Different crises, same impact? EU issue voting in times of crises

This study investigates whether attitudes towards European integration influence voting behaviour in European Parliament elections in times of different crises. While traditionally regarded as second-order national elections, recent research suggests that the crisis and the European Union's (EU) expanded role in economic policy may have heightened the politicisation of European integration. The paper also analyses if the major crises the Union has been going through—the economic and financial crisis, the migration crisis, and the climate crisis—might have a similar or rather different impact. By examining cross-national post-electoral data from the European Election Studies (from 2004 to 2024), this paper explores the relationship between voter attitudes towards the EU in times of different crises. Are there any differences between the economic crisis (between 2004, 2009, and 2014), the migration crisis (between 2014 and 2019), and the climate crisis (between 2019 and 2024)? The empirical analysis examines the existence and extent of EU issue voting in European Parliament elections, employing a conditional logit (CL) regression model. The conditional logit model allows us to use not only case-specific independent variables but also alternative-specific ones. The results highlight the complexity of multi-level governance and the evolving dynamics of EU issue voting, suggesting the need for further investigation into country-specific variations.