Positioning Political Parties in German National and Regional Elections from 2013 to 2026 Using Wahl-O-Mat Data

Political parties can be positioned within the political landscape using a range of methodological approaches. Existing research commonly relies on expert or mass surveys, analyses of legislative behavior, or examinations of party manifestos. Most studies apply a deductive framework, assuming two main dimensions of political competition – an economic left-right and a socio-cultural axis – to map party positions. This paper explores whether data from Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), specifically the German Wahl-O-Mat, can serve as a data source for positioning parties in two-dimensional space. Drawing on Wahl-O-Mat data from national and regional elections between 2013 and 2026, we (i) analyze the issue composition of the tool (economic vs. cultural items) and assess the suitability of these data for positional mapping. We compare the resulting positions with those obtained by Bräuninger et al. to evaluate the VAA-validity. Furthermore, we (ii) show the party competition during the period under review and examine whether there are general differences between East and West parties. In addition, we (iii) test the effect of applying different weighting schemes, including manifesto-based weightings, and discuss whether issue emphasis affects a party’s perceived location. Finally, (iv) we debate whether environmental protection issues are suitable for cultural-axis-positioning, something that has generally been left out of the picture so far, despite its high salience in political debate and also in the Wahl-O-Mat-data. Our findings indicate that Wahl-O-Mat data provide a reliable and replicable basis for measuring party positions, reflecting temporal and regional dynamics of the German political landscape.