The engagement of European political scientists with parties and the citizens : the case of voting advice applications

Abstract

Political scientists ’ engagement with democratic politics and society isnot limited to their direct involvement in a diverse range of advisory roles(Bleiklie et al., in this volume). The latter become ever more important asdata becomes increasingly available. If the spread of survey methodologyafter World War II went hand in hand with the behavioral revolution in thesocial sciences, then computational techniques, big data, and online accessto internationally coordinated data gathering efforts open up entirely newavenues for research (Dalton, in this volume). Politics and society becomebeneficiaries of these developments, increasingly seeking evidence-basedanalyses of policy impact and change (Hemerijck, in this volume). Alongsidesuch direct forms of political scientists ’ engagement in (mainly institutional)politics, the growing interest of the discipline in digital transformations andthe emerging potential of “ civic technology ” led to novel forms of engage-ment. In this chapter, we concentrate on a concrete example of such novelengagement with parties, candidates, and voters.