Svenska europaparlamentarikers röstningsbeteenden i Europaparlamentet : En kvantitativ studie om svenska MEP:ars ställningstagande till den utrikespolitiska linjen inom EU

Sammanfattning

The war against Ukraine has been a gradual upscaling of aggressions from Russia, that culminated in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Sweden’s unity in support of Ukraine has been especially remarkable, perhaps unique, when looking at the cohesion in which Swedish Members of European Parliament (MEP:s) vote in favour of funds. The following essay aims to convey voting patterns of the Swedish MEP:s, in order to deduce whether there is a difference in how votes are cast between favours to the party groups, the national parties, or the delegation on policy regarding financial aid to Ukraine. Several established theories aim to explain how Members of Parliament choose to cast their votes in regards to party groups or national parties, one of them being Simon Hix’s partisan theory of EU-politics. Hix theorizes that party groups are prioritized at large. However, Hix does not take into account the perspective of voting in favour of the delegation of representatives as a whole. This is added to the essay through theories of small states’ behavior when encountered by foreign policy decisions. The essay further expands on differences in loyalty in regards to MEP:s national party affiliation, and, therefore, priority in their voting with either party group or delegation. The results found that there was a difference in how Swedish MEP:s chose to prioritize their votes and that party group voting was downprioritized, in spite of Hix’s theory. The national party gathered an absolute cohesion from their representatives, whereas the delegation suffered some smaller deviations, but still lay at a higher priority rate than party groups. This result could, however, be partly explained by some of Hix’s research, that constitutes national party leanings when parties are able to exercise more control over their representatives. The issue in question also garners great support from international actors overall and is, therefore, not representative to the entire population of foreign policy votings in the Parliament.