IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v8y2020i1p41-49.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Competition in the European Arena: How the Rules of the Game Help Nationalists Gain

Author

Listed:
  • Zoe Lefkofridi

    (Department of Political Science and Salzburg Center of European Studies, University of Salzburg, Austria)

Abstract

Why does the European election fail to produce competition between European policy alternatives despite the increased politicization of European integration and efforts to connect election results to the Commission Presidency via the Spitzenkandidaten process? In this article I theorize the European arena’s incentive structure for political competition by synthesizing Strøm’s (1990) behavioral theory of competitive parties (votes, office, policy) and Bartolini’s (1999, 2000) four dimensions of electoral competition (contestability, availability, decidability, and incumbent vulnerability). I model EU decidability (party differentials on EU policy) and formulate specific expectations about party differentiation by considering parties’ vote-, office-, and policy-seeking motives under the European arena’s specific conditions. How parties behave under the specific incentive structure of the European arena matters for the EU’s development as a polity.

Suggested Citation

  • Zoe Lefkofridi, 2020. "Competition in the European Arena: How the Rules of the Game Help Nationalists Gain," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 41-49.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v8:y:2020:i:1:p:41-49
    DOI: 10.17645/pag.v8i1.2517
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2517
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/pag.v8i1.2517?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hermann Schmitt & Alberto Sanz & Daniela Braun & Eftichia Teperoglou, 2020. "It All Happens at Once: Understanding Electoral Behaviour in Second-Order Elections," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 6-18.
    2. Zoe Lefkofridi & Alexia Katsanidou, 2018. "A Step Closer to a Transnational Party System? Competition and Coherence in the 2009 and 2014 European Parliament," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(6), pages 1462-1482, September.
    3. Simon Hix & Amie Kreppel & Abdul Noury, 2003. "The Party System in the European Parliament: Collusive or Competitive?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 309-331, April.
    4. Gilles Pittoors, 2020. "Living Apart Together? The Organization of Political Parties beyond the Nation-State: The Flemish Case," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 50-60.
    5. Tim Heinkelmann-Wild & Lisa Kriegmair & Berthold Rittberger, 2020. "The EU Multi-Level System and the Europeanization of Domestic Blame Games," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 85-94.
    6. Hermann Schmitt & Alberto Sanz & Daniela Braun & Eftichia Teperoglou, 2020. "It All Happens at Once: Understanding Electoral Behaviour in Second-Order Elections," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 6-18.
    7. Gilles Pittoors, 2020. "Living Apart Together? The Organization of Political Parties beyond the Nation-State: The Flemish Case," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 50-60.
    8. Tim Heinkelmann-Wild & Lisa Kriegmair & Berthold Rittberger, 2020. "The EU Multi-Level System and the Europeanization of Domestic Blame Games," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 85-94.
    9. Hix, Simon & Noury, Abdul & Roland, Gérard, 2005. "Power to the Parties: Cohesion and Competition in the European Parliament, 1979–2001," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 209-234, April.
    10. McElroy, Gail & Benoit, Kenneth, 2010. "Party Policy and Group Affiliation in the European Parliament," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(2), pages 377-398, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joost Berkhout & Marcel Hanegraaff & Patrick Statsch, 2020. "Interest Groups in Multi-Level Contexts: European Integration as Cross-Cutting Issue in Party-Interest Group Contacts," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 61-71.
    2. Daniela Braun & Martin Gross & Berthold Rittberger, 2020. "Political Behavior in the EU Multi-Level System," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 1-5.
    3. Zoe Lefkofridi & Nathalie Giger, 2020. "Democracy or Oligarchy? Unequal Representation of Income Groups in European Institutions," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 19-27.
    4. Eva-Maria Euchner & Elena Frech, 2020. "Candidate Selection and Parliamentary Activity in the EU’s Multi-Level System: Opening a Black-Box," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 72-84.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zoe Lefkofridi, 2020. "Competition in the European Arena: How the Rules of the Game Help Nationalists Gain," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 41-49.
    2. Daniela Braun & Martin Gross & Berthold Rittberger, 2020. "Political Behavior in the EU Multi-Level System," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 1-5.
    3. Daniela Braun & Martin Gross & Berthold Rittberger, 2020. "Political Behavior in the EU Multi-Level System," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 1-5.
    4. Edoardo Bressanelli & Christel Koop & Christine Reh, 2016. "The impact of informalisation: Early agreements and voting cohesion in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(1), pages 91-113, March.
    5. Heike Klüver & Iñaki Sagarzazu, 2013. "Ideological congruency and decision-making speed: The effect of partisanship across European Union institutions," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 388-407, September.
    6. Daniela Braun & Markus Tausendpfund, 2020. "Electoral Behaviour in a European Union under Stress," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 28-40.
    7. Bjorn Hoyland, 2006. "Allocation of Codecision Reports in the Fifth European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 7(1), pages 30-50, March.
    8. Gerda Falkner & Georg Plattner, 2020. "EU Policies and Populist Radical Right Parties' Programmatic Claims: Foreign Policy, Anti‐discrimination and the Single Market," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(3), pages 723-739, May.
    9. Eva-Maria Euchner & Elena Frech, 2020. "Candidate Selection and Parliamentary Activity in the EU’s Multi-Level System: Opening a Black-Box," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 72-84.
    10. James Lo, 2018. "Dynamic ideal point estimation for the European Parliament, 1980–2009," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 229-246, July.
    11. Eva-Maria Euchner & Elena Frech, 2020. "Candidate Selection and Parliamentary Activity in the EU’s Multi-Level System: Opening a Black-Box," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 72-84.
    12. Fang-Yi Chiou & Silje SL Hermansen & Bjørn Høyland, 2020. "Delegation of committee reports in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(2), pages 233-254, June.
    13. Christian B. Jensen & Jonathan Slapin & Thomas König, 2007. "Who Calls for a Common EU Foreign Policy?," European Union Politics, , vol. 8(3), pages 387-410, September.
    14. David M Willumsen, 2018. "The Council’s REACH? National governments’ influence in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(4), pages 663-683, December.
    15. René Lindstädt & Jonathan B Slapin & Ryan J Vander Wielen, 2012. "Adaptive behaviour in the European Parliament: Learning to balance competing demands," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(4), pages 465-486, December.
    16. Joost Berkhout & Marcel Hanegraaff & Patrick Statsch, 2020. "Interest Groups in Multi-Level Contexts: European Integration as Cross-Cutting Issue in Party-Interest Group Contacts," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 61-71.
    17. Steffen Hurka, 2013. "Changing the output: The logic of amendment success in the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(2), pages 273-296, June.
    18. Bjørn Høyland & Indraneel Sircar & Simon Hix, 2009. "Forum Section," European Union Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 143-152, March.
    19. Anna A. Dekalchuk & Aleksandra Khokhlova & Dmitriy Skougarevskiy, 2016. "National or European Politicians? Gauging MEPs Polarity When Russia is Concerned," HSE Working papers WP BRP 35/PS/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    20. Fraccaroli, Nicolò & Giovannini, Alessandro & Jamet, Jean-François & Persson, Eric, 2022. "Ideology and monetary policy. The role of political parties’ stances in the European Central Bank’s parliamentary hearings," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v8:y:2020:i:1:p:41-49. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.