Voting Advice Application Use Increases Party Position Knowledge: An Experimental Study Among Belgian Youngsters

Joke Matthieu, Laura Jacobs, Matthias Van Campenhout and Stefaan Walgrave
Additional contact information
Joke Matthieu: Department of Political Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium / Department of Political Science, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Laura Jacobs: Department of Political Science, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Matthias Van Campenhout: Department of Political Science, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Stefaan Walgrave: Department of Political Science, University of Antwerp, Belgium

Politics and Governance, 2026, vol. 14

Abstract: Political knowledge is vital for democratic citizenship, yet many voters struggle to correctly identify party positions. This article investigates whether voting advice applications (VAAs) can increase party position knowledge (PPK) among young voters. We present results from a large-scale experiment in Flanders (Belgium) using two real-world VAAs: De Stemtest, a generic VAA targeting the general electorate, and De Jongerenstemtest, a youth-oriented version specifically designed to appeal to younger citizens. Respondents aged 16–30 (N = 2,291) were randomly assigned to a control group or one of the treatment conditions. Multilevel logistic regression models demonstrate that VAA exposure does not uniformly enhance PPK: the generic VAA produced no significant learning effect, whereas the youth-oriented VAA significantly improved respondents’ ability to identify party positions correctly. Contrary to expectations, the learning effects did not vary systematically across parties or between mainstream and niche parties. Our findings provide rare causal evidence of PPK effects from real-world VAA exposure, highlighting the importance of tailoring such tools to specific audiences.

Keywords: experimental design; party position knowledge; political knowledge; survey experiment; voting advice applications; young voters (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/11235 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:poango:v14:y:2026:a:11235

DOI: 10.17645/pag.11235

Access Statistics for this article

Politics and Governance is currently edited by Carolina Correia

More articles in Politics and Governance from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().