Since voters are often swayed more by the personal image of politicians than by party manifestos, they may cast votes that are in opposition to their policy preferences. This results in the election of representatives who do not correspond exactly to the voters' own views. An alternative voting...

The paper estimates the policy representation of 34 German parties that participate in the 2017 Bundestag (federal) election. For this purpose, the party positions on 31 topical issues are compared with the results of recent public opinion polls. Then we construct the party indices of popularity...