The Nature & Structure of Political Attitudes

Political Attitudes 1

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The Nature and Structure of Political Attitudes

Course: Post Graduate Diploma of Psychology

Student: Simon Kennedy

Student number: 11345089

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Dr David Mallard and Dr Patrick Flanagan, my wife

Melinda, my children Marley and Rainer, parents, Brian and Georgina and

parents in-law Joan and Kevin. Without their generous support this

endeavour would not have been possible.


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Abstract

This is a replicatory study that follows on from Mallard (2012) in investigating the

nature and structure of political attitudes or ‘ideology’ with particular reference to the

Australian political context. An initial confirmatory factor analysis is conducted to

seek to confirm the five factor model of political attitudes identified by Mallard

(2012) followed by a further exploratory factor analysis. The results of this study

provide some qualified support for Mallard’s (2012) multidimensional model of

ideology and suggest that the conventional uni-dimensional left-right model of

political attitudes is no longer adequate as a representation of the nature and structure

of the contemporary political attitudes of the Australian voting public.


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The Nature and Structure of Political Attitudes

The study of politics and human nature is perhaps one of humanity’s most

enduring preoccupations with the documented history of this enquiry dating back

some thousands of years. Classic texts such as Plato’s ‘Republic’ and works by

Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Marx and Engels amongst others,

remain respected points of reference on this subject even today. (Ward, 2002, p.61;

Jost, Nosek, Gosling, 2008, p. 127; Jost & Sidanius, 2004, pp.2–3).

Despite this long history of examination, the conceptually ‘elusive’ nature of

ideology (McLellan 1986) means significant questions still remain, not the least of

which concerns the nature and structure of political attitudes or ‘ideology’. Elusive as

it may be, developing a greater understanding of political attitudes and ideology

remains an important goal, as it engages at it its most fundamental level, the desire to

better understand political behaviour, and the outcomes, for good or ill, that flow

from it. Whilst ideological orientation has been shown to influence a range of

explicitly political behaviours such as voting, it has also been linked to a broad range

of socially significant attitudes and behaviours beyond the formal political realm such

as attitudes to issues of justice and social stratification, anomie, and dogmatism (Jost,

Federico & Napier, 2009, p. 324; McClosky, 1967). The quest for a better

understanding of ideology is also significant given the evidence of its’ strong link to

intergroup attitudes (Altemeyer 1998, 2006; Duckitt, Wagner, du Pleiss & Birum,

2002; Federico & Sidanius, 2002), stereotyping, prejudice, intolerance and hostility


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have all been associated with ideological orientation, understanding and mitigating

such attitudes is surely of critical importance in increasingly multi – cultural and

globalised societies such as Australia.

Given the complexity and consequence of ideology it has understandably

attracted considerable research attention. Arguably however, with much of this

focusing on the situation in North America, Europe and the United Kingdom, there

remains a real need for research and data specific to the Australian context.

(Charnock, 2010, p. 492; Tranter & Western, 2003, p. 243; Weakliem & Western

1999, p. 610) It is also important to note that much of the research and literature on

political attitudes continues to be based on the conventional single dimensional left –

right model of ideology, despite evidence from Australia and overseas that this

structure may no longer be adequate as a representation of the political attitudes of a

significant proportion of the voting public (Treier & Hillygus, 2009, p. 680;

Weakliem & Western, 1999, pp. 620-622). For example, political attitudes research

commonly measures ideology by reference to a single survey item asking participants

to rate themselves according to a left – right spectrum of political attitudes. If this

conventional left – right spectrum is no longer meaningful for a significant proportion

of voters then the validity, or at least the interpretability of such research becomes

questionable. (Treier & Hillygus, 2009)

This study presents an investigation of the nature and structure of political

attitudes or ‘ideology’ as manifest amongst the Australian voting public drawing on

theoretical and empirical literature concerned with ideology and political attitudes. In

so doing it seeks to make a contribution to meeting the identified need for more


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research and data specific to the Australian context as well as contributing to an

improved understanding of the nature and structure of political attitudes more

generally. To achieve this, in the first instance the report will aim to confirm the

multi-dimensional ideological structure identified by Mallard (2012) based on an

independent sample of the Australian voting public, and if validated, progress the

further objective of advancing the development of a scale that could be used to

measure these multiple ideological dimensions.

Throughout the report the terms ‘political attitude(s)’ and ‘ideology’ have been

treated as equivalent and have been broadly understood and interpreted as a complex

structure of political values and belief systems along the lines of that described by

Denzau and North (2000, p. 24), that is: ‘a shared framework of mental models that

groups of individuals possess that provide both an interpretation of the environment

and a prescription as to how that environment should be structured’ . It is important

to note that the word ‘environment’ as referred to here is understood in its broadest

sense, encompassing notions of the ‘social’ environment, the ‘economic’

environment and the ‘political’ environment, as well as more literally, the ‘physical’

environment.

Historically much of the discussion and examination of political attitudes has

been dominated by what might be characterised as a ‘top down’ emphasis on

normative, theoretically driven analysis. (Jost & Sidanius, 2004, p.3; Deutsch &

Kinnvall, 2002, pp. 15, 16, 30, 33; Ward, 2002, p. 62, 71, 72) Whilst such

perspectives have undeniably brought significant insight to our understanding of

political attitudes, but they have arguably been preoccupied with the role of ‘macro’


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variables such as social hierarchy or class, inequality and power (Charnock, 2010, p.

492; Dalton, 2009 p. 163; Jost, Federico & Napier, 2009, p. 310).

From its earliest manifestations political psychology was characterised by a

greater emphasis on a ‘bottom up’ approach to the study of political attitudes and

ideologies; based on the understanding that political attitudes and ideologies, like

other belief systems, will be influenced by a combination of factors, including both

‘top-down’ or macro level social factors and processes as well as ‘bottom up’, micro

factors operating at the level of the individual, including personal psychological

attributes. (Hermann, 2002; Jost, Federico, Napier, 2009, p. 308)

Psychology’s first forays in to political attitudes began to emerge in the early to

mid 20th

century with pioneering works from Harold Laswell, Graham Wallas,

Sigmund Freud and Adorno (Jost & Sidanius, 2004, p.2-3). This first ‘era’ of political

psychology, is commonly characterised as the ‘personality’ and ‘psychoanalytic’ era

(Sullivan, Rahn & Rudolph, 2002, p.24). As these labels suggests, the theoretical and

analytical frame of reference during this early phase was primarily psychoanalytic in

nature and as such, was concerned with the impact of personality and personality

related variables, including unconscious drives or influences. The concept of

ideology was of specific interest to this cohort and it was during this period that some

of the early personality related theories of ideology emerged. (McGuire, 1993, p. 22;

Sullivan, Rahn & Rudolph, 2002, p. 24).

In evidence even in this first era of political psychology was a divergence from

the traditional model of political attitudes and ideology with regard to its emphasis on


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more ‘discernably psychological structures and phenomena both at an intra and inter

individual level’ (Ward, 2002, p. 72). This first phase of political psychology and its

particular emphasis on the political / ideological impact of personality has left a

lasting legacy and contemporary personality based concepts such as ‘Social

Dominance Orientation’ (SDO), (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999; Pratto, Sidanius,

Stallworth, & Malle, 1994) and ‘Right Wing Authoritarianism’ (RWA), (Altemeyer,

1998) continue to play a role in our understanding of political attitudes and ideology

today.

Through the 1960’s – 1970’s a new theoretical and research agenda emerged,

one concerned primarily with the direct investigation of political attitudes and voting

behaviour (Sullivan, Rahn & Rudolph, 2002, p. 25). This second era is perhaps most

notable for its methodological emphasis on the emerging techniques of political

attitude surveying and polling. It marked a distinct shift away from the normative,

theory driven emphasis of most previous political enquiry, focusing instead on a more

positivist approach, including a considerably more rigorous application of scientific

method to empirical observation, data collection and even formal experimentation.

(Ward, 2002. p. 72)

During this second era political psychology began to raise some fundamental

questions about the nature and existence of ideology, casting doubts on the

significance of its role in actually informing and influencing political attitudes and

actions (McGuire, 1993; Converse 1964). Some of the evidence, and interpretation

being drawn from political survey and polling data simply did not appear to reflect, at

least in any consistent way, the patterns hypothesised by traditional theory or even


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the more recent psychoanalytic perspectives, and it certainly didn’t appear that

‘ideology’ was influencing political attitudes and actions to the extent that traditional

theories would have suggested. Researchers such as Converse (1964) found that

voters did not appear to display the level of ideological sophistication assumed by

many traditional models and certainly did not appear to use such structures in a

reliable or consistent way to inform their political attitudes and actions.

