VOTING COHESION ON CHINA IN THE 9TH EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Abstract

In recent years the EU-China relationship has become more tense and after Chinese sanctions on EU institutions and parliamentarians, the European Parliament has decided to freeze the ratification of the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment. The purpose of this thesis is to study roll call votes and cohesion on China in the 9th European Parliament to gain a greater understanding of the vital institution and its internal dynamics. Using quantitative methods, it was found that cohesion in the Parliament on China stand out to previous research on external relations. First, the national delegations are on average more cohesive than the party groups and some have high cohesion levels. Second, among the party groups Verts/ALE and ECR show similar cohesion levels as the centrist groups, while the smaller and more radical parties are incohesive. Lastly, the left-right and gal/tan ideological positioning of parties have a significant effect on cohesion, where gal/tan explains cohesion slightly more than the left-right dynamic. However, a party group’s position on protectionism is the best explanation for cohesion, where those who favor trade liberalization are most cohesive. Based on the results we can understand that there is something special occurring in the Parliament when it comes to voting on China, though future research needs to explore why that is.