Scholars seeking to understand political competition in Europe have proposed various models of political dimensionality. While most scholars draw on data from the supply side of politics (political parties), demand side (voter) studies remain few. In this paper we compare the two approaches. The main difference is that while supply side approaches suggest a single model of dimensionality that can be applied to all EU countries, demand side approaches suggest a greater degree of divergence. In particular, the bundle of issues commonly identified by supply side studies as TAN/GAL not only fail to form a coherent dimension when viewed from a demand side perspective, but incorporate issues of EU integration in some (northern European) cases, but not in others.
Wheatley, JonathanMendez, Fernando
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences\Department of Social Sciences
Year of publication: 2019Date of RADAR deposit: 2018-12-06