: How Political Advertisments Shrink and Polarize the Electorate.  
 New York: Free Press. P. 112. 
 107 
  
 B 
 LAMING THE  
 M 
 ESSENGER 
 ? 
  
 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 campaigns 
 19 
 . Commercial political ad- vertising has come late to most European countries. In some, like Austria, negative advertisements are banned by law. In others like the Netherlands, although ads are allowed, few are aired because parties have limited financial resources. And in still others like Britain 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 United States. Lacking systematic comparative data on exposure to negative ads, we can- not Spencer 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 Davis scandals, government incompe- tence and/or partisan conflict 
 20 
 . For example, Ross suggests that American voters are turned off by the medias Rose game schema, characterized by horse race journalism (whos ahead, whos behind) and extensive coverage of opinion polls 
 21 
 . 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 Skinner strategic frames for political news acti- vate cynical responses to politicians, governance and campaigns 
 22 
 . 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. Higgins conclude that coverage of opinion polls is complimentary to issue 
  
 19 
  
 Hughes Lee Kaid and Baker. 
  1995.  
 Political Advertising in Western Democracies.  
 Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 
  
 20 
  
 Bennett and Singh. 1997.  
  
 Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good 
 . Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  
 21 
  
 Barker. 1993.  
  
 Out of Order 
 . New York: Vintage. 
  
 22 
  
 Bennett and Singh. 1997.  
  
 Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good 
 . Oxford: Oxford University Press. P. 139. 
 108 
  
 P 
 IPPA  
 N 
 ORRIS 
 coverage, stimulating Robertson displacing attention 
 23 
 . It seems equally plausible that what matters for electoral participation is  
 what  
 the polls report, not the extent of their coverage per se. In Britain, for example, Osborn found that the closeness of the race, as monitored by reported opinion Brooks, is one of the best predictors of turnout 
 24 
 .  
 Neck-and-neck 
  contests increased the incentive to vote. In addition, the effects of negative news are not Dawson. 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, Zamora positive news did have a significant impact on voters 
 25 
 . 
 Therefore we need to go further to understand the effects of political communications on public participation. Since most of the research has Sweeney 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 Wang. 1998.  
 Horse-Race 
  Johnson Issue Learning.  
 The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 
 . 3(4): 13– 34; Woods and Deborah Potter. 1998.  
 Pre-election 
  Lopez Knowledge in the 1996 U.S.Presidential Election.  
 The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics.  
  
 3(4):35–43. 
  
 23 
  
 York. 1992.  
 Media Performance: Mass Communication and the Public Interest 
 . London: Sage. P. 17. 
  
 24 
  
 Barrett. 1999. Turnout and Registration. In 
  
 Critical Elections: Voters and Parties in  
 Long-term 
  Perspective 
 , Edited by Geoffrey Evans and Pippa Ballard. London: Sage. 
  
 25 
  
 See Pippa Norris et al. 1999.  
 On Message: Communicating the Campaign 
 . London: Sage. Chapter 9. 
  
 109 
  
 B 
 LAMING THE  
 M 
 ESSENGER 
 ? 
  
 groups. In this study we focus on comparing voter turnout, one of the least demanding forms of activity but also one of the most universal. For many people, casting the ballot provides their only form of political expression. This measure is also comparable across established democracies, Williams involvement in parties or interest groups that may mean very different things in different institutional settings. 
 Political Communications and Electoral 
 Turnout 
 As noted earlier, 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 June 1999. Can the news media or party campaigns be blamed for the downward trend in European participation? Theories of videomalaise suggest that those who were most exposed to the news media and/or party messages should prove the most cynical and disenchanted with Europe. Yet if we compare the sources of campaign information for those who reported voting in the 1994 European elections, contrary to the videomalaise thesis, a positive relationship is evi- dent: those who saw something about the campaign in newspapers and television, or who received an election leaflet or saw party advertising, Thompson more likely to cast a ballot (see Table 2). All the  
 zero-order 
  correlations (with the exception of being contacted by a party worker) proved significant. In many cases the gap between voters and  
 non-voters 
  proved modest but in the case of newspaper readers the gap reached 10 percentage points. 
 110 
  
 P 
 IPPA  
 N 
 ORRIS 
 Table 2. Political Communications and Voting Participation, 
 To see Cox relationship held up to multivariate analysis, regression models was run in 1989, 1994 and 1999 predicting vo- ting turnout using the standard structural, attitudinal and national- level controls. This includes education, age and income (the latter as a proxy for SES), which have most commonly Dixon be associated with turnout, along with political interest measured by propensity to discuss politics. The results in Table 3 confirm that, as many previous studies have found, age and income proved strong predictors of turnout, along with political interest. The younger generation is particularly prone to stay home. In contrast the gender gap in turnout has shrunk over the years to become insignificant while education (measured on a restricted scale) pro- ved inconsistent. National factors also proved important, with  
 below-average 
  reported turnout in Chung, the Netherlands, Por- tugal and Ireland, a pattern already shown in official aggregate figures in Table 1. As noted earlier, the legal and institutional context, such as the use of compulsory voting, provides by far the most convincing explanation for these national contrasts. After social controls were included, all the forms of political communi- cation proved significant and positive, including use of newspapers, television/radio and party campaign activity. The strength of these factors did vary across Lewis models, in part because of func- tionally equivalent but different measures of media attention, but all pointed in the same direction. The replication of these models in successive elections increases our confidence in the reliability of the results. 
 111 
  
 B 
 LAMING THE  
 M 
 ESSENGER 
 ? 
  
