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It is likely that ten years of economic crisis have eroded the support of democracy in Europe. But how much? The existing research is divided on this issue. Some claim that the degree of satisfaction with democracy has declined across the whole of Europe during the Great Recession. Other researchers have found no empirical evidence that the support of democracy as a core value has declined across Europe. They claim that merely the specific support has decreased in some countries. This article will use the data from the European Social Survey to verify both claims. It shows that the Great Recession did not lead to a legitimacy crisis of European democracies and that the diffuse support of democracy remains high in most regions. The degree to which the specific support of democracy has been weakened is moderated by the type of welfare regime. In countries where the economic crisis did strike hard and the welfare state is weakly developed, the support of democracy has dropped dramatically. This outcome takes a middle position between two extremes in the ongoing academic debate on the support of democracy. Both positions regarding the increase or decrease of support of and satisfaction with democracy are in need of more nuance by taking into account the impact of welfare regimes. Existing research often assumes a uniform European context that shows either increasing or decreasing levels of satisfaction with democracy. Our research has shown that the response of citizens to the Great Recession has been influenced by the welfare regime.

The Comparative Manifestos Project (CMP) offers data on party policy positions based on a coding scheme of 56 categories. To what extent can we replicate the CMP coding results by using computerized topical coding of digitalised manifestos? Both human and computer coding have a number of strengths and weaknesses so that the combination of strengths could help to arrive at both valid and reliable party policy placements, in particular the measurement of policy movements over time. More than 1500 digitalised party manifestos in 20 democracies in the period 1960-2009 are re-coded with a computerized CMP-compatible coding scheme in order to assess the differences with human coding using exactly the same issue categories and the same left-right scale. The analysis shows that it is possible to use computer coding in order to locate the potential weakness of the human coding and the other way around. It also illustrates that the validity and reliability of policy placements is a function of the conceptualisation and operationalisation of issues, of the size of documents and of scale construction. Computerized cross-validation of the CMP-coding results offers a new and powerful tool to assess its reliability. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

This article provides a comparative analysis of the degree of Europeanization of national party manifestos. The research is based on a newly established database, which comprises digitized party manifestos of relevant parties in the period 1960–2003 in most of the established member states. The unit of analysis is the frequency of 'co-mentions' of 20 policy areas and (aspects of) Europe and the European Union. The results show that the degree to which parties acknowledge the increasing impact of Europe on policy-making depends on factors such as the time period, the type of policy sector, the duration of EU membership, the general attitude of parties towards European integration and the degree of internal consensus on European issues. Hence, references to Europe do not (only) reflect the process of European integration itself, but are affected by both insti tutional and party strategic factors.

International audience ; This article provides a comparative analysis of the degree of Europeanization of national party manifestos. The research is based on a newly established database, which comprises digitized party manifestos of relevant parties in the period 1960–2003 in most of the established member states. The unit of analysis is the frequency of 'co-mentions' of 20 policy areas and (aspects of) Europe and the European Union. The results show that the degree to which parties acknowledge the increasing impact of Europe on policy-making depends on factors such as the time period, the type of policy sector, the duration of EU membership, the general attitude of parties towards European integration and the degree of internal consensus on European issues. Hence, references to Europe do not (only) reflect the process of European integration itself, but are affected by both insti tutional and party strategic factors.

This article provides a comparative analysis of the degree of Europeanization of national party manifestos. The research is based on a newly established database, which comprises digitized party manifestos of relevant parties in the period 1960–2003 in most of the established member states. The unit of analysis is the frequency of 'co-mentions' of 20 policy areas and (aspects of) Europe and the European Union. The results show that the degree to which parties acknowledge the increasing impact of Europe on policy-making depends on factors such as the time period, the type of policy sector, the duration of EU membership, the general attitude of parties towards European integration and the degree of internal consensus on European issues. Hence, references to Europe do not (only) reflect the process of European integration itself, but are affected by both insti tutional and party strategic factors.