VAA Data and Party Research

Abstract

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.

Title	Details
Shortcuts to Understanding Politics: Evaluating the Effect of VAAs on Ideological Party Placement Knowledge	View Paper Details
Who Do Local Politicians Respond To? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Denmark	View Paper Details
Positioning Political Parties in German National and Regional Elections from 2013 to 2026 Using Wahl-O-Mat Data	View Paper Details
Synthetic Policy Spaces Using Voting Advice Applications	View Paper Details
From Transnational Cohesion to National Proximity: Shifting Ideological Alignments in the European Parliament After 2024	View Paper Details