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Evaluations of the Spitzenkandidaten: The Role of Information and News Exposure in Citizens’ Preference Formation

2016; Cogitatio; Volume: 4; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.17645/pag.v4i1.460

2183-2463

Katjana Gattermann, Claes H. de Vreese, Wouter van der Brug,

Populism, Right-Wing Movements

The 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections were characterised by a novel element in European Union (EU) politics. For the first time, the major European party families put forward top candidates for President of the European Commission, the so-called <em>Spitzenkandidaten</em>. This paper tests whether this innovation had the potential to—at least partially—alleviate the alleged accountability deficit. We rely on original survey data to assess citizens’ preferences for each of the main <em>Spitzenkandidaten</em>: Jean-Claude Juncker, Martin Schulz, and Guy Verhofstadt. Our research is guided by three questions: what explains whether citizens formulate a preference for a certain <em>Spitzenkandidat</em>? Which factors are responsible for variations in such preferences? And, are these explanations moderated by citizens’ political awareness? We show that three factors enable citizens to formulate a preference for the <em>Spitzenkandidaten</em>: news exposure, general EU political information, and campaign-specific information about the <em>Spitzenkandidaten</em>. Furthermore, we demonstrate that only the most knowledgeable citizens are able to use party cues in their evaluations of the <em>Spitzenkandidaten</em>. The implications of our findings are discussed with reference to the EU’s democratic deficit debate.