EUROPEAN ELECTION STUDIES

The European Election Studies (EES) are about electoral participation and voting behavior in European Parliament elections, but more than that. They have also concerned with the evolution of an EU political community and a European public sphere, with citizens' perceptions of and preferences about the EU political regime, and with their evaluations of EU political performance. The project was started in 1979 by a trans-national group of electoral researchers and Europeanists some of which are still on board. Between 1979 and 2009, 7 election studies were prepared and 6 of them were realized. In 2004 national study directors - rather than the international research group - funded and conducted the 2004 study in 24 of the 25 EU member-countries. Some of the activities of the EES 2004 were supported by CONNEX, a network of excellence funded by the European Commission under the 6th framework program. The PIREDEU design study under the 7th framework program enabled an even larger group of..