André Krouwel (1964) teaches political science and communication at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and is founder and co-owner of Kieskompas (Election Compass), a leading developer of Vote Advice Applications across the globe. Krouwel’s research focuses on political parties, elections, voting behaviour, public opinion, populism, Euroscepticism, extremism (versus political moderation) and conspiracy belief. He wrote his PhD on the transformation of political parties in Western Europe. Most important findings are captured in Party Transformations in European democracies at SUNY Press.
Krouwel has published articles and book chapters about voting behaviour, elections, political parties and social movements. His publications focus in particular on the changing character and role of political parties in European democracies and the rise (and fall) of new political parties and political ‘entrepreneurs’. More recent work also analyses (negative) political attitudes such as political cynicism, EU-rejectionism, political extremism and anti-establishment attitudes of voters across Europe. These studies highlight how populism, extremism and belief in conspiracies is related to political polarisation and how this affects party democracy and government formation. Additional publications highlight widespread feelings of economic precariousness of middle classes across the globe, the so-called 'squeezed middle'. Political transitions also feature in his work, from the political institution-building processes and democratisation in East and Central Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Arab Uprisings.
Krouwel’s interest in finding practical applications for scientific knowledge led to the development of an online party profiling application – Election Compass (Kieskompas). Such Vote Advice Applications allow voters to determine which political party is closest tot their own policy preferences. Used by millions of voters in more than 40 countries, Election Compass projects collect large-N non-probability samples that offer unique opportunities to study the decision-making mechanisms behind party choice.
