European Parliament Election Study 2014, Voter Study, First Post-Election Survey

The EES 2014 Post-Election Survey was implemented in a cooperative arrangement between the European Election Studies Association (EES-A) and the European Parliament (EP). The dataset is a combination of two sets of questions: Items marked with ´qp´ in the variable name are financed by and account for the EP; items marked with ´qpp´ in the variable name are financed by and account for the EES-A.

1. Voting: party choice and turnout: participation in the European Parliament elections; party preference; party voted for at the (General Election); if there was a general election tomorrow, which party would be voted for; how probable voting for selected parties; reason for (not)voting; time of vote decision; main reasons to vote and not to vote.

2. Party ID: closeness to any particular party.

3. Engagement and mobilization: watch a program about the election on television, read about the election in a newspaper, talk to friends or family about the election, attend a public meeting or rally about the election, look into a website concerned with the election; contacted by a candidate or party organization during the election campaign; interest in campaign; interest in local, national and EU politics; participated in a demonstration.

4. Media Usage: how often following the news; newspaper read and frequency of reading.

5. Institutions: European Parliament takes into consideration the concerns of European citizens; trust in the EU institutions; trust national parliament; important which candidates win seats and become MEPs in the European Parliament elections; important which political party gained the most seats in the European Parliament elections; the national Parliament takes into consideration the concerns of citizens; politics seems too complicated.

6. EU integration: country’s membership of EU is a good or bad thing; respondent´s attitude to European unification; perception of party regarding EU unification; attitudes towards enlargement of the European Union; confidence that EU decisions will be in the interest of country; country´s support for Member State facing severe economic and financial difficulties; EU authority over members states.

7. Value orientations: self-placement and placement of parties on left-right continuum; state regulation and control of the market; redistribution of wealth; taxes and public spending; same-sex marriage; civil liberties; immigration; environment.

8. Domestic and European issues: most important problems; level problem mainly dealt with; most appropriate level to deal with problem; economy of the country is better compared to 12 months ago; general economic situation in the country over the next 12 months; direction country and the EU.

9. Representation: assessment of government’s records; assessment of EU institutions records; own voice counts in the European Union; own voice counts in the country. Severity of economic crisis: unemployment of household member; own household experienced a decrease in income.

10. Knowledge-test and experience: Switzerland is a member of EU; every country in EU elects the same number of representatives to the European Parliament; name of Head of government and party of Head of government; number of members of National parliament.

11. European party group or political party which supports the nomination of the three candidates for President of the next European Commission.

12. Attribution of responsibility and evaluation of performance: responsibility of national government, EU, IMF and the banks for the current economic conditions.

13. Demographics: trade union membership; age at completion of full-time education; gender; age; current marital status; current work situation; occupational sector; main occupation; current job; social class; degree of urbanisation; residence (number of years); religious denomination; attendance of religious services; number of people living in household (size of household); household composition; difficulty in paying bills; internet use.

Additionally coded: respondent id; country; region; size of locality; date and length of interview; nationality; language of interview; respondent cooperation; number of persons present during the interview.

Weighting factors: sample weight per country; political weight; political weight actual EP voters only.