European Journal of Political Research 31: 109–124, 1997.

109
c 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

NOMINATIONS AND REFLECTIONS

Second-order elections

Nine second-order national elections: A conceptual framework for the

analysis of European election results
by Karlheinz Reif & Hermann Schmitt, University of Mannheim, Germany
EJPR 8 (1980): 3–44.

Abstract. The composition of the directly elected European Parliament does

not precisely reflect the ‘real’ balance of political forces in the European
Community. As long as the national political systems decide most of what
there is to be decided politically, and everything really important, European
elections are additional national second-order elections. They are determined
more by the domestic political cleavages than by alternatives originating in the
EC, but in a different way than if nine first-order national elections took place
simultaneously. This is the case because European elections occur at different
stages of the national political systems’ respective ‘electoral cycles’. Such a
relationship between a second-order arena and the chief arena of a political
system is not at all unusual. What is new here, is that one second-order
political arena is related to nine different first-order arenas. A first analysis of
European election results satisfactorily justifies the assumption that European
Parliament direct elections should be treated as nine simultaneous national
second-order elections.

Nomination:
Second-order elections revisited
PIPPA NORRIS
Harvard University, USA

In one of the first systematic studies of direct elections to the European

Parliament, Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmitt developed a conceptual
framework in ‘Nine second-order national elections’ (1980) which has proved
strikingly prescient and immensely influential. The latest book to emerge from
the European Election Study, Van der Eijk and Franklin’s Choosing Europe?
(1996), continues to address many of the core issues defined in the research
110
agenda first established by Reif and Schmitt. After four successive European-
wide elections, it seem appropriate to reflect on the original thesis to see what
we have learnt, and what continues to remain a puzzle, about these contests.

1. Perspectives in European elections

Elections to the European Parliament can be understood from two alterna-

tive perspectives. On the one hand, those primarily interested in the politics
and institutions of the European Union focus on these contests as a way of
understanding EU politics. Outside of occasional referendums, elections to
the European Parliament provide the main institutional channel allowing the
public to participate directly in European politics. It follows, in this view, that
these contests should tell us something about the nature of popular support
for ‘European’ issues, such as European Monetary Union, market deregu-
lation, the future of European federalism, reform of CAP, and the question
of enlargement of the Union. Moreover, public opinion expressed through
European elections should provide insights into the broader problems of the
‘democratic deficit’.
Working within this perspective, studies of EU elections on a country-
by-country basis, such as those provided in successive volumes edited by
Juliet Lodge (1982, 1986, 1990, 1996), describe party strategies and tactics
in the campaign, the main issues, and the outcome in terms of votes and
seats in each member state. Almost invariably such studies conclude that
European elections are ‘disappointing’, because the parties fail to campaign,
and certainly the public fails to be interested, in ‘European’ issues. The
puzzle, for Europeanists, is why domestic politics repeatedly determines the
outcome of European contests. Yet if analysts continue to find the behaviour of
the electorate a ‘disappointment’, rather than continually berating the public
for failing to live up to our expectations, perhaps we should reexamine the
theoretical basis of our assumptions.
On the other hand, those interested in comparative political behaviour,
rather than the politics of the EU per se, see these contests as a unique
opportunity to compare and contrast voting behaviour using a single survey
vehicle to study simultaneous cross-national elections for the same office.
As a result we can analyze how key issues in political behaviour – such
as cross-national differences in levels of turnout, party support, or social
alignments – are related to significant variations in the institutional, political,
and socioeconomic context of elections in European countries. At least until
 111
recently,1 there has been so little cross-national standardisation in the items
used in national election studies that it has been hard to use these to compare
even basic variables on a consistent basis, for example, patterns of class
voting, or partisanship in a wide range of liberal democracies. Datasets such
as the annual EuroBarometer, the World Values Study, and the International
Social Survey Programme provide invaluable insights into public opinion
and attitudes across a range of countries. But only the large-scale European
Election Studies provide the basis for truly comparative empirical research of
voting behaviour within a common campaign. The puzzle, for comparativists,
is to explain the same issues about voting choice that confront the analyst in
any election.

