Improving candidate-based voting advice application design

Voting advice applications (VAAs) seek to strengthen democracy by assisting voters in voting-related decision-making. VAAs have become popular tools across many European democracies and their usage has been linked to real life electoral consequences. As VAA usage has become more prominent, this has also sparked research interest toward VAA design. However, most of the VAA design research has been conducted on party-based VAAs, whereas candidate-based VAAs that are in use in countries such as Finland, Denmark and Switzerland have been largely ignored. Moreover, research on overall VAA designs, in comparison to individual VAA design elements, is non-existent. This article discusses interdependencies of VAA design choices and proposes overall VAA designs that can improve existing Finnish candidate-based VAA designs, encouraging Finnish VAA developers to update their designs. Future research should develop and test the suggested designs, as more research on the topic is needed, especially regarding VAA user experiences.

What’s Work Got to Do with It? How Precarity Influences Radical Party Support in France and the Netherlands

The rising support for radical parties in Europe has triggered a new interest in the political sociology of voting and how voters with socio-economic insecurity are moving away from establishment politics. In this article, we apply Standing’s concept of ‘precarity’ to capture insecurity among ordinary voters and thereby expand the individual socio-economic explanations behind the vote for radical populist right (RPR) and radical left (RL) parties. We develop a multidimensional measure of precarity to capture subjective labour market insecurity in its different manifestations. The article examines the influence of precarity on voting in two countries – France and the Netherlands – that, in the 2017 elections, saw the culmination of a decline in support for establishment parties and a rise in support for both RPR and RL parties. We use panels of voters collected during these elections through online Voting Advice Applications, weighted against national census benchmarks. We identify and assess the role of two dimensions of precarity: ‘precarity of tenure’ and ‘precarity at work’. We find that in both France and the Netherlands precarity is, overall, negatively correlated with voting for established parties and positively correlated with voting for RPR and RL parties. Furthermore, our investigation shows that ‘precarity at work’ is more significant in explaining voting support than the more widely investigated ‘precarity of tenure’. Our results stress the importance of assessing how subjective work insecurity explains voting and support for RPR and RL parties.

Looking through the mirror: representativeness of the Italian party system before the 2018 General Election

The use of the Internet and communication technologies has dramatically increased in recent times. This change has affected every aspect of political life, with electoral campaigns and parties making no exception. One of the most significant advancements on the theme is the spread of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs). These tools are developed before elections to match users’ policy preferences to those of the parties running. By looking at the dataset created with the answers of the users of an Italian VAA, Navigatore Elettorale, this study aims at understanding the representativeness of the six main parties running in the 2018 General Election. Through the development of a Representative Deficit Index, the study will also assess the key policy areas in which each of these parties performed best in the eyes of the electorate. The finding shows a diversified pattern of (in)successes for each of the parties, with some unexpected results.

Voting Advice Applications and Electoral Participation: A Multi-Method Study

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) help users casting a vote by offering an explicit ranking of viable options. The wide amount of readily available information provided by VAAs to users has been shown to contribute to reducing the transactional costs involved in gathering relevant political information. Available evidence also supports the idea that VAA users are more likely to cast a ballot in elections as a result. The extent to which electoral participation is caused by using a VAA, however, remains unclear. Against this background, we reassess the mobilizing effect of VAAs by means of a multi-method approach. Our cross-sectional analysis of 12 national election study data sets provides further support to the idea that VAA usage increases users’ chances of casting a ballot in elections as compared to non-users. This conclusion is strengthened by the results of a randomized field experiment conducted in the context of the 2013 Italian parliamentary election.