Abstract
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.
Highlights
Since the late 1980s, political parties entered a path of decreasing trust and confidence
The Representative deficit Index (RDI) of LeU is around 10 points lower than average, while, on the other hand, the resulting RDI for PD is sensibly higher than the others
This means that LeU has a strong average opinion congruence with the Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) users who had LeU as their
Summary
Since the late 1980s, political parties entered a path of decreasing trust and confidence. Political representation is usually referred to as the relationship between voters (or citizens in general) and their elected counterparts (Pitkin 1967), where the former are acting in the name or in trust of the latter This relationship is often mediated through parties, which are supposed to act as the main link between voters and candidates or elected representatives, and when parties fail to perform this role, the whole representative circuit is affected. For this reason, the theme of representation, and representation of opinions and policy preferences in particular, becomes of particular interest for the understanding of this complex process of party change and party decline
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