2. The concept of national second-order elections

Drawing on these two perspectives, in their original 1980 article, Reif and
Schmitt reflected on the main patterns which are evident in elections to
the European Parliament. The core insight which they provided was that
these contests have no direct impact on national governments, yet in practice
the outcome is largely determined by domestic politics. To understand this
Reif and Schmitt draw an important distinction between two categories of
elections.
‘First-order’ elections offer voters the critical choice of who should gov-
ern the country. This includes general elections in parliamentary systems
like Great Britain, the Netherlands and Germany, and presidential elec-
tions in countries like the USA, Costa Rica, and the Philippines.
‘Second-order’ elections, in contrast, are less important because, although
still open to influence by national party politics, they determine the out-
come for lesser offices, such as regional, municipal and local officials
in parliamentary systems, and legislative representatives in presidential
systems.
Based on this distinction, elections to the European Parliament, no matter
how significant for the legitimacy of the EU, clearly fall into the second-
order category. In the original treaty the European Parliament was envisaged
as the institution which represented the people directly, but with relatively
weak powers. The original treaty gave the parliament only a consultative
role in the adoption of EU legislation and the budget, and limited scrutiny

1
It should be noted that the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), a collaborative
project coordinated by the Center for Political Studies at Michigan, promises to remedy this
situation by incorporating a standard battery of items into election studies in a wide range of
countries. This project is in the process of being implemented.
112
over the Commission. These powers were increased in a number of steps,
but because member states such as Great Britain were reluctant to allow any
further erosion of control, Council remains the dominant decision-making
forum (Jacobs et al. 1992).
Certain significant consequences flow from this analysis. Second-order
elections commonly display certain features, namely:

Lower levels of voting participation: since less is at stake fewer citizens

bother to enter the ballot box.
The outcome is strongly related to the popularity of national parties within
a particular country, rather than revolving around particular issues, indi-
vidual candidates, or specific events in second-order election campaigns.
In a cyclical pattern, governing parties often experience a fall in support
in second-order contests, particularly in the mid-term period, as peo-
ple treat the contest as an opportunity to protest against the incumbent
administration.
Minor parties are usually the main beneficiaries of any temporary protest
vote against the government.

These patterns have been found in the extensive literature on Congressional

elections in the USA (see Niemi & Weisberg 1993; Jacobson 1992), as well as
studies of local government elections (Miller 1988) and by-elections (Norris
1990). It follows that, far from presenting idiosyncratic results, reflecting
their unique transnational status, elections to the European Parliament fall
into a fairly predictable pattern which they share with many similar types
of contest. Although European elections are relatively new phenomenon, our
insights into them can go back to the ‘surge and decline’ literature developed
for mid-term election by Campbell et al. (1966). The outcome tells us more
about the domestic political division in each country, such as the popularity
of the governing party, rather than public support for issues like Maastricht
which are directly related to the politics of the European Union.
In their original article Reif and Schmitt went on to examine how far the
first direct elections followed this pattern. They demonstrated that in the 1979
European elections, compared with the previous general election, all nations
except Luxembourg experienced a fall in turnout. Reif and Schmitt also
confirmed the hypothesis that the parties in government would lose support in
every case except the Netherlands, and moreover this was related to the stage
of the government in the mid-term popularity cycle. Lastly the study proved
that in eight out of nine countries small and newer parties were the chief
beneficiaries of the ‘protest’ vote. Minor parties provide a temporary resting
home for those disaffected by the government. We may therefore expect a
sudden surge in minor party fortunes in European, local or by-elections, but
 113
support may evaporate as quickly as summer snow in a general election where
control of the government is at stake.
The first direct elections provided an initial test of these hypotheses. What
is remarkable is how far these insights have been repeatedly confirmed in
subsequent contests, in a familiar pattern, as we have deepened our knowledge
of the underlying dynamics behind these contests in later research (see Reif
1985; Schmitt & Mannheimer 1991a; Van der Eijk & Franklin 1996; Marsh
& Norris 1997, forthcoming). The core remaining puzzle is how to explain
cross-national variations within this pattern: why turnout, for example, should
fall more sharply and steeply in some countries rather than others. How voters
decide which minor party to support when casting their ‘protest’ vote. Or how
the ‘popularity cycle’ functions in different political systems, and how this
relates to the government’s economic performance. For answers to these and
related questions, studies have turned in particular to the party, institutional,
and strategic context of European elections (Van der Eijk & Franklin 1996).

