The Dimensionality of the EU Policy Space

Paul Pennings

European Union Politics, 2002, vol. 3, issue 1, 59-80

Abstract: In any full-grown democracy, parties must confront voters with real choices that matter. The European Union is often said to be devoid of these choices owing to minor policy differences between parties. The manifestos issued at European Parliament elections by party groups are often perceived as being bland and indistinguishable from each other. How correct is this perception? In this article, the diversity of policy positions within and between the main European party groups is analyzed by means of the European election manifestos of 1999. The content analysis of these manifestos shows that there are significant differences both within and between the party groups. These differences indicate that these groups are (potentially) able to present meaningful choices to voters.

Keywords: content analysis; European elections; party cohesiveness; party groups; party manifestos (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116502003001004 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:3:y:2002:i:1:p:59-80

DOI: 10.1177/1465116502003001004

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in European Union Politics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().