Through the 1980’s a further shift in focus became evident. It was at this time

that ‘cognition’ became a central focus for psychology more broadly and it was

readily apparent that that this new perspective was of significant relevance to political

psychology in particular. Characterised as the ‘political cognition and decision

making’ era or the ‘ideology, belief systems and information processing era’,

questions regarding political attitudes and ideology again returned to centre stage

(Sullivan, Rahn & Rudolph, 2002; p. 25; McGuire, p. 29) . With access to new

methodological options and theoretical insights, it was during this era that researchers

began to gather more detailed empirical evidence regarding how people actually

process and store political information and how they make decisions (Sullivan, Rahn

& Rudolph, 2002, p. 26). It was during this time that evidence emerged regarding the

operation of various cognitive short cuts and distortions and researchers examined

important concepts like cognitive representations and schema and phenomena such as

‘cognitive overload’. (Cottam, Dietz-Uhler, Mastors & Preston, pp.39-48; Sullivan,

Rahn & Rudolph, 2002, p. 37)

By contrast, it was also during this period that political science became

increasingly orientated towards ‘economic models’ of politics such as ‘rational


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choice’ theory based on concepts drawn from economics and political economy

(Sullivan, Rahn & Rudolph, 2002, p. 26). Such rational choice approaches presented

a somewhat emasculated picture of ideology, diminishing the role of explicitly

psychological structures in political attitude formation and action, focusing instead on

the simple calculus of self interest; in essence suggesting that political attitudes and

behaviour, like consumer behaviour, could be reliably gauged by simple reference to

the relative balance of cost and benefit and the inherent desire to maximise individual

‘utility’ (Quattrone & Tversky, 1988; McGuire, 1993, p. 27). Through the 1990’s

political psychology armed with the emerging insights from a deeper examination of

human information processing played a major role in critiquing rational choice

theories and presenting alternatives to it. Political psychology’s investigation of the

role of emotion and symbolic reactions, self and group identity, formed part of this

response. (Sullivan, Rahn & Rudolph, 2002, pp. 26-27).

Throughout this history of enquiry, one particular question that has received

considerable attention from political psychologists and others is that concerning the

traditional left-right, single dimensional structure of political attitudes. Based on the

seating arrangements in the legislative assembly in post revolutionary France, it was

originally a simple reference to the fact that supporters of the ancien regime’ of

monarchy, church and aristocracy generally sat to the right of the Presidents Chair,

and supporters of the new Republic sat to the left (Jost, 2009, p. 130; Jost, Federico,

Napier, 2009, p. 310).

Despite this inauspicious origin, this conceptualisation of political attitudes has

proven to be both versatile and enduring, and it arguably remains the dominant frame


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of reference for discussion and examination of political attitudes, at least in the

advanced industrialised democracies, over two hundred years later. (Knight, 1999, p.

62; Charnock, 2010, p. 491; Dalton, 2009, p. 161). One of the characteristics of the

uni-dimensional left-right spectrum that has arguably contributed to its longevity is

its conceptual flexibility. From its origins as a loose demarcation between

monarchists and republicans it has been used to express and embody a much wider

range of issues within contemporary democratic societies. In broad terms within this

conventional left – right conceptualisation of ideology ‘left wing’ attitudes are

represented as being of a progressive, or liberal nature and those on the ‘right wing’

as being fundamentally conservative (Jost, Federico, Napier, 2009, p. 310). Over time

however these basic foundations have become associated, or ‘layered’, both,

explicitly and implicitly, with a wide range of issues, such as: social change

(advocating vs resisting), the role of government (more comprehensive vs more

limited), class and power (lower classes vs upper classes), distribution of wealth

(workers/labour vs owners of capital), and social equity (rejection of inequality vs

acceptance of inequality). (Jost, Federico, Napier, 2009, p. 310).

Despite its longevity and popularity, there is considerable debate within political

psychology, and other related disciplines regarding the validity of the conventional

single dimensional left – right spectrum and there are a range of contemporary

perspectives available that variously support, revise or categorically reject it

(Charnock & Ellis, 2003; Conover & Feldman, 1981).

One contemporary perspective that strongly challenges the conventional single-

dimensional spectrum is Duckitt and Sibley’s (2009) ‘dual process model’ (Duckitt &


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Sibley, 2009). Their model combines two personality based constructs that they

regard as underlying traits that shape political attitudes: (i) ‘Right Wing

Authoritarianism’ (RWA), (Altemeyer, 1998) and (ii) ‘Social Dominance

Orientation’ (SDO), (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Importantly, the dual process model

suggests that each of these constructs represents distinct and largely independent

ideological dimensions. Social Dominance Orientation (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) is

often linked to ‘economic conservatism’ and is characterised by a preference for

political parties that support ‘free market capitalism and anti - welfare policies’

(Duckitt, Sibley reading, 2009, p 105). Right Wing Authoritarianism (Altemeyer,

1998) on the other hand is commonly linked to ‘social conservatism’ and

characterised by support for parties and policies that ‘emphasise law and order and

defend traditional and religious values’ (Duckitt & Sibley, 2009, p. 105).

This articulation of a distinction between economic and social dimensions of

political ideology is an important one and it is a theme that recurs across a number of

contemporary theories. Karen Stenner (2009) for example also rejects the

conventional single-dimensional structure of political attitudes, arguing in a similar

vein to Duckitt and Sibley (2009), that conservatism itself is in fact multi-

dimensional. She makes the distinction between what she describes as three different

forms of ‘conservatism’: (i) Status Quo Conservatism – ‘an enduring preference for

stability and preservation of the status quo over social change’ (ii) Laissez-faire

Conservatism – ‘a persistent preference for a free market and limited government

intervention in the economy’, and (iii) Social Conservatism or Authoritarianism –‘an

enduring predisposition towards obedience and conformity in all political and social


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matters’ (Stenner, 2009, p. 142). Stenners’ (2009) ‘Laissez-faire conservatism’ and

‘Social Conservatism’ or ‘Authoritarianism’ are obviously closely aligned to the two

forms of conservatism articulated by Duckitt and Sibley’s (2009) dual process model

and she argues that whilst the term ‘conservative’ is commonly used to describe one,

or indeed all of these forms of conservatism, her research suggests that they do not

necessarily coincide (Stenner, 2009, pp. 142, 157), a prospect that cannot be

accounted for within the conventional single-dimensional model of political ideology.

While not linked specifically to conservatism, importantly, Treier and Hillygus

(2009, pp. 680, 682) finds empirical support for this distinction between economic

and social dimensions of ideology. They conclude based on their investigation of

voter attitudes in the United States of America, that the political belief systems of the

general voting public are multidimensional. They describe a phenomenon in which

people find themselves ‘cross pressured’ by the conventional uni dimensional

ideological spectrum due to its inability to represent their distinctive attitudes on

social and economic dimensions (Treier and Hillygus, 2009, pp. 697-698).

There is of course some contemporary support for the conventional uni-

dimensional model of political attitudes. A number of political psychological

explorations have broadly embraced the traditional left – right spectrum and rather

than dismiss it, highlight its apparently enduring relevance and seek to establish more

demonstrably psychological explanations for it (Jost, Federico, Napier, 2009). While

acknowledging the role of ‘top down’ inter personal and socialisation processes Jost,

Federico and Napier (2009) in their ‘Elective Affinities’ framework argue in support

of the conventional left – right political attitudes framework, suggesting that at its


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core it reflects two fundamental personality dimensions, a ‘conservative’ personality

typified by a ‘preference for stability and order over change’ and ‘acceptance of

inequality’ and a ‘progressive personality’ for whom the opposite is true (Jost,

Federico, Napier, 2009, p. 311). Informed by ‘bottom up personality, cognitive,

motivational and even physiological processes’ Jost et al (2009) assert that these two

fundamental personality dimensions broadly align with the conventional left – right

political attitude framework and dictate that individuals will be more aligned to

certain political ideas than others (Jost, Federico, Napier, 2009, p. 308).

