The European Election Studies (EES)

are about electoral participation and voting behaviour in European Parliament elections, but more than that. They are also concerned with the evolution of an EU political community and a European public sphere, with citizens’ perceptions of and preferences about the EU political regime, and with their evaluations of EU political performance. European Election Studies include more components than the postelection surveys among representative samples of voters. These additional components include content analyses of party manifestos (“Euromanifestos”), elite surveys and content analyses of media news.