Methodology

Full transparency: this is how we calculate your political match.

1. Sources of information

The parties’ positions are documented on the basis of public and verifiable sources, giving priority to the parties’ own documents:

• Election manifestos: those for the 2023 Riigikogu elections and, as soon as the parties adopt them (expected in January 2027), those for the elections on 7 March 2027
• Documents adopted at their congresses and general assemblies
• Votes in the Riigikogu
• Public statements by their leaders, cited via the media outlet that reported them when there is no party document

2. Question design

Every question in the test meets these criteria:

• Neutrality: It does not mention parties or political figures
• Clarity: Accessible language, no jargon
• Relevance: Issues currently debated in Estonian politics
• Differentiation: It helps distinguish between the parties’ positions

Response scale

We use a 5-point Likert scale:

3. Party positions

For each question, each party is assigned a position (1–5) based on those sources. Currently all positions have the same confidence weight (3) in the calculation: no party is treated differently through weighting.

• Positions with a linked source: They include the specific document that supports them, with its date
• Estimated positions: Inferred from the manifesto as a whole when we have not found a document that states them explicitly. They are marked as such on the party’s profile

Documenting all 266 positions with a source is a work in progress. Marking what does not yet have one seems more honest to us than presenting everything with the same appearance of precision.

If a party is missing a position

Currently all 7 parties have a position on all 38 questions; those not backed by an explicit document are marked as estimated. If a party were missing a position (when it is added or when a new question is added), it would not be made up: that question would be left out of its calculation.

The number of sourced and estimated positions for each party is shown on its profile.

The same applies to comparisons between two parties: only the questions on which both have a position are compared.

4. Calculation algorithm

Your match with each party is calculated using an advanced algorithm that takes three factors into account:

• Quadratic scale: Large differences of opinion are penalised more than small ones
• Conviction factor: Strong opinions (strongly agree/strongly disagree) carry more weight than moderate ones
• Reduced weight for neutral answers: “Neutral” answers have less impact on the final result

You decide the importance: in the full test you rate from 1 to 5 how much each question matters to you (if you leave it unchanged, it counts as 3); in the quick test they all count as 3. The confidence weight is currently the same (3) for all positions. Your age, your sex and the party you would vote for, if you choose to give them, play no part in calculating your match.

Conviction factor

Your firmest opinions carry more weight in the result:

• Strongly agree / Strongly disagree → Factor 1.0 (maximum weight)
• Agree / Disagree → Factor 0.75
• Neutral → Factor 0.5 (lowest weight)

Example:

• Your answer: 5 (Strongly agree)
• Position of party X: 4 (Agree)
• Confidence weight: 3, Importance: 4
• Difference: |5 - 4| = 1
• Base score: (4 - 1)² = 9
• Conviction factor: 0.5 + (2 × 0.25) = 1.0
• Total weight: 3 × 4 × 1.0 = 12
• Score: 9 × 12 = 108 points
• Maximum possible: 16 × 12 = 192 points
• Match on this question: 108/192 = 56%

Tie-break

The two parties closest to your answers may end up 3 points or less apart: one or two different answers would be enough to change the order. Often these are parties that take almost the same positions on the test questions. When this happens, your result offers you a tie-break with a few more questions.

The questions come from a separate bank, with each party’s position documented in the same way as for the test questions, and they are not part of the main test. For each tie, up to 8 are chosen: those that most separate the tied parties, only from sourced positions (never estimated ones), and only if at least one of them separates the parties by 2 points or more. Your answers are added to the usual calculation for all parties, with normal importance, and the result shows where the parties stood before and where they stand now, with what each one stands for. You can only do the tie-break once. The tie-break does not change your compass or the topic-by-topic comparison, and it does not count in the barometer or the reports, which are still based only on the test questions. When parties take almost the same positions on almost everything, few questions separate them, and they may remain tied: we would rather say so than invent differences.

Why not a longer test? Adding more questions of the same kind would barely separate those parties, because two parties only differ on the questions where they think differently, and each pair needs its own. With the tie-break, each person answers only the questions that separate their parties.

5. Political compass

The political compass places your position on two axes:

The test categories are grouped as follows to calculate your position:

• Economic axis: Economy and taxes; pensions, family and welfare; and regions and rural life
• Social axis: Migration; energy and environment; values and society; and government and democracy

Topics that do not count towards the compass

Some topics are not assigned to either axis because they do not fit well into the left–right or the progressive–conservative scheme: their questions count towards your match with each party, but do not move your position on the compass. That is why we stress that the compass is a simplification.

How we calculate your position

To ensure consistency between your match with the parties and your position on the compass, we use a system of automatic polarity:

1. Analysis of each question: For each question, we analyse the positions of reference parties, which differ on each axis. On the economic axis, left: SDE and the Centre Party; right: the Reform Party, Parempoolsed and Isamaa. On the social axis, progressive: SDE, Eesti 200 and the Reform Party; conservative: EKRE, Isamaa and the Centre Party.
2. Determining polarity: If the left-wing (or progressive) parties have higher positions on a question, answering “strongly agree” moves you towards the left (or the progressive pole). If it is the right-wing (or conservative) parties, it moves you towards the right (or the conservative pole). If the two groups answer a question almost the same way (their averages differ by less than half a point on the 1–5 scale), the direction is unclear: that question does not count towards the compass, only towards your match with the parties.
3. Calculating the score: Your answer is converted to a scale from -100 (left/progressive) to +100 (right/conservative), adjusted for the polarity of each question.
4. Average per axis: Your final position on each axis is the average of all the questions in the corresponding categories.

This system ensures that if you have a high match with a left-wing party, the compass will consistently place you on the left, and vice versa.

6. Limitations

We want to be transparent about the limitations of this test:

• It cannot capture all the nuances of politics
• Party positions may be simplified
• Election manifestos do not always reflect what parties do in government
• Some questions may distinguish between parties better than others
• The test does not take into account parties’ track records in keeping their promises

7. What is published

Everything needed to audit the test is available on the site itself:

• The full list of questions grouped by topic, with an explanation of each one.
• Each party’s position on each question, with its justification and, where available, the document that supports it.
• The calculation algorithm, detailed on this page and explained with a step-by-step numerical example.
• The aggregated response data, with its methodology note and the minimum threshold applied.

Of the 266 positions, 246 currently link to the document that supports them and 20 are marked as estimated.

Revision log

Significant changes to the database of questions and positions:

• 15 October 2026 (later): visit measurement without cookies (Cloudflare Web Analytics) and, for each test, only the channel through which it started (for example a search engine, an AI assistant or a news site), never the address the visitor came from; both are described in the privacy policy. Party pages now link to Wikipedia and Wikidata so that search engines know exactly which party they are about. Google Analytics only runs with consent (a new cookie notice with “Accept” and “Reject” buttons) and is never loaded on the test questions or results.
• 15 October 2026: the website is published for the Riigikogu elections on 7 March 2027, in Estonian, Russian and English. The test has 38 statements (20 in the quick test) and 18 tie-break questions; the positions of the 7 parties are based on their 2023 manifestos, their votes in the Riigikogu and their public statements.

8. Contact and corrections

If you spot an error in the parties’ positions or have suggestions for improving the methodology, contact us at kontakt@poliitilinesobivus.ee.

We particularly value comments that include verifiable sources.