LAUSR

political parties and party systems and finally concerning citizens’ attitudes towards Europe. With most of the scholars being part of the European Elections Study Group, their work is based on wide-ranging empirical material including media coverage, opinion polls and campaign materials for all European elections to date. All the studies use cross-sectional approaches and many of them also include a time dimension. The results of the volume draw a mixed picture of the consequences that the elections have had so far in relation to these three dimensions. While the salience and visibility of the elections have risen among political actors, the media and citizens, popular engagement and knowledge about the European Union have not in a similar fashion over time. In fact, turnout is even declining. There is more voting on EU issues, but national political actors tend to instrumentalise the EU for their strategic purpose during the election campaign, even more so nowadays than before. With its multi-dimensional approach to the various expected and unexpected side-effects of the EP elections, the volume inspires reflection on the future of the EU’s legitimacy in a broader sense. The strength of the very diverging contributions in methods and angles lies in the coherence of their perspective on these elections, based on the theoretical concept of second-order elections and the European democratic deficit. While the construct of intended and unintended consequences (by whom, and how intended or not?) seems to be slightly artificially created in some of the chapters, the main message of the volume is very clear: We need to know more about the different actors involved and their approach to and behaviour during the elections, as well as concerning the elections’ effects on the actors. This book represents an important step forward in this regard. A consideration of political actors at the individual level may represent a future research venue to complement the analysis.