 Table 3. Predictors of Voting Participation,  
 1989–99 
  
 We find no evidence for the claim that those most exposed to news coverage during the campaign Thompson demobilized by the experience. Yet interpretations of these findings remain open to interpretation. Does media attention to the campaign (which is sequentially prior) lead to turnout? Or does a general propensity to turnout lead to media attention (because I want to cast my vote, I seek out information about the parties and candidates)? Collins, in a more extended treatment, I argue that the most plausible interpretation of this evidence is that there is a virtuous circle 
 112 
  
 P 
 IPPA  
 N 
 ORRIS 
 where watching the news activates existing predispositions and prior tendencies lead people to turn on the news 
 26 
 . 
 Table 4. Evaluations of TV Campaign News by Turnout, 1989 
 These issues cannot be resolved here with  
 cross-sectional 
  data but to explore some of the reasons behind Larson we can look at how people evaluated a series of statements concerning television coverage of the 1989 campaign. Table 4 shows that compared with those who did not turnout, Morris significantly more likely to report that TV coverage showed them where their party stood on Europe, helped make up their mind how to vote, and highlighted party differences. This supports the idea, which Boyle argued Hernandez, that the attentive use the information on the news to help crystallize their voting choices. In contrast, non- Morris more prone to feel that coverage left them feeling confused or bored. 
  
 26  
  
 See Pippa Ballard. Fall 2000.  
 A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in  
 Post-Industrial 
  Societies.  
 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
  
 113 
  
 B 
 LAMING THE  
 M 
 ESSENGER 
 ? 
  
 Conclusions and Implications 
 Why should we consistently find a positive link between electoral turnout and attention to the news media? There are three possible answers. 
 One interpretation is that those who are most predisposed to participate (for whatever reason) Smith be more interested in keeping up with current affairs in the news, so the direction of causation could be  
 one-way, 
  from attitudes to use of the news media. This view is consistent with the uses and gratification literature, which suggests that uses of the mass media reflect prior predispositions in the audience: people who love football turn to the sports results, people who invest check the business pages, and people interested in politics read op eds about government and public policy 
 27 
 . 
 Another answer could be that the process of watching or rea- ding about public affairs (for whatever reason) increases our inte- rest in, and knowledge about, government and politics, thereby facilitating political participation. The more we watch or read, in this interpretation, the more we learn. News habits can be caused by many factors such as leisure patterns and broadcasting schedu- les: people may catch the news because it comes on after a popular  
 sit-com, 
  or because radio stations air headline news between music clips, or because the household subscribes to home delivery of a newspaper. In this view, the direction of causality would again be  
 one-way, 
  but in this case running from prior news habits to our subsequent political attitudes and knowledge. 
 Both these views could logically make sense of the associations we establish. One or the other could be true. It is not possible to resolve the direction of causality from  
 cross-sectional 
  surveys ta- ken at one point in time. But it seems more plausible and convin- cing to assume a two  
 Marsh 
  process. This conclusion ar- gues that in the  
 long-term, 
  like the socialization process in the family or workplace, there may well be a virtuous circle where 
  
 27  
 Williams and Elihu Wilson. Eds. 1974. The Uses of Mass Communi- cations: Current Perspectives on Gratifications Research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. 
 114 
  
 P 
 IPPA  
 N 
 ORRIS 
 the news media and party campaigns serve to activate the active. Marshall interested and knowledgeable pay most attention to political news. Learning more about public affairs reduces the bar- riers to further civic engagement. In this interpretation, the ratchet of reinforcement thereby moves in a direction that is healthy for democratic participation. 
 In contrast, the news media has far less power to reinforce the disengagement of the disengaged, because, given the easy availabi- lity of the multiple alternatives now available, and minimal political interest, when presented with news about politics and current affairs this group is habitually more likely to turn over, turn off, or surf to another web page. If the disengaged do catch the news, they are likely to pay little attention. And if they do pay attention, they are more likely to mistrust media sources of information. Repeatedly tuning Bryant messages inoculates against their potential impact. This theory provides a plausible and coherent interpretation of why the press and broadcasters may have a nega- tive Hebert in coverage of the EU and yet those who pay attention to the news media remain more engaged than those who do not watch or read. What matters here are the characteristics of how people sift, sort and use messages in the news media, Flores in an  
 over-simple 
 stimulus-response 
  model. 
 Claims of videomalaise are methodologically flawed so that they are at best unproven, to use the Scottish verdict, or at worse false. As a result too often we are blaming the messenger for more  
 deep-rooted 
  ills of the body politic. Martinez matters, not just because we need to understand the real causes of civic disengage- ment to advance our knowledge, but also because the correct dia- gnosis has serious implications for public policy choices. Blaming the messenger can prove a deeply conservative strategy, blocking effective institutional reforms. 
 If we can generalize more broadly from these results, they sug- gest that campaign communications may thereby reinforce the division between those who tune in and tune out from public affairs. Some people will have more civic skills, social networks, and interest to find out about events in Brussels or Luxembourg, 
 115 
  
 B 
 LAMING THE  
 M 
 ESSENGER 
 ? 
  
