Participation in elections to the European Parliament: An econometric analysis of the effects of...

PRIAD Policy Paper October 2014

Participation in elections to the European Parliament

An econometric analysis of the effects of media mobilisation and social capital on voter turnout

José Luengo-Cabrera, Nakita Patel & David Schlosberg

Abstract

Characterised by significantly low turnouts, elections to the European Parliament (EP) have been dubbed as being of ‘second-order’ due to their inferior importance vis-à-vis national elections. Previous research shows that although they determine the composition of a supranational parliament, the underlying motivational drivers for participation reside in the domestic realm. For this particular reason, we base our investigation on national attitudinal indicators considered to have a predominant influence on EP voting behaviour. We yield an econometric model to measure the magnitude and significance that a combination of socio-economic factors had on the turnout outcome of the 2004 United Kingdom (UK) elections to the EP. By evaluating the effects of media mobilisation and social capital on voter turnout, we explore the policy responses that could contribute to an increase in the quality of representative democracy in future EP elections, particularly in an ostensibly Eurosceptic country like the UK.

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Introduction

‘European elections are additional national second-order elections. They are determined more by

the domestic political cleavages than by alternatives originating in the European Community.’

Reif & Schmitt (1980:3)

Characterised by significantly low turnouts, elections to the European Parliament (EP) have been

dubbed as being of ‘second-order’ due to their inferior importance vis-à-vis national elections

(Reif & Schmitt 1980). Previous research (Reif 1984; Van der Eijk & Franklin 1996; Van der

Brug et al. 2007; Hix & Marsh 2011; Hobolt & Wittrock 2011) shows that although they

determine the composition of a supranational parliament, the underlying motivational drivers for

participation in EP elections reside in the domestic realm. For this particular reason, we base our

investigation on national attitudinal indicators considered to have a predominant influence on

EP voting behaviour.

Using data from the 2005 British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, we yield an econometric model

to measure the magnitude and significance that a combination of socio-economic factors had on

the turnout outcome of the 2004 United Kingdom (UK) elections to the EP. While we include

some variables that are prominent throughout the literature, the focus is on the relationship

between media mobilisation, social capital and voter turnout. Our results show that greater levels

of media mobilisation and social capital increased the likelihood of voter participation. We will

therefore propose the conjecture that they are important vehicles for boosting participation in

future EP elections, particularly in an ostensibly Eurosceptic1 country like the UK, where the

potential for increased participation is greatest.

1 See The Economist “Why Britain is so Eurosceptic” 3rd March 2014

http://www.natcen.ac.uk/our-research/research/british-social-attitudes/

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/03/economist-explains-1

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Measured in terms of valid votes as a percentage of the registered electorate, the average

historical turnout for the UK elections to the EP is 33.8% (1979-2014). In the most recent EP

elections of 2004, 2009 and 2014, voter turnout was 38.2%, 34.7% and 35.6%2, respectively -

with 2004 being the year marking the highest turnout since the UK’s first participation in 1979.

However, these figures remain significantly low compared to national ones. With an average

historical rate of 70% (1970-2010), voter turnout to the most recent UK general elections of

2001 (59.5%), 2005 (61.4%) and 2010 (65.1%)3 demonstrate that EP elections fall short of being

democratically representative. This investigation will explore the nature of the discrepancy

between voter turnout at national and European elections, with a particular focus on the positive

externalities derived from implementing policies that increase the levels of media mobilisation

and social capital at a time of asserted EU-wide political apathy (Bilska 2009; Malkopoulou 2009;

Delwit 2013).

This paper is organized as follows. First, we will provide a literature review on the determinants

of political participation, followed by an exploration of the prevalent theories on voting

behaviour - with particular attention to the way in which media mobilisation and social capital

play a role in prompting voters to the polls. As we set the ground in mapping out the factors that

appear to be salient drivers of voter participation, we provide a diagnostic of our dataset and

guide readers through a breakdown of the variables of interest. Subsequently, we introduce our

econometric model and present the results. We then scrutinize the robustness and external

validity of our model; stressing the underlying caveat that although the use of statistics to

evaluate the nature of political processes and inform policymaking is at best imperfect - it is a

useful tool nonetheless. By highlighting the possible biases emanating from the statistical

limitations of our dataset, we attempt to provide a qualitative reasoning as to why we believe our

2 European Parliament, turnout to EP elections by year and country. 3 UK Political info, general election turnout 1945-2010.

http://www.resultselections2014.eu/en/turnout.htm

ttp://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

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model has a certain degree of empirical legitimacy. Finally, we turn to formulating policy

recommendations. We suggest a series of policies that European governments could implement

to augment voter participation in future EP elections. We conclude with the evaluative idea that

the European Union (EU) continues to suffer from a ‘democratic deficit’ (Crombez 2003; Peter

& de Vreese 2004), thereby implying that there is much room for improvement, particularly in

light of the viability to boost voter participation via policies tailored to enhance citizenry

knowledge of the EU and the role they can play as active regulators of the EU’s decision-making

power.

On the determinants of political participation: theory & evidence

The concept of political participation is one which has generated a vast amount of debate

among political scientists; not only by the crucial role that it plays in any society, but by the

difficulty in conceptualizing it and, most importantly, quantifying it. Political participation can be

defined as “the actions by which individuals take part in the political process” (Axford et al.

2002:120) yet this clearly indicates that the term is ambiguous, especially when we question what

we mean by action and what could in actual fact be considered as political.

Regardless of the diverse views on human nature, it is undeniable that any individual citizen

seeks, at the very least, security and well-being. In turn, political participation may be seen as a

natural stimulus that is incited whenever societal well-being has deteriorated or is threatened by

the actions of the governing elite. In the context of any established democracy whereby its

individuals have tacitly given their consent to abide by a social contract and be ruled by a

government responsible for the well-functioning of a society, the “collective endeavour to

promote change in any direction and, by any means, not excluding violence or illegality” (Benny

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2003:165) is the way in which citizens mobilise to influence public policy whenever their rights

and freedoms are not being guaranteed by the government.

Any citizen within a democracy has the right to partake in politics. Whether citizens get involved

with a political party or participate in demonstrations, the scope for political engagement is

extensive, but the ability to measure its intensity is rather limited. While the “relative strengths of

political parties can be measured by their electoral performance, the strength or influence of

social movements is more difficult to quantify” (Benny 2003:165). Therefore, it is the

quantification of participatory levels that poses a major obstacle and this is highly correlated with

the difficulty to define it.

In this investigation, political participation will be defined as any sort of social movement

whereby individuals congregate and act together to engender change or preserve the status-quo

in their society. The problem remains, as aforementioned, that given the ambiguous scope of its

definition, it becomes elusive to quantify. Fortunately though, electoral participation appears as a

subset that facilitates measurement given that statistical data on voter turnout can be collected. A

fundamental question therefore lies in the analysis of how many citizens (out of the total

population) vote and why. This will often depend on a multitude of factors that may influence

citizens’ proclivity to be politically active. Undoubtedly then, personal or collective endowments

such as levels of education, living standards and the degree of citizens’ reliance on the delivery of

public goods will tend to determine their propensities to participate in politics. In turn, factors

such as social exclusion or injustice may prompt a sudden surge in political protest in the form

of a collective gripe for change. Political participation may then be considered as a dependant

variable on a number of socio-economic factors that precondition and influence its intensity.

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The question regarding political efficacy may largely determine why individuals may decide to

engage in politics (McCluskey et al. 2004). In addition, the influence of an overtly devoted welfare

state may incline citizens to be incrementally passive (Hvinden & Johansson 2007). Activeness in

politics is then a matter of social stimuli that will tend to determine the degree to which individuals

partake in politics - either to demand change in policies or to preserve the prevailing modes of

governance. Any given stimulus with a threshold strong enough to enable individuals to become

politically active may then alternate the levels of political participation (McCluskey et al. 2004).

Public policies, the discretionary power of an elected government or rational economic interests

may be important drivers for citizens to become active participants in political processes.

