Do politicians’ answers to voting advice applications reflect their sincere beliefs? Comparing publicly and confidentially stated ideological positions in a candidate-centred electoral context

Voting advice applications (VAAs) are online tools designed to match voters with specific parties and/or candidates. Because candidate-centred electoral systems incentivize strategic positioning maximise personal vote shares, it is unclear if the information that candidates provide in VAAs reflect their sincere ideological positions. The aim of this study test extent which candidates' responses a function private beliefs or rather position taking. We do by comparing candidates’ pre-election public those provided post-election confidential survey context Finnish 2019 parliamentary elections. Our findings solid evidence very similar two settings. There hence good reasons consider as sincere.