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The purpose of this paper is to analyse why Malta continues to show the highest level of turnout for European Parliament (EP) elections in a country where voting is not obligatory. By analysing the Maltese EP elections from 2004 to 2019, the paper seeks to understand why the Maltese engage with a second order election to the degree that they do.

The paper is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, first assessing the context of the 2019 elections, the historical trends and then the factors that help explain why the Maltese continue to engage with EP elections.

The paper finds that the Maltese political system, highly polarised and dominated by two parties, primarily galvanises people to engage with elections, that it is more about party leadership than actual engagement with Europe and that second order elections in Malta are often run as first order elections.

This paper is the only systematic evaluation of the 2019 EP elections in Malta, discusses categorically that EP elections are rarely about Europe while also showing clearly that political parties can make second-order elections appear as first-order elections should the stakes be high enough.

The Korean airline industry continues to change in 20-year cycles structurally. The major changes are in their market through deregulation and liberalization resulting in adding more carriers, especially low-cost carriers (LCCs) from 2006. The authors categorize three types of LCCs in Korea: (1) independent LCCs, (2) LCCs subsidized by existing airlines as airlines-within-airlines (AwAs), and (3) LCCs supported by conglomerates and local governments. Independent LCCs have suffered financially during the research period from 2009 to 2013, especially from the impaired capital, even though these LCCs are growing rapidly and expanding their markets in domestic and international routes. AwAs’ efficiency is higher than that of independent LCCs, the roles in the market are limited because of cannibalization by their mother company.