Nowadays, with an overwhelming majority of states being democratic, political scientists are

concerned with the health of democracies – the amount of regular input that citizens are able to

provide so as to ensure the accountability and effectiveness of those granted the power to

govern.

The allegedly deteriorating health of European democracies can be approximately evidenced by

the considerable decline in voter turnout across countries in both national and EP elections -

with the latter demonstrating a steeper declining trend, as shown in Figure I. Measured by the

degree of prevailing “social networks, norms and trust that enable participants to act together

more effectively to pursue shared objectives” (Putnam 1994: 664); social capital seems to have

declined in Europe. The idea is that European citizens seem to have become increasingly

individualistic and apathetic. They appear to have become decreasingly active in social

congregations, thereby weakening the potential for collective action (Olson 1965).

http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/1059

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Figure I

Voter turnout to national & European parliamentary elections, 1979 - 2014

Note: EU= EU member states pre-2004 accession. EP (European Parliamentary), NP (National Parliamentary) elections.4

Source: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (2014), Voter Turnout Database

However, this evaluation of a progressive decline in political participation suffers from inter-

temporal inconsistency. Indeed, there has been an evident revival in political participation across

Europe in the wake of events triggered by the recent financial crisis, with European citizens

mobilising against austerity policies at a time of anaemic economic growth and excessive public

debt. This may explain the post-2009 flattening in the EU average EP curve in Figure I.

In spite of the increasing role played by the EU in all aspects of European citizens’ lives, the

power to implement economic and social policy remains largely within the purview of national

authorities. As a result, citizens continue to view their governments as the primary sovereign

agents in the realm of policymaking, thereby perceiving the EP as a supra-national legislative

body whose authority is subordinate. As a result, EP elections are generally not considered of

primordial importance and this is evidenced by the significantly low historical turnouts in EP

4 Given the variance in electoral calendars across pre-2004 accession EU member states, authors selected national electoral dates as close as possible to the EP election dates, within 8 time periods between 1979 and 2014.

30

40

50

60

70

80

1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014

% V

ote

r T

urn

ou

t

EU average EP

EU average NP

http://www.idea.int/vt/viewdata.cfm

http://www.tni.org/article/european-spring-2013-new-beginning

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polls relative to turnout in national elections (except for the cases of Luxembourg, Belgium,

Greece (and Cyprus); where voting is compulsory) - as shown in Figure II. Acknowledging this

reality, a considerable amount of literature has been centred on the nature of voting at EP

elections. In complement, our investigation will focus on the determinants of voter turnout at

EP elections, with particular attention to the positive externalities generated by increased levels

of media mobilisation and social capital.

Figure II

Turnout in elections to the European Parliament by country (1979-99)

No. of EP elections Turnout in EP elections Turnout in national elections Difference

Sweden 2 40.2% 80.8% -40.6

United Kingdom 5 32.3% 72.1% -29.8

Denmark 5 49.4% 88.3% -38.9

Netherlands 5 44.3% 81.3% -37.0

Germany 5 58.0% 82.9% -24.9

Austria 2 58.3% 80.4% -22.1

Finland 2 43.8% 65.3% -21.5

Portugal 4 49.9% 66.1% -16.2

Ireland 5 54.8% 70.9% -16.1

France 5 53.1% 68.9% -15.8

Spain 4 61.7% 73.5% -11.8

Italy 5 79.0% 86.6% -7.6

Greece 4 74.7% 81.5% -6.8

Belgium 5 91.2% 92.7% -1.5

Luxembourg 5 87.9% 87.9% 0

Note: Turnout is the average of all elections held since a country’s first European Parliament election. Excludes post-2004 accession countries.

Source: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (2004)

Voting is by far the most widespread and conventional form of political participation. It is the

act by which members of a democratic society are legally empowered to elect the governing body

that is to preside over a sovereign state. Voting is commonly seen as a habit that citizens learn

http://www.idea.int/publications/voter_turnout_weurope/upload/Full_Reprot.pdf

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throughout their lives; influenced by personal attributes such as education, financial endowment

and political party affiliation (Plutzer 2002). But the act of voting is mainly about public interest -

it concerns the communal act carried out by citizens in nominating their political representatives

through the ballot box and subsequently providing recurrent input (via popular referenda,

pressure groups or social movements) to regulate the way in which the government distributes

public goods, implements the rule of law and manages the economy. Therefore, direct

participation in politics has become the norm in representative democracies, to the extent that

citizens have become increasingly empowered to have a say on the policies that affect their daily

lives. A paradox however emanates out of the reality that in spite of being incrementally

empowered, citizenry participation in politics has continued to decline in past decades.

A fundamental trend that has been characteristic in post-war Europe has been the relative

decline in political participation. Since the 1960s, party membership began to witness a steady

decline, with single-issue movements (i.e. nuclear non-proliferation, environment) attracting an

increasing amount of supporters; prompting a subsequent rise in the frequency of social protests

in the 1980s and 1990s (Inglehart & Catterberg 2002). Already in the 1970s, politics had started

to become individualized (Dalton 2004), whether in terms of political participation or

campaigning styles (Bosancianu 2014). Organized politics began to progressively lose its appeal,

with political party and trade union membership witnessing a gradual decline as a result of their

perceived inability to address the challenges brought by the forces of globalization. As a result,

political actors began to recur more and more to alternative modes of political communication,

evidenced by the rise of “mass appeals through television and campaign public relations”

(Bosancianu 2014:6) - directed at large to an ever more apathetic citizenry.

In the past two decades, political entrepreneurs have increasingly relied on the advantages

brought by information & communication technology (ICT); most notably the internet and, in

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recent times, social media. To date, the whole spectrum of political actors - from political parties

to trade unions, civic organizations and denominated “terrorist”5 groups - are capitalizing on the

proliferation of online communication platforms to disseminate information and bolster political

engagement, whether peaceful or violent. While ICT has brought obvious benefits in the form of

reduced information asymmetries and increased ability to hold political representatives

accountable, it has contributed to a relative drop in the levels of politically-motivated communal

gatherings. With the rising phenomenon of clicktivism, citizens (especially young ones), have

become more politically active online, but not necessarily offline.6 In spite of the popularity of

youth-led global advocacy organizations like Avaaz and their success in organizing cross-issue

mass demonstrations in major cities across the world, a well-documented fact is that global voter

turnout continues to be lowest for citizens in the 18-30 age cohort; a worrying reality when

considering that they are estimated to constitute 50.5% of the world population (UNESCO,

2012).

In the case of EP elections, high rates of youth absenteeism is often attributed to the failure of

political parties in addressing youth issues. Indeed, in a 2013 Flash Eurobarometer on European

youth participation in democratic life, the most frequently cited reasons for not voting at EP

elections were largely attributable to the belief that their vote would not change anything and

that the EP does not sufficiently deal with problems that concern the young voters (among

others), as shown in Figure III below.

5 The branding of groups recurring to the use of violence for political means is itself politicised. Granted the encouraging acts by governments and civic organizations in condemning and prosecuting groups actively committing crimes against humanity, it is equally discouraging to witness how a number of sovereign states (that are or have been engaged in acts objectively deemed as crimes against humanity) have gained de facto immunity from prosecution at the established International Criminal Court. Another question arises as to the selective manner in which non-state actors and sovereign states alike are labelled as terrorist, thereby creating a discrepancy between what is objectively defined as a terrorist actor and who is actually designated as one. 6 See The Economist, “Young voters: let’s set the world on fire – The young are passionate, opinionated and barely aware of the elections”, 18 October 2014

http://www.clicktivist.org/2011/12/what-is-clicktivism/

http://avaaz.org/en/

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/join_to_change_everything_rb/?pv=369&rc=fb

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-days/world-radio-day-2013/statistics-on-youth/

http://www.youthforum.org/pressrelease/high-youth-absenteeism-at-the-european-parliament-elections-is-directly-linked-to-the-failure-of-political-parties-to-address-young-people-and-youth-issues/

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/library/reports/flash375_en.pdf

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21625820-young-are-passionate-opinionated-and-barely-aware-elections-lets-set-world

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21625820-young-are-passionate-opinionated-and-barely-aware-elections-lets-set-world

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Figure III

If you are not likely to vote in the European elections in 2014, will it be because…?