3. Consequences and implications

The concept of second-order national elections has therefore generated a

rich literature with both empirical and normative implications. From the
perspective of voting studies, the Reif and Schmitt study highlights the way
that in most parliamentary democracies we have often developed theories and
generalisations based on our knowledge about voting behaviour in general
elections. But this is, of course, only one context for electoral choice. We
need to consider how to develop more integrated research designs with panel
surveys which allow comparison of electoral behaviour at different levels: in
European, national, regional, and local elections. Differences in timing, and
in district boundaries, require fairly complex designs. But just as studies of
mid-term Senate, House and Gubernatorial elections in the United States have
generated a burgeoning literature, so multi-level electoral studies promise to
become one of the most fruitful avenues for future research in European
countries.
Moreover the concept of second-order elections has certain implications
which go to the heart of normative issues of political representation. Issues
of democracy within the EU raise complex questions with no easy answers
(see Andersen & Eliassen 1996). The most common meaning of political
representation, deeply rooted within the European parliamentary tradition,
is base on the ‘responsible party model’. This places parties as the critical
institution linking citizens and state (for a discussion, see Marsh & Norris,
forthcoming). This model of democratic governance is one where legislative
and executive branches are chosen by the people, either directly or indirectly,
in elections contested by parties competing on the major issues confronting
114
the system. Governments can be held accountable for their actions at periodic
competitive elections. In this model voters are offered a choice of competing
party programmes at elections, the electorate votes according to the retrospec-
tive performance and prospective policies of the parties, and parties returned
to government have a responsibility to implement their programme (for a
discussion, see Norris 1996).
Yet in European Parliament elections, most parties fail to offer voters a clear
policy alternative towards the major issues of European governance, and as
Reif and Schmitt demonstrate, most campaigns continue to be dominated
by the search for domestic political advantage (Reif & Schmitt 1980). Nor
are ‘European’ issues to the fore in most national elections. Hence the lack
of linkage between public preferences and constitutional decisions by both
the Parliament and the more powerful Council of Ministers. The public in
different countries may or may not favour European Monetary Union, the
enlargement of the Community, or greater European integration, but unless
parties campaign on these issues and offer alternative positions, there are few
ways that public preferences can be expressed in an effective manner.
If citizens are not casting their vote based on the choice of parties and
candidates for the European Parliament, this could cause a serious disconnect
between voters preferences and their elected representatives which under-
mines liberal theories of democracy. The electorate can influence the EU
through direct and indirect channels. National institutions continue to retain
the primary responsibility for ensuring democracy and accountability in the
Union. The strongest link for voters is through the election of national gov-
ernments, who then appoint the Commission and send representatives to the
Council of Ministers. The weaker links for voters are the direct elections to
the European Parliament. So long as elections to the EP remain second-order
contests, the legitimacy and authority of this body remains under question,
and the ghost of the ‘democratic deficit’ will continue to haunt the European
Union.
 115
Reflections:
European elections as member state second-order elections
revisited
KARLHEINZ REIF
Eurobarometer, European Commission, Brussels, Belgium

A heavy price : : : , the paradox of integrated economics and separate

politics, the paradox of an elaborate process of multinational bargaining
coexisting with an obstinately ‘national process of political life and elec-
tions’ (Stanley Hoffmann & William Wallace 1990: 295, emphasis added).

