The ideological Mapping of political parties in Romania

Abstract

What are the main dimensions of competition between political parties in Romania? Is there a match of the electorate policy preferences with those of political parties? This paper analyzes what are the main dimensions of competition between parties in Romania by looking at the issue preferences of the party in the electorate. We use data obtained from the voting advice application (VAA) applied in 2012 (votulmeu.com) in Romania. Finally we compare our results with Chapel Hill expert party mappings and claim that VAA data are a reliable source for finding out the programmatic peferences of party supporters.