Simon
Hix, London School of Economics and Political Science
Abdul Noury, New York University
We
have collected how each MEP voted in each record (roll-call vote) in the first
six elected European Parliaments:
EP1
(July 1979-May 1984)
EP2 (July 1984-May 1989)
EP3 (July 1989-May 1994)
EP4 (July 1994-May 1999)
EP5 (July 1999-May 2004)
EP6 (July 2004-May 2009)
The data are publicly available for academic research, teaching or for any other not-for-profit activity.
By downloading the data you agree to cite the data
in one of the following ways:
Simon Hix, Abdul
Noury and Gerard Roland (2006) 'Dimensions of Politics in the European
Parliament', American Journal of Political Science, 50(2) 494-511.
Simon Hix, Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland (2007) Democratic Politics in
the European Parliament, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Simon Hix and Abdul Noury (2009) 'After Enlargement: Voting Patterns in the Sixth European Parliament', Legislative Studies Quarterly, 34(2) 159-174.
Simon Hix, Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland (2009) 'Voting Patterns and Alliance Formation in the European Parliament', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 364, 821-831.
THE
DATA FILES:
This
is an MSExcel file containing information about each MEP in the first 5 parliaments, including: the MEP's ID number; the MEP's member state, EP group, and
national party affiliations; and the MEP's NOMINATE coordinates on two dimensions.
(This file was updated on 26 July 2011).
vote_info_Jun2010.xls
(zipped)
This
is an MSExcel file containing information about each vote in the first 5 parliaments,
including: the number and date of the vote; the procedure, reading, and voting
rule of the vote; the rapporteur; who called the roll-call vote; and the policy
issue of the vote.
rcv_ep1.txt
(zipped)
rcv_ep2.txt (zipped)
rcv_ep3.txt (zipped)
rcv_ep4.txt (zipped)
rcv_ep5_11Jul06.txt (zipped)
These files contain the raw roll-call voting records from each parliament, and are comma-delimited text files.
These
files have the following format:
- the first row contains the names of the variables
- the first column contains each MEP's ID number (MEPID)
- the second column contains each MEP's name (MEPNAME)
- the third column contains each MEP's member state (MS)
- the fourth column contains each MEP's national party (NP)
- the fifth column contains each MEP's EP group (EPG)
- the sixth to the last column contain the "vote decision" of each MEP in
each vote (V1,V2,...,Vn, for n votes in each parliament)
(NOTE: The rows in these files are not in the order of the MEPs' ID numbers)
The
codes for the member states, national parties, and EP groups are contained in
the mep_info.xls file.
The
codes for the MEP vote decisions are as follows:
EP1, EP2
and EP5:
EP3 and EP4:
This zip file contains a series of MSExcel files of the roll-call votes, MEP info, vote info, and national party info for EP6.
NOTE
OF CAUTION:
The
data sets we have collected are not only very large in size but are also highly
disaggregated. Despite the large
size of the dataset, however, some roll call votes are missing.
To keep the database as clean as possible, we discarded about 100 roll
call votes (which is less than 0.01 percent of all votes).
Also, in the remaining votes, as a result of missing information about
some MEPs, the number of Yes, No and Abstain are not always
identical to the numbers reported in the European Parliament's minutes.
However, this missing information is less than one percent point any
single roll call vote.
Publications and Working
Papers Using these Data
Simon
Hix (2001) 'Legislative Behaviour and Party Competition in European
Parliament: An Application of Nominate to the EU', Journal of Common Market
Studies 39(4) 663-688.
Abdul
Noury (2002) 'Ideology, Nationality and Euro-Parliamentarians', European
Union Politics 3(1), 33-58.
Abdul
Noury and Gerard Roland (2002) 'More Power to the European Parliament?', Economic
Policy 34, 279-320.
Simon
Hix (2002) 'Parliamentary Behavior with Two Principals: Preferences, Parties,
and Voting in the European Parliament', American Journal of Political
Science 46(3) 688-698.
Simon Hix, Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland (2002) How MEPs Vote, Brighton: ESRC.
Simon
Hix, Amie Kreppel and Abdul Noury (2003) 'The Party System in the European
Parliament: Collusive or Competitive?', Journal of Common Market Studies
41(2) 309-331.
Simon
Hix and Amie Kreppel (2003) 'From Grand Coalition to Left-Right Confrontation:
Explaining the Shifting Structure of Party Competition in the European
Parliament', Comparative Political Studies 36(1/2) 75-96.
Simon
Hix (2003) 'A Supranational Party System and the Legitimacy of the European
Union', The International Spectator 2003(1) 49-59.
Simon Hix (2004) 'Electoral Institutions and Legislative Behavior: Explaining Voting Defection in the European Parliament', World Politics 56(1) 194-223.
Abdul Noury (2004) 'Abstention in the Daylight: Strategic Calculus of Voting in the European Parliament', Public Choice 212: 179-211.
Simon Hix, Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland (2004) 'How to Choose the European Executive: A Counterfactual Analysis, 1979-1999', in Charles Blankart and Dennis Mueller (eds) A Constitution of the European Union, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 169-201.
Jacques Thomassen,
Abdul Noury, and Erik Voeten (2004) 'Political Competition in the
European Parliament: Evidence from Roll Call and Survey Analysis', in Gary Marks and Marco
R. Steenbergen (eds) European Integration and Political Conflict, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Simon Hix, Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland (2005)
'Power to the Parties: Cohesion and Competition in the European Parliament,
1979-2001', British Journal of Political Science 35(2) 209-234.
Simon Hix, Abdul
Noury and Gerard Roland (2006) 'Dimensions of Politics in the European
Parliament', American Journal of Political Science 50(2) 494-511.
Simon Hix, Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland (2006) Democratic Politics in
the European Parliament, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Simon Hix and Abdul Noury (2007) 'Politics not Economic Interests: Determinants of Migration Policies in the European Union', International Migration Review, 41(1) 182-205.
Simon Hix and Abdul Noury (2009) 'After Enlargement: Voting Patterns in the Sixth European Parliament', Legislative Studies Quarterly, 34(2) 159-174.
Simon Hix, Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland (2009) 'Voting Patterns and Alliance Formation in the European Parliament', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 364, 821-831.
The collection of the data was funded by a grant from the 'One Europe or Several' programme of the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom (no. L213 25 2019), an ACE grant from the Commission of the European Union, and an ARC grant 00/05-252 from the Communaute francaise de Belgique.