The topic of this thesis is the regional elections 2012 on example of South Bohemia region. In the theoretical part were described the regional administrative bodies and principles of regional elections. The practical part dealt with the analyses of the elections results and application of features of the second-order elections, which were described by Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmitt in the 70s years of the last century. In the theses was verified, that the government parties in the second order elections lose. These parties reached a minimum at mid-term of the legislative period and in this period lost a lot of their popularity. The most important aspect of second-order elections is that there is less at stake. This is the reason why the level of participation was lower in this type of elections. The last part of thesis deals with Theory of political coalitions. In the regional elections 2012 was established the minimal winning coalition, which included two left-wing political parties.

Denna uppsats undersöker svenska väljare tendens att rösta med hjärtat, det vill säga närmre sina preferenser, i Europaparlamentsvalet 2014. I förhållande till den existerande litteraturen så studerar jag hur Europaparlamentsvalets "second-order"-karaktär påverkar deras val av parti i det. Hur kan man veta vad som har fått väljarna att rösta på ett visst parti? Jag har genom binär logistisk regressionsanalys i kombination med bivariat analys funnit indikationer på att väljarna tenderar att rösta med hjärtat och då efter deras preferenser på vänster-högerskalan i större utsträckning jämfört med deras syn på EU.

The European Parliament elections have since the 1980's been described as 'second-order national elections', which, among other things, means that they are less important to both political parties and to voters. Scholars have often described political parties as a weak link between the European Union and its citizens. Previous studies of the fulfillment of election promises have mainly focused on national governments, and not national political parties in the European Parliament. The purpose of this descriptive study is to investigate the level of fulfillment of election promises that Swedish parliamentary parties present in their election manifestos for the European Parliament election 2014. Based on previous research, this study tests five hypotheses on the material. By mapping and analyzing 183 election promises from 8 election manifestos, the results show a lower fulfillment level than Swedish governments usually achieve on the national arena. The result showed one possible covariation between which party groups the political parties belonged to and fulfillment, but no clear patterns between the characteristics of the election promise and fulfillment. The results of this study has shown that there is reason to further investigate and try to better understand election promises that are given ahead of European Parliament elections.

This diploma thesis comparatively analyses elections to the European Parliament held in 2004 and 2009 in the Czech Republic. It focuses on the main features of these elections with the aim of finding their main similarities and differences. For this purpose the framework of the classic "second order elections" concept is used which was introduced by Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmitt. The introductory part summarizes the main aspects of the "second order elections" concept. What follows is the examination of development of the electoral system for the elections to the European parliament. Crucial features of the electoral system used in the Czech Republic are explored in detail. The main part of the thesis concentrates on the analysis of elections to the European Parliament held in the Czech Republic in 2004 and 2009. These elections are put into context of domestic political situation. Additionally, party lists and election manifestos are examined, as well as the most important facets of election campaigns of relevant political parties. Necessary attention is also paid to the analysis of election results and to their implications for the political and party system. Finally, in the closing chapter both elections are compared using the "second order elections" concept.

This study deals with the Election Campaign in the Czech Republic in a second-order elections during a year 2008 and the study is investigating the degree how many Election Campaigns were professional. The main aim of this study is a description of process of the Election Campaign and the study was checking up which political marketing is using in a second-order elections.

