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Dimensions of Politics in the European Parliament
Author(s) -
Hix Simon,
Noury Abdul,
Roland Gérard
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
american journal of political science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.347
H-Index - 170
eISSN - 1540-5907
pISSN - 0092-5853
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00198.x
Subject(s) - parliament , politics , political science , european union , dimension (graph theory) , opposition (politics) , european integration , institution , multidimensional scaling , political economy , public administration , law , sociology , economics , international trade , statistics , mathematics , pure mathematics
We investigate the dimensionality of politics in the European Parliament by applying a scaling method to all roll‐call votes between 1979 and 2001 in the European Parliament. Contrary to most existing studies using these methods, we are able to interpret the substantive content of the observed dimensions using exogenous measures of national party policy positions. We find that the main dimension of politics in the European Union's only elected institution is the classic left‐right dimension found in domestic politics. A second dimension is also present, although to a lesser extent, which captures government‐opposition conflicts as well as national and European party positions on European integration.