The Partisan and the Value-based Component of Left-Right Self-placement: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This article takes Ronald Inglehart's and Hans-Dieter Klingemann's (1976) study regarding party and ideological components of left-right identification as a point of departure for a comparative analysis of the relationship between party choice, value orientations and left-right self-placement. The empirical analysis is based on eight and thirteen countries from 1981 and 1990, respectively. Party choice is still the dominant predictor of left-right self-placement although its dominance is not as large as was shown in Inglehart and Klingemann's analysis. However, if value orientations are considered prior to party choice in a causal sense, value orientations have a larger impact than party choice in most countries. Fragmentation of the party system and the division between advanced and less advanced societies are used to explain the cross-national variations. When the explained variance in the left-right scale is decomposed into unique components explained by party choice and value orientations and a compounded component, a strong compounded component is characteristic in advanced societies, while a strong partisan component is found in less advanced societies and in less fragmented party systems.