Landtagswahlergebnisse in der BRD werden von empirischen Wahlforschern häufig als aktuelle Stimmungsbarometer für die Bundespolitik interpretiert. Bei dieser Interpretation von Landtagswahlen als \"Bundestestwahlen\" wird jedoch häufig vernachlässigt, dass Landtagswahlen überwiegend auch Regionalwahlen sind und landestypischen Dynamiken folgen. Empirische Untersuchungen zu Bestimmungsfaktoren von Landtagswahlverhalten wurden in Deutschland bis dato entweder in Form von qualitativen Einzelfallanalysen oder als Aggregatdatenanalysen der amtlichen Wahlstatistiken durchgeführt. Eine direkte und vergleichende Quantifizierung der Effektstärken mit Survey-Daten wurde allerdings bislang nicht vorgenommen. Die vorliegende Studie wertet deshalb im Rahmen eines replikativen Surveys 17 Landtagswahlstudien aus. So können die Effektstärken der individuellen Bewertung der Bundes- versus der Landesparteien auf die Landtagswahlentscheidungen direkt verglichen werden. Als Fazit zeigt sich, dass in Westdeutschland die Beurteilung der Landesparteien einen stärkeren Einfluss auf die individuelle Landtagswahlentscheidung ausübt als die Beurteilung der Bundesparteien. In Ostdeutschland prägt dagegen bei Landtagswahlen die bundespolitische Dimension das Abstimmungsverhalten der Wähler stärker. Die Parteipolitikverflechtung zwischen Landes- und Bundesebene ist somit bei Landtagswahlen in Ostdeutschland erheblich stärker ausgeprägt als in den alten Bundesländern. / Electoral studies often interpret German regional election results ("Landtagswahlen") as barometers of public opinion on federal governmental parties' performance. However, while interpreting German regional elections as "test-elections" for the national parliament, it is often underemphasised that subnational elections often follow a unique regional dynamics. So far, empirical investigations on the determinants of German regional elections consist either in qualitative case studies or aggregate analyses of official statistics. A quantitative study of individual-level survey data, comparing directly the explanatory power of the federal versus the subnational level, is still lacking. Conducting a repeated survey design, we analyse data from 17 German regional election surveys. Thus, the effects of individual assessments of federal parties versus their subnational counterparts on subnational voting preferences can be directly compared. The conclusion of our analyses can be summarized as follows: In Western Germany, the valuation of subnational parties has a stronger impact on individual voting preferences in subnational elections than the valuation of the federal parties has. However, in Eastern Germany, the federal dimension has a comparatively stronger effect. Hence, the federal – regional ("Länder") party system linkage is clearly stronger in Eastern than in Western Germany.

In the thesis we are going to focus on the topic of on-line political communication of 8 czech ballot leaders on the social network service Facebook during the 2019 European Parliament election campaign. On-line campaign is essential tool to gain the favor of the electorate in the 4th age of political communication. In long term perspective the European Parliament elections are suffering from the low interest of the electorate and from the trend of decreasing tournout in both pan-European and Czech political arenas. Our research is based on the theoretical concepts about main functions of on-line campaign in the 4th age of political communication. The mobilization of the electorate towards political participation is one of those functions. Next we base our research on the second order elections theory of Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmitt. The European Parliament elections are characterised by predominance of topics important to the local political system and by substituting as a referendum about the government of a member country. Last but not least, we base our research on the theory of Paul Taggart and Alexander Szczerbiak, who say that today, euroscepticism is an attractive mainstream topic, which can be found throughout the whole political spectrum. The goal of our research is to prove and...

Landtagswahlergebnisse in der BRD werden von empirischen Wahlforschern häufig als aktuelle Stimmungsbarometer für die Bundespolitik interpretiert. Bei dieser Interpretation von Landtagswahlen als \"Bundestestwahlen\" wird jedoch häufig vernachlässigt, dass Landtagswahlen überwiegend auch Regionalwahlen sind und landestypischen Dynamiken folgen. Empirische Untersuchungen zu Bestimmungsfaktoren von Landtagswahlverhalten wurden in Deutschland bis dato entweder in Form von qualitativen Einzelfallanalysen oder als Aggregatdatenanalysen der amtlichen Wahlstatistiken durchgeführt. Eine direkte und vergleichende Quantifizierung der Effektstärken mit Survey-Daten wurde allerdings bislang nicht vorgenommen. Die vorliegende Studie wertet deshalb im Rahmen eines replikativen Surveys 17 Landtagswahlstudien aus. So können die Effektstärken der individuellen Bewertung der Bundes- versus der Landesparteien auf die Landtagswahlentscheidungen direkt verglichen werden. Als Fazit zeigt sich, dass in Westdeutschland die Beurteilung der Landesparteien einen stärkeren Einfluss auf die individuelle Landtagswahlentscheidung ausübt als die Beurteilung der Bundesparteien. In Ostdeutschland prägt dagegen bei Landtagswahlen die bundespolitische Dimension das Abstimmungsverhalten der Wähler stärker. Die Parteipolitikverflechtung zwischen Landes- und Bundesebene ist somit bei Landtagswahlen in Ostdeutschland erheblich stärker ausgeprägt als in den alten Bundesländern.:Einleitung; Theoretische Grundlagen der bundespolitischen Parteipolitikverflechtung bei Landtagswahlen; Empirischer Test der Parteipolitikverflechtung bei Landtagswahlen; Diskussion und Ausblick / Electoral studies often interpret German regional election results ("Landtagswahlen") as barometers of public opinion on federal governmental parties'' performance. However, while interpreting German regional elections as "test-elections" for the national parliament, it is often underemphasised that subnational elections often follow a unique regional dynamics. So far, empirical investigations on the determinants of German regional elections consist either in qualitative case studies or aggregate analyses of official statistics. A quantitative study of individual-level survey data, comparing directly the explanatory power of the federal versus the subnational level, is still lacking. Conducting a repeated survey design, we analyse data from 17 German regional election surveys. Thus, the effects of individual assessments of federal parties versus their subnational counterparts on subnational voting preferences can be directly compared. The conclusion of our analyses can be summarized as follows: In Western Germany, the valuation of subnational parties has a stronger impact on individual voting preferences in subnational elections than the valuation of the federal parties has. However, in Eastern Germany, the federal dimension has a comparatively stronger effect. Hence, the federal – regional ("Länder") party system linkage is clearly stronger in Eastern than in Western Germany.:Einleitung; Theoretische Grundlagen der bundespolitischen Parteipolitikverflechtung bei Landtagswahlen; Empirischer Test der Parteipolitikverflechtung bei Landtagswahlen; Diskussion und Ausblick

