Nav 7-1: Examining party political landscapes at the national level

Length Browsing: 15 minutes Reporting: 20 minutes
Goal
  • To see to what extent the two dimensions of contestation between EU political groups are present in national party systems.
Introduction Chapter 7 has shown that two dimensions structure political party group positions in the EU: a classic left/right dimension and a newer pro-/ anti-EU dimension. This results in a horseshoe-shaped distribution of party groups at the EU-level. In this exercise, you will investigate the positioning of domestic parties on these two dimensions.
Steps
  • Go to the EUandI2019 website, which is a voting advice application for the 2019 elections.

  • Select a member state and complete the survey. (It does not matter whether you answer the questions consistently or truthfully.) On the right top of the screen, you can switch to English – so you can choose any country.

  • At the end of the survey, you can attach weights to different issues, but this step can be skipped.

  • After completing the survey, you will be given your results.

  • Click on the Landscape button on the left to look at the positioning of the parties.

  • Examine the landscape and compare it to the overall positioning of groups in the EU as shown in Figure 7.3 of the book.
Questions

  • How are parties positioned and what is the relation between left/right pro-/ anti-EU in this country? How does it differ from the positioning of political groups at the EU level?

  • Try to predict to which political group these parties belong and write it down in a table.

  • Compare your predictions with the actual situation by looking up the affiliation of political groups through this website. (Please note that not all parties are represented in the EP. You only need to do the comparison for those that are.) Create another table, based on the data.

  • How well did you predict the affiliation of the political groups?

  • Your report should include the following elements:

    • Country selected

    • Picture of party political landscape

    • Explanation of pattern and comparison to figure 7.3

    • Table with your prediction and actual configuration

    • Discussion of your predictions

Party name

My prediction

Actual group

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Links

© All exercises copyright Herman Lelieveldt and Sebastiaan Princen 2022

Cambridge University Press

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