Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have literally taken Europe by storm in the past decade, with millions of voters turning to these web-based tests at election time. VAAs help users casting a vote by comparing their policy preferences on major issues with the programmatic stands of political parties on such issues. These applications are aimed primarily at increasing voters’ understanding of what parties stand for by means of an immediate and enjoyable approach. In turn, this can increase voters’ interest in political matters, motivate them to discuss about politics, and hopefully gather further information. More recently, the impressive numbers of users visiting VAA-websites have led some political scientists to hypothesize an effect of these tools also on voters’ electoral behaviour. Questions about VAAs’ ability to motivate users to turn out and vote (possibly for the party advised by the application) have been repeatedly raised. However, little empirical evidence has been collected so far – this lack being particularly evident in comparative perspective. This volume represents the first systematic attempt to answer such questions through a comparative framework. The cases included range from established applications such as Dutch StemWijzer and German Wahl-O-Mat to ‘first attempts’ from Southern and Eastern Europe, in order to portray in detail the various stages of development of the VAA-phenomenon around the continent. The time-point under analysis is, in each case, the European election of June 2009. The second-order nature of this electoral competition – where voters are thought to vote for parties closer to their preferences and ideological outlook – seems in fact an ideal context to assess the potential of these applications. The volume’s major aim is that of igniting a fruitful exchange between academic and practitioners on applications that are likely to become an ever more used and appreciated feature of electoral campaigns in the years to come.


Lorella Cedroni is professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Rome “SAPIENZA” (Italy); PhD in Social and Political Sciences, EUI (Florence). She was Fulbright Distinguished Professor at the University of Pittsburgh (PA), USA, in 2008. She is coordinator of the national research on VAAs in Italy. Her research focuses on political representation, democracy, political communication and party systems in Europe.

Diego Garzia is PhD candidate in Comparative and European Politics at the University of Siena. Previously, he studied at the Universities of Rome (Sapienza) and Leiden (The Netherlands). He has been editor-in-chief of the Italian VAA cabina-elettorale.it and co-editor of VoteMatch Europe 2009. His research is focused on the role of personality in orienting political attitudes and behaviour. He is also interested in parties, elections, VAAs, and their impact on voting behaviour.