Economic Inequality and political representation in the European parliament

This paper examines the relationship between the preferences of party vot-ers and voting behaviour of Members of European Parliament between 1989 and 2009. With microdata from the European Election Survey (Eurobarom-eter), we are able to disentangle the effects that party voters from different income groups have on the roll call votes in the European Parliament. It appears that on the ideological left-right dimension the middle class has sig-nificant influence on the voting behaviour. On the unification/ anti-pro EU dimension, such findings are much less robust. As the political influence of the European Parliament has increased over successive treaty reforms, these findings are a relevant addition to political economy literature.