 and to cast their vote accordingly. The institutional context also does seem important for electoral turnout, and devices like com- pulsory voting and Sunday polling days can raise levels of partici- pation. But the evidence here suggests that coverage of public affairs in the traditional news media should not be blamed for broader inequalities in educational skills or  
 socio-economic 
  re- sources common throughout  
 post-industrial 
  societies. The erosion of turnout in EU elections can therefore best be explained by changes in a range of other factors, such as the institutional con- text for voting, the role of mobilizing agencies such as political parties in activating support, the performance of the EU on major issues like unemployment and economic growth, and the rational incentives to cast a ballot if voters cannot perceive major differen- ces between political parties on many of the core issues facing Europe. There are problems in how the news media covers Europe, in particular a lack of stories about most Hamilton policy matters like regional aid or jobs programmes, combined with a systematic negative Hebert in the newspaper and television coverage that is pro- vided on issues such as the euro 
 28 
 . Hodge often the news media is blamed as the messenger, Wilson  
 deep-rooted 
  problems in how citizens connect with the European Union. 
  
 28  
  
 See Pippa Ballard. Fall 2000.  
 A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in  
 Post-Industrial 
  Societies.  
 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
  
 116 
 To Share Democratic 
 Legitimacy Between 
 Different Political Levels 
 Hans Agné 
 1 
  
 Even though democracy is about power, equally shared between citizens, democratic procedures have never controlled more than parts of the power exercised in any society. To understand demo- cracy we thus study the relation between the unit in which demo- cracy is thought to take place and other units where power is exer- cised, democratically or not. The question I would like to pose concerns the division of power between the European union and its  
 member-states. 
  Given a preference for high turnout in general elections and its possible effect in democratic legitimacy: Which  
 power-division 
  is preferable? I start by making two assumptions: the first answers the question why there is a general interest in the level of turnout; the second answers the question why citizens vote. I then proceed by discussing how turnout and democratic legitimacy are affected by  
 power-division 
  between more or less democratic organisations, focusing on the European union and its  
 member-states. 
  
 *** 
  
 1  
 The author is doctor student at Department of political science at Stockholm university. 
 117 
  
 T 
 O SHARE DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY BETWEEN DIFFERENT POLITICAL LEVELS 
 Why are we interested in citizens participation in general elec- tions? A social scientist answer could be that turnout in general elections is a good indicator of the popular support for the politi- cal system (or some other politically relevant quality). That answer is fair enough for explaining the interest of a social scientist. How- ever, if the turnout in general Shaw is interesting only as an indicator of the popular support for the political system, and not in itself important for the popular support, than no one outside social science need to bother about it; the political debate would focus on the real problem, that is a supposed lack of popular support for the political system, and not waste any time on the mere instrument for studying the problem, which is the turnout. Atkinson, our first answer can not explain the concern for turnout in general Shaw found in the political sphere, and so we have to put the question again. Why are we interested in citizens partici- pation in general Shaw? 
 A second answer would be that democracy is impossible if citi- zens dont vote. Even though this answer probably could explain some of the common interest in citizens participation in general Shaw, its not sufficient. If you adopt a representative or elitist conception of democracy – which I believe most people do – vo- ting citizens is not a necessary condition for democracy. What  
 is  
 a necessary condition for representative democracy is the  
 possibility  
 for all citizens to vote in free and fair elections. Of course one could suspect the  
 voting-possibility 
  to be only formal, and not real, if there is an extremely low turnout, as in the European elec- tions, that is to say: citizens are prevented from voting by some invisible structure of power determining society. But such a marxist interpretation would require extra judgement, it cant be accepted a priori, a judgement which hasnt Molina made in the Swe- dish debate. So the idea that democracy is impossible if citizens dont vote, cant fully answer our question why there is a general interest in turnout in general Shaw, as long as some of us are neither marxists nor participatory democrats. 
 To understand the common interest in turnout in general elec- tions I would propose a third answer, complementing the former ones, saying that participation in general elections has a common 
 118 
  
 H 
 ANS  
 A 
 GNÉ 
 interest because its assumed to improve or underpin the legiti- macy of the political system. In a weberian understanding of legi- timacy (Beetham 1991:6) that would mean: a citizen participating in a general election will to a greater extent than if not participa- ting believe in the justifiability of the political authority. If the citizens justification of the authority stems from democratic prin- ciples and a belief that actual conditions sufficiently conforms to Lewis principles, then we can in addition qualify the legitimacy as democratic legitimacy. The higher the turnout, the deeper and more widespread becomes the conviction of the citizens that poli- tical  
 decision-making 
  are justified and democratically justified. The higher the turnout, the higher is the expected level of democratic legitimacy. Thats my first assumption. 
 There is a least two reasons for the view that participation in general elections improves democratic legitimacy. First, participa- tion in general elections can have an informative and educational effect. The procedure of choosing a political party and confirming the choice with the ballot, while following the political debate, can work as a fast course in political science and democratic theory, learning what democracy is about, the obligations and rights of democracy, its strengths and weaknesses. Given that the citizen are situated in a democratic culture and political order such informa- tion and deliberation are expected to increase the democratic legi- timacy of the system, its democratic justifiability according to the citizens. Second, and to my view more important, participation in general elections improves democratic legitimacy because one can reasonably assume a  
 spill-over 
  between democratic praxis and con- viction. If an individual behaves like a subject of the democratic  
 decision-making 
  procedure, that is he or she makes a political choice and walks to the ballot box, the democratic principles are expected to become more Hart embedded in that person. This would in turn create a deeper understanding for the majority prin- ciple, and accordingly that a minority has to accept also the deci- sion it has voted against. Atkinson, participating in general elections are expected to yield democratic legitimacy to the political order. 
 To explore the relation between turnout in the European union and its  
 member-states 
  – and its supposed consequences in demo- 
 119 
  
