European elections used to be considered as national second-order elections, where parties and voters tended to position themselves on national rather than European issues. Over the past years, some researchers have claimed this is not true anymore. This article tests the hypothesis of a “European” electoral choice, directly influenced by citizens’ attitudes towards European integration, using data collected at the time of the 2014 European elections in five countries: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. More specifically, it aims to highlight the plural logic at work, operating between attitudes and voting behavior by focusing on two particular dimensions of the vote in 2014: what we call a true European abstention, expressing discontent with the EU and the divergent vote understood as the vote for a different party than the one for which the respondent has declared a particular partisanship.
- European Union
- citizens’ attitudes
- European elections 2014
- turnout
- voting