ANALYSIS OF COHERENCE OF GROUPS' POSITIONS IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT IN 1979-2014

The article examines the coherence at the European Parliament on two major cleavages (ideological and national) that determine whether deputies unite into the groups. Having described the data in use, R.Kamalova calculates the Rice index that allows to measure the degree of coherence of deputies in the group, analyzes the pairwise coherence between the groups, and then assesses the level of fragmentation and polarization of the EU legislative body.