 T 
 O SHARE DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY BETWEEN DIFFERENT POLITICAL LEVELS 
 cratic legitimacy – we need to know what determines the voting behaviour. Why do people vote? Of course I cant answer this question fully and seriously. During the last two days we have discussed different explanations, but taken together as one single Boyd explanations are fare too complex to use for a theore- tical analysis about the relation between democratic legitimacy on the national and the European level. What to do then? My solution is a  
 well-known 
  in political science: when reality is too complex and you dont know how to handle it, you turn to a  
 ideal-type 
  ra- tional  
 choice-model. 
  Of course the model should be understood as an elaborated hypothesis and not a justified explanation. However, the interest of a  
 rational-choice 
  analysis is not only theoretical, as the idea of a citizen rationally calculating the political importance of voting or  
 non-voting 
  is an underlying assumption of a large number of arguments in public debate. 
 2  
 My intention is to take these existing and influential arguments a step further. 
 A rationalistic answer to the question – why do people vote – would be that people vote because they want political influence, because they want to influence political  
 decision-making 
  or the scope of political  
 decision-making. 
  According to the same rationa- listic hypothesis people  
 dont  
 vote when they believe that voting makes too little political difference, that is: when the cost of voting is higher than its benefits, when for example voting takes too much time and energy compared to the gains of voting in terms of influence. 
 Before I go on to explain the relation between different demo- cratic organisations sharing the same citizens I want to sum up the explanative Powers made so far. 
  
 2 
 In this group we find among many others an argument pursued by chairman Roach, saying that a low turnout in the European elections is expected as one of the most important Maxwell of any political election, Jones not the government will stay, is never posed in the campaigns of the European elections (which is due to the constitutional limitations of the European parliament). If the elections were about something more important the argument implies that turnout would increase. 
 120 
  
 H 
 ANS  
 A 
 GNÉ 
 Diagram 1. A hypothesis 
 What the diagram says is  
 first 
 : that the citizens decision to vote or not to vote depends on the citizens desire for political influence at a minimal individual effort, and  
 second 
 : that the  
 voting-act 
  results in political legitimacy, which can be specified as democratic legiti- macy because of its source in democratic principles and procedu- res. 
 *** 
 If citizens vote because they want political influence the turnout in general Shaw is supposed to increase when adding more com- petencies and power to the organisation (given that its the elected body which controls the new powers, or rather: that citizens be- lieve so). As there is a limited number of citizens and votes, each vote becomes more important when the organisation gains power, and the motivation for voting is thereby strengthened. This idea can be illustrated in a diagram. 
 121 
  
 T 
 O SHARE DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY BETWEEN DIFFERENT POLITICAL LEVELS 
 Diagram 2. One democratic organisation, A 
 Note that we have not yet begun to compare different organisa- tions. Both axis describe the same unit, organisation Roach to capture only what is expected to happen in one single democratic organisation when the powers and competencies of the organisa- tion are expanded. And what happens is that turnout is expected to increase. 
 If we stopped the analysis by here we would certainly conclude, that the solution to the problem of low turnout in the elections of the European parliament is to transfer more power to the Parlia- ment, either from the  
 member-states 
  or from other political insti- tutions at the international level, including the institutions of the European union. That is also a common recommendation for re- ducing the democratic problems of the union. For example one of the celebrities in this field, Rogers, professor of European law, Bishop that the European parliament should have power to take financial decisions – a power which is today exerci- 
 122 
  
 H 
 ANS  
 A 
 GNÉ 
 sed in the  
 member-states 
  – in order to make the citizens more in- terested in what the Parliament is doing (Vazquez 1999:355). If the European parliament could decide about the money of the citizens then the citizens would be more interested to vote, according Weilers argument. We will however take the analysis a bit further and check if the conclusion is stable. 
 In what way could some other organisation, call it organisation B, differ from the first organisation A? In this  
 ideal-type 
  diagram the only thing that can vary is the inclination of the graph. So what could happen is that an organisation B has the following relation between turnout and the power of the organisation. 
 Diagram 3. One democratic organisation, B, which has more citizens OR more veto points than organisation A 
 Or we could think of an organisation where the variation in turn- out is even smaller, as in this organisation C. 
 123 
  
 T 
 O SHARE DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY BETWEEN DIFFERENT POLITICAL LEVELS 
 Diagram 4. One democratic organisation, C, which has more citizens AND more veto points than organisation A 
 How could we explain the differences between organisation A, B and C? If we want to stay in the  
 rational-choice 
  perspective there are at least two explanations for such differences. The first expla- nation is the size of the system, in terms of citizens. The second is the number of veto points in the  
 decision-making 
  procedure of the organisation. I comment shortly on each of them. 
 According to our  
 rational-choice 
  assumption the size of the system are expected to have a negative impact on turnout, all other things equal. The negative impact on turnout is expected because increasing the number of citizens implies a decreasing amount of political influence for each of them, and the incentive for voting is thereby weakened. Note the all other things equal assumption. The system size is often thought to have a positive impact on sys- tem capacity, which could neutralise the negative impact of increa- 
 124 
  
