Do Spitzenkandidaten really make a difference? An experiment on the effectiveness of personalized European Parliament election campaigns
| Author | Franziska Marquart,Katjana Gattermann |
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1465116520938148 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Do Spitzenkandidaten
really make a difference?
An experiment on
the effectiveness of
personalized European
Parliament election
campaigns
Katjana Gattermann
Amsterdam School of Communication Research,
Department of Communication Science, University of
Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Franziska Marquart
Amsterdam School of Communication Research,
Department of Communication Science, University of
Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Abstract
This article investigates the impact of pan-European candidates in European Parliament
election campaigns. It focusses on the two 2019 nominees for the European Greens,who
were Dutch and German, respectively. We conducted a pre-registered experiment in the
Netherlands and Germany in early April 2019 to test the effects of (non-)personalized
campaign posters on (a) turnout intention and (b) vote intention for the Greens alongside
possible mediating effects of campaign and candidate evaluations.Our results suggest that
while personalized campaigns as opposed to non-personalized campaigns may not matter
per se for turnout and vote intention, individual candidates can make a difference in
European elections, particularly with respect to vote intention. As such, the results have
important implications for our understanding of European Parliament election campaigns.
Corresponding author:
Katjana Gattermann, Amsterdam School of Communication Research, Department of Communication
Science, University of Amsterdam, PO Box 15793, 1001 NG Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Email: k.gattermann@uva.nl
European Union Politics
2020, Vol. 21(4) 612–633
!The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1465116520938148
journals.sagepub.com/home/eup
Keywords
Elections, European Union, experiment, personalization of politics, voting behaviour
Introduction
With the introduction of the Spitzenkandidaten procedure during the 2014
European Parliament (EP) elections, by which major European party
families put forward pan-European lead candidates for the Presidency of the
European Commission (EC), the EP sought to raise voter awareness and partici-
pation.
1
Five years later, the EP appeared even more enthusiastic, considering ‘that
in 2014 the “Spitzenkandidaten” process proved to be a success’ and arguing that
the personalization of the election campaign would enhance transparency and
foster ‘political awareness of European citizens’.
2
For the 2019 EP elections,
seven Spitzenkandidaten alongside a team of lead candidates were put forward.
Ursula von der Leyen’s later election as EC president challenged the
Spitzenkandidaten procedure, as she had not been standing in the elections.
Yet, the question remains whether the personalization of the campaigns succeeded
in influencing European voters.
Personalization is defined as a process by which the focus increasingly shifts
onto individual politicians at the expense of political parties. This shift may
become apparent in politics itself, campaigning, voting behaviour or media cover-
age (e.g., Garzia, 2014; Kriesi, 2012; Rahat and Sheafer, 2007). According to
political scientists, personalization has emerged in response to declining voter turn-
out, partisan dealignment and an increase in electoral volatility in developed coun-
tries since the Second World War (e.g., Dalton and Wattenberg, 2000; Garzia,
2014). Research on the 2014 EP elections found a positive correlation between
Spitzenkandidaten’s campaign intensity and voter turnout in European Union
(EU) member states (Schmitt et al., 2015). However, awareness of the
Spitzenkandidaten was low (Popa et al., 2020; Schmitt et al., 2015), which may,
for example, be attributable to the lacklustre campaigns of national parties (Braun
and Schwarzb€
ozl, 2019) and considerable cross-country variation in media cover-
age about the candidates (Schulze, 2016). We aim to shed light on the alleged
impact of the Spitzenkandidaten in EP elections and ask: What are the effects of
personalized EP election campaigns centred on Spitzenkandidaten on (a) turnout
intention and (b) vote intention?
Despite the growing literature on the effects of candidate and leader evaluations
on electoral behaviour (e.g., Garzia, 2014; Lobo and Curtice, 2014; Silva, 2018), we
know little about the effects of personalized campaign efforts. Personalization can
be manifest in various campaign tools, including constituency campaign style (e.g.,
Gschwend and Zittel, 2015), door-to-door canvassing (e.g., Giebler and Wu
¨st,
2011), election posters (e.g., Vliegenthart, 2012), campaign websites (e.g.,
Kruikemeier et al., 2013) and social media activities (e.g., Kruikemeier, 2014).
In this article, we focus on election posters. We define a personalized campaign
Gattermann and Marquart 613
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