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Abstract This paper examines social representation in the European Parliament using a model which uses the demand, the supply and the structure of opportunities as factors explaining differential recruitment. Analysis of the experiences of candidates suggest that supply–side factors proved more strongly related to candidates gaining winnable seats than demand–side factors. Results also confirm the importance of institutional structures in widening or narrowing opportunities, and suggest the European Parliament will remain social unrepresentative in the foreseeable future, a characteristic that serves only to add to the already considerable problems of legitimacy in the European Union.

We explore the reasons for the unexpected defeat of Winston Churchill's Conservatives by Labour in the British general election of 1945. Was the outcome a result of Churchill's election campaign errors, as many have supposed, or did the coming-of-age of a new political generation make it a foregone conclusion? Much controversy in the partisanship literature centres on whether electoral realignments result primarily from conversion of existing voters or from mobilization of previously non-voting individuals. In particular, the 1930s US realignment has been the focus of considerable debate. In this article we shed new light on realignment processes by examining the 1945 British realignment that brought the Labour party to power. We find that, in this more straightforward case, the critical impetus came from new voters rather than from converts. Our findings raise questions that need to be confronted in the analysis of other realignments, such as that accompanying the American New Deal. They also shed new light on a much-interpreted episode in British electoral history.

We explore the reasons for the unexpected defeat of Winston Churchill's Conservatives by Labour in the British general election of 1945. Was the outcome a result of Churchill's election campaign errors, as many have supposed, or did the coming-of-age of a new political generation make it a foregone conclusion? Much controversy in the partisanship literature centres on whether electoral realignments result primarily from conversion of existing voters or from mobilization of previously non-voting individuals. In particular, the 1930s US realignment has been the focus of considerable debate. In this article we shed new light on realignment processes by examining the 1945 British realignment that brought the Labour party to power. We find that, in this more straightforward case, the critical impetus came from new voters rather than from converts. Our findings raise questions that need to be confronted in the analysis of other realignments, such as that accompanying the American New Deal. They also shed new light on a much-interpreted episode in British electoral history. (British Journal of Political Science / AuD)

In the aftermath of a European Parliament (EP) election, there are normally two prominent aspects that receive attention by scholars and experts: the turnout rate and whether the Second Order Election (SOE) model proposed by Reif and Schmitt (1980) still applies. That model is based on the idea that, because EP elections do not themselves provide enough stimulus as to replace the concerns normally present at national elections, the outcomes of EP elections in any participating country manifest themselves as a sort of distorted mirror of national (Parliamentary) elections in that country. The mirror is distorted because those national concerns are modified, not so much by the concerns arising from the European context in which EP elections are held as simply by the fact that EP elections are not national elections. In particular, at EP elections, national executive power is not at stake. The same party or parties will rule in each country after an EP election as ruled there before.

© 2020 Società Italiana di Scienza Politica. In the aftermath of a European Parliament (EP) election, there are normally two prominent aspects that receive attention by scholars and experts: the turnout rate and whether the Second Order Election (SOE) model proposed by Reif and Schmitt (1980) still applies. That model is based on the idea that, because EP elections do not themselves provide enough stimulus as to replace the concernsnormally present at national elections, the outcomes of EP elections in any participating country manifest themselves as a sort of distorted mirror of national (Parliamentary) elections in that country. The mirror is distorted because those national concerns are modified, not so much by the concerns arising from the European context in which EP elections are held as simply by the fact that EP elections are not national elections. In particular, at EP elections, national executive power is not at stake. The same party or parties will rule in each country after an EP election as ruled there before.