Context 2019 EP elections in Estonia took place amidst a heated political atmosphere that prevailed in the aftermath of the general election held less than three months prior. In a “remarkable failure of mainstream politics” (Walker, 2019), two liberal parties, Reform and Centre (both members of the ALDE group in the EP), failed to cooperate in the process of government formation. Having rejected an invitation by the victorious Reform Party to start coalition talks, the incumbent Centre Party formed a coalition with two right-wing parties, including a moderate Pro Patria and an illiberal, xenophobic, and eurosceptic Estonian Conservative People’s Party...

Although the mostly reported outcome of the Dutch Elections, held on 15 March 2017, is that Geert Wilders’ party PVV did not become the largest party, a lot of significant changes to other parties’ support have occurred as well. The most important outcomes of the elections are the historically large loss for Labour party PvdA, and large wins for cosmopolitan party D66 and the Green Left (GL). The picture that appears is an even more fragmented party system than is usual in The Netherlands. However, our comparative study on issue competition, featuring an original data collection on the Netherlands (see...

26 May 2019 saw an election paradox in Hungary: a long-serving government won big on a record-high turnout, yet the winners looked frustrated and the losers positively re-charged. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP electoral alliance took well over 52% of the popular vote and 62% of the country’s 21 seats in the European Parliament. That is one seat and one percent of the vote up compared to the 2014 EP elections, and just one seat and four percent of the vote less than their all-time best in 2009. But Fidesz’ leaders appeared disappointed and the government shortly announced unexpected...

Chiaramonte, A. and Emanuele, V. (2015), 'Party System Volatility, Regeneration and De-Institutionalization in Western Europe (1945-2015)', Party Politics, Online First, DOI:10.1177/1354068815601330. Vincenzo Emanuele, interviewed by Gianmarco Botti (English translation by Elisabetta Mannoni) Vincenzo Emanuele, what is your paper about? Why is it innovative? This article, published on Party Politics in 2015, was written together with Alessandro Chiaramonte, professor at the University of Florence; and it mainly deals with the topic of institutionalization of party systems, which has a very long history, but has not been so much debated so far, for Western European countries. By institutionalization of party systems we mean stability and...

Four weeks ahead of the US presidential election, most polls report a 10-point Biden lead in popular vote intentions. But what is, in detail, behind such lead? In an age of issue competition, where vote choices are more and more structured by specific issues (a good example being Trump winning Rust Belt states in 2016 with his promise to bring back jobs to the US), what are the issues where Biden enjoys a competitive advantage? What are Trump's? Answers come from the exclusive CAWI survey we at CISE ran on a sample of...