%0 Journal Article
%T Party Groups in the European Parliament, Cohesiveness and MEPs¡¯ Survey Data: New Evidence on Voting Behaviour from a New (Simple) Methodology?
%A Lorenzo Cicchi
%J Interdisciplinary Political Studies
%D 2011
%I 
%X The increased centrality of the European Parliament within the EU¡¯s institutional structure has influenced the importance of voting behaviour within the Parliament. The concept of voting behaviour can be split into a variety of elements, one of which is parliamentary group cohesiveness. A consolidated stream of literature has treated the Euro-party groups as highly cohesive actors, influenced mainly by the classical left-right cleavage, with nationality playing a marginal role. However, other scholars suggest that the methods used to reach these findings are biased. Using an original and simple methodology, which transforms data from surveys to virtual votes, I build a simple model to test voting cohesiveness if the national element is a weak predictor of ¡°vote¡±; even though this vote is dependent upon exogenous preferences and not mediated by party discipline. My results show that the oft-repeated claims about the single-dimensionality of the European Parliament should be taken more carefully: national affiliation seems to play a greater role than the one usually envisaged by the mainstream literature.
%U http://www.idps.unisi.it/file_download/23/IDPS_Vol1_issue2_a02_L.Cicchi.pdf