Europeanization of European Election Campaigns: A Study of the Swedish Social Democratic Party’s and Green Party’s European Election Campaigns in 2014 and 2019

Sammanfattning: Since Sweden held its first election to the European Parliament in 1995, Swedish political parties have arranged campaigns and elected national candidates for the European elections. Europarties also arrange campaigns for the European elections, and elect candidates for the President of the European Commission. Europarties however experience difficulties reaching the voters in the EU Member States. National parties therefore have a unique role to play as the link between the Europarties and the national voters. However, scholars have found that the national political parties have a stronger national than European focus. The aim of this thesis is therefore to bring more understanding to the coordination and content of Swedish national parties’ European election campaigns. The thesis seeks to find to what extent the campaigns of Swedish national political parties for the European election have become Europeanized. This is done by conducting a qualitative comparative case study of the campaigns of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and the Swedish Green Party prior to the European elections in 2014 and 2019. Interviews with MEPs and Campaign Managers have been conducted, as well as a document analysis of the parties’ election campaign evaluations in 2014. The findings show that the national campaigns in 2019 have become Europeanized, both in terms of programmatic content of the campaigns and in terms of relations with their Europarties, but to a medium extent.