Political Science
CURRENT PROJECTS
Shaping Representative Claims in EP Elections (SHARE)
Johannes Pollak
Abstract
SHARE is the EIF's contribution to the RECON project coordinated by ARENA, the Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo, an Integrated Project supported by the Sixth Framework Programme for Research with 19 other partner institutions and around 70 participating researchers across Europe. SHARE’s results will help us to depict a policy-differentiated picture of representative claims and to draw conclusions about the validity of RECON’s models.
The main questions are:
- Which representative claims are formulated during EP electoral campaigns?
- Do we find similar/common claims in the selected countries?
- In how far are those claims influenced by common strategies orchestrated by European party federations?
- And finally, are such similar/common claims more frequent in some policy fields than in others?
Duration: January 2007 - December 2011
Output
Sigalas, Emmanuel; Bátora, Jozef; Mokre, Monika; Pollak, Johannes; Slominski, Peter (2010): Democracy Models and Parties at the EU Level. Empirical Evidence from the Adoption of the 2009 European Election Manifestoes. RECON Online Working Paper 2010/13.
Pollak, Johannes; Bátora, Jozef; Mokre, Monika; Sigalas, Emmanuel; Slominski, Peter (2009): On Political Representation Myths and Challenges. RECON Online Working Paper, No. 2009/03.
Pollak, Johannes; Bátora, Jozef; Mokre, Monika; Slominski, Peter; Sigalas, Emmanuel (2009): Reconstituting Political Representation in the EU. The analytical framework and the operationalisation of the RECON models. RECON Online Working Paper 2009/16.
Pollak, Johannes; Bátora, Jozef; Mokre, Monika; Sigalas, Emmanuel; Slominski, Peter (2009): On Political Representation Myths and Challenges. RECON Online Working Paper, No. 2009/03.
Pollak, Johannes; Bátora, Jozef; Mokre, Monika; Slominski, Peter; Sigalas, Emmanuel (2009): Reconstituting Political Representation in the EU. The analytical framework and the operationalisation of the RECON models. RECON Online Working Paper 2009/16.
For more information, please visit RECON.
Citizens’ weight of vote in selected federal systems
Johannes Pollak
Abstract:
Based on the German Constitutional Court’s Lisbon ruling which questions the European Parliament’s democratic legitimacy due to the different number of votes necessary to elect MEPs this study compares various institutional and legal answers to the deviation from the principle of equality. The international team analyses Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the USA in how they solve the federal dilemma: how to weigh the whole and the parts in a way that are fair to the representation of the individual citizens. The study shows that federal systems necessarily involve deviations from strict equality in so far as they also have to allow for the representation of territorial units of different population size.
Duration: July 2010 – January 2011
Funding: European Parliament, 40.000.-
Output: Study report plus one article
OPAL – Observatory of Parliaments after Lisbon
Katrin Auel
Abstract
The Treaty of Lisbon stipulates that ‘national parliaments contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union’ and introduces a number of new instruments expanding the influence of national parliaments in EU policy-making. Yet how do these institutional reforms and new legal provisions impact the role of national parliaments in EU affairs in practice? Despite the extensive literature on national parliaments in the EU, the discussion is ongoing whether they can and do actually play an effective role in European policy-making. The main reason for the persistent disagreement can be traced to the lack of empirical data on actual parliamentary behaviour in EU affairs. The aim of OPAL is to provide a comprehensive and comparative empirical investigation of parliamentary activity in EU affairs across all 27 Member States, focussing on four areas in particular: 1) parliamentary scrutiny of EU legislative processes, 2) parliamentary involvement in non-legislative EU policy processes, 3) parliamentary activity beyond the domestic arena (inter-parliamentary co-operation and contacts to EU institutions) and 4) the parliamentary infrastructure in EU affairs (role of parliamentary administrations, recruitment and socialisation).
The project constitutes a joint endeavour of Sciences Po Paris, University of Cologne, Cambridge University and Maastricht University. Katrin Auel leads the team at Sciences Po together with Olivier Rozenberg.