Janoff-Bulman (2009) similarly focus on what he suggests are deeper

motivational structures that correspond with, and under pin the conventional uni-

dimensional spectrum. Building on the assumption that liberals and conservatives

differ in their ‘basic motivational orientation’, he argues that liberals are

fundamentally ‘approach’ orientated, and primarily motivated to maximise ‘societal

gains’ whilst ‘conservatives’ are fundamentally ‘avoidance’ orientated and primarily

concerned with minimising ‘societal losses’. (Janoff-Bulman, 2009, p. 177)

Still other contemporary approaches have combined some level of conditional

support for the conventional uni-dimensional model, whilst also seeking to revise or

augment it in some way, to articulate a more nuanced perspective on political

attitudes. For example Haidt, Graham and Joseph (2009) focus on what they describe

as ‘moral foundations’ and highlight a number of specific moral dimensions or

virtues. They suggest that there are certain common or ‘pre-set’ patterns of alignment

to these moral virtues that broadly correlate with the pattern of attitudes associated

with the conventional uni-dimensional spectrum but also argue that there are further


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ideological strata or layers of meaning that are not adequately captured within this

structure (Haidt, Graham and Joseph, 2009, p. 110). Their research highlights two

groupings or ‘clusters’ in particular – the ‘Libertarians’ and ‘Religious Left’, who’s

moral world view, and its’ ideological expression, cannot be captured within a

conventional uni-dimensional, left – right structure. Understanding the ideologies of

such groups they argue, requires reference to a higher order, highly personal and

idiosyncratic identity, associated with integrative life stories or narratives.

(McAdams, 1995 cited in Haidt Graham & Joseph, 2009, pp. 110-114)

The distinction between economic and social dimensions of ideology is an

important theme as evidenced by the fact that it is a feature of a number of

contemporary criticisms of the conventional left-right ideological framework, and

that it is integral to a number of the alternative perspectives put forward by political

psychologists and other theorists. One such perspective was presented by Ronald

Inglehart (1977, 1990, 1997) who argued that the relative stability and prosperity of

Western nations since World War II had generated a large scale ‘generational’ shift to

what he called ‘post materialist’ and ‘post modern’ values concerned with ‘self

expression’ and ‘quality of life’ (Charnock & Ellis, 2004, p. 46-47). Associated with

this values realignment Inglehart argues is a shift in emphasis from maximising

‘economic gains to maximising subjective wellbeing’ (Inglehart, 1997, p.86). He

suggests that these ‘Post modern values’ also include broad themes such as

‘tolerance’ and ‘permissiveness’ that are reflected in the prioritisation of a range of

contemporary issues such as ‘environmental protection, abortion, ethnic diversity,

women’s issues, and gay and lesbian emancipation’(Charnock and Ellis, 2004, p. 47).


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Such a generational values shift would have significant implications for the

validity of the conventional uni-dimensional model of political attitudes as it would

suggest that matters of material concern, so integral to this conventional

understanding of ideology, no longer played a critical role in informing political

attitudes and actions, at least for significant sections of the voting public in advanced

industrialised nations (Charnock, 2009, p. 246; Dalton, 2009, p. 163; Inglehart, 1997,

1990). Inglehart (1997) and others have argued that whilst the impact of this values

shift is evident in changing attitudes to a range of specific issues such as

environmental protection and multiculturalism, it has also had the more general effect

of de-coupling economic and social issues, splitting these in to two distinct and

independent ideological dimensions (Charnock & Ellis, 2002, pp. 46-47; Dalton,

2009, pp. 162-163).

There have of course been a range of theoretical and empirical responses to this

prospect, with some contemporary theorists going as far as to argue that such ‘social’

and ‘economic’ dimensions are orthogonal; in practical terms suggesting for example

that it is possible for people to be simultaneously progressive in their attitudes to

social issues and conservative in their attitudes to economic issues. (Jost, Federico,

Napier, p. 313). A less extreme variation of this argument suggests that whilst these

attitudes may to some extent be independent of each other, they are not entirely so

and highlight a ‘splitting effect’ in which ‘cross pressured’ voter attitudes correlate

with, but also diverge from, the conventional left – right, uni-dimensional pattern

(Knutsen, 1995; Treier & Hillygus, 2009, p. 680).


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Importantly, whilst such multi-dimensional models have found general

empirical support (Charnock & Ellis, 2004; Jost, Federico, Napier, 2009, p. 313),

they have also received particular attention in Australia and overseas based on their

conceptual capacity to explain contemporary political phenomena such as the

increase in the rate of formation of new minority parties (Dalton, 2009, pp. 161-163;

Charnock, 2009, p.246; Charnock & Ellis, 2004, pp. 46-47). Within the Australian

context for example the emergence of the ‘Greens’ as a political force is viewed by

some as evidence of a postmaterialist / postmodern values split from conventional

economically orientated values on the left of politics, while parties such as Pauline

Hanson’s ‘One Nation’ are seen as evidence of a split from economic orthodoxy on

the political right. (Charnock & Ellis, 2004, p. 46; Charnock, 2009, pp. 245-246).

Given the significance of this distinction and its particular relevance to the Australian

political context, as part of the broader goal of this study to examine whether an

alternative multi dimensional model of ideology may be more accurate in articulating

the true nature of contemporary Australian political attitudes, I will also consider

more specifically whether there is evidence suggestive of such a divergence between

economic and social dimensions of ideology.

As previously stated, to achieve this, in the first instance the report will aim to

confirm the multi-dimensional ideological structure identified by Mallard (2012).

Mallard (2012) gathered and analysed responses from 665 eligible voters to their 80

item survey measuring attitudes to a range of specific Australian political and social

issues in order to uncover their 5 underlying ideological dimensions. This present

study replicates the research design of the Mallard (2012) study, and by gathering a


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new independent sample of the Australian voting public, will seek to further confirm

the validity of this multi dimensional ideological framework within the Australian

context, or clarify the need for further research. If Mallard’s (2012) 5 factor model is

validated, the further objective of advancing the development of a scale that could be

used to measure these multiple ideological dimensions will be pursued. The 5

underlying ideological dimensions identified by Mallard (2012) were:

Factor 1 - ‘Social and Cultural Order’. Items loading on to this factor related

issues such as crime and sentencing, freedom of expression and attitudes towards

immigrants, asylum seekers.

Factor 2 - ‘Private Enterprise and Deregulation. Items loading on to this factor

related to the role of government in providing social goods and services and in

regulating market activity and private enterprise.

Factor 3 - Social Welfare and Equality. Items loading on to this factor related to

the role of government in addressing disadvantage and / or inequality including

various forms of welfare and support for industry.

Factor 4 - Traditional and Religious Values. Items loading on to this factor

largely related to social issues such as abortion or same sex marriage that engage a

moral or religious dimension.

Factor 5 - Foreign interventions. Items loading on to this factor related to

Australia’s involvement in foreign interventions, particularly of a military nature.


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Method

Participants

A total of 565 individuals visited the online survey site set up for the study read

the information statement and agreed to participate. However of this group, three

individuals did not proceed further to complete any test items and were dropped from

the data set, leaving a total of 562 participants in the initial sample used for data

analysis. Of the 501 participants who indicated their gender, there were 216 males

and 285 females, and the 505 participants who reported their age had a mean age of

45.07 (SD = 13.983). Responses from those participants that provided post code

information indicated that the majority of respondents were urban residents of

Australia’s eastern states, namely Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

The descriptive statistics for this initial sample are suggestive of a number of

other potentially significant demographic characteristics. Firstly the sample appeared

to be relatively well educated; of the 505 participants who reported their highest level

of educational attainment, 367 (65.3%) indicated that they had completed either a

university undergraduate or post graduate degree. They were relatively experienced

voters, with 397 (70.6%) of the 506 participants who responded to this item,

reporting that they had voted in four or more elections. Finally, they were a relatively

politically interested group, with 344 (61.2%) of participants who responded to this

question reporting that they usually have ‘a good deal of interest in what’s going on

in politics’.


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Materials

The primary component of the online survey was a set of 48 items measuring

attitudes regarding a range of political, social and economic issues (1 = strongly

agree, 5 = strongly disagree, with a can’t choose option also available). As a

replicatory study, most of these items were identical to the ones used by Mallard

(2012), and many were drawn from various sources including, the Australian Survey

of Social Attitudes (AuSSA), the Australian Election Study (AES), the American

National Election Study (ANES). Some of the original items from these sources were

modified to allow participants to indicate agreement or disagreement to maintain a

consistent rating scale across all items, or to make the wording of the item more

appropriate to the contemporary Australian context.

