The partisan electoral effect of EU structural and investment funds in French European Parliament elections

Abstract

In this article, we find a partisan electoral effect in French European Parliamentary (EP) elections that we consider to be a variant of an economic voting determinant. EU Structural and Investment Funds (SIFs) can be partially predictive of French EP electoral results. The direction of this electoral effect, however, is determined by partisanship. Left-leaning parties’ vote shares are positively correlated with SIF disbursement levels, while right-leaning parties’ vote shares are negatively correlated with SIF disbursement levels. This electoral phenomenon gives further credence to other findings that have demonstrated that variants of economic voting are occurring at subnational levels in second-order elections.