Europe Elects a Parliament: Cognitive Mobilization, Political Mobilization and Pro‐European Attitudes as Influences on Voter Turnout

Abstract

In June 1979, 110,968,000 citizens of the nine European Community countries voted to select representatives to the European Parliament - the fvst directlyelected supranational parliament in history.Representatives from nine nations sit together as members of transnational party federations that have, in varying degrees, worked out joint political programmes. As a democratically elected body, the new European Parliament possesses a political legitimacy that the former, appointed, Parliament never had. By itself, this does not automatically give it a more influential role in decision-making at the European level, but it certainly strengthens the Parliament's potential to do so.