Of the 48 items in this primary component of the survey, 45 were the items that

Mallard (2012) had found loaded substantially onto only one of the five ideological

factors identified in the study. The fifth factor identified by Mallard (2012), labelled

‘Foreign Interventions’ explained relatively little variance and was largely

independent of the first four factors but was retained due to the exploratory nature of

that study. Therefore three new items relating to foreign intervention were added to

the present study in order to test the status of this fifth factor as a coherent ideological

dimension. The first new item was a modification of a question about involvement in

Afghanistan that was in the 2010 American National Election Study; ‘When all is

said and done, Australia’s involvement in the Afghanistan war has been worth the

costs’. The second and third new items were constructed based on other research

concerning political values and ideology and were designed to more specifically test


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participants attitudes towards Australia’s involvement in foreign interventions or

‘nation building’ to support or stabilise politically unstable countries; ‘It is in

Australia’s national interest to send personnel and resources to help with nation-

building in politically unstable countries’. The third new item added to this study was

designed to focus more specifically on attitudes towards foreign military

interventions within our region ‘Australia should use its defence forces to play a

major role in the stability and security of the Asia-Pacific region’.

In addition to these 48 items, the present study also included 22 items that make

up the most recent version of Altemeyer’s (2006) ‘Right Wing Attitudes’ (RWA)

scale and the 16 items constituting Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth and Malle’s (1994)

‘Social Dominance Orientation’ (SDO) scale. These scales were included in the

questionnaire to allow for examination of the association between personality

variables and political ideology. This analysis was not ultimately conducted as part of

this study however but may be examined and published separately. Following on

from this primary component of the survey participants were asked to respond to the

remaining 35 items that Mallard (2012) did not find substantially loaded on to a

single ideological factor.

The questionnaire also included basic demographic items such as gender, age,

level of education, postcode of residence and number of federal elections the

participant had voted in. The questionnaire also included items derived from the

AuSSA that asked participants to indicate their placement on a left-right dimension (0

= Left, 10 = Right, with a can’t choose option available), party identification

(Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as Labor, Liberal, National or


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what? with a list of seven specified parties, a no party option, and an other option),

and, where a participant indicated identifying with a particular party, what level of

support he or she felt (very strong, fairly strong, not very strong). The questionnaire

then asked participants to indicate their current voting preference in both federal

houses of parliament (If a Federal election for the House of Representatives / Senate

were to be held next Saturday, which party would get your first preference in the

House of Representatives / Senate?). Finally, the questionnaire asked for a subjective

rating of level of political interest.

Procedure

A team of 5 student researchers recruited a convenience sample of adults who

were eligible to vote in Australia. An initial group of participants were invited

directly by the student researchers via email to visit the survey website set up for the

study using the SurveyMonkey online survey system. This email contained a link to

the survey website and participants were encouraged to forward on the email

invitation to others and thus further participants were indirectly recruited via ‘word of

mouth’. The survey was also publicised via other online forms of communication

such as Facebook and LinkedIn posts. After reading an information statement and

agreeing to proceed, which was taken as an indication of informed consent,

participants were then presented with the 48 political attitude items. The attitude item

presentation was randomised to counterbalance any effects of question order. After

completing the attitude items, subsequent web pages presented the remaining sections

of the survey, after which participants were thanked for their participation and


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provided with contact details if they had any questions, comments or were interested

in the results of the research.


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Results

The survey data was downloaded in SPSS format and initial data screening and

analysis was conducted in SPSS for Windows version 20. Subsequent Confirmatory

Factor Analysis was conducted using Amos version 20.

The data was checked for possible duplicate responses and participant responses

with a significant amount of missing data. No duplicate responses were identified

however as previously noted three participant responses were removed from the data

set due to having a significant amount of missing data. Potentially identifying

information (eg., IP address) was also deleted. This left a total of 562 participants

who completed the core set of political attitude items. Preliminary data screening

indicated that each of the attitude items typically had responses that covered the full

range of the rating scale and all items were included in the initial confirmatory factor

analysis.

Data analysis revealed a disproportionally high level of support for centre left

and even extreme left wing political parties indicative of significant skew in our data

set. For example, when asked about current (hypothetical) voting intentions for the

House of Representatives, only 16.9% of our survey respondents indicated that they

would direct their first preference to The Liberal Party, whilst current polling

suggests that the primary support for the Liberal Party in the general electorate is

over 40% (Nielsen 45%, (Coorey, 2012); Newspoll 41%,( Shanahan, 2012)). Nearly

30% of respondents to our survey indicated that the Greens would get their first

preference in the House of Representatives as compared to primary support for the

Greens in current polling of around 10% (Nielsen 10%, (Coorey, 2012); Newspoll


SID: 11345089

12%, (Shanahan, 2012)). Furthermore, of the 506 participants who responded to the

question regarding party alignment, 50.7% nominated either the Labor Party (ALP)

or Greens, and only 14.4% nominated the Liberal Party or National Party. There was

also relatively strong support within the sample for extreme left wing socialist parties.

Taken together these results raised questions regarding the degree to which our

sample could be considered to be representative of the general Australian voting

public. To address the potential problems associated with this skewness some

analyses that were conducted on the full sample were also repeated with a reduced

sample modified to include only supporters of the major parties, which has markedly

less skew.

Inspection of probability plots highlighted some violation of normality

assumptions associated with this skew in the data. It also highlighted some relative

outliers in the data, however it was apparent that these responses were outliers

relative to the left skewed clustering of our responses. Given this, I did not remove

these outliers from the data given that removing them may have exacerbated the

unrepresentativeness of our sample. Again, given that the problems with the

distribution of our scores appears to reflect an underlying issue with the

representativeness of our sample, rather attempt any transformation of the data I have

ensured that the model is tested against not only the complete data set but also a more

representative modified data set. Inspection of scatter plots for a randomly selected

set of combinations of some of the variables did not suggest any problems with

regard to the linearity of relationships between the variables.


SID: 11345089

Inspection of the data did not reveal any patterns in the missing data in terms of

items or participants with a significant number of ‘can’t choose’ responses.

Calculation of initial descriptive statistics in SPSS treated such responses as ‘user

missing’ data. In all confirmatory factor analyses such missing data is substituted

using maximum likelihood estimation.

To assess whether the data from the present study appeared to fit the five-factor

structure of ideology identified by Mallard (2012), an initial confirmatory factor

analysis was conducted using a model in which the full set of 48 items from the

survey each contributed to one of five latent variables corresponding to the five factor

model and in which the complete data set (n = 562) was used for the analysis. A

range of statistics were produced to assess the goodness of fit between the five factor

model elaborated by Mallard (2012) and our data set but proved to be inconclusive.

Given our large sample size the Root Mean Error of Approximation (RMSEA) was

one measure of fit chosen as it is relatively insensitive to sample size (Brown, 2006,

pp. 83-84). The RMSEA value at 0.059 was only marginally below the .06 threshold

for concluding there was a good fit. The two other goodness of fit statistics produced,

the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and the Tucker Lewis Index (TLI), were well below

the threshold of 0.95 (at 0.806 and 0.787 respectively) required to indicate a close fit

to Mallard’s (2012) model.

On the basis of this result, and the RMSEA statistic in particular, it was

determined that further investigation was warranted. As previously noted, given the

possibility that the skew identified in our sample data may have compromised this

initial confirmatory factor analysis some modification of the original data set was


SID: 11345089

undertaken and only participants who indicated that they would vote for one of the

parties with current representation in the House of Representatives, that is; the

Liberal Party, Australian Labour Party, National Party and the Greens, were retained

(n = 419). The results of confirmatory factor analysis for this amended sample,

(RMSEA = .060, CFI = .793, TLI = .773) have deteriorated slightly as compared to

those of our initial confirmatory factor analysis and do not provide evidence of an

improved goodness of fit to our sample data and Mallard’s (2012) five factor model.

Based on our original objective of conducting confirmatory factor analysis to

assess the validity of Mallard’s (2012) five factor model of political ideology, it was

not appropriate to alter this model in any significant way. However, without altering

the fundamental five factor structure of this model, it was considered reasonable to

re-examine the individual item loadings, or strength of association, associated with

each of the five factors based on our data set. Any items not showing a sufficient

strength of association with the underlying factors as proposed by Mallard (2012),

could be excluded and potentially allow for a more conclusive result via further

confirmatory factor analysis. In building the original five factor model Mallard’s

(2012) study set a threshold of .45 (or -.45) for an item to be considered as loading

substantially on to a given factor. Both the full data set and the modified ‘major

party’ data set were thus further analysed, and a review of Standardised Regression

Coefficients for individual items indicated that six items did not exceed the .45

threshold and were excluded from further confirmatory factor analysis.