Duration: June 2011 – Mai 2014
Funding: Open Research Area in Europe for the Social Sciences (ORA) (funded jointly by DFG, NWO, ANR and ESRC)
Output: Special issue of West European Politics, 2014 (eds. Katrin Auel/Thomas Christiansen) and several articles in peer reviewed journals (planned)
The project constitutes a joint endeavour of Sciences Po Paris, University of Cologne, Cambridge University and Maastricht University. Katrin Auel leads the team at Sciences Po together with Olivier Rozenberg.
Duration: June 2011 – Mai 2014
Funding: Open Research Area in Europe for the Social Sciences (ORA) (funded jointly by DFG, NWO, ANR and ESRC)
Output: Special issue of West European Politics, 2014 (eds. Katrin Auel/Thomas Christiansen) and several articles in peer reviewed journals (planned)
National Parliaments and Their Electorates in EU Affairs
Katrin Auel
Abstract
Over the last 20 years, the role of national parliaments in EU affairs has gained considerable academic attention. Much of the literature has focused on the parliamentary control function and suggested that national parliaments are no longer docile lambs willing to be led to the European slaughtering block, but exercise tighter scrutiny of their governments in EU affairs. What tends to be overlooked, however, is that the parliamentary communication function is at least as important in EU politics. Democratic legitimacy depends not only on parliamentary influence, but also on a vibrant public debate on political solutions and alternatives to allow citizens to make informed political (electoral) choices and to exercise democratic control. The project brings together a group of scholars analysing how parliaments, parliamentary party groups and individual MPs communicate ‘Europe’ and ‘link’ with their electorates in European affairs.
Funding: internal funding/Thyssen Foundation
Output: Special Issue of the Journal of Legislative Studies, 2014 (ed. Katrin Auel/Tapio Raunio)
Coalition forrmation in the European Union - A comparative analysis of initiatives to exert influence on European energy policy
Maren Becker
Short Description:
Within European energy policy, the European Commission has in recent years put enhanced emphasis on specific issues, namely the creation of the internal gas and electricity market, the adaptation to the threat of climate change, and the adoption of measures to ensure the security of energy supply. As a consequence, a variety of actors, either organized or, if already integrated in some kind of organizational form, adopted new strategies in order to influence the policy process in these fields. The organization of actors resulted on the one hand in different types of actor constellations, and, on the other hand, in different strategies the actors used to iinfluence EU decisions. With regard to actor constellations within the sphere of European energy policy, it can be observed that there is a tendency towards the formation of informal and semi-formal coalitions between actors from different political and societal levels. In terms of strategies selected by these coalitions, one can distinguish between those that are used to directly exchange information with political representatives and those that are intended to initiate public protest. On the basis of these observations the central research questions guiding this dissertation project are: Firstly, what are the factors leading to the formation of interest group coalitions in European energy policy? And secondly, what determines the strategies pursued by the coalition members to influence the EU policy process?
Duration: 10/2007-09/2011
Funding: Own funding/IHS allowance for research trips
Output: Doctoral dissertation
The Extreme Right and European Integration:
A Comparative Analysis of Right Wing Discourses and Actions on Europe in Austria, Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom
Manuela Caiani
Short Description:
The main goal of this project is to analyse how the extreme right reacts to European integration. Both Europeanization and the extreme right are significant phenomena in European politics of the 21st century. Many studies have indicated a decline in public support for the EU, together with growing protest targeting the EU and a decreasing of trust in European institutions. Additionally, internationalization processes are also mentioned as one of the main causes of the recent mobilization of the extreme right in Europe. Nevertheless, there has been scarce scientific attention to extreme right criticism of European integration so far, the few exceptions mostly focusing on electoral politics and political parties.
Adopting a social movement perspective, the project focuses on how the extreme right reacts to European integration. It looks at both frames (or ‘interpretative schemata’) and actions on Europe. In order to control for different actor resources and opportunity structures, the project compares different types of right-wing extremist organisations (political parties, political movements, and violent/subcultural skinhead organisations) in five countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom). The empirical approach of the project combines frame analysis of documents issued by extreme right organisations with semi-structured interviews among right-wing activists.
