PropertyValue
?:abstract
  • The European Parliament (EP) election 2019 in Germany was exceptional for several reasons. Most notably, Bündnis90/Die Grünen (the Green Party) nearly doubled its support compared with the EP election in 2014, while the CDU/CSU (Christian Union) and SPD (Social Democrats) had their worst results in the history of EP elections. Another characteristic that stood out in the 2019 EP election in general is the personalization of campaigns, including in TV debates with lead candidates (Spitzenkandidaten) for the European Commission presidency. Ironically, none of these candidates got the job. Following the large intake of refugees during the so‐called refugee crisis and electoral successes of the radical right party AfD (Alternative for Germany) in several elections, AfD also received substantial electoral support in the 2019 election, with 11.0 per cent of the votes. However, while immigration had dominated public debate during the previous federal and in recent state elections in Germany, the EP election was a turning point in terms of the public and political salience of issues, with climate change and environmental protection taking the centre stage. In this article we examine the results of the EP election 2019 in Germany and emphasize the role of broader contextual developments. Empirical results from individual‐level data in the European Election Study (EES) show that environmentalism represents one of the most relevant cleavages behind voting decisions in this election, which outpaced even the role of economic and immigration‐related considerations. Voting behaviour in EP elections is usually different from that of national elections. For the most part, EP elections have long been perceived as a residual political event, a second‐order election (Reif et al., 1997), and one that voters see as an opportunity to express their protests against and frustration with national politics, if they vote at all. While voting in the 2019 German EP election is in some respects not very different from a national one (such as the domination of domestic political cleavages and issues), it has been unique for the abovementioned reasons. In this article, we aim to provide a deeper understanding of the driving factors of electoral behaviour in the 2019 EP election in Germany. To do so, we first provide an overview of the last 40 years of EP elections in Germany, together with a description of changes in turnout and results. Then we conceptualize the 2019 German EP election and its campaigns, and formulate our theoretical assumptions about political issues that mobilized the electorate. We test our assumptions with the German sample of the EES 2019 (Schmitt et al., 2019). Using logistic regression analysis, we examine the determinants underlying voting decisions in the 2019 German EP election. Based on our results, we then compare the effects of the two most pronounced political issues, environmental protection and immigration, focusing on voting for Bündnis90/Die Grünen and the radical right AfD. In sum, our results show that environmental protection was the key and most relevant cleavage in the German 2019 EP election. (xsd:string)
?:author
?:comment
  • (Politbarometer) (EES) (xsd:string)
?:dataSource
  • Politbarometer-Bibliography (xsd:string)
?:dateModified
  • 2020 (xsd:gyear)
?:datePublished
  • 2020 (xsd:gyear)
?:doi
  • 10.1111/jcms.13080 ()
?:duplicate
?:fromPage
  • 43 (xsd:string)
is ?:hasPart of
?:inLanguage
  • english (xsd:string)
?:isPartOf
?:issn
  • 00219886 ()
?:issueNumber
  • 1 (xsd:string)
is ?:mainEntity of
?:name
  • Green Versus Radical Right as the New Political Divide? The European Parliament Election 2019 in Germany (xsd:string)
?:publicationType
  • article (xsd:string)
?:reference
?:sourceInfo
  • Bibsonomy (xsd:string)
  • In Journal of Common Market Studies, 58(1), 43-56, 2020 (xsd:string)
?:studyComponent
  • Voter Study (xsd:string)
?:studyGroup
  • Politbarometer (PB) (xsd:string)
?:tags
  • 2020 (xsd:string)
  • EES (xsd:string)
  • EES_input2021 (xsd:string)
  • EES_pro (xsd:string)
  • FDZ_IUP (xsd:string)
  • FDZ_Wahlen (xsd:string)
  • PB (xsd:string)
  • PB_input2021 (xsd:string)
  • PB_pro (xsd:string)
  • PB_surv (xsd:string)
  • SCOPUSindexed (xsd:string)
  • SSCIindexed (xsd:string)
  • article (xsd:string)
  • corrected (xsd:string)
  • datfeld (xsd:string)
  • english (xsd:string)
  • imported (xsd:string)
  • indexproved (xsd:string)
  • reviewed (xsd:string)
  • rp (xsd:string)
  • transfer21 (xsd:string)
  • voterstudy (xsd:string)
  • vttrans (xsd:string)
?:toPage
  • 56 (xsd:string)
rdf:type
?:url
?:volumeNumber
  • 58 (xsd:string)