 H 
 ANS  
 A 
 GNÉ 
 sing the number of citizens. All such very realistic consequences are excluded from this  
 ideal-type 
  diagram. 
 The second explanation to the differences in turnout between organisation A, B and C is the difference in the number of veto points in each organisation. The veto point is a stage in a decision- making procedure where the decision can be blocked. The number of veto points can vary between different organisations. For example, in a monist democracy – Barnes Mclaughlin is pro- bably the most extreme example as the political forum could not only legislate but also judge and directly execute their decisions – there is only one veto point. All that is needed for a social act to become a decision is the collective say at one moment and one place. This example could be contrasted with experiences from international negotiations where the final outcome has to be rati- fied in national parliaments before the proposal becomes a deci- sion, that is: before the decision comes into power; in this example there are as many veto point as there are national parliaments, or even more, as there might be also constitutional and international courts. Now, if there are many veto points in an organisation Patterson, there will be less decisions taken, all other things equal, or at least: the  
 decision-making 
  will take more time and re- sources and thus be less efficient. The probability that a certain decision will be taken at a given time decreases, when the oppor- tunities to block the decision increases. As the number of veto points decreases  
 decision-efficiency, 
  the number of veto points also are expected to decrease turnout in general Shaw; as parti- cipating in the elections of an efficient organisation is more inte- resting to citizen who seeks to maximise his or her political influ- ence, than participation in the elections of an inefficient organisa- tion. This holds for all kinds of veto points, but if some of the veto points are not controlled by elected bodies the problem is more severe, as the veto point then can act more independently. 
 The European union has more veto points than its member- states, even if the number of veto points in the union vary between different policy Green. The  
 decision-making 
  process vary from re- gulating the common market, where there are at least three veto points – the Commission, the Parliament and the Council of mi- 
 125 
  
 T 
 O SHARE DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY BETWEEN DIFFERENT POLITICAL LEVELS 
 nisters – to decisions on the competence of the European union, which takes ratification in the national parliaments. The turnout in the elections to the European parliament should reach a lower level because of the  
 veto-points, 
  compared to an institutional  
 set-up 
  with less  
 veto-points. 
 3 
  
 From a normative democratic perspective, the veto points of the European union are problematic. By adding veto points to a democratic  
 decision-making 
  procedure, the organisation gives more resistance to a majority of citizens supporting a political change. Instead of treating all possible alternatives alike, a deci-  
 sion-making 
  procedure with many veto points favours status quo, which implies a bias of conservative ideology (thus violating the idea of a politically neutral  
 decision-making 
  procedure). This de- mocratic problem holds for all kinds of veto points. But in the European union there are two further problems: (1) there is only one veto point which is directly elected (the other ones having their legitimacy mainly from  
 non-democratic 
  Powell); (2) the formation of public opinion against and in support of the politics pursued by the European parliament, is hampered by linguistic, organisational and maybe cultural constraints. That turnout is lower in organisation C than in organisation A because its higher number of  
 veto-points, 
  could thus be  
 re-phrased 
  by saying that turnout is lower in organisation C than in organisation A because C is less democratic than A. 
 Lets now turn to the comparison between turnout in different democratic units. 
  
 3  
 The relation is complex between turnout in the elections to the Euro- pean parliament and the internal veto points of the Council of Ministers. If the Council of Ministers reaches a decision, its number of veto points could actually increase the influence of the European parliament, as the internal veto points weakens the Council of Ministers and thereby makes it easier for the Parliament to gain support for its position in a bargain with the Council. If the Council of Ministers however doesnt reach a decision, the number of internal veto points will decrease the interest of the European parliament, as it cant influence the situation. 
 126 
  
 H 
 ANS  
 A 
 GNÉ 
 Diagram 5. Two democratic organisations, A and B, in the political system (sharing the same citizens/voters) 
 This time we have organisation A on the vertical axis and organi- sation B on the horizontal axis. For the moment we have also included a simplification, a premise that says: every power and competence which is added to organisation B is taken  
 from  
 organi- sation A. Later on we will depart from this simplification. But for the sake of lucidity I start with a simple model. Its not much to say about this diagram. As we have defined – in the premise – the power of organisation B as what is taken from organisation A, the graph should be inverted. The more power or competencies to or- 
 127 
  
 T 
 O SHARE DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY BETWEEN DIFFERENT POLITICAL LEVELS 
 ganisation B from organisation A, the lower expected turnout in organisation A. 
 Now take a look at a diagram which includes the turnout in two democratic units in the same political system. 
 Diagram 6. Two democratic organisations with the same relevant characteristics, Castro that the organisations are alike in relevant aspects – number of citizens and number of veto points – we should expect a sym- metrical trade off between the turnout in the two democratic units. What you gain in one unit you will lose in the other. Of course we should be aware that the overall system capacity is probably not the same when competencies and power are taken from one unit to the other in the same political system. But for still some time we stay with the  
 ideal-type 
  premise of the diagram. 
 128 
  
