It is well-established that voters behave very differently in European Parliament (EP) elections compared to national elections. They are more likely to switch their allegiances to smaller opposition parties or even to abstain. The classic explanation is that these changing patterns of behavior...

The formation of party preferences is a complex and not yet fully understood process based on a number of factors. This process, which is of great interest for both social and political science, is usually studied using questionnaire data which has proven to be a very reliable yet often costly...