RECON / Reconstituting Democracy in Europe
SHARE (Shaping Representative Claims in EP Elections) is the EIF's contribution to the RECON project coordinated by ARENA, the Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo, an Integrated Project supported by the Sixth Framework Programme for Research (1 January 2007 - 31 December 2011) with 19 other partner institutions and around 70 participating researchers across Europe.
SHARE’s results will help us to depict a policy-differentiated picture of representative claims and to draw conclusions about the validity of RECON’s models.
This will be done by EIF researchers (director: Johannes Pollak) in two steps:
(1) On the basis of a critique of the latest developments in representative theory, we will develop a framework for the analysis of representative systems.
(2) In a second, empirical process, several hypotheses will be tested by using the EP election 2009 as an example.
The main questions are:
which representative claims are formulated during EP electoral campaigns?
Do we find similar/common claims in the selected countries?
In how far are those claims influenced by common strategies orchestrated by European party
federations?
And finally, are such similar/common claims more frequent in some policy fields than in others?
The research material consists of manifestos, electoral brochures, speeches, blogs, newspaper articles, etc., which will be analysed in five countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy Slovakia, United Kingdom) in addition to the European party level (including party federations and EP factions). Face-to-face interviews will complement the picture.
Publications
Sigalas, Emmanuel (2011) When Quantity Matters. Activity Levels and Re-Election Prospects of Members of the European Parliament. RECON Online Working Paper 2011/17.
Bátora, Jozef; Mokre, Monika; Pollak, Johannes; Slominski, Peter; Sigalas, Emmanuel (2010) Democracy Models and Parties at the EU Level. Empirical Evidence from the Adoption of the 2009 European Election Manifestoes. RECON Online Working Paper 2010/13.
Bátora, Jozef; Mokre, Monika; Pollak, Johannes; Sigalas, Emmanuel and Slominski, Peter (2009) On Political Representation Myths and Challenges. RECON Online Working Paper, No. 2009/03.
Bátora, Jozef; Mokre, Monika; Pollak, Johannes; Slominski, Peter; Sigalas, Emmanuel (2009) Reconstituting Political Representation in the EU. The analytical framework and the operationalisation of the RECON models. RECON Online Working Paper 2009/16.
Events
Workshop: Directions of change
WP 3 - Representation and Institutional Make-up
Vienna, 28-29 May 2010
Workshop:
Methodological dimensions of the RECON democracy models
WP 3 - Representation and Institutional Make-up
Vienna, 18 December 2009
Workshop
on representative theory
WP 3 - Representation and Institutional Make-up
Vienna, 22 May 2009
