Research question/goal:

The Euromanifestos Project is a part of the European Election Study (EES) 1999 which focuses on the conditions for an effective political representation in the European Union. Within this broader context, the Euromanifestos Project studies (1) the issues the parties have promoted in the series of elections to the European Parliament (1979-1999) and (2) the degree of congruence of the programmes the parties have promoted on the occasion of elections at different political levels (first vs. second order elections). To this aim Euromanifestos in 15 EU countries are being collected and an Euromanifesto database is established. In the quantitative and qualitative content analysis of this database the project concentrates on the political parties' issue preferences (issue salience), with consideration of the governmental frame in which the content is presented (national or European level). For comparative reasons, the well established coding frame of the Comparative Manifesto Project has been adapted and modified to include the governmental frame as well as specific European issues. The results of the Euromanifestos content analysis will be complemented with other elements of EES 99, such as the EES 99 media content analysis, the EES 99 survey data and the EES 99 EP roll call data, collected by other members of the international EES project team. These analyses will allow to test the responsiveness of political parties to the attitudes and preferences of voters concerning issues of European politics as well as the degree of consistence of MEPs voting behaviour with their Euromanifesto profile.