Rate Your Ideology
I’ve posted this before but over the last few weeks we’ve had debates over what is conservative or liberal.
The one concern I’ve always had is that we tend to assume ourselves and our usually like minded friends as average and thus skew our results. I’ve fallen into the trap before and so to test myself for real I have gone to several of the political ideology tests on the web to find out where I really stand. I thought it might be fun for the rest of you to do the same.
One of the best sites I have found is Political Compass. This site looks at political ideology both from an economic viewpoint and also from the aspect of government and authority. It assigns you scores ranging from -10 to + 10 for each viewpoint and shows you where you stand.
In terms of interpretation of the scale I’d say that scores from 0 to 2.5 in either direction place you in the category of moderate, scores from 2.5 to 7.5 in either direction place you in some form of mainstream liberal/conservative and anything beyond 7.5 puts you in the extreme category (since by definition of the scale -10 or +10 are as far over as you can get and include folks like Hitler/Stalin/etc). It is an international quiz so you are able to compare yourself to people around the world.
If course most of the questions are subject to interpretation and so if you take the test 3 or 4 times in a week you are likely to get slightly different scores each time. But it seems that there is a fairly small range to your scores.
The second test is Vote Match and is geared more to US politics. You answer a series of questions and it matches you to Presidential candidates or members of the Senate. Again, there is a degree of interpretation but it is also a fun quiz.
So take the tests and post your scores.
Just to start the ball rolling, when I took the Compass test I ended up with a small range of scores but my economic results tended to be in the 0-2 range while my authority result ranged in the 0 to -2 range. So in all cases I ended up as a moderate but with a slight left tilt on authority and a slight right tilt on economics.
In the Match quiz I looked to 2012 Presidential Candidates. I came up closest to Huntsman and Obama with Guliani, Biden and Clinton also highly ranked. In 2008 I came closest to McCain with Clinton #2 and Obama #3. Overall I was rated a centrist.
So chime on in folks.
30 Responses to “Rate Your Ideology”
I’m (2.25, -3.44), an economic moderate, social libertarian. Not far from Chopin, it seems.
Well I liked the vote match quiz because it pretty much confirmed what I suspected…no current candidate is a good match for me.
On the other, I come out around 2.75 toward conservative and libertarian…On that one, it’s worth noting that none of the named politicians come up below the horizontal axis…almost like politics attracts or creates folks of the authoritarian perspective.
I never liked tests, but I will try and do these. Right away I got into trouble with 1):
“If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.”
How do you marginalize TNCs? There in this with everyone and would be a MAJOR factor (see why instructors loved me).
Back I go.
Yes dduck, some of the questions are pretty skewed but it’s just for fun.
I certainly agree one of the issues, especially with PCompass is the phrasing of the questions.
But they are still fun tests to take
I’m sure I flunked. All of those questions were debatable (laughing?having fun).
E:-4.25, S:-2.77.
Vote match for me isn’t much of a surprise. Clinton, Huntsman, Biden, and (!) Ron Paul.
But I didn’t agree with any of them on more than 50% of the issues, also, not a surprise. But Ron Paul? That is unnerving. He is borderline delusional and most of his supporters crossed the border years ago. Imagine an anarchist in this day and time.
My compass scores are consistent with the two or three times I have taken it in the past. -1 on political and economics, slightly liberal, and -2, slightly libertarian on the authority.
In other words, historically, I am a moderate. Compared to rest of the country today and most on this site I am a fire breathing, near commie liberal out to destroy all that is sweet and good in America.
Mothers, protect your children.
Economic Left/Right: -2.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.31
Guess that makes me just the opposite of dduck though I’m glad we both had a “-” in front of the numbers.
I agree with all who question the phrasing of the questions, one to me was so bad that I didn’t answer it but they wouldn’t let me proceed without an answer.
While of course it is partly due to the subjective nature of the questions I do find it interesting I can be close to someone in score and still have them consider me a right wing (or left wing) radical.
This was my 3rd taking of the test.
In Oct. ’09 I was:
Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.72
In Feb ’10 I was:
Economic Left/Right: -3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.64
So my numbers have stayed pretty much the same.
FWIW – My desk isn’t a clutter of 3×5 cards I use OneNote and just ran a search.
Oh, please. You’re barely in the running. Now American Mothers have a real reason to hide their children…
Apparently Ralph Nader is running and he is the guy I should be supporting in that we are 73% sympathico.
Economic Left/Right: -7.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.85
Economic Left/Right: 6.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 3.90
I’m right about where Bob Barr is. Maybe slightly more liberal. That makes sense and puts me about where I usually fall, if slightly more liberal of late.
