The Regional Dynamics of European Electoral Politics: Participation in National and European Contests in the 1990s

In: European Union politics: EUP, Band 4, Heft 2, S. 139-164

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between regional economic conditions and individual political participation in the mid-1990s for Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. In exploring this connection, I construct regional poverty rates, unemployment rates, and inequality scores using data made available through the efforts of the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) and Eurostat (2000). I also identify regional economic distress employing the European Commission's designation of regions as `Objective One.' I predict individual political participation in national elections and in the 1994 European Parliamentary election using data from the Eurobarometer 1994 Post-European Election Study and find evidence that persons living in economically disadvantaged regions, namely those that are recipients of Objective One Structural Funds, were more likely to vote in elections for the European Parliament than were Europeans residing in other regions.