Source: Flash Eurobarometer - European Youth: Participation in Democratic Life, no. 375 (2013)

Acknowledging the aforementioned decline in social capital and the rising importance of ICT, it

is important to consider the way in which fluctuations in the supply of these two can have

considerable effects in altering the levels of electoral participation. With the idea that the

salience, competitiveness and exposure of an election can mobilise voters (Rosenstone &

Hansen 1992), we generally expect greater turnouts where campaigns are more intense, where

media coverage is tailored to the issues of the elections in question and where the perceived

sense of collectiveness and urgency for change within a citizenry is greatest.

Prompting voters to the polls

Media mobilisation

By lowering the costs of information-gathering, news media (whether print, online or televised)

tends to (re)generate general interest in politics, particularly in the lead to elections. This often

prompts nation-wide and trans-European televised debates brought about by a burgeoning in

forum talks organized by political parties and civic organizations that usually enhance citizenry

64%

61%

56%

54%

47%

37%

18%

34%

37%

38%

45%

51%

61%

79%

2%

2%

6%

1%

2%

2%

3%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

You believe that your vote will not change anything

You believe that your are not sufficiently informed to vote

You believe that the EP does not sufficiently deal with problems that concern you

You are not interested in European politics and elections

You are not interested in politics or elections in general

You never vote

You are against Europe, the EU

Yes No Don't know

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/library/reports/flash375_en.pdf

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interest in politics. As a result, greater media exposure and mobilisation tends to increases the

likelihood of participation in elections (Banducci & Semetko 2003). A greater volume and

velocity of media coverage also increases the perceived benefits of voting, principally by

signalling to voters that the outcome of the election is important (Cox 1999). Despite the

breadth of literature on theories of media malaise, which argues that exposure to news media can

discourage learning about politics, erode trust in political leaders and dampen political

mobilisation (Newton 1999), the existing empirical evidence to the contrary suggests a positive

relationship with voter turnout (Norris 2000). Moreover, Norris and Sanders (2003) find

significant effects of television news, broadsheet newspapers and surfing party websites on

knowledge gains concerning politics, with tabloids being found to elicit significantly fewer

knowledge gains when compared with broadsheets.

Most recently, with the exponential growth of citizens and public servants joining online

platforms like Twitter and Facebook, social media has become one of the most effective tools

for political communication. With a rising number of politicians opening online accounts, voters

have gained direct access to their publicised thoughts. This has effectively enabled voters to read

summaries of candidates’ manifestos, opinions, reactions and policies ahead of the polls in

question. In turn, political parties are recurring more and more to social media outlets to gain a

better understanding of the electorate’s demands - in the hopes of aligning their campaign

strategy and policies as close to the median voter as possible.

With nascent studies evaluating the extent to which social media has bolstered the visibility of

politicians vis-à-vis the electorate (Vergeer et al. 2011, 2012), there has not yet been compelling

evidence regarding the positive correlation between online mobilisation and offline participation

(Bosancinau 2014). Although causality links are yet to be consolidated, the 2009 and 2014 EP

election campaigns shed light on the rising reliance on social media platforms as popular means

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/bibliotheque/briefing/2014/140709/LDM_BRI(2014)140709_REV1_EN.pdf

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for electoral ends. Notwithstanding the counterproductive effects of information overload, it will

become increasingly harder to refute the idea that social media is contributing to the

enhancement of the connectivity between the electorate and those who are running for office –

even though this will not necessarily prompt voters to the polls. In the case of EP elections,

some even claim that this has had counterproductive effects.

From media mobilisation to social capital

Individuals with political party affiliation should in theory be more inclined to vote. As such, we

expect party partisanship to act as a strong motivator for participation. This effect should be

compounded by the expectation that the hurdle in moving from non-voter to voter is higher

than the hurdle in moving from a national election to an EP election (Banducci 2005). Politically

active individuals are aware of the importance of political participation and will tend to

encourage peers to vote, thereby generating unquantifiable positive externalities in regards to

local and nation-wide participative encouragement.

However, we also need to look at the individual factors that make individuals more likely to vote.

The Lijphart Thesis suggests that those who lack resources such as education and income are less

likely to vote (Lijphart 1997). We therefore expect education and income biases to be greatest in

a low turnout election like the EP. Education reduces the costs of information-processing and

increases feelings of civic duty through a socialisation process. Education also helps to determine

one’s level of prior political knowledge. If the assumption of decreasing returns to knowledge-

acquisition holds, this should mean that, ceteris paribus, exposure to media and campaigning will

generate the greatest knowledge gains amongst those with lower levels of education (Norris and

Sanders 2003). Therefore not only do we expect those with higher education qualifications to be

more likely to vote, we also expect the effects of media mobilisation and social capital to be

http://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CC4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.euractiv.com%2Fsections%2Feu-elections-2014%2Fsocial-media-favours-eurosceptics-eu-elections-301550&ei=x89HVJzEI43XapS-gcAP&usg=AFQjCNHVFkTYzkNXTL-gIrc2EnSUIW353w

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stronger for individuals with lower educational qualifications. Given the intricate relation

between personal endowments and media mobilisation, this provides a good segway into

exploring how the levels of collective trust, empathy and solidarity have an additional effect on

the propensity for individuals to vote.

Social Capital

Despite the rise of the modern electoral campaign model characterised by the widespread

adoption of political marketing techniques (Swanson & Mancini 1996), we still expect

membership to political parties, trade unions and civic associations to stimulate voter

participation. Much social capital literature (Putnam 1995; Portes 2000; Adler & Kwon 2002)

emphasises the importance of social bonds in turning individuals into political stakeholders.

Putnam (1995) suggests that voter turnout, news exposure and membership to

leisure/civic/political associations are all interrelated. This tripartite relationship is a core focus

of this investigation.

In our model presented below, we use home ownership as our key proxy for social capital as we

abide by the assertion that “homeowners invest more in their neighbourhoods and engage more

in civic activities”.7 Home ownership weaves individuals into the fabric of their community; they

are more likely to both know and interact more with their neighbours and political

representatives than transient home renters. As such, compared with the latter, they will tend to

be more inclined to vote. Despite the second-order nature of EP elections - whose outcome

might seem too dislocated from local communities - the correlation between homeownership

and political participation at a national level has been found to be a strongly significant one (Di

7 See The Economist “Home ownership: Shelter or burden?” print edition, April 16th 2009.

http://www.economist.com/node/13491933

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Pasquale & Glaeser 1999; Engelhardt et al. 2010McCabe 2013; Rohe 2013) and we believe this

relationship should trickle down to the communal level.

Considering the wider context of transnational issues such as environmental policy, we expect

membership to environmental groups or strong sympathies with the cause to increase the

probability of voting. Communal interest in policy that is influenced and directed at the

supranational level should increase an individual’s perceived benefits from voting. This may also

be true of those who have strong sentiments (positive or negative) with regards to other trans-

national/European phenomena such as immigration and monetary policy. Sensitivity to

European policy should also be affected by age, which has proven to be a strong predictor of

turnout across a wide range of studies (Blais 2000; International IDEA 2002).

All in all, individuals’ degree of integration within their local community is seen as an important

factor in determining their propensity to vote. The stakes are perceived to be higher when

individuals have a sense of belonging to a collectivity, particularly in view of the fact that they are

likely to use elections (whether local, national or supranational) as a means to express their

(dis)satisfaction with the government’s actions. This implies that the levels of social capital

matter for the way in which communities engage in collective action – participating in polls to

reward or punish their elected leaders is just one example. We therefore expect social capital to

act as a vehicle for electoral mobilisation, particularly under the assumption that groups with

strong links will be driven to further their collective interests whenever they perceive that the

elections in question are salient.

