Analyzing the 2024 Election to the European Parliament: The Swedish Perspective
(2026) SIMZ11 20261Master of Science in Global Studies
- Abstract
- This thesis is an analysis of Sweden’s 2024 election to the European parliament. Its primary research question is whether or not this election can still be classified as an election that adheres to the model of second-order elections (SOE). Secondary research questions concerns how the 2024 election compares to the 2019 EP election as well as how the Swedish results of the 2024 election can be compared to the election results on an EU-wide basis.
The second-order election theory is based on the idea that national elections are considered primary elections by both the parties and the electorate whilst EU elections are not and are therefore called second-order elections. These second-order elections are therefore treated as less... (More) - This thesis is an analysis of Sweden’s 2024 election to the European parliament. Its primary research question is whether or not this election can still be classified as an election that adheres to the model of second-order elections (SOE). Secondary research questions concerns how the 2024 election compares to the 2019 EP election as well as how the Swedish results of the 2024 election can be compared to the election results on an EU-wide basis.
The second-order election theory is based on the idea that national elections are considered primary elections by both the parties and the electorate whilst EU elections are not and are therefore called second-order elections. These second-order elections are therefore treated as less important by the voters and there are certain characteristics to the elections that come with that. This includes lower electoral participation, more invalid ballots, more votes for extreme or populist parties, as well as losses for larger parties and incumbent government parties.
The methodology is a quantitative case study of the 2024 election that uses comparisons to the most recent 2022 national election as well as previous EP elections. Data is gathered from various agencies that collect results of EP election results. Data on what parties can be considered “populist” is gathered from the database called Populist.
The results show that the 2024 EP election has many characteristics of the second-order election model such as the incumbent government losing a fairly large amount of its vote share and a much lower electoral participation. Its differences from the 2019 election can also largely be explained by the SOE model. Comparing it to the EU as a whole there are some interesting ways that Sweden differentiates itself such as the Swedish Social Democratic party receiving a larger part of the Swedish vote share than the S&D political group did in the rest of the EU. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9249989
- author
- Andersson, Julia LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SIMZ11 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- language
- English
- id
- 9249989
- date added to LUP
- 2026-09-02 15:27:05
- date last changed
- 2026-09-02 15:27:05
@misc{9249989,
abstract = {{This thesis is an analysis of Sweden’s 2024 election to the European parliament. Its primary research question is whether or not this election can still be classified as an election that adheres to the model of second-order elections (SOE). Secondary research questions concerns how the 2024 election compares to the 2019 EP election as well as how the Swedish results of the 2024 election can be compared to the election results on an EU-wide basis.
The second-order election theory is based on the idea that national elections are considered primary elections by both the parties and the electorate whilst EU elections are not and are therefore called second-order elections. These second-order elections are therefore treated as less important by the voters and there are certain characteristics to the elections that come with that. This includes lower electoral participation, more invalid ballots, more votes for extreme or populist parties, as well as losses for larger parties and incumbent government parties.
The methodology is a quantitative case study of the 2024 election that uses comparisons to the most recent 2022 national election as well as previous EP elections. Data is gathered from various agencies that collect results of EP election results. Data on what parties can be considered “populist” is gathered from the database called Populist.
The results show that the 2024 EP election has many characteristics of the second-order election model such as the incumbent government losing a fairly large amount of its vote share and a much lower electoral participation. Its differences from the 2019 election can also largely be explained by the SOE model. Comparing it to the EU as a whole there are some interesting ways that Sweden differentiates itself such as the Swedish Social Democratic party receiving a larger part of the Swedish vote share than the S&D political group did in the rest of the EU.}},
author = {{Andersson, Julia}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Analyzing the 2024 Election to the European Parliament: The Swedish Perspective}},
year = {{2026}},
}