FROM SWEDEN, 12 POINTS AND 55.27 % TURNOUT TO THE EU. Attitudes towards the European Union and the electoral turnout in the Swedish elections for the European parliament 2019

Abstract

This thesis investigates if attitudes and extreme attitudes towards the European Union and on the left–right ideology scale affect the electoral turnout in the European parliament elections among Swedish citizens. Previous research lifts the importance of citizens' perceptions and attitudes towards the EU as one explanation of many for the low turnout in these elections. All of these studies use data on the macro level comparing member states, and therefore further research is needed on the micro-level between citizens’. Braun and Schäfer (2022) and Hernández and Kriesi (2016) find that citizens with more extreme opinions on the issue of European integration increased the likelihood of voting compared to a citizen with a more moderate view, suggesting that the correlation might be linear-curved. Research also finds a moderating effect between leftright ideology and attitudes towards the EU (Hernández & Kriesi, 2016). Sweden was chosen because it has an electoral system that includes reforms enhancing a high turnout and its trend breaking and increasing turnout. Therefore, this thesis believes that a linear curve pattern appears more clearly in the Swedish electorate.

The thesis investigates this by a quantitative method using logistic regression analysis with data from the Swedish national election studies (Oscarsson & Karlsson, 2019) and their dataset for the Swedish election for the European parliament in 2019. The results show that the citizens' attitudes towards the EU and ideology considerably affect the electoral turnout and that there is a moderating effect. However, it does not show linear curve correlations.