Alexia Katsanidou

How the European debt crisis reshaped national political space: The case of Greece

Where some authors saw a limited impact of Europeanisation on national party politics, others proposed that in addition to the pre-existing economic left-right dimension a separate European Union dimension structures the national political space. This article looks at the Greek bail-out during the European sovereign debt crisis to examine how Europeanisation can change the national political space. The bail-out came with memoranda that set the main lines of Greek economic policy for the coming years. Accepting these policies was connected with remaining in the Eurozone. This restructured the political space: the economic and European integration form one dimension. A second relevant dimension focuses on cultural issues. The economic/European dimension is a stronger predictor of vote choice than the cultural dimension.

Beyond Kriesiland: EU integration as a super issue after the Eurocrisis

Where some researchers have seen only a limited impact of Europeanisation on national party politics, others have added a separate European Union dimension to the pre-existing economic left-right dimension to model the national political space. This article examines the effects of the European crisis on the national political space across the EU utilising data from the 2014 European Election Survey. It analyses the effect of a countrys economic development on the coherence between attitudes towards the EU and economic issues using multilevel regression. Strong evidence is found that in the Southern European debtor states economic and European issues are merging as a result of strong European interference in their economic policy. In the Northern European creditor states a second relevant dimension focuses on cultural issues. These results offer the next step in theorising Europeanisation.

Multilevel representation in the European Parliament

Congruence in the European Parliament has been analyzed in terms of agreement between voters and national candidates/parties. The question whether voters and Europarties are congruent on major dimensions of contestation (left-right and European Union) remains unanswered. Acknowledging the ‘split-level’ structure of preference aggregation in the European Parliament, we theorize the interrelationships between these levels. Our model incorporates a typically neglected factor: the interplay between national parties and Europarties. We establish that voter–Europarty congruence is different from, and determined by, voter–national party congruence; moreover, national party–Europarty congruence moderates this relationship. Our findings shed new light on the quality of representation in the European Parliament and have key implications for understanding transnational democracy in the European Union.

Sharing the rewards, dividing the costs? The electoral consequences of social pacts and legislative reform in western Europe

Do electoral pressures provide an explanation for why governments offer pacts to unions and employers rather than acting through legislation when faced with the need to pass potentially unpopular reforms to welfare policies, wages, and labour markets? This article addresses that question by analysing whether governments’ pursuit of pacts affects their vote share and increases the probability that they gain re-election for 16 West European countries between 1980 and 2012. It is found that the presence of social pacts has a significant and positive effect on incumbents’ vote shares at the next election and also results in a higher probability of re-election. These results are conditioned by government type: While all types of governments benefit electorally from pacts, the electoral penalties from the pursuit of unilateral legislation on policy reforms harm single-party majorities the most, minority governments moderately, and coalition majorities the least.