9
popularity of the EP has been measured by the turnout rate at the European elections.
Given the second-ordered nature of the European elections, I ague that it is not really a
good measure due to the possible and very likely contaminating effects of many factors.
Instead, I will use the Eurobarometer questions and the responses to these questions as a
better measurement of the popularity of the EP.
The Eurobarometer survey researches have been collecting public opinion data for
a long period of time and thus provide an invaluable source of information to trace the
general trends prevalent among the people of Europe. The Eurobarometer surveys have
long been asking questions about, among other things, the European Parliament and
different aspects of their approaches to the European Parliament. The measurement
instruments that I use are drawn from the Eurobarometer questions. Since these questions
have been always same, it enables to avoid the instrumentation problems that have to do
with the use of different tools to measure the same phenomenon. The cognitive,
evaluative and affective components of the popularity of the EP are measured by the
following questions in the Eurobarometer surveys.
Cognitive Component of the Popularity of the EP: ….Have you recently seen or
heard in the paper, or on the radio or on the TV anything about the European
Parliament…
Evaluative component of the popularity of the EP: …How important would you
say, is the European Parliament in the life of the (EU) EC…
Affective component of the popularity of the EP: …Would you prefer that the
European Parliament played more or less important role that it does now…
The Figures (1), (2), (3) provide a graphical depiction of the answer given to these
questions. Based on the patterns in answering the questions, the figure (4) depicts how
the overall popularity of the EP
1
has behaved over time. As the percentages in the figures
reflect the aggregate percentages of the people throughout Europe that say they are aware
of the EP (figure (1)), they see the EP very important (and) or important (figure (2)), they
would like to see the EP exerting greater power (figure (3)). Since the total answers given
to these questions are in terms of percentage, I treat the popularity as an interval variable.
1
See Appendix A for the calculation of the overall popularity
Convention