Browsing by Author "Salminen, Otto"

The thesis sheds light on European Union´s attempts to increase the voting turn out and decrease democratic deficit in the European Parliament elections by focusing on Spitzenkandidaten process, a reform implemented the first time in the 2014 elections. Still, in the spring 2018, the Spitzenkandidaten process is under discussion on the EU level whether it should be applied also in the future elections when the new parliament and the new President for Commision will be elected. The research has aimed to produce essential and topical information for the decision makers when making up one´s minds whether to support or not to support the reform. The research takes a closer look on the EU citizens´ views and public opinion on the process. The theories and criticism of earlier research are applied and tested by studying three research questions. The research questions are formulated as follows: 1) To what extent the attitudes towards the European Union explains whether the Spitzenkandidaten process is or is not considered to represent progress for democracy within the EU among the citizens´ of the Union? 2) To what extent the position on the scale of political left and political right explains the attitudes towards the Spitzenkandidaten process among the citizens´ of the Union? 3) To what extent the level of awareness about the processes of decision making in the European Union explains whether the Spitzenkandidaten process is or is not considered to represent progress for democracy within the EU among the citizens´ of the Union? The data studied in this thesis contains the data set of the Parlemeter of the European Parliament (EB/EP 82.4). The data was processed and analyzed with SPSS version 24 (SPSS Inc., Chicago IL). The results of the ordinal regression analysis show that more a person thinks his/her country's membership of the EU is a good thing, the more likely person is willing to think that the Spitzenkandidaten process represents progress for democracy. In addition, image on the EU has statistically significant relation with the attitude towards the Spitzenkandidaten process. The better image of the EU a person has, the more likely person is willing to think that the Spitzenkandidaten process represents progress for democracy. The ordinal regression analysis shows that the citizens` position on the scale of political "left" and "right" does not explain statistically significantly the attitudes towards the Spitzenkandidaten process among the citizens´ of the Union. According to the ordinal regression analysis, the better level of political awareness, both objectively and subjectively measured, the more likely person is willing to think Spitzenkandidaten process to represent progress for democracy. This research and its findings emphasize the role of political awareness as one of key elements to focus on when combating the democratic deficit in the European Union. The finding of this research support the findings in earlier research: Democratic deficit occurs until the EU-citizens understand how the Union effect on their lives (Wass 2014: 37). To be able to form opinions about the innovations like Spitzenkandidaten process in the future, citizens would need to be better informed about the reforms. More focus should be given to the active communication between the EU decision makers and the citizens.