Mapping Parties' Positions on Foreign and Security Issues in the EU, 2009-2014

This article offers a comparative analysis of parties' position on foreign and security issues in the EU28 across the last two EP elections (2009-2014). First, we map the position of the parties on selected foreign policy and security issues in both 2009 and 2014. Second, we measure the extent to which party positions on such issues remained stable across these turbulent five years. Third, we offer an explanatory analysis of the competing factors potentially affecting parties' position. By means of multivariate regression models, we test the competing effect of party ideology, overall attitude towards EU integration, and structural factors at the party-level in view of answering the following question: Do parties hold "genuine" positions over EU foreign and security policy, or are they rather due to their relatively more encompassing attitude towards EU integration? The data comes two transnational Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) developed during the 2009 and 2014 European elections campaigns respectively.