Nebenwahleffekte auf der Angebotsseite? Bundestagswahlprogramme 2013 und Europawahlprogramme 2014 im Vergleich (Second-order effects on the supply side? A comparison of German party programmes to the Bundestag election 2013 and European election 2014.)

The central feature of European elections is their second-order character, primarily based on the behaviour of the voters, the election campaign and the media coverage. Building on Reif and Schmidt (1980) and the second-order hypothesis, this chapter focuses on the second-order nature of the parties programmatic range. We systematic ally compare the Bundestag and European election manifestos of German parties from 2013 and 2014. Based on the derived features "resources", "dominance of national issues" and "ideological distance", the analysis shows that the programmatic offer by German parties only has a weak to moderate second-order effect. The effect is primarily visible in a lower level of resource allocation to European election programs and larger ideological distances between the parties.