A Chance to Blame the Government? The 2009 European Election in Southern Europe

This article focuses on the 2009 European Parliament elections in Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta. First, it presents the general background and key issues of the electoral campaigns in these six countries. Second, it tries to answer the question of whether or not these elections in Southern Europe conform to the theoretical framework of the national second-order election model. The major conclusion is that the hypotheses of this model are partially confirmed.