Matching Voters with Parties and Candidates

Voting Advice Applications - VAAs - have become a widespread online feature of electoral campaigns in Europe, attracting growing interest from social and political scientists. But no systematic and reliable comparative assessment of these tools has yet been published. Until now, research on VAAs has resulted almost exclusively in national case studies. This lack of an integrated framework for analysis has made research on VAAs unable to serve the scientific goal of systematic knowledge accumulation. Against this background, Matching Voters With Parties and Candidates aims first at a comprehensive overview of the VAA phenomenon in a truly comparative perspective. Featuring the biggest number of European experts on the topic ever assembled, the book answers a number of open questions and addresses debates in VAA research. It also aims to bridge the gap between VAA research and related fields of political science. 'Garzia and Marschall's book comes at the right time. Voting Advice Applications are redefining how political parties and citizens communicate with each other. But how are they constructed, and what are the intended and unintended effects of their use? This volume offers encompassing, state-of-the-art answers to these questions by an impressive line-up of leading researchers in the field. It also opens new perspectives on what VAAs can tell us about the workings of democratic politics. And it formulates norms that every VAA should comply with. This will be the most comprehensive and authoritative resource on VAAs for years to come.'Professor Kees Aarts, University of Twente 'This book focuses on a new source of electoral intermediation - Voting Advice Applications - which widens the interest scholars have long had for traditional mobilising actors of the vote. This new form of intermediation lets citizens interact with parties and issues on the web, empowering them and allowing an informed political choice. The book is a thorough inquiry into the impact of VAAs on people's political choice, and a thoughtful methodological reflection on the new tool by prominent experts in the field. A rewarding read for political behaviour scholars and National Election Study teams.' Paolo Bellucci, University of SienaVice President, Italian National Election Study