Assessing the Impact of Membership Turnover on Constituent Views of the European Parliament

This chapter examines the relationship between personnel turnover in the European Parliament (EP) and citizens’ attitudes toward the EP since the start of direct elections in 1979. European citizens generally see the EP as a “second-order” institution whose importance pales in comparison with that of national institutions. At the same time, the EP is characterized by high levels of personnel turnover, with many of its members exiting the legislature prior to the end of their elected mandate. We address whether nationally divergent patterns of turnover affect the ways that citizens view the EP. We find some evidence that early exit from the EP negatively affects the attitudinal dimension of input legitimacy. We find, however, that this effect has weakened as the EU has grown larger.