Personalised election campaign of the SPD: not second-order after all? © Vincent Venus
Was the European Election 2014 of second-order to parties and citizens? My master thesis tested the second-order election model at the case of Germany. Find a summary of the most interesting points in the German edition of my website. Or download the second-order election model test of the European Election 2014 in Germany.
Abstract
So far European elections have been of second-order to voters, journalists and the media. The result: low turnouts, fewer media attention and limited party campaigns.
The 2014 elections were supposed to be different because more was at stake: foremost the leadership of the EU Commission, but also the questions on how to respond to the crisis and how to continue European integration.
This paper analysed the recent European election in Germany. With the help of the second-order election model it first establishes on a macro level whether it was a second-order election. Afterwards it studies one actor group on a meso-level: did the national political parties beef up their campaigns to meet the election’s importance and mobilise citizens to vote?
Feedback by University
The paper concluded my Masters programme European Public Affairs at Maastricht University in August 2014. Both supervisors awarded 8.5 out of 10 points which equals an A* (UK), A+ (USA) and 1,5 (Germany). They concluded that “this is a very strong thesis whereby there is only little room for improvement, the main point being the generalisability of the case.”
Comments