THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION MAKING VOICES COUNT: THE PROBLEM OF AGGREGATION IN EP PARTY GROUPS Professor RICHARD ROSE & Dr. GABRIELA BORZ Centre for the Study of Public Policy European University Institute Florence May 2011

WHEN DOES REPRESENTATION BECOME AGGREGATION? REPRESENTATION in national Parliaments 1. Congruence: Agreement between views of voters and representatives How : Parties, MPs, voters co-ordinate through feedback What is required: Limited information loss 2. If parties deviate too much from programme, voters can reject at next election 3. Representation is also about views of voters having a policy impact (Cox) 2

3 AGGREGATION in European Parliament Definition: a mass of units somewhat loosely associated with each other National level units: parties electing list MEPs in national constituencies Aggregate: Trans-national Party Groups of national MEPs from seven + countries EPGs cannot be rejected by national electorates for they arent on ballots. No electoral co-ordination between an EPG and its national parties Massive information loss by national voters CROSS-LEVEL IMPLICATIONS Contingent match of views of voters, 161 national parties, 8 Party Groups Further( (mis) match through aggregation of Party Groups to form majority to enact policies

4 FIVE DIMENSIONS DIFFERENTIATING EP PARTIES FACTOR ANALYSIS OF 28 EU PROFILER ISSUES (Percent of MEPs by position of programme of their national party) MEPs Source: Compiled from data in EU Profiler, as reported in Borz and Rose (2010; 41ff).

5 UNCOORDINATED AGGREGATION OF MEPS IN PARTY GROUPS PRODUCES COHESION = National programme of MEPs on a policy dimension agrees with majority of EPG members. Maximum Cohesion index = 100 TENSION = MEPs of a Party Group divide almost Maximum tension: Cohesion index = 0

6 CAUSES OF COHESION AND TENSION IN EP PARTY GROUPS NOT the number of dimensions NOT the number of parties or countries in an EP group NOT National interests prodcing cohesion among national parties

7 LEFT IDEOLOGY PROMOTES COHESION; NON-LEFT PRAGMATISM OVERCOMES TENSION Mean Cohesion Index on Five Policy Dimensions Source: EU Profiler data as reported in Borz and Rose (2010: 26-37). Index of Cohesion calculated by subtracting from a Group's largest percentage of MEPs the percentage of its second largest bloc.

8 COHESION OF NATIONAL PARTIES AND EPGs BY DIMENSION Source: Calculated from EU Profiler data as analyzed in Borz and Rose (2010).

9 IMPACT ON POLICY REQUIRES AGGREGATING GROUPS Without impact on EP laws + EU decisions, Europes citizens have representation without influence. Pragmatic parties have arithmetic majority but no policy cohesion Left parties have cohesion but no majority

10 OPPOSING POSITIONS OF EPP and SOCIALIST MEPS Percentage of EP Group's MEPs by Dimension

11 PRAGMATIC ALLIANCES BURY PARTY DIFFERENCES Aggregation of Party Groups in Roll Call Voting Source: accessed 21 April Winning majorities calculated for the period 14 July January 2011.

12 TENSION AMONG MEPSs IN BLACK/RED AGGREGATION % MEPs with agreement national and Black/Red aggregate % MEPs disagreement national/ aggregate positions 50.2% 49.8% 50.4% 49.6% 68% 32% 76% 24% 99.3% 0.7%