The impact of the Stemtest/Test électoral on voting in the Belgian general elections of 2019
(2019) the Eighth edition of the conference Belgium: The state of the federation — Location: Bruxelles (19.December.2019)
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- Abstract
- Since the early 2000s, Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have proliferated across the globe. Together with this expansion, research on this topic has been rocketing. Scholars have been investigating the effect of these VAAs on the electorate (Aarts & van der Kolk, 2007; Enyedi, 2016; Fivaz & Nadig, 2010; Garry et. al., 2018; Laaksonen et al., 2016; Ladner et al., 2012; Mahéo, 2017; Marschall, 2008;). We add to this literature by investigating the impact of the Belgian VAA ‘De Stemtest/Test électoral’ on voting behavior in the Belgian general elections of 2019. The case of Belgium is interesting because VAAs have been offered in Flanders since the early 2000s. In francophone Belgium, the use of such tools is a more recent phenomenon. The comparison between these regions might reveal interesting differences between regions where VAAs have become a habit during elections and where they are still a fairly new phenomenon. We ask two questions: first, we investigate who participates in ‘De Stemtest’. Previous research (Ladner and Pianzola, 2010; van de Pol et al. 2014) finds that more advantaged individuals (higher education, political interest and sophistication, older, men) are more likely to use VAAs than other groups. We examine whether these results hold both in a region where VAAs have been used for a longer time in comparison with a region where VAAs are fairly new and if changes occurred between 2014 and 2019 in terms of users’ profile. Second, we study the effects of VAAs on users’ cognitions and behaviour. More specifically, we want to study the effect of VAAs on voters’ knowledge of parties’ issue positions. Furthermore, we want to find out what the impact is of using a VAA on vote choice. Do VAAs lead to a more congruent vote? We use the EOS survey data in order to answer these questions.
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Jennart, I., Talukder, D., Uyttendaele, L., & Rihoux, B. (2019). The impact of the Stemtest/Test électoral on voting in the Belgian general elections of 2019. the Eighth edition of the conference Belgium: The state of the federation, Bruxelles. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/123387