Strengths and weaknesses of approaches to measuring policy positions of parties

This article examines the measurement quality of the three main approaches to estimating policy positions of parties: expert surveys, the conventional content analysis of election programs by the Manifesto Research Group/Comparative Manifestos Project, and computer-assisted content analysis of election programs. Based on a literature review in tabular form containing quotations ordered according to major measurement problems, this contribution discusses the merits and shortcomings of the three approaches. The systematic comparison shows that all three approaches have their particular strengths and weaknesses. As a rule, the strength of one approach is the weakness of the others and vice versa. Therefore, the three approaches are not opposed to one another but complementary, so that all three are necessary for future research.