Negative voting in European Parliament elections: Expressive or instrumental?

It has long been stressed that voters conceive European Parliament elections in a different way than national elections. More specifically, it has been argued that they may be more expressive in these elections, that they may use them to punish the national government or, more in general, that they may cast a protest vote. This study delves into the meanings of voting in European elections by examining the relevance of negative voting in the 2024 European Parliament elections and assessing whether it is driven more by expressive or instrumental considerations (in general, and in comparison with positive voting). The analysis is based on a post-electoral survey that asked voters about the reasons of their party choice in the 2024 European elections. Participants were presented with a battery of reasons that included positive and negative items that were in turn divided into expressive and instrumental motives. The study covers 7 EU countries (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland). To assess the extent to which certain meanings are particular to the European elections’ context, the same questions were asked about party choice in a hypothetical national election or the actual election in the two countries with concurrent or close elections (Belgium and Austria). Data for Austria comes from the European and the national post-electoral surveys conducted by the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES). Lastly, the study also assesses the type of parties citizens voted/would vote against in each of the two elections and the role of affective polarization at both national and European level (i.e. with regards to the European Party Groups). This research seeks to contribute to the literature on second-order elections, negative voting, and polarization.