IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v6y2005i2p201-221.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘Second-order’ versus ‘Issue-voting’ Effects in EU Referendums

Author

Listed:
  • John Garry

    (Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, j.garry@qub.ac.uk)

  • Michael Marsh

    (Trinity College Dublin, Republic of Ireland, mmarsh@tcd.ie)

  • Richard Sinnott

    (University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Richard.Sinnott@ucd.ie)

Abstract

Are referendums on EU treaties decided by voters’ attitudes to Europe (the ‘issue-voting’ explanation) or by voters’ attitudes to their national political parties and incumbent national government (the ‘second-order election model’ explanation)? In one scenario, these referendums will approximate to deliberative processes that will be decided by people’s views of the merits of European integration. In the other scenario, they will be plebiscites on the performance of national governments. We test the two competing explanations of the determinants of voting in EU referendums using evidence from the two Irish referendums on the Nice Treaty. We find that the issue-voting model outperforms the second-order model in both referendums. However, we also find that issue-voting was particularly important in the more salient and more intense second referendum. Most strikingly, attitudes to EU enlargement were much stronger predictors of vote at Nice 2 than at Nice 1. This finding about the rise in importance of attitudes to the EU points to the importance of campaigning in EU referendums.

Suggested Citation

  • John Garry & Michael Marsh & Richard Sinnott, 2005. "‘Second-order’ versus ‘Issue-voting’ Effects in EU Referendums," European Union Politics, , vol. 6(2), pages 201-221, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:6:y:2005:i:2:p:201-221
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116505051983
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116505051983
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116505051983?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. MARK FRANKLIN & MICHAEL MARSH & LAUREN McLAREN, 1994. "Uncorking the Bottle: Popular Opposition to European Unification in the Wake of Maastricht," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(4), pages 455-472, December.
    2. Marsh, Michael, 1998. "Testing the Second-Order Election Model after Four European Elections," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 591-607, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. James Tilley & Christopher Wlezien, 2008. "Does Political Information Matter? An Experimental Test Relating to Party Positions on Europe," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56(1), pages 192-214, March.
    2. Italo Colantone & Livio Di Lonardo & Yotam Margalit & Marco Percoco, 2022. "The Political Consequences of Green Policies: Evidence from Italy," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 22176, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    3. Stefano Camatarri & Francesco Zucchini, 2019. "Government coalitions and Eurosceptic voting in the 2014 European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 425-446, September.
    4. Nadia Fiorino & Nicola Pontarollo & Roberto Ricciuti, 2016. "Voter Turnout in European Parliament Elections: A Spatial Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 5910, CESifo.
    5. Manow, Philip & Döring, Holger, 2006. "Divided Government European Style? Electoral and Mechanical Causes of European Parliament and Council Divisions," MPIfG Discussion Paper 06/8, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    6. Rene Lindstadt, Jonathan B. Slapin & Ryan J. Vander Wielen, 2009. "Balancing Competing Demands: Position-Taking and Election Proximity in the European Parliament," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp295, IIIS.
    7. Johan A. Elkink & David M. Farrell & Theresa Reidy & Jane Suiter, 2015. "Understanding the 2015 Marriage Referendum in Ireland: Constitutional Convention, Campaign, and Conservative Ireland," Working Papers 201521, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    8. Nikoleta Yordanova, 2009. "The Rationale behind Committee Assignment in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 10(2), pages 253-280, June.
    9. Noah Carl & James Dennison & Geoffrey Evans, 2019. "European but not European enough: An explanation for Brexit," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(2), pages 282-304, June.
    10. Bert N Bakker & Claes H de Vreese, 2016. "Personality and European Union attitudes: Relationships across European Union attitude dimensions," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(1), pages 25-45, March.
    11. Daniel Stockemer, 2012. "Citizens’ support for the European Union and participation in European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(1), pages 26-46, March.
    12. Tridimas, George, 2007. "Ratification through referendum or parliamentary vote: When to call a non-required referendum?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 674-692, September.
    13. John Curtice, 2017. "Why Leave Won the UK's EU Referendum," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55, pages 19-37, September.
    14. Vassilis Tselios & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2020. "Did Decentralisation Affect Citizens’ Perception of the European Union? The Impact during the Height of Decentralisation in Europe," Economies, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-26, May.
    15. Colantone, Italo & Di Lonardo, Livio & Margalit, Yotan & Percoco, Marco, 2022. "The Political Consequences of Green Policies: Evidence from Italy," FEEM Working Papers 327326, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    16. Geeyoung Hong, 2015. "Explaining vote switching to niche parties in the 2009 European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(4), pages 514-535, December.
    17. Emilian DOBRESCU, 2021. "Potential Output: A Market Conditionalities Interpretation," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(4), pages 5-38, December.
    18. James S Fishkin & Robert C Luskin & Alice Siu, 2014. "Europolis and the European public sphere: Empirical explorations of a counterfactual ideal," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(3), pages 328-351, September.
    19. Netjes, Catherine E. & Edwards, Erica, 2005. "Taking Europe to its extremes: Examining cueing effects of right-wing populist parties on public opinion regarding European integration," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Democracy and Democratization SP IV 2005-202, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    20. Robert Rohrschneider & Stephen Whitefield, 2016. "Responding to growing European Union-skepticism? The stances of political parties toward European integration in Western and Eastern Europe following the financial crisis," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(1), pages 138-161, March.

    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:sae:eeupol:v:6:y:2005:i:2:p:201-221. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.