Post-election surveys designed by political scientists are a common instrument to learn more about vote choices in democracies. This applies also to European Parliament elections. There have been European Election Studies for every EP election since 1979. European Election Studies have multiple components, including voter studies (a general population survey after the election), Euromanifesto studies (analyzing the manifestos on which the parties are running), elite studies (Surveying candidates and members of the European Parliament), media studies (analyzing television and newspapers across Europe) and a social media study that focused on the Twitter activity of European party elites. You can find all datasets and descriptions here. Not all studies are run for every election.

We will focus on the Voter Study, particularly the 2019 version which was conducted by Wouter van der Brug, Sara Hobolt, Sebastian Adrian Popa, Hermann Schmitt, Eftichia Teperoglou, Ilke Toygur, Claes de Vreese and Catherine de Vries. We present the dataset below. While reading, please keep in mind the questions you see below and answer them once you reached the end. At the end, we will provide a link to a platform with an interactive version of the dataset and additional tasks.

Table 1: General Tasks for the Dataset

Tasks
What issues were important for voters in the 2019 European election?
Are voters generally ideologically aligned with the parties they vote for?
Do voters exhibit a coherent belief system or are their political positions unrelated to each other? How does this compare to how parties are structured ideologically?

Dataset Description

Demographic Data

The European Election Study records the standard demographic variables. Table 2 shows an overview for ten respondents in Germany. Age is recorded as the year of birth, education as age the respondent left education and the left-right position of the respondent on a scale from 0 (=Left) to 10 (=Right).

Table 2: Demographics in the EES

Birthyear	Gender	Education	Occupation	Country	Left_Right
1963	Female	20 + (=“High”)	Self-employed	Germany	3
1957	Male	16-19 years (=“Medium”)	Retired	Germany	2
1967	Male	20 + (=“High”)	Retired	Germany	4
1977	Female	16-19 years (=“Medium”)	Employed	Germany	6
1950	Female	16-19 years (=“Medium”)	Retired	Germany	6
1954	Male	16-19 years (=“Medium”)	Retired	Germany	5
1979	Male	20 + (=“High”)	Employed	Germany	6
1953	Female	20 + (=“High”)	Retired	Germany	Don’t Know
1979	Male	still studying	In school	Germany	4
1999	Male	still studying	In school	Germany	3

Similar to the Eurobarometer data in the dataset presentation of the previous chapter, we can plot the average left-right position of respondents. Figure 1 shows a similar result to the Eurobarometer study: Respondents in Spain, Malta, Croatia, Protugal and Luxembourg consider themselves more to the left and respondents in Romania, Estonia, Bulgaria and Latvia more to the right. Differences between the Eurobarometer and European Election Study results can be due to sampling (one of them might for example oversample right-wing voters in some countries), randomness or due to different survey dates (although in this case both surveys are conducted right after the 2019 election).

Figure 1: Left-Right Self-assessment

Issues and Government Evaluation

The EES asks respondents what the most important problem in their respective country is and which party they believe to be the most competent at solving that problem. Additionally, the survey asks whether the respondents approve of the government’s political performance and whether the respondent is close to any party. Table 3 shows the same respondents from Germany as before. Several respondents mention climate change (“Klimawandel”,“klimaschutz”) and see the Greens and the Pirate Party as the most competent party to deal with it. Other voters mention saving democracy (“Bewahrung der Demokratie”), integrating migrants (“Integration der Migranten”), immigration (“Einwanderung”), unemployment issues (“arbeitslosigkeit”) and pressure from the political right (“Rechtsdruck”). Other respondents list several issues that they see as important.

Table 3: Political Evaluations

Most_Important_Problem	Competent_Party	Government_record	Vote_EP	Vote_nat	Closeness
Klimawandel	Die Grünen	Disapprove	Grüne	Die Grünen	Nein, ich stehe keiner Partei nahe
Bewahrung der Demokratie	SPD	Approve	SPD	SPD	SPD
Integration der Migranten	Die Grünen	Approve	Grüne	Die Grünen	Die Grünen
Klimawandel	Piraten	Disapprove	Piraten	Piraten	Nein, ich stehe keiner Partei nahe
klimaschutz	Die Grünen	Approve	CDU/CSU	CDU/CSU	CDU/CSU
Einwanderung	none of the parties	Disapprove	Did not Vote	Did not Vote	Nein, ich stehe keiner Partei nahe
arbeitslosigkeit	CDU/CSU	Disapprove	CDU/CSU	CDU/CSU	CDU/CSU
Klima ausreichend geschulte Arbeitskräfte zu haben	Don’t know	Approve	NA	NA	Nein, ich stehe keiner Partei nahe
Mietpreisexplosion + Flüchtlingskrise + Wirtschaftsniedergang	none of the parties	Disapprove	other party	Other party	Nein, ich stehe keiner Partei nahe
Rechtsdruck	Die Linke	Disapprove	Grüne	Did not Vote	Die Grünen

Let’s examine the variable “Most Important Problem”. Answers for each country are provided in that country’s language, and we can look at what words are used by voters in different countries. Figure 2 shows the most important problems for UK voters. Not surprisingly for the 2019 European Parliament election in the UK, Brexit was the most important issue for voters. Figure 3 shows the same plot for Irish voters. While Brexit was also on their mind, other issues such as climate change, health and homelessness were also important issues.

Figure 2: Most Important Problems for UK Voters

Figure 3: Most Important Problems for Irish Voters

Finally, Figure 4 shows the most important issues split by party support for the parties that received the most support in the survey. The more central words are in the wordcloud, the more they are used by both parties. The colour denotes the party whose supporters are more likely to mention the word (blue for Fine Gael and green for the Green Party). Brexit is mentioned by supporters of both parties, but Fine Gael voters are more likely to mention housing, while Green voters are more concerned about climate change.

Figure 4: Most Important Problems for Irish Voters by Party

Ideological Questions

Finally, there are a host of ideological questions included in the EES survey. Table 4 gives an overview of ideological positions and vote choice in Germany. The variables are: state_intervention (0: pro state intervention in economy, 10: against), redistribution (0: Pro redistribution from rich to poor, 10: against), same_sex_marriage (0: Pro same-sex marriage, 10: against), civil_liberties (0: support privacy rights, 10: support restricting privacy rights to combat crime), immigration (0: restrictive immigration policies, 10: opposed to restrictive immigration policies), environment (0: environmental protection should have priority over economic growth, 10: economic growth should have priority over environmental protection) and Eu_integration (0: unification has already gone too far, 10: unification should be pushed further).

Table 4: Ideological Questions in the EES dataset

state_intervention	redistribution	same_sex_marriage	civil_liberties	immigration	environment	Eu_integration	Vote_EP
3	2	0	5	7	0	7	Grüne
4	1	1	4	10	1	10	SPD
4	2	0	0	10	2	10	Grüne
5	5	0	3	5	3	7	Piraten
7	5	0	2	4	4	10	CDU/CSU
5	0	0	5	10	2	NA	Did not Vote
7	5	0	10	0	6	0	CDU/CSU
NA	4	0	NA	NA	4	NA	NA
3	3	5	0	0	8	1	other party
4	0	0	1	2	0	9	Grüne

Figure 5 shows the correlation between the ideological variables. We see the highest absolute value between “environment” and “Eu_integration”, as respondents that want more environmental protection also support EU integration more. On the other hand, there is no relationship between support for same-sex marriage and support for redistribution.

Figure 5: Correlation between Ideological Variables