In the UK, for example, citizens that have more to gain/lose from policies directed at the

European level will be more likely to act in concert and participate in EP elections. One clear

example is the assertion that British farmer communities that benefit from the EU’s Common

http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/cap-post-2013/

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Agricultural Policy are more likely to mobilise to ensure that they elect representatives that have

pledged to preserve and further British farmers’ interests in Brussels or Strasbourg. As a result,

and in spite of the second-order nature of EP elections, we see high levels of social capital as an

ex-ante determinant of citizens’ propensity to partake in these elections; particularly when their

livelihoods depend largely on the formulation and implementation of policy at the EU level.

Having mapped out our theoretical expectations, we proceed to explore how we selected our

dataset and constructed our model. The end-goal is to test whether our ex-ante projections on

causality align with those of the model’s outcome.

Data and Statistical Synopsis

We use data from the 2005 BSA survey; enabling us to construct various attitudinal measures.

The percentage of respondents who voted in the 2004 UK elections to the EP from the BSA

dataset was 36.6% - a good approximation to the official 38.2% turnout. We therefore deemed

the survey to be a sufficiently, albeit imperfect, representative sample of the population in Britain

aged 18+.

Our variables for media mobilisation were proxied using a variety of political news sources such

as television (politicstv), internet (net) and broadsheets (broadsheet) that represent the respondents

who used these as means to inform themselves on political issues. For social capital, proxies

were represented by measures of political interest (highpolint) and home ownership (ownhome).

Figure IV shows the average percentage of surveyed respondents who owned a home (69%), had

high political interest (33%) and used political news conveyors, from which internet usage stands

out with a 56% of respondents, relative to the 24% and 22% for television and broadsheet users,

respectively.

http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/cap-post-2013/

17


Figure IV

Levels of Social Capital and Media Usage (% of respondents)

Source: BSA (2005)

Our interest is to find out the percentage of this set of respondents who voted. We find that

79% of homeowners voted whilst the figure was 49% for those who had high political interest.

Out of the respondents who regularly watched politics on TV, 24% of them voted whereas it

was a figure of 30% and 59% for those who read broadsheets or obtained information from the

internet, respectively - as shown in Figure V. This implies the idea that the internet was the most

popular conveyor of political information for voters in the 2004 UK elections to the EP.

Figure V

Percentage that voted

Source: BSA (2005)

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In addition, we want to find out the relationship between our variables of interest and a variety

of other variables that influence them. As shown in Table I, we find positive correlations

between high levels of education (highed) and (highincome) with our respective measures of media

mobilisation and social capital, except for television usage, which exhibits a rather low

correlation. The elderly cohort (55+) is positively associated with homeownership and high

political interest, it is the exact opposite for the youth cohort (18-24). This implies that civic

engagement is likely to be stronger amongst the older age cohort. Furthermore we find a positive

correlation between the youth cohort and watching the news on the internet - a relation which is

negative for the elderly cohort – suggesting that the internet could have been the means by

which to increase youth participation at the 2004 UK elections to the EP the most; in light of the

fact that a staggering 67% of people aged 18-24 did not vote8.

Table I

Cross-Variable Correlations

highed

highinc

lowinc

elderly

young

ownhome 0.1648 0.3201 -0.3286 0.0299 -0.1545

highpolint 0.2123 0.1105 -0.0759 0.0993 -0.0939 net 0.3057 0.4053 -0.3979 -0.3381 0.0306 politicstv 0.0126 0.0117 -0.0182 0.0077 -0.0399 broadsheet 0.1558 0.1039 -0.1198 0.1278 -0.0745

This diagnostic sets the ground for the construction of our econometric model. Combining

knowledge of prevailing theories on voting behaviour and the preliminary results obtained from

variable interactions in the BSA survey, we proceed to measure the magnitude of the effects that

our variables of interest had on the propensity of individuals to vote at the 2004 UK elections to

the EP.

8 For detailed figures, see Eurobarometer (2004) “Post European Elections Survey 2004, Flash Eurobarometer No. 162

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/FL162en.pdf

19


Model

We constructed a Probit model generating a numerical value for the likelihood to vote in EP

elections, after controlling for selected factors believed to affect a respondent’s voting proclivity.

Within a sample of people who voted in the 2004 UK elections to the EP, the model was able to

quantify the marginal effects that these factors had on the dependent variable (votedeu). In other

words, it assigned a numerical magnitude that represented the probable change in value of the

dependent variable for each unit change in the explanatory variables of interest. 9

We present our model in a series of four regressions, as seen in Table II (p. 20). Regression (1)

includes all of the socio-economic control variables10 that we predict to have an effect on voter

turnout. Regression (2) includes the effects of media mobilisation variables and regression (3)

adds the effects of social capital. Regression (4) below is the aggregated, complete model:

( )

Results

As expected, factors such as political activity and affiliation, media consumption, social capital,

education, income, age and gender all showed the expected causal direction and significance

(although the statistical significance of income and education was diminished with the addition

9 Assuming potential heteroskedasticity, robust standard errors were used accordingly. 10 Variables that are held constant in our model so as to test the relative impact of our variables of interest (and reduce potential model skewness emanating from omitted variable bias).

http://carecon.org.uk/UWEcourse/OVbias.pdf

20


Table II - Predicting British Turnout in 2004 EP Elections

Dependent Variable: votedEU

Regression 1 Regression 2 Regression 3 Regression 4

Socio-Economic Effects Media Effects Social Capital Effects Interactive Media Effects

Female 0.030** (0.015) 0.029* (0.015) 0.027* (0.015) 0.022* (0.015)

Young -0.200*** (0.019) -0.195*** (0.019) -0.179*** (0.020) -0.178*** (0.020)

Elderly 0.150*** (0.019) 0.152*** (0.020) 0.133*** (0.020) 0.132*** (0.020)

Party Supporter 0.163*** (0.016) 0.163*** (0.016) 0.161*** (0.016) 0..159*** (0.016)

High Political Interest 0.120*** (0.018) 0.111*** (0.019) 0.110*** (0.019) 0.109*** (0.019)

Low Political Interest -0.108*** (0.018) -0.100*** (0.018) -0.091*** (0.019) -0.093*** (0.019)

High Income 0.067*** (0.018) 0.048** (0.019) 0.025 (0.020) 0.024 (0.020)

Highly Educated 0.099*** (0.024) 0.073*** (0.025) 0.050** (0.025) 0.034 (0.028)

School Educated 0.025 (0.020) 0.009 (0.021) -0.007 (0.021) -0.030 (0.023)

Strong Sentiment Euro 0.140*** (0.043) 0.138*** (0.043) 0.135*** (0.043) 0.138*** (0.043)

Anti-Immigration -0.06** (0.027) -0.056** (0.027) -0.052* (0.027) -0.057** (0.027)

Broadsheet 0.067*** (0.024) 0.056** (0.025) 0.087** (0.037)

Watch News or Current Affairs 0.127* (0.078) 0.123* (0.077) 0.125* (0.077)

Access to Internet 0.045** (0.018) 0.030* (0.018) 0.030* (0.019)

Trade Union Member 0.069* (0.045) 0.070* (0.045)

Member Environmental Group 0.153*** (0.043) 0.154*** (0.043)

Own Home 0.083*** (0.018) 0.065*** (0.020)

Broadsheet*SchoolEducated 0.032 (0.043)

Broadsheet*Rent Home -0.120*** (0.041)

Pseudo R2 0.1251 0.1284 0.1388 0.1414

Notes: Probit regression. Entries are marginal effects (df/dx) and robust standard errors in parentheses. * = p-value <0.15; ** = p-value <0.05; *** = p-value <0.01

21


of factors in the augmented regressions). We analyse our results using a 15% significance level,

based on the known limitations of our dataset and the implications they had on our results, as

explored in the model caveats section further on.

We found a positive and significant relationship between media mobilisation and voter turnout.

Our findings show that individuals that watched news on current affairs were 12.5% more likely

to vote than those that didn’t. Furthermore, someone who read broadsheets was 8.7% more

likely to vote than a tabloid reader - whilst the figure was 3% for internet users versus non-users.

