The 2014 European Elections in Romania



Abstract

The 2014 European elections in Romania represented a test for the political parties preparing for the presidential elections at the end of the same year. Firstly, we analyze the political context in which the European elections took place. Since 2012 the changing governing coalitions have created an unstable party system with many politicians shifting party allegiances. Several high ran- king party officials were considered suspicious for corruption acts and this affected the nomination of candidates. Secondly, we show that although the ideological allegiance of citizens and political parties increased since 2012, the match between policy preferences of political party and their supporters continues to be remarkably low. Finally we discuss several effects of the European elections, including difficulties in appointing candidates and creating electoral coalitions for the presidential elections encountered by the center right wing parties.

Key words:
EP election 2014, party system, Romania, political competition, European Parliament


Badescu G., Sum P. (2005), Mapping Political Preferences: The Emergence of Citizen Left-Right Orientations in New Democracies, Paper presented at the International Conference on “Elections and Democratic Governance”, Organized by the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica (IPSAS), Taipei, April 10-11.

Downs A. (1957), An Economic Theory of Democracy, New York: Harper and Row.

European Parliament (2014) European elections 2014, www.elections2014.eu/en (1.10.2014).

Fuchs D., Klingemann H. D. (1990), The Left-Right Schema,[in:] M. K. Jennings, J. van Deth, et al., Continuities in Political Action: A Longitudinal Study of Political Orientations in Three Western Democracies, Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Gallagher T., Laver M., Mair P. (2002), Reprezentative Government in Modern Europe, New York: McGraw-Hill.

Gherghina S., Chiru M., Bertoa F.C. (2011), State resources and pocket money: shortcuts for party funding in Romania, CEU Discussion Working Paper 13.

Klingemann H. D. (1995), Party Positions and Voter Orientations, [in:] H. D. Klingemann, D. Fuchs (eds.), Citizens and the State: Beliefs in Government Series, Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Marian C. (2013), Romanian Parliamentary Elections 1990-2012. Stability and Stir, Peter Lang.

Mixich V. (2014), Romania: Portretul unor alegeri europarlamentare, http://ec.europa.eu/romania/news/articole_si_dialoguri/15072014_romania_portretul_unor_alegeri_europarlamentare_ro.htm, (1.09.2014).

Parvu S., Krause M., Marza C. (2014), Procesele electorale in Romania, intre improvizatie si bune practice, http://expertforum.ro/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Raport-alegeri-EFOR-2014.pdf, (2.09.2014).

Partidul Democrat Liberal. Viziunea PDL pentru Romania (PDL’s vision for Romania), http://www.pdl.org.ro/viziunea-pdl-pentru-romania, (30.09.2014).

Partidul Miscarea Populara. Despre noi (About us), http://pmponline.ro/despre-noi/, (30.09.2014).

Partidul National Liberal. Principii si valori liberale (Principles and liberal values), http://www.pnl.ro/pagina/principii-si-valori-liberale-1321007462, (29.09.2014).

Partidul Social Democrat. In ce credem (What we believe in), http://www.psd.ro/despre/in-cecredem/, (30.09.2014).

Rohrschneider R. (1994), How Iron is the Iron Law of Oligarchy? Robert Michels and National Party Delegates in Eleven West European Democracies, „European Journal of Political Research”, vol. 25(2).

Romanian Electoral Office (2014), Raport detaliat al veniturilor si cheltuielilor electorale (Detailed report of electoral income and expenses), http://www.roaep.ro/finantare/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/RVC-publicare-MO_-introducere.pdf, (25.09.2014).

Smilov D., Toplak J. (2007), Political Finance and Corruption in Eastern Europe, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.

Stoica A. (2014), Exit pollurile: Intre fictiune si realitate (Exit Polls: Between Fiction and Reality), http://augustinstoica.blogspot.ro/2014/05/exit-poll-urile-intre-fictiune-si.html, (29.09.2014).

Tapalagă D. (2014), Cateva observatii despre Victoria PSD si infrangerea dreptei (Some observations about the victory of PSD and the defeat of the Right), http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-opinii-17359195-cateva-observatii-despre-victoria-psd-infrangerea-dreptei.htm, (29.09.2014).

Tapalagă D. (2014), Alegeri europarlamentare. La vremuri noi, tot ei, http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-politic-16863924-alegeri-europarlamentare-vremuri-noi-tot.htm, (29.09.2014).

Uniunea Democrata Maghiara din Romania. Despre noi (About us), http://udmr.ro/page/despre-noi, (30.09.2014).

Uniunea Social Liberala. Agricultura-Prioritate Nationala (Agriculture-A National Priority), http://uslonline.ro/bilantul-guvernarii/sustinem-productia-agricola-interna/, (29.09.2014).

Ware A. (1996), Political Parties and Party Systems, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Download

Published : 2014-07-01


BureanT., LupuH., & BadescuG. (2014). The 2014 European Elections in Romania. Political Preferences, (9). Retrieved from https://journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/PP/article/view/4261

Toma Burean  tburean@gmail.com
Horia Lupu 
Gabriel Badescu 



The Copyright Owners of the submitted texts grant the Reader the right to use the pdf documents under the provisions of the Creative Commons 4.0 International License: Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA). The user can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose.

1. License

The University of Silesia Press provides immediate open access to journal’s content under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Authors who publish with this journal retain all copyrights and agree to the terms of the above-mentioned CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

2. Author’s Warranties

The author warrants that the article is original, written by stated author/s, has not been published before, contains no unlawful statements, does not infringe the rights of others, is subject to copyright that is vested exclusively in the author and free of any third party rights, and that any necessary written permissions to quote from other sources have been obtained by the author/s.

If the article contains illustrative material (drawings, photos, graphs, maps), the author declares that the said works are of his authorship, they do not infringe the rights of the third party (including personal rights, i.a. the authorization to reproduce physical likeness) and the author holds exclusive proprietary copyrights. The author publishes the above works as part of the article under the licence "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International".

ATTENTION! When the legal situation of the illustrative material has not been determined and the necessary consent has not been granted by the proprietary copyrights holders, the submitted material will not be accepted for editorial process. At the same time the author takes full responsibility for providing false data (this also regards covering the costs incurred by the University of Silesia Press and financial claims of the third party).

3. User Rights

Under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, the users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) the article for any purpose, provided they attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

4. Co-Authorship

If the article was prepared jointly with other authors, the signatory of this form warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to sign this agreement on their behalf, and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this agreement.

I hereby declare that in the event of withdrawal of the text from the publishing process or submitting it to another publisher without agreement from the editorial office, I agree to cover all costs incurred by the University of Silesia in connection with my application.