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People and Parliament: A framework for analysis and key data from the special Eurobarometer on the European Parliament Autumn

2007

Richard Sinnott University College Dublin

Palle SvenssonUniversity of Aarhus

CivicActive

an FP6 Research project

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The European Parliament Paradox

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Average Turnout in European Parliament elections 1979-2004 & guesstimated power of the European

Parliament

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Reasons for abstention Type A

• “working double shift, no time.” • “new baby arrived.” • “had no one to baby-sit my six children.” • “couldn’t get to voting station due to caring

for my aunt.”• “incapacitated due to old age.” • “lashing rain.” • “because it was wet and I had no way of

getting to the polling station.” • “couldn’t get there, no one came to collect

me” (from a respondent confined to a wheelchair).

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Reasons for abstention Type B

• “I couldn’t be bothered.” • “I have no interest – I don’t follow politics.”• “It’s a lot of bullshit. I don’t believe in any of

them. They all talk shite.” • “What difference would it make? Have a look

around here it’s awful” • “They promise you the moon and the stars and

when the time comes they do nothing for you.” • “didn’t understand anything about the system.” • “No differences between parties, no real

choice.” • “Nobody approached me for a vote, so when

nobody did I figured it wasn’t worth giving.”

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Type A: Circumstantial vs.

Type B: Voluntary

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A related distinction

Facilitationvs.

Mobilisation

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Facilitation Circumstantial

Mobilisation Voluntary

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And another distinction:

Institutional levelvs.

Individual level

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A typology of variables affecting voter participation/abstention

Location of the variable

Nature of the effect

Institutional-level

Individual-level

Facilitation

Institutional facilitation

Attributes of the administration and regulation of elections that make it easy to vote

Individual facilitation

Attributes of individual electors' circumstances that make it easy to vote

Mobilisation

Institutional mobilisation Attributes of the political system and of the political process that make people want to vote

Individual mobilisation

Attributes of individual electors' political outlooks that make them want to vote

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Simplified model of the determinants of electoral participation

Institutional

facilitation

Individual facilitation

Balance vote/ abstain

IndividualMobilisatio

n

Institutional

mobilisation

Application of the model to the special Eurobarometer on the

European Parliament

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Measuring the image of the EP in Eurobarometer 68

• Prompted positive/negative image of the EP (see first half of presentation)

• Spontaneous image of the EP (see second half of presentation)

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Key variables from EB68

• Exposure to the European Parliament in the media

• Knowledge of the European Parliament• Prompted positive/negative image of

the EP• Spontaneous image of the EP• Importance of the European

Parliament

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EU citizens’ exposure to the European Parliament through the media 1977-2007

•Does it matter?

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Trust and Positive Image of European Parliament

by objective knowledge

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Trust and Positive Image of European Parliament

by subjective knowledge

The effect of knowledge on positive image of the European Parliament:

a multivariate problem and a multivariate solution

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Unstandardized Coefficients

Sig.B Std. Error

Demographic effectsAge -.024

.003 ***

Female .025 .010 **

Year finished education .019 .005 ***

Cognitive effectsExposure to European Parliament in the media

.060

.011 ***

High objective knowledge .072 .004 ***

Feel informed about activities of EP .247 .007 ***

Constant 2.103 .031 ***

Adjusted R2 = .178Note: country effects included but not shown in table.

Multivariate analysis of positive/negative image of the European Parliament Source: EB

68.1

Summary of the multivariate regression

results

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Socio-demographic effects on positive image of the European

Parliament:

• Age has a negative effect• Gender (female) has a positive effect• Education has a positive effect

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Cognitive effects on positive image of the European

Parliament:

Controlling for these demographic effects:

• Exposure to the EP has a positive effect

• Objective knowledge has a positive effect

• Subjective knowledge has a positive effect

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Interim conclusion

Increasing knowledge of the EP enhances the

image of the EP

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Further exploration of the image of the European Parliament focusing on

spontaneous images

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Spontaneous images of the European Parliament

• ‘When you think about the European Parliament is there anything in particular you appreciate about it?’

Source: EB68.1, QB10

• ‘When you think about the European Parliament is there anything in particular you do not appreciate about it?’

Source: EB68.1, QB11

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Spontaneous Images of the European Parliament

• Positive – Unification role (5%). – Common decisions/policies (4%). – Democratic role (4%).– Economic stability/Financial support within the EU (4%).– Voice of each nation counts (3%).– Other (9%).

• Negative – Too bureaucratic/inefficient (5%). – Too expensive (4%). – The voice of small countries does not count/big countries

have too much power (4%).– Lack of information/transparency (3%).– Too much interference in national affairs (3%).– Other (12%).

Source: EB 68.1

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Spontaneous Image of the European Parliament 1994 & 2007

Source: EB 68.1

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Spontaneous Image of the European Parliament 1994-2007

Source: EB 68.1

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Perceived current importance of the European Parliament

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Perceived Current importance by spontaneous image of the European Parliament 2007

First conclusion

Increasing knowledge of the EP enhances the image of the EP

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Second conclusion

The role of the EP (as measured by its perceived importance) is curtailed by the lack of any image of the EP among some 60 per cent

of the citizens of Europe

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ReferencesBlondel, Jean; Richard Sinnott and Palle Svensson,

People and Parliament in the European Union: Democracy, Participation and Legitimacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Sinnott, Richard, ‘Tackling the problem of voter abstention – the facilitation/mobilisation framework and some empirical evidence’ in Report of Second European Conference of Electoral Management Bodies, Strasbourg: European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), December 2005, pp. 49-69.