2014 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Consolidating or Dismantling Representative Democracy at the EU-level: An analysis of the activites of the Europarties, European Parliamentary Groups before and after the 2014 European elections
| Project/Area Number |
26380174
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| Research Institution | Oita University |
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Principal Investigator |
DAY Stephen 大分大学, 経済学部, 教授 (60404357)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
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| Keywords | European elections / Europarties / Politicization / Spitzenkandidat |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In light of the purpose of this project, which is to assess the evolution of representative democracy at the EU-level with particular reference to the 2014 European Parliamentary elections, I have been able to:
1) Undertake research on the run-up to, and outcome of, the 2014 European Parliamentary elections.
2) Undertake two field trips which proved very fruitful in deepening my understanding of contemporary developments and also provided me with some useful contacts which I will be able to utilize during 2015-16. In November 2014, I attended the Congress of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats Party (ALDE-P), in Portugal, where I was able to attend debates, collect party literature and undertake on the spot interviews with party officials and representatives. Second, in March 2015, I undertook a research visit to Ireland. Here I conducted interviews with representatives from the four main Irish political parties and talk about their relationship with their corresponding European-level political party as well as Professor David Farrell who is a world authority on political parties.
3) I gave three presentations during the year - two invited seminars and one conference paper. In terms of published output, two pieces (one in English and one in Japanese) are to be published sometime in May 2015.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
The 2014 European elections provided me with the opportunity to present some initial findings and offer some evaluations at two seminar presentations (EUIJ-Kyushu and EUIJ-Waseda) as well as at the annual conference of the European Union Studies Association-Japan (EUSA-J) conference which was hosted by Rissho University. Such opportunities provided some excellent feedback for the on-going development of my project.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
I will continue with the plan as laid out in Financial Year 2015 in the research proposal. I will have the opportunity to give papers at the European Union Studies Association-Asia Pacific Group in June 2015 and at a symposium hosted by Kwansei University a month later in July. Both of these papers will seek to take a somewhat more conceptual take on events, and in-so-doing compliment the more empirically driven nature of the first year of the project. This will also enable me to continue developing/fine-tuning the conceptual framework of the project. Later in the year, I plan to focus my attention on the rise of the emergence of the the Eurosceptic Europarties.
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| Remarks |
I keep this as an anonymous blog. I will continue to update it as the project unfolds so as to provide another outlet for the dissemination of some of the findings of the project.
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