After elimination of these items, two further confirmatory factor analyses were

conducted, the first to assess the goodness fit for a modified model against our full


SID: 11345089

data set, the second to assess the goodness of fit for a modified model against the

‘major party’ data set. In both cases the statistics appear to show some improvement

in the goodness of fit associated with the modified five factor model. The CFI and

TFI statistics in particular improved, and in the case of both the full data and major

data sets were now above .8, but remain below the .90 or .95 threshold required to

demonstrate unambiguously that our data provided a good fit to the proposed five

factor model of political ideology.

Therefore at this point, on the basis of the evidence available, it was not possible

to make any firm conclusion in support of Mallard’s (2012) five factor model,

however, neither did we have sufficient evidence to support a conclusive rejection of

this model. Given that it was not possible to continue with any further confirmatory

factor analysis (as this would require substantive modification of Mallard’s (2012)

model, a determination was made to return to exploratory factor analysis to examine

whether there was any evidence to suggest that an alternative dimensional structure

of ideology could provide a better fit to our data set. For the purposes of this

exploratory analysis the focus remained on the amended 48 item model rather than

the full set of 83 items.

After an initial exploratory factor analysis the scree plot (below) was inspected

to evaluate the most optimal number of factors to extract. All analyses used principal

axis factoring and, given that the focus was to identify independent underlying

dimensions of political ideology, orthogonal rotation using the varimax procedure

was employed. When interpreting factors, only items with absolute loadings greater


SID: 11345089

than .45 (ie. for which 20% of variance in the item was accounted for by the factor)

were considered.

Assessment of this scree plot suggested that a five factor model remains the

most optimal / viable model in terms of its ability to capture the variation in item

scores within our sample data, with each additional factor beyond the fifth factor

adding very little explanation of the variance in participants item responses. The five

factors are collectively able to account for a total of 42.4% of the variance in our

participants responses to the 48 core political attitude items. Furthermore, based on

an assessment of the particular items loading on to each of the five factors identified,

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47

Eig

env

alu

e

Factor Number

Scree Plot


SID: 11345089

it would appear that they are broadly analogous to the five factors identified by

Mallard (2012). (See Tables 1 – 5 below for specific items and factor loadings)

The first factor is essentially the same as the first factor that was identified in

Mallard’s (2012) study although four items (18, 2, 41, 8) have not loaded

substantially on to this factor based on the current data. This first factor accounted for

13.2% of the total variance and had 11 items loading on to it. As per last years model,

these items generally relate to asylum seekers, immigration, law and order,

indigenous disadvantage and welfare / mutual obligation. In line with Mallard (2012)

this factor will be referred to as ‘Factor one, Social and Cultural Order’.

The second factor accounted for 11.2% of the total variance and had 10 items

loading substantially on to it, two items (12, 33) did not load substantially on to it.

Again it would appear to represent the same basic factorial dimension as last years

factor two, with items that loaded on to this factor relating to the relative

effectiveness of the private vs public sector in providing products and services or the

extent to which the government should be involved in regulating private enterprise.

Consistent with Mallard (2012), this factor will be referred to as ‘Factor two, Private

Enterprise and Deregulation’.

The third factor drawn from our data is again broadly analogous to factor three

from the 2011 study and accounted for 6.6% of the total variance. Six items loaded

substantially on to this dimension and three items (44, 28, 6) did not load

substantially on to it. The six items loading on to this factor related to the appropriate

role of government in providing services and benefits to address disadvantage and

inequality, particularly for socially disadvantaged groups such as the unemployed and


SID: 11345089

senior citizens etc. As per Mallard (2012) this factor is referred to as ‘Factor three,

‘Social Welfare and Equality’.

The fourth factor drawn from our study accounted for 6.1% of total variance and

is essentially equivalent to factor five from Mallard’s (2012) model which was

labelled ‘Foreign Interventions’. The six items loading on to this factor relate to

Australia’s role in sending defence forces and other resources to engage in military

operations and other interventions to fight dangerous regimes or stabilise nations in

our region.

The fifth factor drawn from our data is essentially equivalent to what was the

fourth factor in Mallard’s (2012) study and accounted for 5.3% of the total variance.

Five items loaded substantially on to it and one item (29) did not load substantially on

to it. The items loading on to this factor address a range of issues relating to the rights

of gay / lesbian / homosexual couples and abortion. As per last years study this factor

will be referred to as ‘Factor Five, Traditional and Religious Values’.


SID: 11345089

Table 1

Factor 1 (Social and Cultural Order) Item Loadings

Item Loading

22

9

13

11

40

16

27

39

5

42

20

All boats carrying asylum seekers should be turned back.

The death penalty should be reintroduced for murder.

The police should have more powers so they can protect us better

against crime.

People who break the law should be given stiffer sentences.

People who come to live here from other countries generally take

jobs away from Australian workers.

The government should spend less money on providing foreign aid

to developing countries

People who come to live here from other countries increase the

crime rate.

Aboriginal people’s level of disadvantage justifies extra

government assistance.

Any act is justified to fight terrorism.

People who receive welfare benefits should be under more

obligation to find work.

People who come to live here from other countries make

Australia’s cultural life richer.

.697

.684

.680

.644

.591

.584

.582

-.557

.545

.523

-.511

Note. Only items with loadings of .45 or greater onto this factor are reported.


SID: 11345089

Table 2

Factor 2 (Private Enterprise and Deregulation) Item Loadings

Item Loading

21

43

47

45

19

30

1

17

14

3

Private businesses are better suited to delivering health and

education services than the government.

It would be a good idea to privatise all of the public enterprises.

All tertiary (TAFE and university) education should be made

private rather than controlled and supported by the government.

The less the government gets involved with business and the

economy, the better off this country will be.

Private businesses are better suited to delivering infrastructure,

such as motorways and telecommunications networks, than the

government.

There should be less government regulation of business.

Privatisation of government services has more benefits than costs.

If the government had a choice between reducing personal income

taxes or increasing social spending on services like health and

education, it should reduce taxes.

Unions should have less say in how wages and conditions are set.

The main reason government has become bigger over the years is

because it has gotten involved in things that people should do for

themselves.

.706

.671

.649

.639

.622

.614

.607

.531

.522

.473



SID: 11345089

Table 3

Factor 3 (Social Welfare and Equality) Item Loadings

Item Loading

37

46

36

25

38

24

It is the government’s responsibility to provide decent housing for

those who can’t afford it.

Single parents deserve government payments so they can be home

to raise their children.

The government should pay an income to those who have to give

up their working time to care for a dependent person.

The government should provide a decent standard of living for the

unemployed.

The government should finance projects to create new jobs.

The government should do more to guarantee an equal distribution

of resources between rich and poor.

.560

.560

.540

.510

.469

.468



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Table 4

Factor 4 (Foreign Intervention) Item Loadings

Item Loading

32

31

48

4

23

26

Australia should contribute forces to international peace-keeping

efforts.

Australia should use its defence forces to play a major role in the

stability and security of the Asia-Pacific region.

Australia should join other democratic nations in sending troops to

fight dangerous regimes.

When all is said and done, Australia’s involvement in the

Afghanistan war has been worth the costs.

It is in Australia’s national interest to send personnel and resources

to help with nation-building in politically unstable countries.

Going to war is sometimes the only solution to international

problems.

.688

.629

.617

.593

.510

.480


Table 5

Factor 5 (Traditional and Religious Values) Item Loadings

Item Loading

15

10

35

34

7

Gay or lesbian couples should be legally permitted to adopt

children.

A woman should always be able to obtain an abortion as a matter

of choice.

Homosexual couples should have the same rights as married

couples.

The right to life has to be guaranteed by law from the moment of

conception.

Secular ethics classes should be taught in public schools in place

of scripture.

.719

.697

.687

-.502

.493


SID: 11345089

Table 6

Psychometric Properties of Subscale Scores

Pearson’s r and (r²)

Internal

Consistency

(Cronbach’s α)

Left -

Right

Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4

Factor 1: Social

& Cultural Order

.903 .628*

(.39)

Factor 2: Private

Enterprise &

Deregulation

.888 .663*

(.44)

.621*

(.39)

Factor 3: Social

Welfare &

Equality

.775 -.532*

(.28)

-.531*

(.28)

-.550*

(.30)

Factor 4: Foreign

Interventions

.788 .315*

(.10)

.249*

(.06)

.188*

(.03)

-.244*

(.06)

Factor 5:

Traditional &

Religious Values

.819 -.482*

(.23)

-.462*

(.21)

-.338*

(.11)

.272*

(.07)

-.225

(.05)

Note. *Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2 tailed).

