Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

3-2012

Abstract

Party politics in the European Parliament (EP) consists of competition between transnational party groups, each consisting of multiple national member parties from the 27 member states of the European Union (EU). Identifying the policy space that these parties inhabit and their ideological positions is both practically and conceptually challenging. In this article we characterize this policy competition by tracking EP political groups from three separate, original expert surveys taken in 2004, 2007 and 2010. We look at the relative positioning of the groups on multiple dimensions of policy, as well as changes in party group policy since 2004. Additionally, we characterize the policy cohesion of party groups by examining the relative positions of each group’s constituent parties, using independent national-level expert surveys. The results reinforce previous findings that EP party groups occupy the entire range of the left–right spectrum and, moreover, that their national party makeup consists of parties that are broadly cohesive in terms of their policy locations.

Keywords

Party Competition, Policy Positions, European Parliament, Expert Surveys

Discipline

Eastern European Studies | Political Science | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

Research Areas

Political Science

Publication

European Union Politics

Volume

13

Issue

1

First Page

150

Last Page

167

ISSN

1465-1165

Identifier

10.1177/1465116511416680

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1177/1465116511416680

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