Any review of the literature on European parliamentary elections would

have to conclude that Reif & Schmitt’s suggestion that these must be seen
first and foremost as second-order national elections has been invaluable.
Undoubtedly this approach has generated important propositions about
the main patterns to be found in the results – propositions that are support-
ed by empirical evidence (Cees Van der Eijk, Mark Franklin & Michael
Marsh 1996: 161).

Building on a body of published research and discussion in the USA and the
UK that ranged from V.O. Key (1958) over Goodhart & Banshali (1970),
Miller & Mackie (1973), to Tufte (1975) and Stimson (1976), Reiner Dinkel
presented a cyclical model about ‘The relationship between (results of) Fed-
eral and State elections in West Germany’ in the volume of analyses of the
1976 German Bundestag elections edited by Max Kaase (1977). It showed
that the parties forming the government at the federal level – ‘irrespective of
whether they form the government or belong to the opposition in the state
concerned – suffer a relative loss of votes at all Landtag elections’ – except for
state elections having taken place immediately after federal elections, during
what, referring to Kaase (1973), he calls ‘post-election honeymoon’ or ‘post-
election euphoria’. ‘The performance of (these) parties at state elections is
dependent on the time this election takes place within the (federal) legislative
period. Their chance of winning a state election is best at the beginning as
well as at the end of the (federal) legislative period’ (cited, here, is the Amer-
ican translation, Dinkel 1978). He also analyses the regularly lower turnout
of what he calls ‘untergeordnete’ (1977) or ‘minor’ elections.