Perseguendo politiche comuni per gli Stati membri, l'Unione Europea si è trasformata da unione puramente economica ad unione politica. Tuttavia, per quanto riguarda quest'ultimo aspetto, è stato fatto poco. Lo scetticismo è venuto a caratterizzare il clima politico dell'Unione Europea e l’elevata eterogeneità nei termini degli Stati membri hanno causato difficoltà nel processo decisionale. Questa tesi si concentra sulle politiche europee da tre aspetti: la legittimità, che si riferisce al sostegno politico dei cittadini, il comportamento di voto e di partecipazione dei cittadini. Una delle questioni principali della ricerca riguarda l’esistenza delle basi per la genesi di veri e propri partiti politici europei, come via d’uscita dalla crisi di legittimità dell'Unione Europea. Ci si chiede poi quali sono i principali fattori che influenzano la partecipazione alle elezioni del Parlamento Europeo, dal momento che esso è l'unica fonte diretta di legittimità. Infine, si studiano le cause del gap in affluenza per le elezioni europee e nazionali, guardando la quota di voto del partito. L'argomento principale per l’esistenza dei partiti pan-europei è quello di difendere gli stessi interessi e valori su scala europea. I risultati empirici sottolineano che la polarizzazione di classe sociale, è già presente nei primi 12 Stati membri dell'UE, e anche nei nuovi Stati membri, mentre nelle elezioni del Parlamento europeo gli elettori votano sinceramente. In conclusione: l'Europa soddisfa la base per la creazione di partiti pan-Europei che difendino vere e proprie politiche europee, mirate ai gruppi sociali che rappresentano, come una possibile soluzione per la crisi di legittimità. / By pursuing common policies for its Member States, the European Union moved from being a purely economic union, to being a political one as well. However, little has been done to tackle the latter aspect. Skepticism has come to characterize the political climate of the European Union and high heterogeneity in terms of Member States has induced difficulties in the decision-making process. This thesis focuses on the European Politics from three aspects: legitimacy, which refers to citizens’ political support, voting behavior and turnout. One of the main research questions we address is whether or not the basis for the existence of true European party politics exists, as a way out of the European Union legitimacy crisis. Then, we ask what are the main factors that influence electoral participation in the European Parliament elections since it is the only source of direct legitimacy. Lastly, we investigate what are the causes for the turnout gap across European and National elections, looking at the party vote share. The main argument for pan-European to exist is to defend the same values and interests European-wide. Empirical results point out that social class's polarization already exists in the initial 12 EU Member States, as well as later entries, while in the European Parliament elections voters cast their vote sincerely. We conclude that Europe fulfils the base requirement for the creation of true European politics, party politics and social groups' targeted-policies being a possible solution for the legitimacy crisis.