Campaign Effects and Second-Order Cycles
| Author | Till Weber |
| Published date | 01 December 2007 |
| Date | 01 December 2007 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1465116507082812 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Campaign Effects and
Second-Order Cycles
A Top-Down Approach to European
Parliament Elections
Till Weber
European University Institute, Italy
ABSTRACT
Second-order elections theory explains cyclical losses by
national government parties in elections to the European
Parliament (EP) through strategic protest voting owing to
performance deficits in policy-making. This paper confronts
the conventional bottom-up view with a top-down approach
to second-order elections. Ultimately, the electoral cycle is
driven not by instrumental voting behaviour but by party
strategies oriented towards governmental power in the
member states of the European Union. Based on survey data
from the European Election Studies of 1999 and 2004, first-
order campaign mobilization is shown to determine the
prospects of government parties in second-order elections.
Mobilization itself depends on the quality of spatial repre-
sentation in terms of distinct programmatic alternatives,
which governments are unable to provide during the
midterm. Although this process can be traced on the
left–right dimension, parties prevent it with regard to inte-
gration issues by systematic demobilization. After all, EP
elections are still second order, but first-order politics exert
their influence through cyclical campaign mobilization and
not through strategic protest voting.
509
European Union Politics
DOI: 10.1177/1465116507082812
Volume 8 (4): 509–536
Copyright© 2007
SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London, New Delhi
and Singapore
KEY WORDS
campaign mobilization
electoral cycle
European Parliament
elections
second-order elections
theory
spatial representation
Introduction
Voting behaviour in elections to the European Parliament (EP) is motivated
by national rather than European concerns. This so-called second-order thesis
has enjoyed high popularity in electoral research since Reif and Schmitt came
up with the initial idea in 1980. According to their conceptual framework,
voters use EP elections to voice dissatisfaction with their government’s
performance by strategic protest voting. As this behaviour is said to reflect
the curves of government popularity, it explains the typical second-order
effect. The results of EP elections follow the national electoral cycles, with
government parties losing support in a systematic manner.
The second-order elections model comprises two important elements:
the general ‘multi-level’ argument relating EP elections to national politics,
and the specific ‘protest’ argument explaining exactly how this dependency
affects election results. Whereas the ‘multi-level’ argument remains un-
disputed, this paper questions the ‘protest’ argument upon which the widely
accepted micro-foundations of second-order elections theory rest. The
conventional bottom-up view focusing on strategic voting behaviour is
confronted with a top-down model of the electoral cycle in which the effects
of domestic party competition are of crucial importance. The central
argument is threefold.
First of all, voters do not produce second-order cycles at their discretion.
Rather, their behaviour is animated by first-order campaign effects. Whereas
in the run-up to national elections parties mobilize their voters by means of
information and persuasion, the mobilization deficit at the midterm provokes
higher defection rates. Secondly, mobilization itself depends on the quality of
spatial representation in terms of distinct programmatic alternatives. Only if
parties fulfil this leadership function are voters willing to follow them. Finally,
with their programmatic flexibility restricted by retrospective evaluations at
the midterm, national government parties do not have the mobilization
capacity at their disposal to avoid defeat by the opposition.
In the following these arguments will be further elaborated. First I
describe the conventional second-order theory and develop the alternative
approach in detail. Then I set up a model accounting for mobilization effects
with regard to left–right and integration issues. This model consists of three
parts: the first dealing with cyclical information flows; the second with
patterns of spatial representation; and the third with underlying processes of
persuasion and opinion polarization. Finally I perform a stepwise test of the
model with survey data from the European Election Studies (EES) of 1999
and 20041and interpret the statistical results.
European Union Politics 8(4)
510
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