 This article presents the personal views of the author which are not necessarily the views
of the European Commission. Hermann Schmitt and I were invited to present together some
reflections about our 1980 common article. For practical reasons, we have agreed that I write
this alone.
116
The idea was born in my small apartment in the ‘Marais’ in Paris in Spring
19781 on the occasion of writing a review of Max Kaase, ed. (1977): apply
this logic to European elections but take into account that the members states
are dominant in the political system of the EC.
The idea was simple. Take the concept of a systematic cyclical relationship
between the results of the most important election within a political system –
which I named Hauptwahlen, ‘First Order Election’ (FOE) – and the results of
all ‘other’ types of elections within the system – which I named Nebenwahlen,
‘Second Order Elections’ (SOE). ‘Translate’ this model and the reasoning
behind it, this logic of looking at different types of elections, into the (then)
European Community, taking into account that this EC system constitutes
a common political sub-system of its member states. The member states as
such continue to form the dominant, the ‘first order’ political arena (FOPA)
where most power is located and where the respective elections constitute the
prevalent process of democratic political legitimisation. A crucial element
of this ‘translation’ was to place European elections at their respective point
in time within the first order (FO) electoral cycle for each member state.
While European elections are held on Thursday and Sunday of the same
week, the model superimposes member state FO electoral cycles. Each of
the most recent FOE of each member state is placed on the same point
in the equation and graphical representation. European elections then find
themselves at different distances from this ‘point zero’, depending on the time
that had passed since the last FOE in the respective member state, and on the
time until the subsequent FOE is due, or likely to take place. Although FO
electoral cycles vary in duration across member states, the model standardises
this duration by expressing time in fractions of each respective electoral cycle.
Upon an invitation from Ronald Inglehart, I wrote a corresponding paper
for presentation at the APSA Annual Meeting 1978 (Reif 1978). Invited by
Monica and Jean Charlot, the then editors of the EJPR, to contribute a piece
to the special issue on the first direct elections of the European Parliament, I
looked into the first European election results together with Hermann Schmitt.
Based on the reasoning of the 1978 paper and the data available in Autumn
1979, our article was published in No. 1 of Vol. 8 of the EJPR (1980).
The following comments deal with misunderstandings as they have become
evident in the literature referring to the paper. I shall primarily discuss the
most recent publication extensively making reference to it (van der Eijk,
Franklin & Marsh 1996). Occasionally, I will also refer to my other related
papers and publications written between 1978 and 1984/86.
1. The most crucial mistake in the 1980 article was not to have elaborated in
sufficient detail how the adjective ‘national’ in the term ‘second order national
elections’ was meant to be understood.
 117
The term ‘second order national elections’ refers to the fact that – according
to our reasoning – the campaign and results of each and every type of SOE are
more or less heavily influenced by the political constellation of the dominant
political arena within the system, the first order political arena (FOPA). Mem-
ber states’ political arenas at the member-state-as-a-whole level are clearly
the first order political arena of all EC/EU member countries.2 All elections
(except the one that fills the most important political office of the entire system
and therefore is the FOE) are ‘national second order elections’, irrespective
of whether they take place in the entire, or only in a part of, the country. The
extent to which arena specific factors determine campaign and outcome of
SOE varies with inter alia with the relative importance attributed by citizens,
parties and media and with the degree of ‘nationalisation of politics’ (cf., e.g.,
Caramani 1966) in the respective country.
2. The second mistake of the 1980 article was not to have elaborated in more
detail on the concept of (FOE) post-electoral euphoria and its consequences
for SOE results. Parties which form the FOPA government tend to get a higher
share of the votes at SOE that take place a short time after FOE than they
got at this recent FOE. Only after this phase of post-electoral euphoria do
they tend to get a lower share at SOE as compared to their last FOE share,
and their losses tend to be more limited towards the end of the FO electoral
cycle. Many authors who make use of the SOE approach when looking into
European election results do not pay attention to this.
The 1980 article does not discuss possible differences from country to
country or from one historical period to another as to the intensity and duration
of FOE post-electoral euphoria. This aspect was addressed in detail in Reif
(1984b,c). But systematic research based on different types of SOE is still
needed in order to identify and/or test concrete variables (such as the FOE
‘winners’-losers’ difference in share of votes or seats, or the expectations
being built up by the media and the politicians on the basis of published
opinion poll results) in order to replace country names or time period labels
by variable names.
Another problem is the speed of build-up of post-electoral euphoria. Does
