Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This study comprised the Great Britain component of the European Election Survey (EES) for 2004. It surveyed the voting-age population in England, Wales and Scotland and was fielded immediately following the European Parliament (EP) elections of that year. A separate EES survey for Northern Ireland was also conducted, and is held at the UK Data Archive (UKDA) under SN 5311 European Parliament Elections in Northern Ireland, 2004. Similar EES surveys were also conducted in all European Union (EU) member states after the 2004 EP elections, as they had been after the EP elections of 1989, 1994 and 1999. A large number of questions in the 2004 surveys were identical to those used in previous years, thus permitting time-series comparisons. Additional information about the wider EES project is available at the European Election Studies web site. Some data from the 1989, 1994 and 1999 EES are also available from UKDA (see 'Related Studies' section).

Main Topics:

The 2004 EES for Great Britain had a tri-partite structure. The first part was the core EES survey. This repeated section maintained continuity between each EES over time, and focused on party preference and voting choice of the electorate. The second part was the thematic module (this element of the EES changes at every election but is constant for all participating countries, and makes up around a quarter of the questionnaire), which for 2004 focused on legitimacy and the democratic quality of the EU institutions. Finally, a Great Britain-specific module was included that focused on political knowledge, in particular respondents' factual knowledge about EU institutions.

Quota sample

Telephone interview