E: -0.12, S: -3.23 (moderate libertarian)
Sounds about right.
Ron Paul at 50% down to Romney at 10%. Ralph Nader was the next best name that I recognized (how did Thad McCotter get in there?). Even weirder, immediately following Bachmann at 33%, was Obama at 30%. Now the combination of NewsMax and DailyKos alerts doesn’t seem so odd.
I’m not too far from the Dalai Lama:
Economic Left/Right: -4.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.05
Economic Left/Right: -2.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.64
I am sooo average
Economic Left/Right: -2.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.74
I’m pretty much on the line between libertarian and Authoritarian, slightly inside Libertarian, but way to the left . I’m quite proud of this. But I was a little undecided on one question. Had I answered it differently, I’d be a Red. Along with the Pope.
Economic -7.38
Social -0.56
Quelcrist Falconer-
LOL, you’re over there with me. Why do we disagree so much???
-5.25 left/right
-3.74 libertarian/authoritarian
just about where Gandhi is, too. This seemed to be where I was about a year ago.
I guess it’s genetic.
And, you get a great song in my quadrant: “I’m changing my name to Fannie Mae.”
I am fine with my results all except the Stalin idea, I,ll take Ghandi tho
My political compass was
Economic left/right 2.25
social liberatarian authoritarin o.21
Looks like I share my neck of the woods with Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. I’m fine with that.
Just keep up your fence, JS, it’s my neighborhood too. (Does the Dalai Lama drink margaritas?)
I don’t like fences much but I like my privacy and respect the privacy of others. Did you say Margaritas? How could he say no?
Yeah, we have the best quadrant and the other three should all think as we do.
I always enjoy it when TMV authors post political ideology tests so that we call all compare our political ideologies with one another. However, as I’ve mentioned in the comments section to previous posts (see here and here), there are some notable flaws with Political Compass:
2D: Social:72, Economic:85, which would still be moderate libertarian, but slightly right-leaning, as opposed to the PC test, which showed me slightly left-leaning.
ProfElwood said:
The differences between your Political Compass results and your Political Quiz in 2D results mirrors my own (see my above comment). Specifically, the Political Compass test tends to minimize libertarianism along both the social and economic axes.
Here’s my explanation. The Political Compass asks a number of questions that are not political in nature but merely have to due with one’s own personal morals and aesthetic tastes.
So while I’m a person who tends to feel that government should not interfere too much in either social or economic issues, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have personal opinions on such matters. I have my own opinions about what constitutes good art, how individuals should treat each other, and how businesses should treat their customers as well as the communities in which they reside.
I fail to find abstract art to be as impressive or meaningful to me as other types of art. This is just my own personal opinion. Yet the Political Compass reflects this personal opinion by moving my social score away from the libertarian end of the social axis and towards the authoritarian end of the social axis, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I’m not aware of any scientific study or even anecdotal evidence that suggests that preferences for one type of art (or artist) over another makes one more socially libertarian or socially authoritarian.
Similarly, I happen to feel that many corporations are fully of greedy people who have far too much power (much of it derived from corporate welfare and connections with pwoerful people in the government). The Political Compass reflects this by moving my economic score away from the right end of the social axis and towards the left end of the social axis, which makes very little sense when you consider that my political opinions on this matter are not really left at all. I opposed the bailouts of Wall Street–a fiscally libertarian/fiscally right position, yet my position on this issue is scored by Political Compass as economically left.
The main effect of the Political Compass is to cluster most people nearer to the political center. This is why so many people at TMV who have significant political differences with one another, amazingly end up finding themselves being no more than 2 or 3 squares away from each other. All the questions that ask about one;s personal morals and aesthetic tastes ends up diluting the far more substantive questions about the proper role of government in personal/social policy, fiscal/economic policy, and foreign policy.
The Political Compass deserves credit for being one of the first political quizes to offer a dimensional representation of political ideology. It is certainly far preferable to any one-dimensional political test out there. However, I cannot overstress (is that even a word?) its inherent flaws.
What does it mean to be socially libertarian or socially authoritarian or economically left or economically right? We don’t really get clear answers to those questions from Political Compass since it mixes so many disparate elements (i.e. political views, aesthetic tastes, personal views of morality) into a single axis.
Nick, I agree, the questions gave enough choices that I didn’t feel like I was being shoved into one group or another.
Our results weren’t that far apart…
Wonder why we always seem to go at it with each other?
FWIW – Someone ought to tell the “PQ in 2D” webmaster that black backgrounds with green and mauve and yellow letters went out with 386 computers running BBS’s in DOS.
2D nailed me as a centrist.