For political activity, it can be seen that whether an individual supported a political party or had

high political interest had a significant and positive effect on voting. The marginal effect of high

political interest implies that, ceteris paribus, individuals with high political interest were 10.9%

more likely to vote than those with lower levels of political interest. In turn, those who

supported a party were 15.9% more likely to vote than non-supporters.

We expected strong views towards EU policy to have a significant impact on voting. We found

that individuals with strong sentiments (positive or negative) towards the Euro were 13.8% more

likely to vote than someone who was euro-apathetic. In addition, individuals with negative views on

EU immigration policy were found to be 5.7% less likely to vote than pro-immigration

individuals. This approximately implies that the anti-immigration group is more likely to boycott

EP elections in light of the fact that EU policies on immigration have largely been tilted towards

greater trans-European mobility, as evidenced by the implementation of the Bolkenstein Directive

or the creation of the Schengen area. It is probable that anti-immigration groups would be

attempting to undermine the validity of EP elections by abstaining from voting as a protest to

the UK government on its position vis-à-vis immigration policy. However, given the recent

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/services/services-dir/index_en.htm

http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/schengen/index_en.htm

22


(re)surge of populist right-wing parties advocating nationalistic policies11 in major countries like

the UK and France, were we to re-run our regression with 2009 and 2014 electoral data, the

causal direction is likely to be inversed; with anti-immigration voters much more likely to vote

given that their asserted interests are embodied in the policies promoted by parties like the UK

Independence Party (UKIP) or the Front National.

We anticipated higher levels of income and education to have a positive impact on voting

behaviour, which was confirmed by our results but fell short of statistical significance in the final

regression; thereby preventing us from deriving any valid conclusions based on statistical

inference. In line with our expectations, our variables for social capital (home ownership, trade

union membership, membership to an environmental group) all showed that high levels of civic

engagement increased the likelihood of voting. Our results confirmed this hypothesis as a home

owner was 6.5% more likely to vote than a renter, while a trade union and environmental group

member was 7% and 15.4% more likely to vote than non-members, respectively.

Using interactive dummies to measure the additional effects of broadsheet readership on home

owners, we found that home renters that read broadsheets were 12% less likely to vote than

individuals who owned a home and read broadsheets. This entails, approximately, that the

marginal effect of broadsheet readership on voter turnout was higher for those with higher levels

of social capital.

Based on decreasing marginal returns to education, we expected the impact of additional

information contained in broadsheets to have a greater influence on (and thus affect voting

more) a high-school educated person than someone with a tertiary education, since the former

11 See The Economist “The Squeezed Middle: Populist parties are narrowing governments’ options in Europe”, Charlemagne, print edition, 18 October 2014.

http://www.ukip.org/splash2?splash=1

http://www.ukip.org/splash2?splash=1

http://www.frontnational.com/

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21625795-populist-parties-are-narrowing-governments-options-europe-squeezed-middle

23


are assumed to be less information-saturated. Interacting broadsheet readership with education,

we found that an individual who read broadsheets and had a high-school education was 3.2%

more likely to vote than an individual who read broadsheets and had attended university. This

result however proved to lack adequate statistical significance, thereby not allowing us to reject

the null hypothesis with sufficient confidence.

Overall, the model output proved to align well with our ex-ante hypothesis on the direction of

causality. However, many data limitations played a hindering role on the validity of the model.

This was mainly due to the very nature of the survey used. The BSA survey was broad, focusing

on extensive social attitudes rather than drawing information specifically about attitudes towards

Europe and the EP elections (granted that this was not the principal objective of the BSA survey

anyways). Our dataset had a lot of missing values as the survey was split into four versions;

generating missing data and reducing the model’s explanatory power. We think that this is

captured in our low Pseudo R-squared value of 0.1425 for our final model, suggesting it had the

potential to improve by 85.75%. In light of this and the unavailability of a better dataset at the

time the statistical analysis was conducted, our results continue to be relevant although their

validity for informing policy will remain suggestive. As a result, our statistical output needs to be

complemented with context-specific qualitative analysis. This is a requisite if we are to discern

and make full sense of the multitude of confounding factors that affected voter turnout but were

not captured by the data.

24


Model Caveats

External validity: The trap of British idiosyncrasy

“External validity asks the question of generalizability: To what populations, settings, treatment variables and

measurement variables can this effect be generalized?”

Campbell (1966)

Like all investigations in social science research, this one must ask itself the question of whether

the econometric results from the sample used are generalizable to a wider population; namely the

EU population as a whole.

This investigation faces two main problems of external validity: 1.) it is based on a sample of a

national attitudinal survey as opposed to an EU-wide attitudinal survey and 2.) it is based on a

sample of a UK attitudinal survey.

The first problem is one that would be confronted when using any national attitudinal survey and

the challenge would be to inquire into whether it would be valid enough to make EU-wide

inferences on the basis of the results of a national survey. This question is difficult to answer due

to the multifarious idiosyncratic characteristics and domestically-restrained developments that

take place in each EU country before, during and after EP elections. As such, the external

validity of this investigation is by default limited but only because it is confronted with an

inevitable trade-off: use a national survey to capture attitudes towards nation-specific

developments or use an EU-wide survey that predominantly uses cross-country aggregated

averages that may not account for specific attitudes that can only be captured through national

surveys. Although there exists a middle-way in the form of a hybrid survey accounting for both

25


national and cross-national attitudes, this method has proven to be financially cumbersome,

thereby favouring an either/or approach. Although some progress has been made with the more

elaborate Eurobarometer reports appearing in recent years, they still fall short of the somewhat

ideal trans-European surveys capable of capturing all of the factors and effects that are inevitably

omitted in current practice. This however, is a problem confronted in all fronts of social science

research. Therefore, the authors acknowledge and allow for such imperfection, esteeming this

study to be a marginal contribution to the understanding of voting behaviour in EP elections

while taking full responsibility of the deficiencies emanating from this imperfection. We however

attempt to address this issue via the complementary qualitative analysis provided throughout this

investigation, while remaining humble on the validity of our assertions which, as

aforementioned, remain suggestive in nature.

The second one is trickier and indeed more sensitive as the UK is notorious for its

euroscepticism.12 One only has to look at the historical positions taken by the UK government

on the EU since the times of Ms. Margaret Thatcher; most notably the infamous UK rebate over

British contributions to the EU budget and more recently to the popular rise of UKIP or the

electoral pledge made by Mr. David Cameron on holding a referendum on EU membership in

2016/7 if the Conservative Party wins the 2015 general elections. Somewhat more objectively, a

2010 Eurobarometer report shed light on the fact that UK citizens were, according to the survey

results, “divided” in regards to their support for the EU - with 42% of respondents having a

“rather positive image of the EU” and almost as many (39%) having a “rather negative one.

As we explore in the sub-section below, the choice of dataset was mandated by the necessity to

capture nation-specific attitudinal factors due to the underlying assertion that EP elections are in

effect about national developments. The particular choice of the UK was guided by the academic

12 For a concise overview, see reference to Economist article in footnote 1.

http://pure.au.dk/portal/files/36186903/UK_rebate_or_rethinking_the_EU_budget.pdf

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-21614073

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-pledges-referendum-on-europe-even-if-attempts-to-reform-brussels-power-fails-9350870.html

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl_318_en.pdf

26


intrigue to try and unravel the sort of policies that could be implemented to increase, even if by a

minimum amount, an ostensibly Eurosceptic citizenry’s participative proclivity in EP elections.

Against the backdrop of a rather inevitable, albeit slow, power transfer from national to

supranational authority, the election of parliamentarians of a supranational legislative body is

becoming increasingly important. In turn, the low participatory rates in the concerned elections

will become gradually troublesome as we witness the progressive necessity to deal with

transnational issues at a European level.

In sum, we caution on the limited external validity of our statistical results but we encourage

future investigations to ensure the integration of both nation and EU-specific surveyed attitudes

to their best of their abilities, with the recommended attempt to construct models that can

account for the socio-economic idiosyncratic characteristics of the EU member states in

question.

