“MEPs serving domestic autocrats by engaging as supranational technocrats? Organisational structures and politicisation management in EP roll call votes”

Rising Euroscepticism contributed to polarised party competition and domestic political debates about the European Union (EU). The domestic politicisation is creating “bottom-up” pressures prompting actors to engage in responses on the supranational level. Furthermore, democratic backsliding in member states such as Poland and Hungary resulted in an “authoritarian equilibrium”: while domestic governments are challenging the liberal democratic core of the Union, the ideological support by some of the European Parliament’s European political party (Europarty) groups have shielded their member parties. Once elected to office, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are serving multiple principals: their nominating national parties and their Europarty groups. By drawing insights from organizational theory and (de)politicisation management approach, the purpose of this study is to understand how and why MEPs behaviour is affected by organisational affiliations with Europarty groups and by bottom-up politicisation from authoritarian enclaves during EP roll call votes. In an explanatory sequential design, using Votewatch voting records and Chapel Hill Expert Survey data followed by semi-structured interviews, the comparative case study analyses 367 roll call votes between 2014-2019 and N=12 interviews. The cases compared are the affiliations between the Hungarian governing party Fidesz and the European People’s Party group (EPP), in comparison to the Polish governing party Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość - PiS) and the European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR). The data indicates that organisational structure takes priority over ideological tensions between national parties and Europarties in EP plenary voting settings. However, the weak organisational structure does not explain the outcome in behaviour. The interviews suggest that electorally accountable “challenger” parties in government, such as authoritarian enclaves, employ a strategy of restrained legislative depoliticisation in roll call votes. By overwhelmingly voting together with their Europarties the MEPs can ultimately ensure the survival of their autocratic national parties.