Political Spectrum Test

This is the political spectrum test, a political typology quiz where you answer your opinions on 50 propositions to see where you lie on the political spectrum on two axes: social and economic. The aim of this test is to be a good approximation of global political tensions and positions and allow for comparisons for people from different political factions and countries (explained in more detail in FAQ). All the questions are informed directly from the most common discourse topics amongst political candidates. The questions are designed to be thought-provoking and highly specific to gauge one's political leanings.

Key Information:
  • Length: There are 50 questions which are intended to be specific, direct and thought-provoking. This should take around 20 minutes.
  • No "Neutral" Option: There is no "Neutral" or "Unsure" option because the aim of the test is encourage genuinely forming opinions on key political issues. Moreover, if the neutral option is used excessively, the test will necessarily produce inaccurate results.
  • Results: After completing all 50 questions, you will be taken to the results page where there a pictographic representation of your two scores. Both scores range from -10 to 10. The more negative scores indicate more left leaning positions and vice versa.
  • Methodology: Answering each question will result in a score. A stronger position will result in a score with larger magnitude. More pertinent questions will have a bear a larger weight than others. After completing the test, the scores are aggregated to produce your final score.
  • Note: These prompts are deliberately designed to be slightly vague. Don't overthink the prompt. The purpose of these prompts is to cause emotional reactions to the statement, which should act as a guiding force to your answers.

General Positions of the Left & Right

The positions of left and right are informed by modern political discourse, but these are broad defenitions that are obviously not true for the left and right of every major country.

Generally, socially left politicians advocate for progressive reforms that expand social liberties for historically marginalized groups. Socially right politicians tend to favour traditionalism, emphasize national identity, and maintenance of the status quo. Economical right-wing politicians generally advocate for less government intervention and laissez-faire economic policies, while economically left-wing politicians tend to highlight market failures and propose interventions to correct them.

This test exclusively categorizes political leanings on the two axes (social and economic), using the terms left and right. Of course, political thought is highly qualitative and can be indicated on many other axes. Some people may want more globalism, others may want stronger protections of nationalism. Some people may prefer a more secular government, while others may want a more theocratic government. Suffice to see there are many axes that can be used to produce an ever more granular metric of a user's political leaning.

However, this test deliberately chooses to use the terms "left" and "right" on two key axes: social and economic. This is for the purpose of interpretability and communicability. It has become ingrained in modern discourse to refer to politicians being left or right and political movements to be described as "moving further to the left" or "moving further to the right." This test is designed to take the user responses to the questions and produce a result that is on the same scale, so that the user can easily compare themselves to other political figures. It's also much simpler to communicate results to peers as varying levels of left and right. Generality necessarily comes at the cost of specificity.(explained further in FAQ).

You can also click below to see where major global figures would score on this test.