Choice of dataset

In regards to the discretionary choice of the dataset, at the outset, the two same questions arise

once again: 1.) why a survey based on national attitudes and 2.) why a UK survey.

The decision to employ a national survey was principally due to the underlying endeavour to

match our dataset selection with the assertions evidenced in the existing literature on the subject.

If EP elections are indeed primordially influenced by domestic factors, employing an EU-wide

survey could undermine the effective capture of nation-specific attitudes towards their national

governments and the EU. We deemed that the EU-wide datasets were deficient in the sense that

they were omitting context-specific attitudes of the surveyed citizens on the domestic issues that

were of concern at the time the survey was conducted.

27


In turn, the recourse to a UK attitudinal survey arose from the authors’ curiosity to find out

what could be done to increase participation in the most Eurosceptic country of the EU or, in

other words, exploring the country where the potential for increased participation in EP

elections was, a priori, greatest. This led to a surprisingly positive outcome in what regards the

scope to increase British citizens’ propensity to vote at EP elections in future, something that we

deem to be a noble endeavour. We explore this in our policy recommendations section below.

Endogeneity

We are aware that data limitations may have caused our model to fall victim of the problem of

endogeneity. In accordance with the reward-punishment model of voting (Kramer 1971), we believe

our data may have produced a positive bias on the respondents’ propensity to vote because the

data was collected during a period of relative economic growth in the UK; preceding the latest

financial crisis. This was a time during which the UK’s citizens’ belief that they were benefiting

from being a member of the EU was at a record high (for UK standards, biensûr) of 39%.13 In

prosperous times, it is believed that voters use second-order contests to manifest their support

for the incumbent government if it is perceived to be managing the economy well (Tilley et al.,

2008). Hence, since the survey was conducted during a period of economic prosperity, the

suspected bias emerges from the possibility that voter turnout may have been endogenous to

their evaluation of the state of the economy rather than by their evaluation of the EU. This bias

could potentially be corrected with an instrumental variable: correlated to the voters’ perceptions

based on their knowledge of the EU, but independent of their evaluation of the incumbent

government’s management of the economy. The authors were unable to find a variable that

could align with these criteria.

13 See Eurobarometer (2005) Public Opinion in the European Union, No. 62

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb62/eb_62_en.pdf

28


In addition we deem that the strongeuro variable may have also suffered from a positive

endogeneity bias as there exists the possibility that other EU-related attitudinal measures were

inexistent in the survey; causing a potential over-evaluation of the effects of this variable. We

stress future investigations on this subject to ensure the inclusion of a greater variety of EU-

related attitudinal measures in order to avoid the problems emanating from omitted variable bias,

which will largely depend on the extent to which offices of national statistics are able to

cooperate with Eurostat on the collection of EU-specific attitudinal measures.

Following this attempt to provide an overview of the main limitations of our econometric

model, we deem this to be an opportune moment to explore a non-exhaustive review of policy

recommendations, based principally on the results of this investigation, while relying on the

findings of post-electoral surveys carried out by the European Commission.

Policy Recommendations

How to bolster voters’ proclivity to vote at EP elections?

The results presented to the reader shed light on the sort of policies that can be implemented to

buttress the propensity of citizens to participate in the election of national representatives to the

EP. Given our focus on media mobilisation and social capital, we will limit ourselves to making

recommendations on the basis of these two phenomena.

Mobilise the media industry

For media mobilisation, the underlying premise relies on the documented reality that, on average,

European citizens do not feel sufficiently informed about the EU and the role/impact of the EP

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home/

29


more concretely.14 For this reason, there is a need for the media industry to mobilise further so

as to disseminate the relevant information to trans-European audiences. Granted the appraised

independence of the media, one can make the assumption that the discretionary power of media

enterprises, particularly private ones, allows them to convey information that they deem most

relevant (and indeed most commercially attractive). When their main source of revenue depends

largely on publicity - which itself is determined by how entertaining or interesting their

print/online/television news is to an audience - this may lead to possible distortions in the a

priori objective distribution of information. This is in large part a hindering reality for

participation in EP elections given its alleged second-order nature.

If these elections are not considered salient by the citizenry, media outlets are bound to tailor

their information to the preferences of their audience. More often than not, media outlets may

tend to minimize the exposure of informed debates and objective information on political

developments - sometimes to the benefit of sensationalist reporting on candidates’ private lives

or unfounded scenario projections based on the victor of the concerned elections. In the run-up

to elections, and in particular general elections, the attention is sometimes overwhelming to the

extent that it may in effect discourage citizens from voting. The confluence of bigoted

accusations, elusive promises and exaggerated worst-case scenarios if the “other party” wins

often trump the more sensible and objective manner in which information on the political

environment could be presented. Having said that, there is evident scope for the media industry -

with the help of public authorities through systems of subsidy - to improve its ability to abide by

its objective of delivering a wide-array of information and, in this particular case; information

related to European politics.

14 See footnote 13 for reference

30


With several studies alluding to the positive effect of media mobilisation on voter turnout (Baek

2009; de Vreese & Semetko 2002; Norris 2006; Bilska 2012), evidence that has been largely

documented by the Eurobarometers over the past years points to the fact that low voter turnout

at EP elections is largely attributable to a low level of knowledge and interest on the EU. Given

that EP electoral campaigns do not tend to be as salient as national ones, the media industry

tends to adapt to this preference-identity, thereby matching the ex-ante low interest in EU politics

with a relatively low coverage of the subject matter. This has led to a condition whereby the

ability to bolster voter turnout may indeed depend exclusively on the media’s ability to inform

the public on the developments concerning EP elections. But we find ourselves in a reinforced

cycle of low media mobilisation engendering low voter turnout and vice-versa – an unfortunate

Catch 22 situation. The authors, and many other academic researchers for that matter, believe

that there is viable scope to escape this vicious trap. In addition, the authors deem this to be a

democratically-motivated endeavour as it concerns the enhancement of the EU’s oft-criticized

democratic apparatus. A high degree of media mobilisation and visibility of cross-cutting EU

issues ahead of EP elections is therefore a desired outcome, particularly when we acknowledge

that the media industry is the primary vehicle of information for the citizenry, and especially

when dealing with such “remote issues as the EP elections” (Bilka 2012:2)

Based on our results, improving circulation of broadsheets to low-income areas stands out as a

viable and meaningful policy strategy. To achieve this, EU governments could further subsidise

the distribution costs of broadsheets in municipal areas or circulate free information leaflets

prior to the elections since EU-related information is clearly a crucial vehicle for bolstering EP

voter turnout. In addition, news and features on the election can be broadcasted more during

primetime viewing hours. With 42% of UK citizens complaining that there is too little media

31


coverage of the EU,15 there is an evident information gap that the UK government needs to fill

given the UK population’s reputation for being the EU’s don’t know, don’t care electorate. The

European Commission’s efforts in boosting the outreach capacity of its flagship Europe Direct

service is an encouraging one. The authors of this investigation would therefore recommend that

the current system allowing citizens to request detailed information on particular subjects be

enhanced – either via an increased staffing of Europe Direct’s telephone and internet services or

by the opening of more information service points in main cities across the EU.

We know that national coverage of EP elections primarily focuses on national actors (Van der

Brug et al., 2007) so national actors can themselves influence voting behaviour by stressing the

importance of EP elections, via social media for example. There is evidence that this was done

during the 2009 elections (Vergeer et al. 2012). However, the problem remains with the reality

that national politicians campaigning ahead of EP elections will tend to divert attention towards

national issues as a means to increase the salience of the election, but this is largely in detriment

of the voters’ ability to gauge what is at stake in relation to EU policies.

Although the causal effects of social media on voter turnout are yet to be validated, there is

growing acceptance that they at least contribute to increasing citizens’ exposure to political

information, particularly the youth cohort (Bosancianu 2014). We primarily recommend that EU

governments promote the use of social media for electoral purposes, with both national and EU

public policy institutes participating in sharing their analytical views on the political dynamics

surrounding an EP election. In second instance, we would recommend national authorities to

capitalize on social media platforms and facilitate partnerships between social media platforms

and EU information services, so as to ensure that EU-related information reaches as wide an

audience as possible ahead of EP elections.