this need quite some time – several days or weeks? Or is it there imme-
diately, on election night or the day after? In other words our theoretical
considerations determined by whether we need a third order polynomial to
present the model of SOE results for FOPA governing parties in mathematical
and graphical form, or whether a second order polynomial will do. Van der
Eijk et al. (1996) do not take this aspect into consideration when (correctly)
stating that a third order polynomial does not explain the existing data on
national government parties’ European election results better than a second
order polynomial. They may be justified in doing so: the already mentioned
118
‘nationalisation of electoral politics’ and the high media visibility of election
night estimations (two phenomena which in turn appear strongly interrelated)
suggest an ‘immediate’ build up of post-electoral euphoria. We may thus drop
the theoretically inspired third order polynomial.
3. Another shortcoming of the 1980 article was not to emphasise more the
fact that previous research on the relationship between results of different
types of elections was based on FOPA political systems with a bipolar party
system,3 the USA, the UK and Germany. In countries with a party system that
is not very much or not at all bipolar (e.g. Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxem-
bourg) or in countries that never had experienced (full) democratic alternation
(e.g. Italy before 1996), the model simply had not been tested before 1979.
Experience has revealed that non-bipolar party systems are somewhat less
strictly subject to the logic of the SOE model. As the Netherlands, for exam-
ple, clearly showed in 1979; the parties needed 277 days after their 1977
FOE to form a coalition. This is not the classical situation for building up
post-electoral euphoria. More comprehensive analyses by Marsh & Franklin
(1996) confirm this observation.
4. Had I to write the article today, I would not only speak of ‘small and
new’ parties having a better chance at SOE than big, established, parties (as
in 1980) or, in addition, of ‘radical’ parties (as in Reif 1984b,c) but also
of ‘protest’ and ‘populist’ parties. The reasoning behind this proposition is
the relative capacity of a party to mobilise voters either because of strong
organisational resources (e.g. Communist parties before the mid-end-1980s
and/or because leaders of established parties and the mass media have already
contributed to their visibility).
5. Since 1978 or 1979, much has been written about whether and/or how
party identification or party attachment have declined (cf. e.g., Schmitt 1989,
1990; Schmitt & Holmberg 1995). The SOE model does not ‘depend’ on
a big share of voters with a definite attachment to one specific party. One
motivation not to vote for the FOPA government party at SOE, although
being ‘normally’ attached to it, is assumed to be giving a warning to one’s
‘own’ party because it is not living up to its promises. I expect, however, in
systems with a shrinking share of party loyalists, that SOE swings towards
protest parties increase. As to voting for another party than one’s own, van der
Eijk and Niemöller (1983) have developed an approach for the Netherlands.
By measuring the likelihood of citizens to vote for other than ‘their’ party, or
the party they last voted for, the authors show the potential vote of each party
in a multiparty system. This has proven to be easily applicable and powerful
in most other EC/EU countries, as the 1989 and 1994 European Electoral
studies have shown (cf. e.g., Schmitt 1989, Oppenhuis 1995, and especially
Van der Eijk and Franklin 1996, with further references).
 119
6. In contrast to Schmitt & Mannheimer (1990) or Van der Eijk et al.
(1996), I do not consider it justified to include cases of simultaneous first and
second order elections in the empirical dataset for testing the SOE model.4
The theoretical reasoning behind the model is assumed to deal with SOE
and take place at other points in time during the electoral FOE cycle. It also
assumes that a complete application of the model (cf. e.g., Reif 1984c, for
graphical illustrations) necessitates the FOE results subsequent to the SOE be
taken into account so as to have the x-axis represent the linear trend between
the last and the subsequent FOE results of FOPA government parties. The
SOE data in the model are expressed as percentage of share of votes for these
parties compared to this continuous linear trend.
7. As far as turnout is concerned, the facts cause little controversy. European
election turnout, as any other SOE turnout, always is lower than FOE turnout
– unless both elections are held simultaneously. As to the reasons for this, con-
siderable research has been accumulated by now. The methodology that often
is applied for ‘finding out’ that obligatory voting leads to a higher turnout and
that a simultaneous FOE does likewise is somewhat over-sophisticated (Nie-
dermayer 1990). For other contextual factors, however, multivariate aggregate
analyses is obviously helpful, for example, ‘politicisation of political culture’
(Blumler & Fox 1982) or – quite similarly – deepness of divisions between
social groups (Franklin et al. 1992) and ‘timing’ within the FOE cycle (Marsh
& Franklin 1996). No account appears to have been taken in aggregate Euro-
pean election turnout data analyses of concurrent elections other than those
at the national level (such as municipal, state, regional elections or referenda).
Equally rich is research based on individual data explaining the significance
for turnout of attitudinal and socio-demographic variables (including vot-