As a step towards developing a revised political ideology scale, subscales were

then created from the items that loaded substantially (greater than or equal to .45)

onto the corresponding factor. Subscale scores for each factor were computed by

reverse scoring items with negative loadings and calculating the mean of the item

scores for each participant so that subscale scores remained on a consistent five point

scale regardless of the number of items. Missing item data was not included so that

participants’ subscale scores reflect their mean responses to only the subscale items

on which they gave a rating. Table 6 presents the internal consistency and inter scale


SID: 11345089

correlation statistics for the five subscales. All subscales have good internal

consistency with Cronbach’s α values above or very close to .8

Significantly, each of the five subscales had a statistically significant correlation

with participants’ self-identified left-right placement. The strongest association

between ideological self - placement and the ideological subscales related to Factor 1,

Social & Cultural Order and Factor 2, Private Enterprise and Deregulation.

Specifically, ideological self - placement further to the right shared 39% over lapping

variance with stronger endorsement of social and cultural controls and 44% with

stronger endorsement of private enterprise and limited government regulation.

Ideological self - placement was also moderately associated with Traditional and

Religious Values and Social Welfare and Equality, but negatively so, (23% and 28%

respectively) suggesting that ideological self - placement further to the right is

associated with a reduction in endorsement of social welfare and equality related

measures and a generally weaker level of support for progressive changes to

traditional and religious values. Factor 4, Foreign Interventions showed only very

weak association with ideological self - placement, (10% shared variance),

suggesting that for our survey participants at least, attitudes with regard to Australia’s

role in foreign interventions was not significantly related to their ideological self

placement, at least within a conventional left – right framework.

All bivariate correlations between the 5 factors were statistically significant

which is at least partly due to the large sample size. However correlations were not

strong enough to suggest that any pair of subscales should be treated as a single

construct, with the maximum amount of overlapping variance between two subscales


SID: 11345089

being 39% (r = .621). Factor 4, Foreign Interventions generally had the weakest

(though nonetheless statistically significant) correlations with each of the other

subscales, ranging from a minimum of 3% to a maximum of 10% overlapping

variance.

A series of one-way analysis of variance (ANOVAs) examining the association

between party identification on subscale scores indicated that there were statistically

significant differences on all five subscales across the three parties (ALP, Coalition,

Greens), Fs(2, 363) ≥ 10.52, ps ≤ .001, although the magnitude of between-group

differences varied widely. For example, eta-squared statistics indicated that party

support accounted for only 5.5% of variance in Foreign Intervention responses,

whereas it accounted for 43.0% of variance in Private Enterprise and Deregulation. In

relation to the other subscales, party Identification accounted for 39.8% of variance in

responses for Social and Cultural Order, 29.6% of variance in Social Welfare and

Equality and 17.9% of variance in Traditional and Religious Values.

With regard to each sub-scale, there was a similar, though less consistent pattern

as per the 2011 study, with statistically significant differences evident across

supporters of all three parties, with the greatest mean differences typically occurring

between supporters of the Coalition as compared to supporters of the Greens, with

ALP supporters in the middle. This pattern was clearly apparent for Factors 1, 3 and

5, in particular, with Coalition supporters providing the strongest endorsement of

Social and Cultural Control and Traditional and Religious Values and weakest

endorsement of Social Welfare and Equality. Post Hoc tests using the Tukey HSD

procedure indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between


SID: 11345089

Labour and Greens supporters in their relatively weak level of endorsement of Private

Enterprise and Deregulation, and, similarly, that there was no statistically significant

difference between Labour and Coalition supporters in their endorsement of Foreign

Intervention.

Figure 1. Mean subscale scores by the participants response to item # regarding

which party they consider themselves a supporter of. Lower mean scores indicate

stronger agreement with positively –loaded items and disagreement with negatively-

loaded items. Error bars indicate one standard deviation.

Discussion

To reiterate, in the first instance this report set out to confirm the multi-

dimensional ideological structure identified by Mallard (2012) based on an

independent sample of the Australian voting public. If validated, the further objective

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Social &

Cultural Order

Private

Enterprise &

Deregulation

Social Welfare

& Equality

Foreign

Intervention

Traditional &

Religious

Values

Coalition (n = 81)

ALP (n = 153)

Green (n = 132)


SID: 11345089

of advancing the development of a scale that could be used to measure these multiple

ideological dimensions was to be pursued. In pursuing these objectives this study also

set out to achieve the broader goal of evaluating the nature and structure of political

attitudes in Australia, and in particular assessing the contemporary validity of the

conventional uni-dimensional model of political ideology within the Australian

political environment.

In relation to the first objective the results of this study have proven to be

inconclusive, that is, the results of our confirmatory factor analyses did not provide

sufficient evidence to unequivocally justify support for Mallard’s (2012) five – factor

model. However, neither did the results provide sufficient evidence to justify its’

rejection and for this reason a further exploratory factor analysis was conducted. The

results of this follow – on exploratory factor analysis were more encouraging,

confirming that a five factor model, albeit a slightly modified version of the original,

once again provided the most plausible model for capturing the variation in responses

to the political attitude items. This provides some support for the notion that political

attitudes, at least in Australia, do appear to be associated with the five underlying

ideological dimensions identified by Mallard (2012) and suggests the need for further

studies to validate this finding.

However despite this evidence of the superiority of Mallard’s (2012) five factor

model, the results also indicated that this model could only account for approximately

42% of the variance in participants responses. Whilst this figure is significant enough

to warrant further investigation, given that the equivalent figure from Mallard’s

(2012) study was similarly low (34.2%) taken together, this suggests that whilst the


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five factor model would appear to be the most supported factorial structure, it still

leaves a significant amount, (approximately 58% in the present study) of the total

variance in participant responses unexplained. With the five factor model leaving

such a significant amount of variance unexplained in both the Mallard (2012) study

and the present study, there is perhaps some evidence that generalised political

attitudes or ‘ideologies’, however measured, may only have a relatively limited

influence on the attitudes of Australian voters to specific political issues. I would

argue that further evidence would need to be accumulated before making any

conclusions along these lines, but these results do provide some prima facie support

for the prospect, that Australian voters are not strongly ideologically orientated, and

consistent with assertions by converse (1964) and others (Bishop, 2005; Federico,

2007, p. 536), do not display the level of ideological sophistication assumed by many

models of political ideology, including the conventional uni-dimensional left-right

spectrum.

Before going further however it is worth noting that despite the measures taken

in our analysis to correct for the skew identified in our sample data, the inherent lack

of representativeness of our sample may present some limitation to the extent to

which our results can be extrapolated beyond our sample group to the general

Australian voting public. With this caveat in mind however it is nonetheless possible

to offer some further qualified observations about the wider implications of our

results.

As previously noted, each of the five subscales had a statistically significant

correlation with participants’ self-identified left-right placement, with some of these


SID: 11345089

patterns of correlation corresponding to the conventional left-right political spectrum.

This was particularly the case for Factor One, Social and Cultural Order and Factor

Two, Private Enterprise and Deregulation, with ideological self placement further to

the right associated with stronger endorsement of both social and cultural controls

and private enterprise with limited government intervention. The moderately negative

association between ideological self – placement and Factor Five, Traditional and

Religious Values and Factor Three, Social Welfare and Equality was similarly

consistent with the conventional left – right spectrum, with ideological self -

placement further to the right being associated with a reduction in endorsement of

social welfare and equality related measures and a generally weaker level of support

for progressive changes to traditional and religious values.

The very weak association between ideological self - placement and Factor 4,

Foreign Interventions however, suggests that attitudes pertaining to matters of this

nature do not appear to be significantly related to ideological self placement, at least

not within a conventional left – right framework. Interestingly this pattern was

similarly borne out in the analysis of party identification, with party support only

accounting for very little variance in Factor Four, Foreign Intervention (5.5%) but

accounting for a considerable amount of the variance in Factor Two, Private

Enterprise and Deregulation (43%), Factor One, Social and Cultural Order (39.8%),

Factor, Three, Social Welfare and Equality (29.6%) and Factor Five, Traditional and

Religious Values (17.9%).