Adopting a social movement perspective, the project focuses on how the extreme right reacts to European integration. It looks at both frames (or ‘interpretative schemata’) and actions on Europe. In order to control for different actor resources and opportunity structures, the project compares different types of right-wing extremist organisations (political parties, political movements, and violent/subcultural skinhead organisations) in five countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom). The empirical approach of the project combines frame analysis of documents issued by extreme right organisations with semi-structured interviews among right-wing activists.
Duration: 01/2010 – 01/2012
Funding: IHS/envisaged application for external funding
Output: This project aims to produce several articles in international peer-reviewed journals.
Political Radicalisation using the Internet in Europe and the United States
Manuela Caiani
Short Description:
The main goal of this project is to analyse the potential role of the internet for extremist right-wing organisations, particularly with a view to identity formation, organisational contacts and mobilisation. Whereas these phenomena are very well-known and studied in relation to left-wing social movements, so far scarce scientific attention has been devoted to the extreme right and the internet.
In order to empirically investigate these different aspects of the potential role of the internet for extremist groups, the project employs two methods. (1) It conducts a comparative content analysis of web sites operated by radical right-wing organisations to address the communicative dimension of right-wing radicalization through the internet. The aim of this part of the project is to trace the specific use of the internet for diffusing propaganda, promoting ‘virtual communities’ of debate, raising funds, and for organising and mobilising political campaigns. (2) The project uses social network analysis, based on online links between right wing organisations, to investigate the organisational and potential mobilisational structure of the right-wing milieu in Europe. This second element of the empirical analysis seeks to establish whether there is a cyber community transcending national boundaries. The analysis centres on right-wing political parties and non-party organisations, even violent groups, in six selected countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. The project seeks to analyse and explain differences between different types of right-wing organisations and different countries and to discuss these against the background of available knowledge about the off-line reality.
In order to empirically investigate these different aspects of the potential role of the internet for extremist groups, the project employs two methods. (1) It conducts a comparative content analysis of web sites operated by radical right-wing organisations to address the communicative dimension of right-wing radicalization through the internet. The aim of this part of the project is to trace the specific use of the internet for diffusing propaganda, promoting ‘virtual communities’ of debate, raising funds, and for organising and mobilising political campaigns. (2) The project uses social network analysis, based on online links between right wing organisations, to investigate the organisational and potential mobilisational structure of the right-wing milieu in Europe. This second element of the empirical analysis seeks to establish whether there is a cyber community transcending national boundaries. The analysis centres on right-wing political parties and non-party organisations, even violent groups, in six selected countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. The project seeks to analyse and explain differences between different types of right-wing organisations and different countries and to discuss these against the background of available knowledge about the off-line reality.
Duration: 01/2010 – 01/2012
Funding: Partially externally funded by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), University of Maryland
Output: This project aims to produce an English book and two articles in international peer-reviewed journals.
‘Taking Sides’: A Comparison of Theorizing and Modelling Public Opinion on European Integration
Peter Grand
Short Description:
My dissertation project seeks to establish the relative explanatory power of different theoretical models explaining individual attitudes towards the European integration project. Although vast literature exists which addresses the issue of public opinion on European integration, no effort has hitherto been made to comprehensively compare these different models over a longer period of time and across countries. My research aims to close this gap. Methodologically, I employ a two-step multilevel strategy with an ordered logit model at the individual level and an OLS regression model with a FGLS (feasible generalized least squares) estimation procedure.
Duration: 10/2007-09/2011
Funding: IHS (stipend)
Output: Doctoral dissertation
Preference Formation and Electoral Behaviour in the European Political Space
Guido Tiemann
Short Description:
European integration was traditionally considered a depoliticized project where political elites agreed upon further integration steps that were subsequently endorsed by passive domestic electorates. The expansion and institutional transformation of the European Union, however, has caused an erosion of the “permissive consensus”. Since the early 1990s, European integration has developed into a highly contested matter in daily politics and media discourses of many member states. Research on opinion polls, party strategies and political behaviour of citizens in European elections or referendums provides a heterogeneous, often contradictory image of the European political space.
