The European Ideological Space in Voters' Own Words

There is a broad consensus that the ideological space of Western democracies consists of two distinct dimensions: one economic and the other cultural. In this Element, the authors explore how ordinary citizens make sense of these two dimensions.

There is a broad consensus that the ideological space of Western democracies consists of two distinct dimensions: one economic and the other cultural. In this Element, the authors explore how ordinary citizens make sense of these two dimensions. Analyzing novel survey data collected across ten Western democracies, they employ text analysis techniques to investigate responses to open-ended questions. They examine variations in how people interpret these two ideological dimensions along three levels of analysis: across countries, based on demographic features, and along the left-right divide. Their results suggest that there are multiple two-dimensional spaces: that is, different groups ascribe different meanings to what the economic and cultural political divides stand for. They also find that the two dimensions are closely intertwined in people''s minds. Their findings make theoretical contributions to the study of electoral politics and political ideology.