Changing Voting Dimensions in the European Parliament, 2004-2019

• In Event: EU Politics in Contemporary Europe

Abstract

We investigate the main dividing lines in the voting behaviour of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and how they evolved throughout the crisis of 2007-13. To this end, we introduce a new database on the full population of plenary votes from 2004 to 2019. Using principal component analysis, we identify the left-right and the pro-/anti-EU dimensions as the main dimensions of voting. We find that, while the left-right dimension explained most of pre-crisis votes, the pro-/anti-EU divide gained relevance during the crisis, becoming the most relevant pattern of alliance in the European Parliament. These results are robust to a number of tests and persist across different subsets of votes.

Author

• Nicolò Fraccaroli, Brown University