How representative is the European Union Parliament?

We test the closeness of the correspondence between the preferences of EU citizens and their delegations to the European Parliament using data on roll-call votes. Differences in EU citizens' preferences are captured using a variety of country characteristics including bilateral country dummy va...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEuropean Journal of Political Economy Vol. 27; no. 1; pp. 61 - 74
Main Authors Kaniovski, Serguei, Mueller, Dennis C.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 01.03.2011
Elsevier
SeriesEuropean Journal of Political Economy
Subjects
Citizens
Cross-national analysis
Delegation
Democracy
Europe
European Parliament
European parliament Roll-call votes Voter preferences
European Union
Legislative Bodies
Political representation
Political systems
Preferences
Roll-call votes
Roll-call voting
Voter preferences
Voting
Voting Behavior
European parliament
Voter preferences
D70
Roll-call votes
D72
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Summary:We test the closeness of the correspondence between the preferences of EU citizens and their delegations to the European Parliament using data on roll-call votes. Differences in EU citizens' preferences are captured using a variety of country characteristics including bilateral country dummy variables, and the demographic, social and economic characteristics of the countries. We find that the differences in delegations' voting patterns are not strongly related to underlying differences between the countries they represent. Our findings support the existence of a democratic deficit in the EU — a gap between the preferences of EU citizens and the way their delegations vote.
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ISSN:0176-2680
1873-5703
DOI:10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2010.06.007