Measuring group switching in the European Parliament: Methodology, data and trends (1979-2009)

Party group switching in the European Parliament (ep), where parliamentarians individually or collectively switch from one party group to the other, is a well-known contributor to the volatility of the ep party system. We present a new dataset that contains party group information on all meps from 1...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor principal: Evans, Ana Maria (author)
Outros Autores: Vink, Maarten Peter (author)
Formato: article
Idioma:eng
Publicado em: 2012
Assuntos:
Texto completo:http://hdl.handle.net/10451/6174
País:Portugal
Oai:oai:repositorio.ul.pt:10451/6174
Descrição
Resumo:Party group switching in the European Parliament (ep), where parliamentarians individually or collectively switch from one party group to the other, is a well-known contributor to the volatility of the ep party system. We present a new dataset that contains party group information on all meps from 1979 to 2009. As a first step to a more comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of party group switching in the ep we describe characteristics of all switches that have occurred in these six legislatures, with a focus on the trends across time, variety between member states, party groups, and ideological party families.