Public Opinion and Voting Behaviour in Congested and Contested Political Arena

The contemporary European political agenda is perhaps more crowded than ever before. Various national and supra-national decision-making bodies are simultaneously dealing with issues such as slowly recovering economy, need for structural changes, climate change and an increasing number of immigrants and asylum seekers from war torn countries outside the EU. In many countries, the societal atmosphere is characterized by populist appeals and anti-immigrant sentiments, represented both by political parties and different types of actors in civil society. Such congested and contested political arena might cause two kinds of reactions in terms of public opinion and voting behavior. The first one relates to increasing polarization, which might actually mobilize political action even among previously disengaged voters. The second possible effect is large-scale withdrawal from politics, which might seem a particularly attractive option for voters with low sense of political efficacy. The obvious risk associated with the latter scenario is widening elitism in political behavior. These two kinds of reactions are of course not the only possible scenarios. A third possibility is that the national and/or international political arena finds ways to cope with congestion and contest. New democratic instruments (e.g. referendums, citizen’s assemblies) may help to reduce the pressure. This Section addresses the problems just outlined from several perspectives, all closely connected to the heart of electoral democracy. These perspectives include: parties and elections, the role of public opinion, equality of access to politics, developments in electoral politics, challenges to electoral democracy, enriching electoral democracy. We expect to be able to offer at least 8 Panels in this Section.