An Emerging Divide?: Assessing the Impact of the Euro Crisis on the Voting Alignments of the European Parliament

• Autores: Stefano Braghiroli
• Localización: The Journal of legislative studies, ISSN 1357-2334, Vol. 21, Nº. 1, 2015 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Government-Opposition Dynamics in Southern European Countries during the Economic Crisis. Great Recession, Great Cooperation?), págs. 96-114
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The euro crisis is increasingly affecting the political debate in the European Union. Exogenously determined power shifts and institutional changes have been imposed on a number of member states. These measures and the direct intervention of external stakeholders in the key realms of domestic politics pose a serious challenge to both the EU's cohesiveness and its democratic nature. This study looks at how the voting dynamics and the government/opposition-like alignments in the European Parliament are affected by the ongoing crisis. It highlights the balance of partisan and nationally driven factors behind legislators' choices related to the management of the crisis. To capture the impact of the crisis-related debate on the actors' cohesiveness and alignments, two sets of vote-based analyses are conducted. This analysis proves that the main determinant of legislators' alignments in crisis-related debates is membership of the eurozone, while the explanatory potential of factors such as ideology and partisanship appears residual.