Against this background, the project aims at presenting a systematic, in-depth account of political conflict and political contestation over European integration. Focusing on both political preference formation and political behaviour, the integrated assessment rests on three principal research tasks that structure the project: (1) the micro-level model builds on the spatial theory of voting (as founded by the seminal contributions of Hotelling and Downs) and addresses the spatial determinants of voting behaviour in EP elections; (2) the linkage model provides an in-depth account of the interrelations between party elites and voters in EP elections and brings processes of preference formation back into the study of voting behaviour and party strategy, and (3) the macro-level model systematically explores the context-dependency of electoral behaviour, party competition, and party-voter linkages.
Against this background, the project aims at presenting a systematic, in-depth account of political conflict and political contestation over European integration. Focusing on both political preference formation and political behaviour, the integrated assessment rests on three principal research tasks that structure the project: (1) the micro-level model builds on the spatial theory of voting (as founded by the seminal contributions of Hotelling and Downs) and addresses the spatial determinants of voting behaviour in EP elections; (2) the linkage model provides an in-depth account of the interrelations between party elites and voters in EP elections and brings processes of preference formation back into the study of voting behaviour and party strategy, and (3) the macro-level model systematically explores the context-dependency of electoral behaviour, party competition, and party-voter linkages.
Duration: 03/2010-02/2013
Funding: Externally funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
Output:
The core project team comprises two doctoral researchers who will, in addition to their project work, pursue their own doctoral projects on topics related to the project. The envisaged doctoral dissertations will be submitted to international publishers. Additionally, the project team seeks to submit at least three articles to peer-reviewed journals. Based on an international workshop on substantial policy representation and voting behaviour in elections to the European Parliament, the project will also produce an edited volume to be submitted to a major international publisher. Moreover, the project’s dataset and coding schemes will be made available to the public so as to comply with the replication standards in modern social science.
The Two “Laws” of Electoral Systems
Guido Tiemann
Short Description:
More than twenty years ago William H. Riker (1982) favorably evaluated the scientific character of political research by reviewing the “cumulative” research process on “Duverger’s Law”, while more recent assessments still point to the “maturation” of electoral system research. This project challenges these confident assertions: (1) Empirical analyses regularly fail to meet the logic of Duverger’s original argument and, moreover, suffer from ecological contradictions. (2) Macro-level generalizations do not allow for the meaningful examination of alleged causal effects and do not enable researchers to systematically explore the context-dependency of electoral institutions, i.e. to account for different effects of identical electoral systems in “old” and in “new” democracies.
In contrast, the comparative analysis of district-level data in a comparative, multilevel framework opens up promising avenues for electoral research. The project builds on a rich, comparative dataset of district-level electoral returns from eighteen West European and eleven East European countries. The core findings both illustrate the forceful impact electoral systems exert on the number of candidates and offer substantive explanations for the context-dependency of the empirical estimates.
In contrast, the comparative analysis of district-level data in a comparative, multilevel framework opens up promising avenues for electoral research. The project builds on a rich, comparative dataset of district-level electoral returns from eighteen West European and eleven East European countries. The core findings both illustrate the forceful impact electoral systems exert on the number of candidates and offer substantive explanations for the context-dependency of the empirical estimates.
Duration: 09/2007-08/2012
Funding: IHS
Output:
The ongoing project aims at publishing at least three articles in peer-reviewed journals. The project data, coding schemes, and data sources will be made available to the public so as to comply with the replication standards in modern social science.
The Nationalization of Political Parties and Party Systems in Postcommunist Eastern Europe
Guido Tiemann
Short Description:
From a historical perspective, Eastern Europe has often been considered to be characterized by an outstanding level of territorial heterogeneity. Following the breakup of the Hapsburg Empire after World War I, the region saw the establishment of many weakly-founded nation-states. However, while Central and Eastern Europe was one of the most diverse regions in ethnic, social, religious, and linguistic terms, the picture dramatically changed with the outbreak of World War II. Above all, ethnic cleansing and expulsion resulted in more homogenous, but still weak and dependent nation-states. Moreover, the territories of Eastern Europe succumbed to bureaucratic, centralized communist rule. Hence, the heterogeneous societies of Eastern Europe met with a centralized communist political system that, due to political and ideological reasons, aimed at their radical leveling and standardization. Finally, “stateness” again became a crucial issue after the collapse of communism when the major federalist states in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, disintegrated and new political entities were constructed or reconstructed.