15 See reference in footnote 13

http://europa.eu/europedirect/index_en.htm

32


Given that the youth cohort was found to be less likely to vote than the other age cohorts,

policies could be aimed at engaging young people by increasing their exposure to EU-related

information on the internet – especially in popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter -

two online platforms where the young cohort takes the lion’s share in terms of usage. This was

effectively the case in the 2009 and 2014 EP elections, with recent studies (Vergeer et al. 2012;

Bosancianu 2014) shedding light on the tentatively positive effects of social media campaigning

on voter turnout by the youth cohort. With the significant electoral weight of this cohort,

national authorities and EU institutions have a greater role to play in engaging young people to

become more active in providing their input during EU democratic processes, which are not

confined only to elections every five years. The continued success of the Erasmus programme,

the increasing amount of youth-led European civic organizations that have flourished in the past

decade or the coordinating platform of the European Youth Forum (bringing national youth

councils and non-governmental EU youth groups under one roof) are all encouraging signs that

there are indeed attempts by national and EU authorities to engage young EU citizens in having

a say in European politics. The authors encourage the continuation of these efforts and call for

regular revisions of the financial allocations for these youth programmes, particularly in light of

the fact that the recent EU budgetary cuts have significantly affected the Erasmus programme.

Strengthen Social Capital across the EU

Based on our results, home ownership had a significantly positive effect on voter turnout. This

has been backed by numerous past evaluations validating the correlation between home

ownership and voting (Rohe 2013; Di Pasquale & Glaeser 1999; Engelhardt et al. 2010),

asserting that homeownership exerts positive externalities in the form of social benefits - one

being increased political participation. As a consequence - and although this measure is unviable

in times of fiscal austerity - EU governments could (in future) push for policies tailored to

http://sixestate.com/politics-social-media-finding-audience/

http://www.esn.org/content/erasmus-programme

http://www.citizensforeurope.eu/rubrique57_en.html

http://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youthforum.org%2F&ei=gLhPVKLaO4KPaOrKgZAG&usg=AFQjCNHkWFEsUq_rtzWm9aDiXQNZuHUYFQ

http://www.euprio.eu/eu-cash-crisis-threatens-erasmus-student-mobility/

33


facilitating and incentivizing citizens to own a home. This could be done directly through

subsidized mortgages via government-backed issues. Such subsidies could be targeted to low-

income cohorts if homeownership turns out to be lower for them. Young citizens are likely to

constitute a large proportion of the low-income-transient-renters cohort, thereby implying that

policies need to be adapted to the financial peculiarities of young people, taking into account

their shorter credit history or their lower endowment of tangible assets for the acquisition of

mortgages.

Against the backdrop of the nefarious global consequences of the recent subprime mortgage

crisis, we however caution against a lax approach to this policy recommendation. Indeed, if

mortgages are to be subsidized to low-income households, the authors recommend governments

to strengthen their capacity to regulate and audit commercial banks more strictly to prevent them

from granting mortgages haphazardly. In an endeavour to avoid the systemic problems of moral

hazard, the authors recommend that governments improve the capacity to independently

supervise and regulate the distribution of subsidized mortgages to low-income households,

whether by private or public financial institutions. This would require an enhanced legislative

framework for the financial sector, with an emphasis on the necessity to improve the screening

scrutiny of mortgage buyers, but without making it so stringent that it crowds out the low-

income cohort as a whole.

This may entail making recourse to microcredit (yes, microcredit in Europe). Microcredit

addresses the gap that has been widening between lenders and borrowers long before the latest

financial crisis. With the rising importance of Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Europe

and the burgeoning of start-up businesses in niche cities like London, Paris and Berlin; the need

for access to credit by small enterprises is a pressing one. With the reality that SMEs can rarely

access loans under €250 000, microcredit is seen as a viable alternative to allow the small-

http://business.cch.com/images/banner/subprime.pdf

http://business.cch.com/images/banner/subprime.pdf

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB124303221406548527

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB124303221406548527

34


business sector to grow. Given that France and Romania are the only EU countries with specific

legislation on microcredit, there is huge potential for other EU countries to regulate the supply

of credit via microfinance institutions (MFIs). Currently, most EU member states restrict almost

all lending to banks (European Commission 2007:4). This entails that legislation is too

constricting and calls for national legislators to open up space for the operation of a range of

different financial institutions, including non-banks and MFIs. These would in turn concentrate

solely on services relating to the provision of credit for specific target groups that have been

traditionally excluded from access to credit. By overcoming the market imperfections resulting in

the selective exclusion of citizens lacking sufficient financial collateral (low-income households

in general but young people, unemployed people and the elderly more specifically), microcredit

emerges as a viable alternative to address the negative spillover effects engendered by this

structural financial exclusion.

Given the reality that many MFIs cannot currently operate profitably in Europe (due to their

high administrative costs and risk of default in relation to their profit margins), the bottleneck

generated by this limitation can be attenuated with the help of EU governments. Whether via

grants or tax incentives for investing in MFIs, governments can reduce asymmetries in the

financial markets by aligning credit supply with demand through their support for the operations

of MFIs. This plays into the idea that EU governments could do more to implement legislation

regarding the financial guarantee schemes for MFIs to ensure their solvency, liquidity and

commitment towards their actual and potential borrowers. Although MFI interest rates will be

inevitably high, EU governments could provide subsidies to MFIs so that they can apply risk-

adjusted interest rates. These, alongside government cost-covering lending to MFIs, should allow

them to supply credit to otherwise ineligible homeowners possible. The social benefits of

reducing credit market imperfections through the fomentation of MFIs is a well-documented

35


reality (Besley 1994; Morduch 1999; Stiglitz et al. 2006; Gaiha 2013) that applies just as much to

European countries as it has to exemplary ones like Bangladesh and Mexico.

Returning to our model results, since all of our social capital variables relating to civic and labour

organization membership suggested a positive effect on voting, this entails a more prominent

and active role for local governments to encourage participation in collective activities by

members of local communities across Europe. This could be done through increased public

expenditure and administrative assistance in reducing the financial and administrative burden for

civic organizations to be set up. But once again, this measure is unlikely to be implemented in

times of fiscal austerity, although some would argue that Keynesian policies is just what Europe

needs to solve its most recent crisis.

Given that the asserted lack of information on the EU and its benefits has been one of the most

cited reasons16 to abstain from voting in EP elections, local governments could benefit from

greater assistance in setting-up EU information offices and employing civic associations to

organize information sessions and distribute leaflets across municipal neighbourhoods. This

would enable citizens across the EU to gain a better understanding of the functioning of the EU

and the relative benefits that membership has brought to Europeans as a whole.

While there are numerous other policy recommendations to be made, we deem these to be the

ones that the authors can suggest with a given degree of confidence as they emanate directly

from the results of our investigation. While there are wide-ranging policy implications, we hope

that the ones explored suffice for future investigations to elaborate further and contribute to

informing policymakers on empirically valid recommendations capable of bolstering electoral

turnout in EP elections.

16 See Post-European elections surveys (2004, 2009) - Flash Eurobarometers (162 & 320)

http://www.social-europe.eu/2012/08/how-keynes-can-help-us-solve-the-eurozone-crisis/



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/10391238/Benefits-in-Europe-country-by-country.html

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Conclusion

The EU has been incessantly criticized for its democratic deficit. This investigation has

attempted to provide a comprehensive analysis of the determinants of voter turnout at EP

elections. It has demonstrated the significantly positive effects that media mobilisation and social

capital have on citizens’ propensity to vote and has proposed a series of policy recommendations

that could be implemented in future.

With the increasing role played by ICT, the authors encourage the use of communication

technologies to increase citizenry knowledge of how the EU works and how policies affect their

livelihoods. Reducing the prevalent information gap could indeed be thought of as a viable

policy to reduce the democratic deficit. In turn, with the apparent decline in social capital over

the past decades, the authors encourage all policies aiming at a systemic (re)generation of social

capital in Europe, particularly at the municipal levels. With the assertion that increased levels of

social capital, via different channels, can lead to increased levels of political participation, the

authors remain optimistic on the viability of the recommended policies to enhance collective

action amid European citizens, in an endeavour to enhance the democratic machinery of the EU.

