Fifty Years on: Research on the European Parliament

This introductory article reviews our current state of knowledge about the European Parliament (EP). First, we review the major accomplishments of previous studies of the EP, highlighting four principal areas of work: general studies of the chamber, work on EP elections, studies of the internal politics of the Parliament, and research on the EP's institutional relations with the Council and Commission. Second, we consider what has yet to be learnt: what are the major unanswered questions about the EP, and how do the articles in this special issue respond to this agenda?