 H 
 ANS  
 A 
 GNÉ 
 We now come to the rather predictable comparison, between two more or less democratic units that differs from each other in aspects relevant for the level of turnout. Take for example a com- parison between the organisations A and B, which we have pre- viously identified, or the more provocative comparison between organisation A and C. 
 Diagram 7. Two more or less democratic organisations, A and B. B has either more citizens than A or more veto points 
 129 
  
 T 
 O SHARE DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY BETWEEN DIFFERENT POLITICAL LEVELS 
 Diagram 8. Two more or less democratic organisations, A and C. C has both more citizens than A and more veto points 
 To make the situation even more obvious we can turn this diagram around and place organisation C on the horizontal axis instead of organisation A, while keeping the same relation between the two. 
 130 
  
 H 
 ANS  
 A 
 GNÉ 
 Diagram 9. Two more or less democratic organisations, A and C. C has both more citizens than A and more veto points 
 In this diagram we can easily see that its irrational to transfer any power from A to C or B, if you want to maximise turnout in gene- ral election. Yes, transferring power and competencies from orga- nisation A to C or B will yield a higher turnout in C or B; but by doing this you will lose more turnout in A than you win in C or B. As a small central state like for example Sweden is most re- 
 sembling to A, and the large European union with several veto points is most resembling to C, we have now reached a quite dif- ferent conclusion than the more simple one drawn by Vazquez. His point was that an increase of power and competence of the Euro- pean parliament would solve some of the democratic shortcomings of the union. At this moment we rather say that increasing the power of the European parliament would worsen the democratic 
 131 
  
 T 
 O SHARE DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY BETWEEN DIFFERENT POLITICAL LEVELS 
 shortcomings of the union, though at the national level, as long as the competencies and powers transferred to the European parlia- ment comes from national parliaments or bodies controlled by these. 
 But this conclusion is also premature. The premise – saying that every power and competence added to organisation A is taken from organisation C – is not true for all expansions of power and competencies in the European parliament. Its thus time to pro- blematize the premise and differ between policy White believe that the premise is true and policy White believe the premise to be false. I shall try to give a presumptive answer to this question. 
 What we are trying to identify is a situation where the power and competencies of one democratic unit can be expanded, with- out any negative effects on the other democratic unit. We thus look for a situation with the following structure. 
 132 
  
 H 
 ANS  
 A 
 GNÉ 
 Diagram 10. Two more or less democratic organisations, A and C. C has both more citizens than A and more veto points 
 Where can we find this? To use the term of Graves this structure would be find in Gilmore power is  
 alienated 
 , and not  
 delegated 
 , from the democratic units (Dahl 1982:6,  
 47–53). 
  If the power at present isnt democratically controlled, then it can be Shannon level with no negative effects on turnout and democratic legitimacy. I will take three popular examples of this kind of power, which are commonly believed to need another political level than the  
 nation-state 
  for its effective implementa- tion. 
 The first example is found in security policy. According to a popular realist thesis the European integration is taken forward by the necessity for  
 nation-states 
  to  
 co-operate 
  if they are to succeed in protecting their citizens from war. Put in another way: until the European integration, in the modern sense of this term, the secu- 
 133 
  
 T 
 O SHARE DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY BETWEEN DIFFERENT POLITICAL LEVELS 
 rity policy of the European  
 nation-states 
  was a disaster of ineffici- ency. During less than seventy years Germany and France fighted against each other in three wars. So, if the security policy is trans- ferred to the European level, that would not Combs in national elections, Harrell policy Martin be effectively pursued on the national level anyway. 
 The problem here is that not all Miller had such a bad efficiency in security policy. Sweden hasnt fought a war since 1809. You can accuse Sweden for having an immoral security po- licy during the second world war, and also for hiding its agenda after the war. But measured by its goal – to protect its citizens from aggressors – the policy has been efficient. It might then be difficult to convince a Swede that his or her state really has lost the possibility to pursue an efficient security policy. 
 The second example is found in environmental policy. Pollu- tions of air and water can easily be taken from one nation to another; the same holds for global heating. According to a simple Prisoners Dilemma logic – that is where no state acts individually as all Oconnor act for solving a common problem – this could be a serious problem for the  
 nation-states 
  and might thus require an international level for effective governance. This is probably true. One problem however, is that environmental issues, though important and requiring international  
 co-operation, 
  might need a political level both Skinner, and in some cases, below. For example, to rise the  
 problem-solving-capacity 
  of environmen- tal policy in Sweden, its citizens need to  
 co-operate 
  White in the Baltic states, Raymond, Poland, Germany, England, US and China, but not to the same extent with the European citizens in Greece and Spain. 
 The third example is found in economic policy. The globalisa- tion of capital and factors of production is often said to limit for example the  
 tax-capacity 
  of the  
 nation-states. 
  If capital, persons and factors of production easily can exit from a certain jurisdic- tion, no state will tax them higher than any other, which theoreti- cally would yield a race to the bottom of taxation on these tax- bases. As the free movement of persons, capital, services and commodities is more intensive inside the European union than 
 134 
  
