Taking your political temperature

About 18 months ago I looked at the test on the Political Compass to see where the US presidential hopefuls stood. All of them, with the exception of Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, were on the authoritarian right. I found I was on the libertarian left, in about much the same place as Nelson Mandela, which is no doubt why I voted for him.

Now Jams O'Donnell at The Poor Mouth: Political Spectrum has found another site, The Political Spectrum, which does much the same thing, but from an American viewpoint.

Here is my result:

My Political Views
I am a left social moderate
Left: 3.86, Libertarian: 0.9

Political Spectrum Quiz

The result was not very much different from Political Compass, but a little less libertarian so not much surprise there.

My Political Compass results were:

Economic Left/Right: -6.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.00

Nor is there much surprise in these results on Political Spectrum:

My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -5.73

Political Spectrum Quiz


My Culture War Stance
Score: -2.57

Political Spectrum Quiz

But the tests are like chalk and cheese.

The Political Compass has carefully-worded questions, designed to be clear and unambiguous, and where the answers will actually measure something.

In the Political Spectrum test the questions are biased, tendentious, and very often beg the question, and it is difficult to see what they are trying to measure.

The Political Compass did not give the opportunity for a neutral answer, but it wasn't needed, because the questions were clear and unambiguous.

The Political Spectrum gave the opportunity for neutral answers, and also gave the opportunity of indicating the importance of the issue. In theory this should make the test more accurate, but in fact I answered most questions as neutral, and of neutral or little importance, because of the bad wording.

I can't remember the exact wording now, without going back and doing the tests again, but one example that struck me was that the Political Compass test asked something like:

Do you think that abortion should be legal for a woman when there is no danger to her life?

whereas the Political Spectrum equivalent version was something like:

Do you think that the state should deny a woman her right to an abortion?

which begs more than one question.

The difference may be because Political Compass is a serious exercise and appears to have drawn on professional expertise in designing the questionnaire and formulating the questions. The Political Spectrum one is on a public quiz site, where anyone can post a questionnaire, and there is nothing to prevent the wording of the questions reflecting the biases of the compiler.

But I can't help wondering whether it is also perhaps a reflection of the differences between British and American culture.

And now, with a general election looming, I wonder where our own political leaders stand.

I imagine Jacob Zuma would be a circle in all four quadrants, getting a different result depending on the last person he spoke to.

I also suspect that Patricia de Lille is still closest to my position (and that of Nelson Mandela).

US Primaries 2008 -- a Republicrat will be elected

Here's a clear illustration of what many of us have long suspected. Nearly all the US presidential hopefuls in either of the two main parties are right-wing authoritarians. The only ones who aren't -- Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel -- don't stand a chance of being elected.

US Primaries 2008:

When examining the chart it is important to note that although most of the candidates seem quite different, in substance they occupy a relatively restricted area within the universal political spectrum. Democracies with a system of proportional representation give expression to a wider range of political views. While Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel are depicted on the extreme left in an American context, they would simply be mainstream social democrats within the wider political landscape of Europe. Similarly, Hillary Clinton is popularly perceived as a leftist in the United States while in any other western democracy her record is that of a moderate conservative.

As Jonty Driver, erstwhile president of the National Union of South African Students, said when B.J. Vorster, then Minister of Justice in South Africa, called him a "leftist", "There is no shame in being called a leftist by such a prominent rightist."