Impact of Elections on Parliamentary Organizations: Focusing on European Parliament

Voters in the European countries have responsibilities of the two major elections: the national election and European Parliament elections. Although the latter has been considered as the “second-order elections,” the importance of it becomes significant over time. European Parliament is the primary apparatus of decision making of the EU integration and the quality of EU citizens’ lives. This study examines that how national elections affect European Parliament with the EU Parliament elections data and national elections data of 28 countries in the EU from 1990 to 2013. The results of the research provide This study examines that how national elections affect European Parliament; in other words, we need to analyze if European Parliament is still a second-order election to EU citizens. Therefore, this study builds the hypothesis that incumbent party or the government party is hard to win European Parliament elections which are close to national elections. The result of this research suggests that there are negative effects of national elections on European Parliament elections in the EU member countries. Still, European Parliament elections are considered as second-order elections by EU citizens in spite of this significant role of them.