[Note: this Post integrates and extends bits of prior posts: here, here here, here, here, and here.]
The Ideological Continuum
I have long defined ideology as “an army of convictions about how the world is and how it ought to be.” This definition is remarkably similar to one provided by Cory Clark and Bo Winegard in their paper, Tribalism in War and Peace: The Nature and Evolution of Ideological Epistemology and Its Significance for Modern Social Science:
“By ideology, we mean, roughly, a mental model of the world and the social order that is both descriptive (how the world is) and normative (how it should be); and by sacred value, we mean, roughly, a value that is held particularly fervidly and that one is incredibly reluctant to relinquish.”
Few people would describe themselves as ideologues - it’s a pejorative term and almost always describes the other guy. Telling someone they’re an ideologue rarely ends well. The term is just too loaded and categorical. Besides, people are less pure types than a bunch of tendencies.
Many individuals have ideological tendencies – that is, they tend to righteous fervor and conviction, especially when it comes to politics. How about groups? Specifically, are some political groups more ideological than others? That is, do members of these groups hold their opinions and values with greater fervor and conviction than members of other groups? And how would you know?
One possibility is to take poll and then rate responses in terms of intensity and within-group consistency. For example, in response to the question, how much is climate change a problem, the response “a very big problem” is more intense than a “moderately big problem”. And if group members agree on the “very big” response over 80% of the time, then you could say group members exhibit much fervor and conviction in relation to the question of climate change. That in itself doesn’t make them ideologues. But if groups members exhibit a similar level of feeling and consistency across a broad range of topics, well yes, you could say that group leans ideological.
So the next question is: is there a good survey around that divides respondents into political groups and asks questions with response options of varying intensity? Yes there is.
The Pew Political Typology
Pew Research Center has released eight political typology reports since 1987. Its typologies sort Americans into “cohesive, like-minded groups based on their values, beliefs, and views about politics and the political system”. Pew’s latest typology divides the public into nine distinct groups, based on survey responses of 10,221 adults interviewed multiple times in 2020 and 2021. As described in Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology, these groups are:
Faith and Flag Conservatives: highly religious, politically engaged and both socially and economically conservative; favor robust role for religion in public life, smaller role for government, and a strong American military; remain strong supporters of former President Donald Trump.
Committed Conservatives: staunchly conservative and overwhelmingly Republican, hold pro-business views and favorable attitudes about international trade and a limited role of government; approach to international relations centers on engaging with allies and maintaining American military might.
Populist Right: hold highly restrictive views about immigration policy and are critical of government, big business/corporations, and the economic system as a whole; nearly half support higher taxes on the wealthy and on large corporations.
Ambivalent Right: views on the size of the federal government, business, gender and race are largely consistent with core conservative values; differ from some other segments of the GOP coalition by being less restrictive on immigration, more internationalist in foreign policy, and taking a moderate stance on several social issues.
Stressed Sideliners: generally disconnected from politics and the two major parties; represent substantial shares of both parties’ coalitions, yet have low voter turnout rate.
Outsider Left: hold liberal views on most issues and overwhelmingly voting Democratic; have deeply negative views of the GOP though not particularly enamored with the Democratic Party.
Democratic Mainstays: generally favor policies that expand the social safety net and support higher taxes on corporations; the largest single group as a share of the Democratic coalition, somewhat more hawkish than other Democratic-oriented groups on foreign policy and less liberal on immigration policy and some social issues.
Establishment Liberals: the typology group most likely to see value in political compromise and to be more inclined toward more measured approaches to societal change than their Progressive Left counterparts; the only Democratic-aligned group in which a majority of those who say a lot more needs to be done on issues such as racial equality yet also say this can be achieved by working within the current system.
Progressive Left: have very liberal views across a range of issues – including the size and scope of government, foreign policy, immigration and race. A sizable majority (79%) describe their views as liberal, including 42% who say their views are very liberal – double the share of the next largest group (20% of Outsider Left).
I previously addressed inner-group response consistency in the Pew Survey. Per One Way to Detect Signs of Groupthink in Political Circles, I found:
“…a healthy lack of consensus within most of the political groups, except for the Progressive Left, which has 80%+ response agreement on 47 out of 132 survey questions, i.e., on 36% of all items. Flag and Faith Conservatives came in second, with consensus on 23% of survey items. Interestingly, the Populist Right achieved consensus on just 10% of the survey items. In other words, the Populist Right doesn’t appear to have a broad policy agenda. Then again, neither do Committed Conservatives nor Democratic Mainstays.
The Progressive Left also had the highest level of response agreement within the consensus range of 80% and above, with an average agreement of 90% on 47 survey items. Plus, their responses overall were much less mixed than those of the other groups. Even if Progressive Left responses didn’t reach consensus level, there was usually a single response that received at least 60% endorsement. Put another way, the Progressive Left failed to reach 60% agreement on responses on just 35 of 132 survey questions.
This time around, I looked at response intensity and identified 10 Pew questions with multi-intensity response options, in which at least 80% of same-group respondents endorsed the strongest response option. This is what I found:
Looks like the Progressive Left is the most ideological of the Pew political types, at least based on response intensity and group consistency. This is not to say that progressive beliefs are wrong - that’s a different issue.
References:
Cory J. Clark & Bo M. Winegard (2020) Tribalism in War and Peace: The Nature and Evolution of Ideological Epistemology and Its Significance for Modern Social Science, Psychological Inquiry, 31:1, 1-22, DOI: 10.1080/1047840X.2020.1721233
Pew Research Center, Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology. November 9, 2021