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European Election Studies (EES) 2009

European Election Study 2009 was a part of the PIREDEU project that was funded by the European Union’s FP 7 program. The study aimed at designing an infrastructure for research into citizenship, political participation, and electoral democracy in the European Union (EU). This infrastructure provides an empirical data base on voters, party manifestos, political elites, and news media in all EU member countries. The infrastructure also comprises the technical and administrative procedures needed to create, develop and maintain such a database.

The EES 2009 Voter Study is a sample survey of the electorates of the member states of the 27 members of the European Union. The scientific objectives of the group responsible for the Design of the Voter Survey were to carry out a survey among representative samples of enfranchised citizens in all 27 member states of the EU immediately after the European elections of June 2009 ensure that the data from these studies can be linked to the other PIREDEU/EES2009 data. The sample size was roughly 1,000 interviews in each EU member state. Data collection was done by CATI phone interview. In seven countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia) representative phone sampling was not feasible. In these countries, 70 percent of interviews were achieved by face-to-face mode, while the remaining 30 percent was achieved by phone. The total sample size is approximately 27,000.

The questionnaires for the study were identical in the various member states, apart from minor but unavoidable differences generated by differences in party names and country-specific institutions. A large number of questions were identical to those used in the 1989, 1994, 1999 and 2004 study, thus permitting over-time comparisons of voter behavior in between the 1989 and 2009 elections.

The final selection of topics and questions includes: electoral behavior including questions on party choices, past voting behavior, voting behavior at the national level, party preferences, and propensity to support particular parties; general political attitudes and behavior based on a question of interest in politics, campaign, most important problems, attitudes regarding EU, left-right self-placement, placement of parties; background characteristics including gender, age, education, religion, media consumption.

The EES 2009 Voter Study study was funded by the PIREDEU project. It focuses in particular on the direct elections to the European Parliament, which were conducted in June 2009 and was fielded immediately following these elections.

The Euromanifestos Study 2009 was a module of the EES 2009. For this specific study year, 197 party manifestos collected ahead of the European elections 2009. The data contain coded versions of the party programs.

The content analysis of 197 Euromanifestos (party programmes) for the 2009 EP Elections from the EU countries and the European Groups was conducted. The Codebook includes the detailed list of coded Euromanifestos, the Coding Procedure, and the Euromanifestos Coding Scheme (EMCS). Euromanifestos coded by 30 coders from all member states of the European Union using a hierarchical classification scheme containing nine domains which are each subdivided into different categories and subcategories. The collection of manifestos intends to cover all relevant parties. In general, its representation in the national parliament indicates the relevance of a political party.

This study is a module of the EES 2009. The Elite Behaviour Team of the PIREDEU project was responsible for designing the Candidate Survey Study. The topics of the survey include attitudes towards political issues, value orientations, political background, the experience of candidates for the EU-Parliament, political career, engagement and mobilization, usage of campaign instruments; importance of media for election, domestic and European issues, representation and attitudes towards European identity.

The scientific objectives were to carry out sample surveys among all candidates for the European Elections of 2009 in all 27 member states of the EU; and to ensure that the data can be linked to the other PIREDEU/EES2009 data.

The survey builds on a general framework of the so-called “responsible party model”, in which parties play a central role in the recruitment, supply and electoral behavior of candidates, but within which voters also have their input in mandating parties and related candidates. The model implies both an electoral and representative link.

The 2009 Media Study was carried out within the framework of PIREDEU project.

The purpose of the study was to keep as much continuity as possible with media studies that had conducted in 1999 and also in 2004 (within the framework of EES) in terms of data sources and methodology. The study explores similar questions on Europeaness of news coverage, agenda setting, economic voting, framing, and mobilization. It builds a longitudinal study comprising studies 1999, 2004, and 2009. The substantive innovation consists in including new themes and creating explicit links with the voter and party manifesto components. The content analysis was carried out on a sample of national news media coverage in 27 EU-member states. The focus is on national television and newspapers because these media are consistently listed as the most important sources of information about the EU for citizens in Europe (Eurobarometer 54–62). In each country, data includes the main national evening news broadcasts of the most widely watched public and commercial television stations, and two quality and one tabloid newspaper from each country. For countries without a relevant tabloid newspaper, the most sensationalist-oriented other daily newspaper was included. These media outlets were selected to provide a comprehensive idea about the news coverage in each country. The television sample consists of 58 TV networks and out newspaper sample consists of 84 different newspapers.

  • Banducci, Susan; Franklin, Mark; Giebler, Heiko; Hobolt, Sara; Marsh, Michael; van der Brug, Wouter and van der Eijk, Cees, eds. (2012) “An Audit of Democracy in the European Union”. Papers Presented at the final conference of the infrastructure design study ‘Providing an infrastructure for research on electoral democracy in the euroPean union’,18-19 november 2010, Brussels. Florence: European University Institute. (PDF (5.37 MB))