Examining party identification in more detail it is apparent that the conventional

left-right ideological pattern is evident with regard to Factors: One: ‘Social and


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Cultural Order’, Three: ‘Social Welfare and Equality’, and Five ‘Traditional and

Religious Values’. For each of these subscales Coalition supporters provided the

strongest endorsement of ‘Social and Cultural Control’ and ‘Traditional and

Religious Values’ and weakest endorsement of ‘Social Welfare and Equality’. Greens

supporters on the other hand, again as would be expected based on the conventional

left–right political attitudes framework, were weakest in their endorsement of ‘Social

and Cultural Control’ and ‘Traditional and Religious Values’ and strongest in their

endorsement of ‘Social Welfare and Equality’. On all three of these subscales ALP

supporters occupied a ‘centrist’ position between the relatively stronger left leaning

Greens supporters and the relatively right leaning Coalition supporters.

However the pattern of scores across the subscales from supporters of the three

parties did not always coincide with the conventional uni - dimensional left – right

ideological spectrum. With regard to Factor Two: ‘Private Enterprise and

Deregulation’ for example, whilst Coalition supporters, consistent with the

conventional left – right spectrum, provide the strongest endorsement, there is no

statistically significant difference between Greens and ALP supporters in their dis-

endorsement of ‘Private Enterprise and Deregulation’. With regard to Factor Four:

‘Foreign Interventions’, a reverse pattern is evident, with ALP and Coalition

supporters equal in their endorsement of ‘Foreign Interventions’, whilst Greens

supporters are isolated in their dis-endorsement.

Stenner’s (2009) delineation between three different types of conservatism may

be instructive here. The nature of the items in our ‘Private Enterprise and

Deregulation’ subscale are closely aligned with the central themes of Stenners’(2009)


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‘Laissez-faire conservatism’ regarding free markets and the role of government, with

items such as: ‘There should be less government regulation of business’ and

‘Privatisation of government services has more benefits than costs’. In this light, the

strong endorsement of ‘Private Enterprise and Deregulation’ by Coalition supporters

suggests that it is a key element of their ‘right wing’ ideological outlook and that this

notion of ‘Laissez faire conservatism’ appears to map closely to the conventional left

– right ideological spectrum. The strong and united dis-endorsement of ‘Private

Enterprise and Deregulation’ by ALP and Greens supporters suggests such issues are

equally a core element of their shared ‘left wing’ ideological perspective and in this

regard also, Factor Two, ‘Private Enterprise and Deregulation’ would appear to map

closely to the conventional left – right ideological spectrum. There is clearly some

evidence here of the validity of the conventional uni-dimensional left-right political

attitudes spectrum, at least with regard to attitudes concerning business, government

and the operation of markets.

Turning to the pattern of responses to the ‘Foreign Interventions’ subscale

however, the conventional pattern is reversed, it is the ALP and Coalition supporters

that are united in their support and the Greens who are isolated in their lack of

support. A deeper examination of Stenner’s notion of ‘Social Conservatism’ or

‘Authoritarianism’ potentially sheds some light on this as the nature of the items

loading on to Factor Four ‘Foreign Intervention’ are arguably tapping in to this

attitudinal trait. Stenner (2009) argues that one of the defining characteristics of

‘Authoritarianism’ is its concern for the collective, especially perceived threat to the

collective (Stenner, 2009, p. 144). Whilst the particular definition and perceived


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boundaries of ‘the collective’ may vary over different individuals at different times,

Stenner (2009) argues that authoritarians and authoritarian attitudes are mobilised by

normative threat (real or perceived). When perceiving a potential threat to the

boundaries, norms or authorities that define their view of the collective, ‘authoritarian

fears are alleviated by defence of the collective normative order’ (Stenner, 2009, p.

143). With items such as: ‘Australia should join other democratic nations in sending

troops to fight dangerous regimes’ and ‘Australia should use its defence forces to

play a major role in the stability and security of the Asia-Pacific region’, it would

seem reasonable to suggest that Factor Four ‘Foreign Intervention’ has potentially

drawn on such authoritarian attitudinal dimensions.

The fact then that ALP and Coalition supporters are united in their endorsement

of Factor Four, ‘Foreign Interventions’ is perhaps evidence of some level of shared

‘authoritarian’ ideology, that their attitudes, at least with regard to perceived threats

to the Australian nation, or ‘collective’ are fundamentally similar.

These contrasting results are suggestive of a number of wider implications. They

offer some support for the notion that the political attitudes of Australian voters with

regard to matters of economics and the role of government do coincide with the

conventional left-right spectrum, with ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ attitudes

‘lining up’ as would be expected. However in contrast, they suggest that the

conventional left-right political attitudes spectrum does not accurately accommodate

the views of Australian voters with regard to certain forms of foreign military actions

or interventions. Together these results may suggest, as proposed by Stenner (2009)

that ‘conservatism’ as an ideological construct may indeed be multi-dimensional,


SID: 11345089

allowing for the prospect of ‘progressive’ ALP supporters being united with

stereotypically ‘conservative’ Coalition supporters in their endorsement of some

matters (eg. foreign interventions), yet diametrically opposed on others (eg. private

enterprise and deregulation).

Duckitt and Sibley’s (2009) ‘Dual Process’ model may also be of relevance

here, with their delineation between ‘Right Wing Authoritarianism’, (Altemeyer,

1998), linked to ‘social conservatism’, and ‘Social Dominance Orientation’,

(Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), linked to ‘economic conservatism’. Although ‘RWA’ and

‘SDO’ are regarded as fundamentally personality variables, intuitively their

ideological expression would appear to be similar to that of Stenner’s (2009) ‘laissez-

faire conservatism’ and ‘authoritarianism’ respectively. So in a similar vein, the

divergent pattern of responses to the ‘Private Enterprise and Deregulation’ subscale

and the ‘Foreign Interventions’ subscale may also be interpreted in this light, that is,

that they each are in fact tapping in to different personality based forms of

conservatism, one primarily of an economic orientation (SDO), the other of a broader

social orientation (RWA). More specifically, on the basis of the evidence here it

would appear that these two distinctive, ideologically infused personality dimensions

may be in operation within our sample group, and potentially the wider Australian

voting public; one impacting on attitudes to matters of economics and free enterprise

and the other impacting on matters of foreign military operations, again a prospect

that cannot be accommodated within a conventional uni-dimensional left-right

ideological spectrum.


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Whilst I have focused thus far on the specific link between Factor 2, ‘Foreign

Interventions’ and both Stenner’s (2009) ‘Authoritariansm’ and Altemeyer’s (1998) ,

‘Right Wing Authoritarianism’, both these concepts engage a much wider range of

matters than simply those relating to overseas military operations. Stenner (2009) for

example describes ‘Authoritarianism’ as an ‘enduring predisposition, in all matters

political and social, to favour obedience and conformity (oneness and sameness) over

freedom and difference’ (Stenner, 2009, p. 142) whilst Duckitt and Sibley (2010, p.

1867) describe ‘Right Wing Authoritarianism’ as the ‘social attitudinal expression of

values of collective security and order, social cohesion, order, stability and tradition’.

So whilst it has not been borne out in the pattern of scores across the broader socially

orientated subscales in this study, (Factors 1, 3 and 4, ‘Social and Cultural Order’,

‘Social Welfare and Equality’ and ‘Traditional and Religious Values’ respectively),

the prospect that these dimensions may in fact be part of a single overarching ‘social’

attitudinal dimension warrants further investigation.

It is interesting to note that the ‘splitting’ effect evident in the results of this

study does not appear to be connected to the kind of ‘post-material/post-modern’

values shift as postulated by Inglehart (1977, 1990, 1997). Although the results do

potentially show a ‘split’ between economically and socially related attitudinal

dimensions, as postulated by Inglehart (1977, 1990, 1997), this split appears to be

associated with a shift of attitudes in a more conservative direction, with traditionally

progressive ALP supporters more closely aligned with traditionally conservative

Coalition supporters. So rather than observing a splitting of economic and social

attitudinal dimensions as voters become less concerned with traditional economic


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issues and their framing within the conventional left-right ideological spectrum, they

would appear to have maintained ardent adherence to them. Instead, these results

suggest that this ‘split’ has emerged due to progressive voters on the political left

abandoning the progressive social attitudes and values associated with the

conventional ‘left wing’ of the uni-dimensional ‘left-right’ political spectrum and

embracing some of the conservative attitudes associated with the conventional ‘right

wing’. This possibility too warrants further investigation.

It is interesting to note that immediately prior to the commencement of the data

collection phase of this study in August 2012 a particularly passionate and highly

publicised debate took place in the Australian Parliament regarding the

recommencement of offshore processing for asylum seekers arriving in Australia by

boat (Australian Broadcasting Commission, 2012). This debate and the implications

of it received extensive coverage across most media outlets for some weeks,

accompanied by reference to highly emotive rhetoric such as ‘border security’ and

‘people smugglers’. The prospect that this debate and the community reactions to it

had some influence on the pattern of responses to the ‘Foreign Interventions’

subscale cannot be ruled out and reinforces the need for a further replicatory study

based on a new independent sample.

