Political spectrum
A political spectrum is a way of comparing or visualizing different political positions. It does this by placing them upon one or more geometric axes symbolising political dimensions that it models as being independent of one another.
Mathematically, a political spectrum is defined by:
- a dimension n, representing the number of independent issues under consideration. Voters are represented by points in V = [0,1]n.
- a voter density function v: V → ℜ
- a distance function d: V × V → ℜ that is positive definite and symmetric and satisfies the triangle inequality. Ballots are determined from the assumption that voters prefer candidates which are closer (according to this distance function) to them.
Ultimately, these are projections of a multi-dimensional political space onto a space of fewer dimensions, to generalize and make discussion simpler.
One-dimensional
The simplest example of a political spectrum is the uniform linear political spectrum, in which n=1, v(x)=1, and d(x,y)=|x-y|. The directions on this spectrum are normally referred to as left and right.
Two-dimensional
There are many two-dimensional political spaces. The Nolan chart and Political Compass are two popular examples, which can be seen as rotated versions of each other. The Pournelle chart is another variation with a different set of axes.
Higher dimensions
Political opinion can be divided into essentially any number of dimensions. Some other examples include the 3-dimensional Sapply Compass, the 4-dimensional 8values space, and the 9Axes space.
One study of German voters found that at least four dimensions were required to adequately represent all political parties.[1]
Three Telos Model
The Three Telos Model or Triangle political Map is a way to describe political believes based on the core axiom of the philosophy. It is based on the concept of a ternary plot where the different underlying philosophies can be mixed but must sum up to the totality of the of the persons ideological position. It was invented to explain what is often called horseshoe theory. A classic example of this is how in economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek's book The Road to Serfdom he describes Fascism as being an extreme version of communism. This explanation does not have the failings of the simple left-right political spectrum.
Equity/Equality of Outcome
- Justification: Equity can be good because it is fair and reduces harm and abuses of power in many ways
- Philosophical foundation: Young Hegelians and Marxism
- Morals: victim culture
- Economics: marxism/socialism
- Structure: flat
- Power holder: government
- Basic unit: group/collective
- Truth source: postmodern denial of truth
- World view: power structures
Freedom/Liberty
- Justification: Freedom can be good because people have a need for self-determination
- Philosophical foundation: Liberalism and Enlightenment Humanism
- Morals: dignity culture
- Economics: free market capitalism
- Structure: meritocratic/ competence hierarchy
- Power holder: worthy
- Basic unit: individual
- Truth source: scientific method
- World view: Materialism
Tradition
- Justification: tradition can be good because people have attachment to the practices that tie them to a community, and changing society rapidly can be destructive.
- Philosophical foundation: Ancient philosophy and Right Hegelianism
- Morals: honour culture
- Economics: mercantile/feudal
- Structure: inherited cast or class hierarchy
- Power holder: cast or class
- Basic unit: family or tribe
- Truth: divine knowledge
- World view: Idealism
Calculations
Statistics that can be computed from a political spectrum and a set of candidates include:
References
- ↑ Alós-Ferrer, Carlos; Granić, Đura-Georg (2015-09-01). "Political space representations with approval data". Electoral Studies. 39: 56–71. doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2015.04.003. hdl:1765/111247.
The analysis reveals that the underlying political landscapes ... are inherently multidimensional and cannot be reduced to a single left-right dimension, or even to a two-dimensional space. ... From this representation, lower-dimensional projections can be considered which help with the visualization of the political space as resulting from an aggregation of voters' preferences. ... Even though the method aims to obtain a representation with as few dimensions as possible, we still obtain representations with four dimensions or more.