Rate Your Ideology
With the election campaign heating up again I thought it would be fun to try this again
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 1-3 range while my authority result ranged in the -1 to 1 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. The quiz is a bit dated so it gives you all of the potential 2012 contenders.
I came up closest to Huntsman and Obama with Guliani, Biden and Johnson 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
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I was surprised, though others here will not be, that I was -4 on both economic and social. And that I should have voted for Hillary Clinton – never gonna happen.
It would be easier to answer more nuanced questions and those would probably give a different score.
I’m screwed. I’m a -4.50/-4.48. I need to vote for the Dalai Lama.
I had to force myself to finish this “test”, but got a -4.12 for Economic and -.12 for social. I hate tests: +10.
I got a -3 on economic and a -5.7 on social. I also need to vote for the Dalai Lama. I’d be all over that.
And for Vote Match, I pretty much voted for who I agree with, and have fought against those I don’t, which is comforting, I suppose.
Thanks for linking this again. It’s always fun, though the result is always the same…economic centrist, social libertarian.
Scores intentionally withheld to annoy other commenters. Critiques of lack of transparency are welcome.
TB, you are very transparent by your lack of transparency. Show us your birth certificate and the last 5 years of tax returns.
Test like these result in scores based on the way the questions are worded.
However, it just confirmed what other test have shown. Moderate in economic values +2.2 and -1.9 in Social values ending up more in the bottom right hand box.
I came in at somewhat more authoritarian than the hypothetical offspring of Sauron and Cruella De Ville. I like these tests, its like a free chance to let the internet judge you.
-2 -4 liberal like Gandhi but a little more libertarian.
I’m right there bumping elbows with Gandhi. I couldn’t be happier with the company.