Survey Results - Political Objectives Test
I have discussed my Political Objectives Test here in the past and for a long time promised I would provide some 'number crunching' of test-takers. That was a while ago...
Now - finally - my long-overdue survey of a group of 150 anonymous test takers can be presented here!
It is all a bit long-winded so if you just want to take the test yourself then go here.
And I would love it if you would share with me your own test results. You can do so here (or privately via email if you prefer). In telling me your result it would be informative if you could tell me your three percentage scores rather that just the ideological label the test gives you.
Furthermore any comments or criticisms can be posted here. I look forward to discussing it all with you.
Now - finally - my long-overdue survey of a group of 150 anonymous test takers can be presented here!
It is all a bit long-winded so if you just want to take the test yourself then go here.
And I would love it if you would share with me your own test results. You can do so here (or privately via email if you prefer). In telling me your result it would be informative if you could tell me your three percentage scores rather that just the ideological label the test gives you.
Furthermore any comments or criticisms can be posted here. I look forward to discussing it all with you.
Labels: Political
posted by Dan at
20.11.09
3 Comments:
I got some conversation one pushing this topic at Facebook...
David Collyer: I'm a liberal/libertarian. Wonder if that excludes me from politics forever?
Polly Morgan: I just took your again & got anarchist this time, instead of liberal - :-)
Pennie Hume: I did it a couple of years ago, and found it to be fairly accurate. Have you changed it for the re-launch?
Mark George: Help help I've been pigeonholed! Apparently I'm "Progressive". Well there ya go.
Simon Heyes: I was communist, well my dad was and is a trot so I think pretty accurate.
Simon Heyes: Actually just read your Utopian Socialist and thats more me I think.
Gary Pendergast: I was an Anarchist last time I did it, now I'm a Revolutionary. Should I be taking up arms? Or should I not be submitting myself to the tyranny of another human by asking that question? I'm so conflicted!
Pennie Hume: Gary, I have similar problems. :-) The test can't decide which kind of socialist I am.
Olav Kuhn: Apparently I'm an Establishmentarian, which you may have suspected anyway. The good news is that it is a near-synonym of my favourite English word, antidisestablishmentarianism.
I responded as follows:
David - I think I saw your result at OKCupid - which offers you the choice of libertarian or progressive. And the latter definitely fits the ADs if that is any consolation...
Penny - the test operates in the same way - only the supporting information on the blog is new. If I remember rightly you got given the choice between utopian socialist or communitarian. Which description do you prefer?
Mark - progressive seems to be the most popular among my friends (but also one of the most popular ones among test-takers in general)....
Simon - the test looses accuracy in distinguishing between 'extremist' and 'transitional or alternative'. My usually advise if you get the extreme position is to assume you are more likely to be the transitional. So for you utopian socialist works. Likewise radical for Gary and libertarian for Polly...
Gary - you do seem to have drifted leftward since last time. Europe have anything to do with having more of an egalitarian slant I wonder?
Olav - Last time I think you were on old-school conservative. Somehow your liberty score has risen since then. Curious.
Polly - thanks for the message which I will get back to soon.
Then there was further discussion…
Gary Pendergast: Probably not Europe - I've been living in Italy, after all. Actually, I suspect watching American politics has caused me to drift further left, after seeing how badly it can go for the lower class.
Pennie Hume: Daniel - You have a good memory! Utopian socialist is a better fit for me.
And once more I responded:
Hey Gary - yep that kind of destitution in a world power is scary.
Hey Penny - I think that is a better choice for you. That way you can play with different electoral options - Labor, Greens, Socialist Alliance. If you were communitarian all there would be for you is the poor old DLP. (-8}
Also had some chats off-line or on other Facebook 'walls' (since a few others posted their results on their own pages).
By
Dan, At
25 November, 2009
Many more commented on LiveJournal but most were just conveying their results. There was this one interesting observation, however...
From: actrealdon
Date: November 20th, 2009 02:25 pm (local)
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I found it really interesting that your three spoke model effectively collapsed to a two spoke model.
You know my results already.
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From: originaluddite
Date: November 23rd, 2009 01:51 pm (local)
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You are a quick reader! (I saw your comment as it came in)
Yes - all that effort to only find that left-right works for the majority anyway. Looks like most of us reduce the choice of stability and liberty and equality to simply liberty-equality or liberty-stability.
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By
Dan, At
09 May, 2017
Those old findings of my test included comments on the relative positions of 'left and right' in governments across the world. I cobbled together a ten-nation list (the G7 + India + Brazil + Australia) and at the time (a decade ago) it showed more centre-left than centre-right governments. Now in 2020 the same list would show the reverse. However what if we threw our net wider?
One quick way to do that is look at the party membership lists of several political internationals (see Wikipedia) indicating how many of those parties are 'senior partners in government'...
Socialist International (SI) for social-democracy and socialism: 25 parties
Progressive Alliance (PA) for progressivism and social-democracy: 21 parties
Liberal International (LI) for both classical and social liberalism: 9 parties
International Democrat Union (IDU) for neo-conservatism: 28 parties
Centrist Democrat International (CDI) for Christian democracy: 18 parties
Some parties in the world are not members of internationals. Also, there is some overlap in the membership of these internationals. Nonetheless these numbers suggests that, if we consider SI and PA ‘left’ and IDU and CDI ‘right’ then, with 46 and 46 members respectively, the world is hardly run by just one 'side' or the other.
Closer analysis of the LI members might shift that depending on which parties are social (left) or classical (right) liberals. Another problem would be the big differences between parties. A seeming rightward trend in recent world elections has not been to the benefit of free-marketeers, but rather towards more protectionist and isolationist stances. Furthermore, a more populist style, transcending left and right, has become trendy, and that is a more significant worry that simply what labels we give to governments.
By
Dan, At
11 July, 2020
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