The Political Compass is a website which uses responses to a set of 62 propositions to rate

political ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied prim ...

in a

political spectrum A political spectrum is a system to characterize and classify different political positions in relation to one another. These positions sit upon one or more geometric axes that represent independent political dimensions. The expressions politi ...

with two axes:

economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

( left–

right Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical ...

) and

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

( authoritarian– libertarian).

Website

The website does not reveal the people behind it, beyond the fact that it seems to be based in the United Kingdom."Shut Up, I'm A Libertarian"
11 July 2001

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

. Retrieved 9 January 2018. At the bottom of any page on the website, it is stated that the copyright of "The Political Compass", which is claimed as a trademark, belongs to an organisation named Pace News Limited. Pace News Limited is a company registered in New Zealand whose director is political journalist Wayne Brittenden. According to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', the site is the work of Brittenden. According to Tom Utley, writing in ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'', the site is connected to

One World Action One World Action was a charity based in London whose aims were a world free from poverty and oppression, where strong democracies safeguard people's rights. One World Action supported partner organizations in Asia, Africa and Central America, w ...

, a charity founded by

Glenys Kinnock Glenys Elizabeth Kinnock, Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (''née'' Parry; born 7 July 1944), is a British politician and former teacher who served as Minister of State for Europe from June to October 2009 and Minister of State for Africa and the ...

. An early version of the site was published on One World Action's web server.Mitchell, Brian Patrick
"Eight ways to run the country"
Greenwood Publishing Group. 2007. p. 143. .

Political model

The underlying theory of the political model used by "The Political Compass" is that political ideology may be better measured along two separate, independent axes. The economic (left–right) axis measures one's opinion of how the

economy An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

should be run: "left" is defined as the desire for the economy to be run by a cooperative collective agency, which can mean the

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

but also a network of

communes An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, relig ...

, while "right" is defined as the desire for the economy to be left to the devices of competing individuals and organizations. The other axis (authoritarian–libertarian) measures one's political opinions in a social sense, regarding the amount of personal freedom that one would allow: " libertarianism" is defined as the belief that

personal freedom Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties ma ...

should be maximised, while "

authoritarianism Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voti ...

" is defined as the belief that authority should be obeyed. This makes it possible to divide people into four quadrants: authoritarian left (marked by red and placed in the top left), authoritarian right (blue in the top right), libertarian right (yellow or purple in the bottom right), and libertarian left (green in the bottom left). The makers of the Political Compass say that the quadrants "are not separate categories, but regions on a continuum".

Criticism and alternative models

A number of other multi-axis models of political thought exist and some are based on similar axes to "The Political Compass," most famously the Nolan Chart, developed by the American libertarian, David Nolan. A similar chart appeared in 1970 in ''The Floodgates of Anarchy'' by

Albert Meltzer Albert Isidore Meltzer (7 January 1920 – 7 May 1996) was an English anarcho-communist activist and writer. Early life Meltzer was born in Hackney, London, of Jewish ancestry, and educated at The Latymer School, Edmonton. He was attracted to ...

and

Stuart Christie Stuart Christie (10 July 1946 – 15 August 2020) was a Scottish anarchist writer and publisher. When aged 18, Christie was arrested while carrying explosives to assassinate the Spanish caudillo, General Francisco Franco. He was later alleged ...

and in 1968 in the ''Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought'' by Maurice C. Bryson and William R. McDill. Other online political quizzes also use the same two axes to improve upon the more primitive left-right political spectrum, such as iSideWith.com. There also are multiple other similar websites that have a compass but with different algorithms, such as Sapply and Spekd. The website does not explain its scoring system.. A number of writers, including Tom Utley and Brian Patrick Mitchell, have criticised its validity.

References

External links

{{Commons category
The Political Compass
British political websites Internet memes Political Internet memes Political spectrum de:Politisches Spektrum#Politischer Kompass

Website

Political model

Criticism and alternative models

See also

References

External links