This project provides a systematic empirical assessment of party and/or party system homogeneity or heterogeneity in postcommunist Eastern Europe. It discusses a set of macrosociological and institutional factors determining the degree of party and party system nationalization such as social diversity, legacies of the communist Anciens Régimes, electoral systems, and federalism. The project proposes an integrated model of cross-sectional effects, temporal effects, and electoral volatility. In methodological terms, the analysis relies on variance components and multilevel statistical models so as to distinguish between causal factors originating at the district level, the party level, and the national level.
This project provides a systematic empirical assessment of party and/or party system homogeneity or heterogeneity in postcommunist Eastern Europe. It discusses a set of macrosociological and institutional factors determining the degree of party and party system nationalization such as social diversity, legacies of the communist Anciens Régimes, electoral systems, and federalism. The project proposes an integrated model of cross-sectional effects, temporal effects, and electoral volatility. In methodological terms, the analysis relies on variance components and multilevel statistical models so as to distinguish between causal factors originating at the district level, the party level, and the national level.
Duration: 09/2007-08/2012
Funding: IHS
Output:
A co-authored book project will be submitted within the next year. Moreover, two articles (one focusing predominantly on substantive issues, the other on methodological questions) will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals.
The European Union and Its Citizens
Guido Tiemann (with Oliver Treib, Andreas Wimmel)
Short Description:
This is a collaborative publication project aiming to produce a German-language textbook on ‘The European Union and Its Citizens’. The book examines the attitudes of EU citizens vis-à-vis the integration project and their voting behaviour in EU-related elections and referendums. While a number of introductions into the political system of the EU are available, a thorough analysis of the increasingly strained relationship between the European Union and its citizens is still missing.
Three dimensions of this relationship will be discussed: (1) the political attitudes of citizens towards European integration as they can be derived from mass survey data, (2) the voting behaviour of citizens in elections to the European Parliament and issues of political representation, and (3) the voting behaviour of citizens in national referendums on questions of European integration. The target audience of the book includes students and scholars of European integration studies, journalists, politicians, teachers and, last but not least, all citizens who are interested in EU politics.
Three dimensions of this relationship will be discussed: (1) the political attitudes of citizens towards European integration as they can be derived from mass survey data, (2) the voting behaviour of citizens in elections to the European Parliament and issues of political representation, and (3) the voting behaviour of citizens in national referendums on questions of European integration. The target audience of the book includes students and scholars of European integration studies, journalists, politicians, teachers and, last but not least, all citizens who are interested in EU politics.
Duration: 01/2009 – 12/2010
Funding: IHS
Output:
This project aims to produce a German-language textbook and three articles in international peer-reviewed journals.
International Governance and Domestic Politics: Do Parties Matter Beyond the Nation State?
Oliver Treib, Nataliya Gudz, Saskia Blatakes
Short Description:
This project sets out to analyze the role of domestic party politics in shaping government positions in international negotiations. Research on domestic politics has firmly established that political parties matter in shaping public policy within the nation state. Yet, relatively little work has hitherto been devoted to the question of whether and to what extent the parties-do-matter argument also holds for governance beyond the nation state.
To answer this question, the project seeks to establish, through qualitative content analysis of press coverage and expert interviews, the effect of changing party political constellations of government on (1) the government positions of two major European countries, France and Germany, (2) towards two of the most contested issues in recent international regulation, climate change policy and the reduction of agricultural subsidies, (3) in two different governance arenas, the European Union and the global level, (4) over a period of 20 years (1990–2009).
To answer this question, the project seeks to establish, through qualitative content analysis of press coverage and expert interviews, the effect of changing party political constellations of government on (1) the government positions of two major European countries, France and Germany, (2) towards two of the most contested issues in recent international regulation, climate change policy and the reduction of agricultural subsidies, (3) in two different governance arenas, the European Union and the global level, (4) over a period of 20 years (1990–2009).
Duration: 02/2009 – 01/2012
Funding: Externally funded by the Austrian National Bank’s Jubilee Fund
Output:
This project aims to produce an English-language book to be submitted to a major international publisher and two or three articles in international peer-reviewed journals.
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