While we remain clear on the suggestive nature of our results, we strongly encourage further

investigations to dig deeper and, while relying on statistical analysis for measuring effects is

indeed important, it is nonetheless imperative to acknowledge its limitations in capturing the

causal effects of real life. For this, we stress the need for complementary qualitative analysis

based on observational data and population-wide attitudes towards domestic and European

developments.

37


Although benefiting considerably from its membership, the UK citizenry is known to be largely

cynical towards the EU. For this reason, British citizens are entitled to be provided with more

information and incentives to increase their say in the functioning of the only directly elected

body of the EU and discover how best to reap advantage of its membership. For this, we believe

that the UK government should aim to increase the presence and importance of EU issues for

subsequent EP elections, especially when considering the citizens’ embedded bias towards

thinking that less is at stake than there actually is.

While the EU is yet to become the supranational democratic entity that it has always aspired to

be, the next five years present themselves as a window of opportunity for the further

democratisation of the Union. The hopes are that the Juncker Commission will abide by its

promises and a newly elected EP by the expectations of its electorate. Time will tell whether the

EU is able to live up to its aspirations.

http://www.cbi.org.uk/campaigns/our-global-future/factsheets/factsheet-2-benefits-of-eu-membership-outweigh-costs/

38


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Appendix

Summary statistics on key variables

Variable | Obs Mean Std. Dev. Min Max -------------+-------------------------------------------------------- votedeu2 | 4268 .3659794 .4817602 0 1 female | 4268 .5545923 .497069 0 1 young | 4268 .1525305 .3595764 0 1 elderly | 4268 .3165417 .4651814 0 1 partysupp | 4268 .3814433 .4857979 0 1 -------------+-------------------------------------------------------- highpolint | 4268 .3331771 .4714045 0 1 lowpolint | 4268 .319119 .4661899 0 1 highincome | 4268 .4739925 .4993817 0 1 missinginc~e | 4268 .1462043 .3533523 0 1 highed | 4268 .281865 .4499606 0 1 -------------+-------------------------------------------------------- schooled | 4268 .4390815 .4963332 0 1 strongeuro | 4268 .4529053 .4978355 0 1 missingeuro | 4268 .5074977 .5000024 0 1 antiimg | 4268 .3929241 .4884574 0 1 imgmissing | 4268 .5096064 .4999663 0 1 -------------+-------------------------------------------------------- broadsheet | 4268 .2132146 .409626 0 1 otherwhpaper | 4268 .5522493 .4973208 0 1 politicstv | 4268 .2350047 .4240514 0 1 politicstv~g | 4268 .7481256 .4341404 0 1 net | 4268 .5555295 .4969651 0 1 -------------+-------------------------------------------------------- tunionmember | 4268 .0367854 .1882565 0 1 missingunion | 4268 .641284 .4796798 0 1 ecowarrior | 4268 .0414714 .1994012 0 1 ecowarrior~g | 4268 .2579663 .4375666 0 1 ownhome | 4268 .693299 .4611782 0 1 -------------+-------------------------------------------------------- otherhome | 4268 .014761 .120609 0 1 noedbroads~t | 4268 .0410028 .1983199 0 1 schooledbr~t | 4268 .0834114 .2765355 0 1 renthomebr~t | 4268 .0344424 .1823839 0 1 otherhomeb~t | 4268 .0044517 .0665804 0 1

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2004/rp04-050.pdf

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/faq/elections/what-was-the-turnout-at-recent-general-elections

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/faq/elections/what-was-the-turnout-at-recent-general-elections

http://www.ees-homepage.net/

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-days/world-radio-day-2013/statistics-on-youth/

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Stata output for final model (Regression 4) Probit regression, reporting marginal effects Number of obs = 4268 LR chi2(29) = 792.92 Prob > chi2 = 0.0000 Log likelihood = -2406.6805 Pseudo R2 = 0.1414 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ votedeu2 | dF/dx Std. Err. z P>|z| x-bar [ 95% C.I. ] ---------+-------------------------------------------------------------------- female*| .0228379 .0157887 1.44 0.149 .554592 -.008107 .053783 young*| -.1780874 .0207645 -7.45 0.000 .15253 -.218785 -.13739 elderly*| .13206 .0207358 6.45 0.000 .316542 .091419 .172701 partys~p*| .159085 .0166325 9.60 0.000 .381443 .126486 .191684 highpo~t*| .1099484 .0193032 5.76 0.000 .333177 .072115 .147782 lowpol~t*| -.0935098 .0192659 -4.72 0.000 .319119 -.13127 -.055749 highin~e*| .0247382 .0207045 1.20 0.232 .473993 -.015842 .065318 missin~e*| -.0088811 .0250621 -0.35 0.724 .146204 -.058002 .04024 highed*| .0347363 .0281677 1.24 0.214 .281865 -.020471 .089944 schooled*| -.0304653 .0231253 -1.31 0.189 .439082 -.07579 .014859 strong~o*| .1384157 .0456738 3.02 0.003 .452905 .048897 .227935 missin~o*| .0352719 .1743461 0.20 0.840 .507498 -.30644 .376984 antiimg*| -.057214 .0276279 -2.05 0.040 .392924 -.111364 -.003064 imgmis~g*| .056312 .1721457 0.33 0.744 .509606 -.281087 .393711 broads~t*| .087084 .037416 2.37 0.018 .213215 .01375 .160418 otherw~r*| .0223907 .0197425 1.13 0.257 .552249 -.016304 .061085 politi~v*| .1257868 .0762404 1.68 0.093 .235005 -.023642 .275215 politi~g*| .0507175 .0731537 0.68 0.495 .748126 -.092661 .194096 net*| .0302925 .0189979 1.59 0.112 .55553 -.006943 .067528 tunion~r*| .0709314 .0452436 1.61 0.108 .036785 -.017744 .159607 missin~n*| .1063437 .0238173 4.35 0.000 .641284 .059663 .153025 ecowar~r*| .1542742 .0414492 3.83 0.000 .041471 .073035 .235513 ecowar~g*| .001576 .0216637 0.07 0.942 .257966 -.040884 .044036 ownhome*| .0658632 .0204371 3.16 0.002 .693299 .025807 .105919 otherh~e*| -.0018311 .0834446 -0.02 0.983 .014761 -.16538 .161717 noedbr~t*| -.0820208 .045308 -1.70 0.088 .041003 -.170823 .006781 school~t*| .0328277 .0434255 0.77 0.444 .083411 -.052285 .11794 rentho~t*| -.1204056 .0419414 -2.58 0.010 .034442 -.202609 -.038202 otherh~t*| .0529889 .1488049 0.36 0.716 .004452 -.238663 .344641 ---------+-------------------------------------------------------------------- obs. P | .3659794 pred. P | .3417659 (at x-bar) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (*) dF/dx is for discrete change of dummy variable from 0 to 1 z and P>|z| correspond to the test of the underlying coefficient being 0

Variable key

Code Variable label

female young middleage elderly broadsheet redtop otherwhpaper politicstv politicstvmissing net partysup highpolint lowpolint

Female 30 years old or younger Between 30 and 60 years old 60 years old and above Read broadsheet newspaper Read tabloid newspaper Read other paper Watch news or current affairs Missing values Access to the internet Support a party High political interest Low political interest

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lowincome highincome missingincome highed schooled noed strongeuro weakeuro missingeuro antiimg notantiimg imgmissing tunionmember missingunion ecowarrior ecowarriormissing ownhome renthome otherhome votedeu

Below average income Above average income Missing values Higher education School education No education Strong sentiments to the Euro (for+against) Weak sentiments to the Euro Missing values Anti immigration Not anti immigration Missing values Member of a trade union Missing values Member of environmental group. Missing values Home owner Rent home Other home Voted at the 2004 UK EP elections

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