Voting Advice Applications - Tools for Voters and Researchers

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are online tools designed to help voters align their policy preferences on key issues with the positions of political parties or candidates. These tools have become a prominent feature in electoral campaigns across Europe, both nationally and transnationally. VAAs are created for local, regional, national as well as for transnational elections, enabling comparative studies across countries and electoral levels, as well as valuable case studies. As they have been established in many European countries – and as they are used intensively by voters – VAAs have started to constitute a field of social science research resulting in national research projects, publications and European networking. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in examining the consistency and reliability of the guidance provided by these tools. Additionally, the high volume of users visiting VAA websites during election campaigns has spurred political scientists to explore the impact of these applications on voters’ electoral choices, political interest and knowledge. At the same time, VAAs produce a wealth of data which could be used for other studies in political research not directly related to these tools. This section builds on the success of previous General Conference sessions on VAAs since 2013. The section’s panels offer a platform for sharing insights from VAA research alongside findings from other areas of political science. This year, the focus will be on comparative analyses of VAA usage and effects across Europe as well as on the usage of VAA data for other fields of political science such as party and public opinion research. Also, most recent technological developments in designing and improving VAAs will be addressed. The Section will bring together scholars from different subfields of political science and aims to foster the linkages between these sub-disciplines and at the same time creating a more in-depth understanding of these increasingly relevant tools. Interdisciplinary analyses relying on insights from, e.g., AI/machine learning, big data analysis, online survey research, behavioral psychology, and normative theory, will widen the perspective. The section is endorsed by the ECPR Research Network on Voting Advice Applications. Panel 1: Mapping Localized Public Opinion through VAAs: Expanding Electoral and Political Geography Chair: Nikandros Ioannidis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain Large-scale datasets generated from VAAs offer a unique opportunity to map and analyze differences in public opinion across electoral constituencies and regions. The geographical exploration of public opinion has long focused on the dichotomy of progressive urban areas and conservative rural areas. However, this dualistic perspective overlooks the complex interplay of contextual features that shape political preferences. By utilizing VAA data, we can deepen our understanding of how different factors influence voter preferences at a more granular level. This panel welcomes contributions that analyze local variations by examining public opinion within and between electoral districts or regions using VAA data. Submissions that present theoretical and methodological innovations for integrating VAA data into electoral and political geography studies are encouraged, as are empirical case studies highlighting the practical applications of VAA data in mapping public opinion at a subnational level. Panel 2: Recent Directions in VAA Development and Research: Methodological Innovations, Data Collection, and Data Sharing Chair: Naomi Kamoen, Tilburg University, Netherlands Since their rise in the late 1980s, Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have become a significant element of electoral campaigns, particularly in Europe, where millions of citizens utilize them. Although the number of VAA designers is on the rise, many of the VAAs currently in use closely resemble those developed over a decade ago in terms of layout and methodology. Additionally, despite a substantial increase in literature on VAAs, the management and sharing of VAA data remain inconsistent. This panel includes papers that explore innovations in VAA design, such as those incorporating Conversational Agents, as well as discussions on the collection and sharing of VAA data. Panel 3: Using VAA Data for Party Research Chair: Eric Linhart, Technische Universität Chemnitz, Germany The primary aim of creating Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) was to provide tools for voters to compare their policy positions with those of political parties, helping them navigate elections. However, new research avenues have emerged that explore the significant potential of VAA data for studying parties and party systems. This data enables researchers to assess the proximity of different parties, identify centripetal or centrifugal trends within party systems, uncover representation gaps, and more. Nevertheless, there are concerns that data collected for different purposes may not be suitable for analyzing parties and party systems. This panel invites papers that either theoretically evaluate the applicability of VAA data for party research or empirically use VAA data to address the questions mentioned above. Panel 4: Effects of Voting Advice Applications on Political Behavior Chair: Micha Germann, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) provide their users with personalized information on the extent of overlap with political parties and/or candidates in terms of policy goals. However, despite significant attention in previous literature, it remains unclear whether, and to what extent, VAAs affect political knowledge, voting preferences, electoral turnout, and other behavioral outcomes. While observational studies have generally found evidence in support of VAA effects, the evidence from experimental studies is much more mixed, suggesting that frequently cited correlational evidence on VAA effects could be spurious. Assuming that VAAs do have behavioral consequences, it also remains unclear what kinds of voters are most and least likely to be affected by VAA usage; how durable these effects are; and whether VAAs have stronger effects in some electoral contexts compared to others. Finally, causality has largely been treated as a black box in previous literature, and we therefore know only relatively little about what causal mechanisms are driving the effects of VAAs. This panel aims to bring together papers asking about the effects of VAAs on political behavior, broadly understood.