In conclusion, whilst mixed, the results of this study have found some support

for Mallard’s (2012) Five Factor structure of ideology, albeit a slightly modified

version of it. On the basis of these results a further replicatory study is warranted to

confirm the validity of this modified structure. If validated, development of a scale to

measure these multiple ideological dimensions could also be progressed. With regard


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to the conventional uni-dimensional left-right model of political attitudes, the

evidence of this study would tentatively suggest that it is no longer adequate in

capturing or describing the political attitudes and ideologies of the Australian voting

public. It would appear on the basis of this study that the political attitudes of the

Australia voting public, at least in relation to some matters of social significance such

as foreign military operations, do in fact diverge from this traditional model. Once

again, confirmation of this result with a further study and a new independent sample

is warranted and could add considerably to our understanding of the true nature and

structure of Australian political attitudes.


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Appendix

Political attitudes questionnaire, 2012:

(NB: Content below is indicative of the items but layout will be customised for online display.)

Political attitudes How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements? (NB: rating scales range from Strongly agree to Strongly disagree, along with a Can’t choose option.) (Page 1)

1. Privatisation of government services has more benefits than costs. 2. The government should ‘quarantine’ welfare payments to ensure that people living on benefits

spend their money on living expenses and their children’s needs. 3. The main reason government has become bigger over the years is because it has gotten

involved in things that people should do for themselves. 4. When all is said and done, Australia’s involvement in the Afghanistan war has been worth the

costs. 5. Any act is justified to fight terrorism. 6. The government should take responsibility to provide free health care to all citizens. 7. Secular ethics classes should be taught in public schools in place of scripture. 8. People whose views are considered extreme by the majority should be allowed to hold public

meetings to express their views. 9. The death penalty should be reintroduced for murder. 10. A woman should always be able to obtain an abortion as a matter of choice. 11. People who break the law should be given stiffer sentences. 12. The government is getting too powerful for the good of the country. 13. The police should have more powers so they can protect us better against crime. 14. Unions should have less say in how wages and conditions are set. 15. Gay or lesbian couples should be legally permitted to adopt children. 16. The government should spend less money on providing foreign aid to developing countries 17. If the government had a choice between reducing personal income taxes or increasing social

spending on services like health and education, it should reduce taxes. 18. It’s right for the government to take restrictive measures on civil liberties to guarantee the

security of citizens. 19. Private businesses are better suited to delivering infrastructure, such as motorways and

telecommunications networks, than the government. 20. People who come to live here from other countries make Australia’s cultural life richer. 21. Private businesses are better suited to delivering health and education services than the

government. 22. All boats carrying asylum seekers should be turned back. 23. It is in Australia’s national interest to send personnel and resources to help with nation-building

in politically unstable countries. 24. The government should do more to guarantee an equal distribution of resources between rich

and poor. 25. The government should provide a decent standard of living for the unemployed. 26. Going to war is sometimes the only solution to international problems. 27. People who come to live here from other countries increase the crime rate. 28. The government should provide support for declining industries to protect Australian jobs. 29. Religious leaders should not try to influence government decisions. 30. There should be less government regulation of business. 31. Australia should use its defence forces to play a major role in the stability and security of the

Asia-Pacific region. 32. Australia should contribute forces to international peace-keeping efforts. 33. It is only fair that people with higher incomes can buy better education than people with lower

incomes. 34. The right to life has to be guaranteed by law from the moment of conception.


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35. Homosexual couples should have the same rights as married couples. 36. The government should pay an income to those who have to give up their working time to care

for a dependent person. 37. It is the government’s responsibility to provide decent housing for those who can’t afford it. 38. The government should finance projects to create new jobs. 39. Aboriginal people’s level of disadvantage justifies extra government assistance. 40. People who come to live here from other countries generally take jobs away from Australian

workers. 41. People who want to protest against a government action they strongly oppose should be allowed

to organise protest marches and demonstrations. 42. People who receive welfare benefits should be under more obligation to find work. 43. It would be a good idea to privatise all of the public enterprises. 44. The government should increase opportunities for women in business and industry. 45. The less the government gets involved with business and the economy, the better off this

country will be. 46. Single parents deserve government payments so they can be home to raise their children. 47. All tertiary (TAFE and university) education should be made private rather than controlled and

supported by the government. 48. Australia should join other democratic nations in sending troops to fight dangerous regimes.

(Page 2)

1. Ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth. 2. The government should provide home care and/or institutional care for elderly people in need. 3. High incomes taxes make people less willing to work hard. 4. The right to individual freedom is vital and has to be maintained at all costs. 5. People who earn more should pay a higher share of their income in tax than people who earn

less. 6. It is only fair that people with higher incomes can buy better health services than people with

lower incomes. 7. Our society should do whatever is necessary to make sure that everyone has an equal

opportunity to succeed. 8. Award wages are the best way of paying workers and setting conditions. 9. It is extremely important to defend our traditional religious and moral values. 10. The most important thing for our country is to defend civil liberties. 11. Protecting the environment should be given priority, even if it causes slower economic growth

and some loss of jobs. 12. The government should support research and development of renewable energy (e.g., wind or

solar power), even if it means that less money would be available for other government programs.

13. It is the government’s responsibility to impose strict laws to make industry do less damage to the environment.

14. Government should redistribute income from the better-off to those who are less well-off. 15. Big business in this country has too much power. 16. The government should introduce a new public dental scheme that includes free basic treatment

on Medicare for everyone, even if the Medicare levy has to rise slightly to pay for it. 17. It would be reasonable to increase taxes on fuel so people either drive less or buy cars that use

less fuel. 18. The government should provide support for industry to develop new products and technology. 19. It is the government’s responsibility to keep prices under control. 20. This country would have many fewer problems if there were more emphasis on traditional family

values. 21. We should be more tolerant of people who choose to live according to their own moral

standards, even if they are very different from our own. 22. It is the government’s responsibility to give financial help to university students from low-income

families. 23. It is extremely important to respect the freedom of individuals to be and believe whatever they

want. 24. There should be limits on the freedom of speech of people who threaten society. 25. It is the government’s responsibility to provide industry with the help it needs to grow. 26. Aboriginal people should not have to change their culture to fit into Australian society. 27. All families deserve payments from the government to help with the costs of raising children. 28. Women should be given preferential treatment when applying for jobs and promotions.


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29. If the economy is moving into recession, it is better for the government to spend money to support jobs and incomes even if this means a budget deficit for some time afterwards.

30. Taxes in Australia today are too high. 31. The government should just let each person get ahead on their own. 32. Government should let ordinary people decide for themselves how to protect the environment,

even if it means they don’t always do the right thing. 33. Free (government funded) treatment in public hospitals should be ‘means tested’. 34. Newer lifestyles are contributing to the breakdown of our society. 35. The smoking of marijuana should NOT be a criminal offence.

Information about yourself Are you male or female? M / F What is your age? __ Which cultural group do you most strongly identify with (e.g., Italian, Vietnamese, Australian, etc.)? __________ What is the postcode where you reside? ____ What is the highest level of education you have completed?

School Certificate or lower Higher School Certificate or equivalent TAFE Certificate/Diploma or equivalent University degree – Undergraduate University degree – Postgraduate

How many Federal elections have you voted in? None / One / Two / Three or more Generally speaking, how much interest do you usually have in what’s going on in politics? [A good deal, Some, Not much, None] Political identification In politics, people sometimes talk about the ‘left’ and the ‘right’. Where would you place yourself on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means the left and 10 means the right? [rating scale includes Can’t choose option] Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as Labor, Liberal, National or what? [Liberal, Labor (ALP), National, Australian Democrat, Green, One Nation, Family First, No party, Other party (please specify)] Would you call yourself a very strong, fairly strong or not very strong supporter of that party? [Very strong supporter, Fairly strong supporter, Not very strong supporter] Current voting intentions If a Federal election for the House of Representatives and Senate were to be held next Saturday, which party would get your first preference in the House of Representatives? [Liberal Party, Labor Party (ALP), National Party, Australian Democrats, Greens, One Nation, Family First, Would vote informal/Would not vote, Other (please specify)] If a Federal election for the House of Representatives and Senate were to be held next Saturday, which party would get your first preference in the Senate? [Response options identical to previous item]

The Nature & Structure of Political Attitudes

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