by Tiago Peixoto
I am currently a PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence (EUI). My main research interests are related to identifying factors that contribute to successful policies aiming a... More about Tiago Peixoto
EU Profiler: voting advice application for the 2009 EP elections
Here's a link to a video about the EU Profiler, a Voting Advice Application for the 2009 European Parliamentary Elections.
http://www.euronews.net/en/article/27/02/2009/an-orientation-tool-for-eu-voters/
The EU Profiler has been developed here at the European University Institute with the collaboration of a unique team of international researchers.
A bit more about the EU Profiler:
"The EU Profiler is a Europe-wide Voting Advice Application (VAA) or a party profiling website for the European Parliament elections in June 2009. It is designed to help millions of European users and potential voters to discover their positions in the political landscape for the 2009 EP elections.
In order to help voters to make their own preferences explicit and position themselves in a 'European political landscape', the EU Profiler offers the users (or voters) an online questionnaire with 30 political statements on which they can indicate their level of agreement or disagreement. When they have completed the set of questions, the programme goes on to state which particular party is closest to the political preferences expressed by the user (voter). Therefore, the EU Profiler allows them to compare their preferences with the positions of all national, as well as, all European parties.
The EU Profiler will be available in all EU Member States in all their respective national languages and will be customized to each country's national campaign context. The EP elections will also be simulated in a number of non-EU member countries such as Turkey, Croatia, Switzerland and Norway.
The EU Profiler has been developed by the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence which has a unique position to form an international team of social scientists (as the ''officers'' of this group and many more). The EU Profiler combines the academic excellence of the EUI with the expertise and the experience of the Dutch company ‘Kieskompas’ and the Swiss consortium ‘NCCR Democracy/Politools (smartvote)’ which are the two leading developers of party/candidates profiling websites and voting advice applications."
Comments
Sounds interesting - not least because, if it links national and European political parties' positions in a legible way, it could help a European political public sphere to seem more real in the minds of voters.
posted over 2 years ago
I totally agree with you Simon, and the data that we are going to get from this is incredible. Related to your point, for instance, by seeing how citizens' preferences are matched at the national / European level we can see to what extent territorial constituencies are still relevant when it comes to representing citizens' preferences at the European level.
posted over 2 years ago
That will be fascinating data!
But it will be data about more informed voters - simply because they will have used the profiler tool. Will you have comparable data about control groups? You would presumably expect the 'average voter' to be more strongly oriented to national parties than someone who has used the tool.
posted over 2 years ago
We are working on that Simon. The data is going to be massive.
posted over 2 years ago
I'd like to know how the data collection has been over the past year and what kind of studies could be started, if this data is available. I hope it was publicized in a way that attracted less-informed voters, or at least a part of the more general population.
posted about 1 year ago