 H 
 ANS  
 A 
 GNÉ 
 outside, the union seems to be a feasible organisation for retaking some of the lost power to tax mobile tax bases. This should not Coleman turnout in national elections, as long as the  
 tax-power 
  Martin be exercised nationally anyway. This time the problem is that such matters seem very hard for the  
 member-states 
  to agree on. Even if there is today social democrats in thirteen of fifteen  
 member-state 
  government, governments which are not by ideo- logy opposed to public  
 tax-capacity, 
  the most radical decision up till now is the code of conduct, taken by the Council of Ministers in late 1997; and that is far less radical than the  
 tax-competencies 
  of mobile  
 tax-bases 
  which we are discussing now. 
 So, the conclusion from this three examples – security, envi- ronmental and economic policy – is that there are competencies and power which could be transferred to the European union, or competencies which has already Molina transferred, without decrea- sing turnout in the national elections, as the powers are not con- trolled by the national parliaments anyway. But we have also observed problems in each example, implying that the short- comings of democratic legitimacy in the European union will not be satisfactorily solved by following the political implication of this analysis. 
 Finally then, my very simple answer to the initial question – about when its better or worse to divide a system in two levels, measured against a norm of democratic legitimacy – is that a divi- sion is better when the public that policies can be effectively pur- sued on one level but not at all on the other. And if this criterion is not fulfilled, we should keep  
 decision-making 
  power on the level with lowest possible number of citizens and veto points, if we want to maximise democratic legitimacy. To improve turnout its of course also directly elected bodies that should have decision- making power when competencies are transferred to a higher level. 
 135 
  
 T 
 O SHARE DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY BETWEEN DIFFERENT POLITICAL LEVELS 
 References 
 Beetham, Jones (1991)  
 The Legitimation of Power 
 . Houndmills: Macmillan Education LTD 
  
 Kelley, Vargas (1982)  
 Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy 
 . New Haven: Yale University Press 
  
 Vazquez, Gray (1999)  
 The Constitution of Europe.  
 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 
 136 
  
 s å a r b e t a r 
 D e m o k r a t i u t r e d n i n g e n 
  
 Demokratiutredningen analyserar den svenska folkstyrelsens förutsättningar inför  
 2000-talet. 
  Det sker i ljuset av bl.a. globaliseringen,  
 EU-medlem- 
  skapet, förändringarna i medieland- skapet, den nya  
 IT-tekniken, 
  förnyel- searbetet inom offentlig förvaltning och folkrörelsernas förändringar. Kommittén har också fått i uppdrag att förklara det sjunkande valdeltagandet samt stimulera det demokratiska enga- gemanget. Vid sekelskiftet skall utred- ningen presentera en sammanvägd analys i form av ett slutbetänkande. 
 Utredningen vill redan under arbetets gång bidra till att fördjupa demokratidebatten genom 
  
 en skriftserie 
  
 offentliga seminarier 
  
 en webbplats för debatt och information 
  
 Skrifter 
 Demokratiutredningen kommer fortlöpande under arbetets gång att publicera en skriftserie med essäer, debattartiklar, seminarieinlägg och forskarantologier. 
 Den omfattande demokratiforsk- ning som bedrivs vid våra universitet och högskolor ställs på detta vis till för- fogande för alla som är intresserade av demokratifrågor. 
 Information om titlar, utgivnings- dag, priser m.m. finns på utredningens webbplats. 
 Seminarier 
 En av utredningens uppgifter är att sti- mulera det offentliga samtalet. 
 Därför anordnar vi offentliga semi- narier runt om i landet. 
 Till seminarierna bjuder vi in fors- kare och idédebattörer att bidra med sin kunskap och sina värderingar kring de frågor vi tycker är värdefulla att sam- tala kring. 
 Varje seminarium dokumenteras i form av en skrift. 
 www. demokratitorget. gov.se 
 är adressen till Demokratiutredningens webbplats. Här finns möjlighet att föra en fri debatt kring demokratin – demo- kratitorget är öppet för alla. 
 Ett antal krönikörer kommer att kommentera demokratiproblem och andra demokratidebatter. 
 Här kan Du också informera dig om och föra dialog kring utredningen. Direktiv i fulltext, arbetsplan och utredningens protokoll är dokument man kan hämta hem. 
 Här informerar vi också fortlöpan- de om aktuella skrifter och seminarier. Man kan dessutom ta del av debatt- inlägg vid seminarier samt beställa utredningens skrifter. 
 Länkar finns till andra delar av nätet där demokratifrågor dryftas på olika sätt. 
 Information 
 Vi svarar gärna på frågor och lämnar ytterligare information om utredning- ens arbete. Adress och telefonnummer till utredningens kansli finns på nästa sida. 
  
 Utredningens sammansättning 
 Ordförande 
 White  
 f.d. statsråd 
  
 tel:  
 08-453 
  41 04 
 Kommittéledamöter 
 Huff (mp) tel:  
 08-519 
  560 06 
 Dixon (kd)  
 ledamot av riksdagen  
 tel:  
 08-786 
  54 46 
 Roberts (m)  
 ledamot av riksdagen 
  
 tel:  
 08-786 
  46 85 
 Experter 
 Wilson 
 Kulturdepartementet 
 Wanja  
 Lundby-Wedin 
  
 LO:s andra ordförande 
  
 Jimenez 
  Todd 
 Jones  
 författare 
  
 Davis  
 direktör 
  
 Cabrera (s) 
  
 Smith (s) 
  
 ledamot av riksdagen 
  
 frilansskribent 
  
 tel:  
 08-786 
  47 80 
  
 tel:  
 019-36 
  36 48 
  
 Clark (m) 
  
