Article | Open Access
Voting Advice Applications and Their Impact on Ideological and Affective Polarization
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Abstract: Political polarization has been one of the most researched topics in political science over the past few years. While many scholars focus on the factors that foster ideological and affective polarization, less is known about the drivers of depolarization. In this article, we are addressing this gap by investigating the potential effects of using voting advice applications (VAAs) on both the ideological polarization of vote choice and the level of affective polarization among voters. Using data from the Swiss VAA Smartvote and from a field experiment within a two-wave panel survey conducted before and after the 2023 Swiss national election, this article presents partial evidence that using a VAA during election campaigns can contribute to a reduction in ideological and affective polarization among voters. Our findings have significant implications for the role of VAAs in increasingly polarized Western democracies.
Keywords: affective polarization; ideological polarization; vote choice; voting advice applications
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Vol 14 (2026): Voting Advice Applications: Methodological Innovations, Behavioural Effects, and Research Perspectives (In Progress)
© Maxime Walder, Jan Fivaz, Daniel Schwarz. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction of the work without further permission provided the original author(s) and source are credited.