On Wednesday 26 November, EPRC hosted a seminar by Dr Gabriela Borz, Lecturer in the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde. The seminar aimed to evaluate and explain imperfect representation across European Member States, through a focus on the match/mismatch between the preference of voters and those of parties they have voted for.
Based on an analysis of European Election Studies (EES) 2009 data, it was found that in a context of an increased lack of interest in the European elections, misrepresented voter profiles can be understood by identifying underlying differentiating explanatory variables.
The individual indicators of significance refer to resources, political engagement, mobilisation and issue salience. The context of elections plays an important role as well, because both the benefits of EU membership and old-new Member States divides impact on the quality of representation across countries.