ers attention to political context). Attitudes towards Europe play a modest
role, if any at all, as soon as these analyses are multivariate (cf. Schmitt &
Mannheimer 1990, but also already Blumler & Fox 1982, and Van der Eijk
1984). For an overview and further references, see Van der Eijk et al. (1996).
8. By looking at European elections as SOE, we certainly may also learn
about national (first order) elections and ‘the nature of the voting act’ (Van der
Eijk et al. 1996). Indeed it is in general high time to look systematically into
SOE in order to get a better understanding of the political process. We must,
however, treat the principle difference between SOE and FOE as a crucial
‘contextual variable’, to be empirically scrutinised using European election
results and survey data. In spite of providing extremely interesting and useful
material for the cross-nationally comparative analysis of electoral behaviour,
this cannot replace cross-national FOE results and survey data if we want
to understand ‘the nature of the voting act’ and other features of the role of
120
elections in democratic systems. Strictly comparable cross-national survey
data on FOE, however, are much more difficult to get.
9. We are not condemned, however, to build walls that prevent us from
potentially important insights into political processes by treating our own
concepts in a dogmatic fashion. In the same way as political parties may
be defined as organisations which aim at filling the decisive positions in a
political system via electoral victory or via revolution (cf. e.g., Reif 1987:
163), we may look at FOE in order to see whether these reveal aspects of SOE
(Reif 1988, Van der Eijk et al. 1996: 162) or we may look at SOE in order to
find out whether they signal democratic alternation at the subsequent FOE,
constituting ‘critical SOEs’ delegitimating the holders of core political posi-
tions of the FOPA (Reif 1982b, 1983), hence representing almost something
like a ‘quasi FOE’.5 Another aspect of SOE consequences – European or not
– for the FOPA, are consolidation through SOPA position holding, visibility
and strengthening of party coffers of new protest parties.6
10. We need not restrict ourselves to electoral studies when attempting
to make use of the logic behind the SOE model. It has proven to be also
applicable to ‘unconventional’ political participation, for example in France.7
11. As to the European Union, in addition to improving the legitimisation
of the EC/EU political system8 and to creating numerous positions of ‘full
time European politicians’, two different, if not contradictory, consequences
of direct elections to the European Parliament would figure prominently if
we had to write our article today.
(a) As a result of the February 1984 presentation of a draft EC constitution
and other continuous pressure, the directly elected Parliament contributed
significantly to the coming about of the Single European Act (1985–1987)
and the (‘Maastricht’) Treaty on European Union (1990–1993). Both added
considerably to EP powers.
(b) European election campaigns inform or remind citizens of the fact that
– in spite of the considerable gains of powers since 1979 – the EP is still
not what one normally considers to be a ‘full grown parliament’. In other
words, one of the few ‘European’ pieces of information that do come across
during European election campaigns contributes to these remaining low key
and FOPA centred.
Less often cited and discussed are two further aspects: (c) As Dinkel (1977,
1978) has already pointed out, the logic of what we call SOE has a practically
inevitable structural effect on composite political systems with two different
institutions which participate in legislation. The one of the two originating
from SOE (in the EC/EU, the EP) tends to have a majority that is opposed
to the one originating from FOE (in the EC/EU, the Council). This renders
co-legislation more difficult.
 121
(d) Playing with words for the sake of argument, one could distinguish SOE
and TOE (‘third order elections’, cf. Reif, 1984b). In the eyes of citizens, SOE
would be less important than FOE, but are still ‘real elections’. They ‘produce’
a (local, regional, European) government, especially a Head of Government –
a mayor, a Ministerpräsident, a Président du Conseil Général ou Régional, a
Presidente de la Generalidad de Catuluna, etc. ‘TOE’s ‘produce’ an assembly
but have no impact on the ‘production’ of the respective government.
12. The 1994 European election did ‘produce’ a (perhaps only ‘quasi’
or ‘proto’) government, the European Commission, but the peculiar irony
was that citizens entitled to vote did not know this. Nobody told them. The
‘Maastricht’ Treaty had given the EP the power to vote on the President of the
Commission, designated by the member state governments, and to confirm or
reject the designated Commission as a whole. Imagine if one of the important
EU party families had proclaimed their candidate for the succession of Jacques
Delors several months before the 1994 European elections and centred their
campaign around this person. Imagine the response of the mass media and
hence the pressure on the other party families to do likewise, or at least to
come up with a good ‘reason why not’! To finish our playing with words, this
would transform European elections from TOE into SOE (cf. Reif 1994).
Of course, it would not transform the European elections into FOE (or
make the European Union the FOPA). The EU is likely to remain a common
political sub-system of its member states, ‘only’ because – as so many people
forget – its budget represents just two per cent of all public expenditure in the
area of its jurisdiction.

