VAAs and the 'Making of Citizens'

In this paper, we address the question whether and how VAAs could contribute to the “making of citizens”– in the sense of citoyens who actively and frequently engage in political processes. We ask for the effects of VAA use on political interest, knowledge, participation and political discussions of the voters by drawing on the case of the German Wahl-O-Mat before the European Elections 2014. Given the “second order” character of European elections, there seem to be a specific and urgent need for the promotion of citizen behaviour especially in European politics. For our analysis, we resort to data generated by a three-wave panel study which allows us to compare users and non-users of the tool over time. The findings indicate that indeed Voting Advice Applications such as the German Wahl-O-Mat could effectively contribute to more political engagement, i.e. the “making of citizens”.