ICTs and democratic deficit in the EU: how VAA can help improve the democratization of EU institutions and practices

Abstract

The question guiding this paper is how the deployment of innovative ICT tools and applications produce real effects on the transformation of some aspects of the political process that are responsible of the so-called democratic deficit in the EU. More specifically, this paper explores how Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are improving the transparency, involvement, awareness and participation in European Elections, which are the four key elements for resolving the EU deficit. Moreover, VAAs help to improve the absence of a fully developed transnational European party system by matching the voter and parties preferences at the domestic level with the party position of other non-domestic brother parties in the EU.In order to check out the positive effects of VAAs on transparency, involvement, awareness and participation, as well as on reinforcing the European Party System in the EU, we have analyzed the VAA launched in the 2014 European Parliament elections in Spain, called Espana. Empirical evidences suggest that EU-Vox 2014 had an impact on the Spanish users by enhancing transparency, offering a possibility to match the user preferences with the political parties' positions. Moreover, VAA increased the direct involvement and participation of those users not previously interested in politics. Finally, VAA contributed to strengthening a European party mentality on Spanish users.