Notes

1. This was during a one year visit at the CEVIPOF of the FNSP carrying out research on
the preparation of French political parties for the upcoming first European elections.
2. These are normally called ‘nation-states’. As definitions of ‘nation’ vary, some might not
attribute this label, for example, to the United Kingdom or to Spain. We will not go into
this discussion here and apply the term to all member states.
3. These are not to be confounded with a ‘polarised’ format (Sartori 1976). For more
detailed discussion of the distinction cf. Reif (1982a, 1986, 1987). Explicit reference
to the bipolar party system base the model was derivated from was made e.g., in Reif
(1984a: 22f).
4. Theoretically, it makes even less sense to compare results of a SOE held on the same day
as FOE to the results of the preceding FOE, as Van der Eijk et al. (1996) do.
5. I looked at the German Bundestag elections of 1987, for instance, as ‘quasi SOE’.
They had lower turnout; big and government parties lost votes; new and more or less
radical protest parties gained votes. But why? Because nothing was really at stake! The
result had been a foregone conclusion: the opposition candidate for the chancellery,
Johannes Rau, had categorically excluded to form a coalition with the Greens: unless
a (totally unlikely) SPD absolute majority of Bundestag seats was won by the SPD
the outgoing CDU/CSU/FDP coalition under Helmut Kohl would comfortably go on
122
governing. And so they did. On the other hand, the European elections for Germany in
1979 (correctly) hinted at a comfortable victory of Helmut Schmidt over Franz Josef
Stauss at the subsequent (1980) FOE. And the 1979 European election results for Ireland
and Denmark, as well as the 1984 European election results for France, hinted at an
opposition victory at the subsequent FOE which, in fact, came about in each case.
6. The Republikaner in Germany are an example of a protest party winning votes and seats
in various SOPA for some years only. The Greens in many countries, and the French
Front National, illustrate the case of new protest parties working their way into FOPA
lasting presence through success at European and other SOE.
7. If we examine the history of the Fifth French Republic, using this logic, we can easily
distinguish two types of elections to the Assemblée Nationale: second order elections
in 1958, 1962, 1981, 1988, and first order elections in 1967, 1973, 1978, 1986 and
1993. The first series of elections to the ‘lower’ house of the national parliament all took
place shortly after either a referendum in which the Head of State had put his staying
in office at stake or shortly after a presidential election. Each of the second series of
parliamentary elections took place at a considerable time after the last (as well as – as
far as had been known – before the subsequent presidential election (or truly equivalent
referendum). SOE elections taking place a short time after FOE are characterised by an
‘overconfirmation’ of the preceding FOE. This not only holds for the European elections
in the UK in 1979 (five weeks after the first victory of the Conservatives under Margaret
Thatcher) but also for the French parliamentary elections of the first series cited above
(preceding referenda in 1958 and 1962, preceding presidential elections in 1981 and
1988). But what do we do with the victoire écrasante of the Gaullist party at the elections
to the National Assembly in June 1968? Well, we see the student unrest and workers
general strike of (the beginning) of Mai 1968, as well as the massive manifestation of
support for General de Gaulle on the Champs Elysés organised by Georges Pompidou on
31 May, 1968, as ‘first and second rounds’ of a non institutionalised mode of political
mobilisation, of challenging or defending the political forces in power: ‘quasi presidential
(i.e. first order) elections’. The parliamentary elections three weeks later, producing the
only single absolute majority of seats for the Gaullist party ever since its existence and
up to date, were SOE (cf. Reif 1982a,b, 1983).
8. Since the so called ‘Maastricht’ crisis of public support for European integration, which
in fact had started long before the ‘Maastricht’ treaty decision (see Reif 1993a,b; Euro-
barometer nos. 40 and 43), the debate on EU legitimacy and the democratic deficit,
including the role of the EP and its election, has practically exploded and cannot be
discussed here. For some important contributions and further references see, e.g. Reif
(1993b), Niedermayer & Sinnot (1995), Telo (1995), König et al. (1996), Pierson (1996),
and Zürn (1996).

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