When Parties (also) Position Themselves: An introduction to the EU Profiler

Abstract

This article frames and describes a novel method of political party positioning within the European Union and beyond. The EU Profiler project, a large-scale, interdisciplinary, and pan-European research endeavor, takes a step beyond the conventional approaches by including party self-positioning and by using internet-based information technology to offer full documentation of the positions that are identified. In addition to conventional expert coding, some 270 political parties in Europe have been invited to place themselves on 30 issue dimensions. Where it proved possible, each coded position for each party is then fully documented with extracts from party manifestos, party leaders' speeches, or relevant press or policy statements. The resulting data offer unique opportunities for comparing the accuracy and efficiency among party positioning techniques, and explore for the first time and in a systematic way the auto-positioning of political parties throughout Europe.