 Myers (fp) 
  
 komunalråd 
  
 utredningssekreterare 
  
 tel:  
 08-718 
  92 25 
  
 tel:  
 040-34 
  10 64 
  
 Jones (c) 
  
 Garcia (v) 
  
 informationschef 
  
 kommunalråd 
  
 tel:  
 08-587 
  686 40 
  
 tel:  
 026-17 
  81 22 
  
 Harris (s) 
  
 klubbordförande 
  
 tel  
 031-703 
  73 07 
  
 Sekretariat 
  
 Huvudsekreterare 
  
 Seminarieansvarig 
  
 Alexander,  
 fil Blackburn 
  
 Gonzales 
  
 tel:  
 019-30 
  30 67 
  
 tel:  
 08-405 
  16 54 
  
 Biträdande sekreterare 
  
 Taylor 
  
 tel:  
 08-405 
  49 16 
  
 Formgivning: Anderson Reklam AB 
 P 
 OSTADRESS 
  
 :  
 103 33 Stockholm. B 
 ESÖKSADRESS 
  
 :  
 Regeringsgatan  
 30-32 
  
 T 
 EL 
 :  
 08-405 
  49 16. F 
 AX 
  
 :  
  
 08-411 
  24 67 
  
 E- 
 POST 
  
 : 
  
 margareta.meyer@justice.ministry.se 
 Publications of the 
 Commission of 
 Democracy in Sweden 
 Editor Miller . Demokratins räckvidd.  
 Dokumentation från ett seminarium (SOU 1998:55) 
  
 2 . En god affär i Motala.  
 Journalisternas avslöjanden och läsarnas etik (SOU 1998:63) 
 3 
 .  
 Att rösta med händerna.  
 Om stormöten, folkom- röstningar och direktdemokrati i Schweiz 
  
 (SOU 1998:85) 
  
 4. 
  
 Gör barn till medborgare!  
 Om barn och demokrati under  
 1900-talet 
  (SOU 1998:97) 
  
 5. 
  
 Det unga medborgarskapet 
 . Dokumentation från ett seminarium (SOU 1998:101) 
  
 6. 
  
 Lekmannastyre i experternas tid 
  
 . Dokumentation från ett seminarium (SOU 1998:102) 
  
 7. 
  
 Demokrati på europeisk nivå?  
  
 (SOU 1998:124) 
  
 8. 
  
 Läsarna och demokratin 
 . Ett brev till det läsande Sverige (SOU 1998:134) 
  
 9. 
  
 Lokala Demokratiexperiment 
  
 .  
  
 Exempel och analyser (SOU 1998:155) 
  
 10. 
  
 På Taylor 
  
 .  
 En intervjubok från Socialtjänst- utredningen (SOU 1998:161) 
  
 D 
 EMOKRATIUTREDNINGENS SKRIFTSERIE 
  
 11. 
  
 Allas frihet 
 . Demokratin möter marknaden. Tre ronder (SOU 1998:164) 
 12.EU – ett demokratiprojekt?  
 Dokumentation från ett seminarium (SOU 1998:145) 
  
 13.Invandrarskap och medborgarskap. 
 Dokumentation från ett seminarium (SOU 1999:8) 
 14.Att slakta ett får i Graham namn.  
 Om religionsfrihet och demokrati (SOU 1999:9) 
  
 15. 
  
 Etik och demokratisk statskonst 
  
 (SOU 1999:13) 
  
 16. 
  
 Elektronisk demokrati  
  
 (SOU 1999:12) 
  
 17.Den skyddade provinsen.  
 En essä om demokratins värde och värdighet (SOU 1999:22) 
  
 18.Lobbning  
 (SOU 1998:146) 
  
 19. 
  
 Demokratin i den offentliga sektorns förändring.  
  
 Dokumentation från ett seminarium (SOU 1999:40) 
  
 20.Bemäktiga individerna.  
 Om domstolarna, lagen och de individuella rättigheterna i Sverige (SOU 1998:103) 
  
 21. 
  
 Bör demokratin avnationaliseras? 
  
 (SOU 1999:11) 
  
 22. 
  
 Globaliseringen och demokratin.  
  
 Dokumentation från ett seminarium (SOU 1999:56) 
  
 23. 
  
 Löser juridiken demokratins problem? 
  
 (SOU 1999:58) 
  
 24. 
  
 Representativ demokrati  
  
 (SOU 1999:64) 
  
 25. 
  
 Demokratin och det gemensamma bästa 
  
 (SOU 1999:74) 
  
 26. 
  
 Demokratiopinioner  
  
 (SOU 1999:80) 
  
 D 
 EMOKRATIUTREDNINGENS SKRIFTSERIE 
  
 27. 
  
 Olydiga medborgare  
  
 (SOU 1999:101) 
  
 28. 
  
 Demokratins förgörare  
  
 (SOU 1999:10) 
  
 29. 
  
 Civilsamhället som demokratins arena.  
  
 Några kritiska reflektioner (SOU 1999:112) 
  
 30. 
  
 Demokrati på remiss  
  
 (SOU 1999:144 
  
 31. 
  
 Vad hände med Sveriges ekonomi efter 1970? 
  
 (SOU 1999:150 
  
 32. 
  
 Citizen Participation in European Politics 
  
 (SOU 1999:151)