The 2014 European Parliament Elections in Southern Europe ─ Still second-order or critical contests?

Southern Europe has been the EU region most exposed to the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis with consequences for national party systems and political stability. The 2014 European Parliament elections took place at a crucial time for Europe and Southern European societies more generally. This book analyses the Euroelections in Southern Europe, asking whether these followed the usual pattern of low-stimulus contests or whether the crisis context raised the bar. Country chapters on Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta investigate the background of the elections, the electoral campaign and the rise of Euroscepticism. The linkage between governments’ economic performance, the Europhile or Eurosceptic stances of political parties, and their electoral performance are at the core of the analysis in each chapter. The findings reveal that the political and electoral consequences of the economic crisis have not fundamentally challenged the second-order character of the 2014 European Parliament elections in Southern Europe. However, electoral behaviour exhibits some indications of a more critical contest in which the EU divide becomes more significant and polarising in determining voting choices. This book was previously published as a special issue ofSouth European Society and Politics.

Hermann Schmitt, professor of political science, holds a Chair in Electoral Politics at the University of Manchester and is a research fellow of the MZES and Professor at the University of Mannheim. He was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan (1996-7), Science Po Paris (2001-2), the Australian National University (2003), the IAS in Vienna (2005), and the UAM in Madrid (2008). He received his doctorate from the University of Duisburg, and holds a venia legendi from both the Free University of Berlin and the University of Mannheim. He has been participating in a number of comparative projects; perhaps most important is his involvement, from 1979 on, in the series of European Election Studies. He received substantial research grants from European, German and British institutions. He is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on electoral behaviour in multilevel-systems and on political representation in the European Union.

Eftichia Teperoglou is a Lecturer at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a Researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology- Instituto Universitario de Lisboa (CIES-IUL). Her main research interests are in the fields of political and electoral behaviour with a focus on European elections, comparative politics and public opinion. She is one of the national directors for the Comparative Candidate Survey (CCS), Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) and European Election Study (EES) in Greece and one of the founders of the Hellenic National Election Study (ELNES).She has published her work in international journals and in edited volumes. She is the author of the book (in Greek) titled ‘The other "national" elections. Analyzing the European Elections in Greece 1981-2014’.