Building Castles Made of Sand? Domestic Issue Dispersion on EP Party Unity

• In Event: Citizen and Party Linkages in the EU

Abstract

Does national level issue dispersion predict the national party delegations unity in the European Parliament (EP)? Scholars find that disperse issue-level preferences within parties can have a detrimental impact on party’s electability. Fractionalization, within governing parties results in mixed messages to voters over a parties’ issue positions and their viability to hold office or oversee policy-making. These effects can reach beyond the national sphere. We propose that diverse preferences within parties on policy-issues springboard from domestic debates to playout cross-nationally in the EP. As we see more diversity of preferences on salient issues at the national level, we predict these debates will be further amplified within the EP. In effect, voter and elite salience predicts the degree of dispersion within party delegations. To test our argument, we use a multilingual, semi-supervised machine learning approach to scale party issue preferences using the ParlEE Plenary Speeches dataset. The results of this analysis hold implications for theories of parliamentary agenda formation in multilevel settings. Our findings provide theories of national level debate and disagreement with a key mechanism for influencing EP policy-making process.

Authors

• Christine A Sylvester, University of Strathclyde

• Zachary David Greene, University of Strathclyde

• Anastasia Ershova, Leiden University

• Nikoleta Yordanova, Leiden Univerisity

• Aleksandra Khokhlova, Leiden University