What’s Left of the Left–Right Dimension? Why the Economic Policy Positions of Europeans Do Not Fit the Left–Right Dimension

Simon Otjes ()
Additional contact information
Simon Otjes: Groningen University

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2018, vol. 136, issue 2, No 12, 645-662

Abstract: Abstract In political science the economic left–right dimension plays a central role. A growing body of evidence shows that the economic policy preferences of a large segment of citizens do not scale sufficiently. Using Mokken scale analysis, this study determines the causes of this phenomenon. Differences in the extent to which the economic policy preferences of citizens fit the left–right dimension can be explained in terms of the interaction between individual level and political system-level variables: citizens who spend more attention to politicians with views that conform to the left–right dimension, have views that conform to the left–right dimension. There is also a role for the legacy of communist dictatorship: citizens who were socialised in democratic countries have views that fit the left–right dimension better than those socialised during communism.

Keywords: Economic issues; Public opinion; Elite-mass linkage; Socialisation; Left–right dimension (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-017-1575-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:soinre:v:136:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11205-017-1575-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-017-1575-7

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().