Put in the spotlight or largely ignored? Emphasis on the <i>Spitzenkandidaten</i> by political parties in their online campaigns for European elections

This article contributes to the debate about the introduction of the <i>Spitzenkandidaten</i> (lead candidates) in the 2014 European Parliament (EP) election. Focusing on parties’ efforts to make the candidates visible to voters, we argue that the multi-level character of these elections creates large differences concerning individual parties’ incentives to promote the <i>Spitzenkandidaten</i> in their campaigns. Analysing a novel dataset of campaign communication on Facebook, we find that only a few parties highlighted them, while many did not. In line with our theoretical argument, this variation is systematic and can be attributed to lacking incentives for most parties. Especially nominating a candidate at the European level only has a modest positive effect on national parties’ willingness to put the candidates in the spotlight. This lacking commitment to the nominated candidates should be considered in discussions about the reform of the current <i>Spitzenkandidaten</i> system for the 2019 EP elections.本文参与了2014年欧洲议会（European Parliament，简称EP）选举中引入头号候选人（Spitzenkandidaten）机制的相关学术讨论。本研究聚焦于各政党为提升该类候选人在选民中的辨识度所开展的工作，并提出核心论点：此类选举的多层级属性，会导致不同政党在竞选活动中宣传头号候选人的激励动机存在显著差异。通过分析一套全新的脸书（Facebook）竞选传播数据集，本研究发现仅有少数政党会着重宣传该类候选人，多数政党并未开展此类宣传。这一差异符合我们的理论预判，具备系统性特征，其根源在于多数政党缺乏相应的宣传激励。尤其是仅在欧洲层面提名候选人，对各国政党将该类候选人置于宣传焦点的意愿仅产生微弱的正向影响。在针对2019年欧洲议会选举现行头号候选人机制的改革讨论中，应充分考量各政党对提名候选人的承诺缺失这一关键问题。