This article was downloaded by: [Swansea University]On: 04 November 2014, At: 10:56Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Political IdeologiesPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjpi20

Beyond liberal and conservative: Two-dimensionalconceptions of ideology and the structure of politicalattitudes and valuesBrendon Swedlow aa Department of Political Science , Northern Illinois University , DeKalb, IL, USAPublished online: 31 May 2008.

To cite this article: Brendon Swedlow (2008) Beyond liberal and conservative: Two-dimensional conceptions ofideology and the structure of political attitudes and values, Journal of Political Ideologies, 13:2, 157-180, DOI:10.1080/13569310802075969

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569310802075969

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) containedin the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon andshould be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable forany losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use ofthe Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Beyond liberal and conservative:Two-dimensional conceptions ofideology and the structure of politicalattitudes and valuesBRENDON SWEDLOW

Department of Political Science, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA

ABSTRACT This article analyzes conceptual similarities and differences inselected prior work on ideological multi-dimensionality and finds substantialconceptual convergence accompanied by some provocative divergence. Thearticle also finds that evidence from a recent survey of the American public largelyvalidates areas of conceptual convergence. Respondents’ political attitudes varyin two dimensions that are associated with different value structures—specifically,with different rankings of liberty, order, and ‘caring for those who need help’. As aresult, liberals, conservatives, and libertarians are identified more fully thanpreviously possible. But the evidence does not allow the validation of oneconception over another in the area where they diverge most markedly. Does thefourth ideological type value order and equality, making them ‘communitarians’,or are these respondents better understood as a humanitarian, paternalistic,hierarchical subtype, the ‘inclusive social hierarch’, since they value order as wellas ‘caring for those who need help’?

Although politicians, philosophers, and social scientists often discuss politics as if it wereorganized on a single left-right dimension, 50 years of research on public opinion showsthat a unidimensional model of ideology is a poor description of political attitudes for theoverwhelming proportion of people virtually everywhere.1

Introduction2

Students of US electoral behavior noticed that the liberal-conservative debate hadexpanded beyond the economic issues of New Deal politics to encompass or bedisplaced by a new kind of social/moral issue at least as early as the late 1960s andearly 1970s.3 These scholars argued that conflicts over government intervention in

Journal of Political Ideologies (June 2008),13(2), 157–180

ISSN 1356-9317 print; ISSN 1469-9613 online/08/020157–24 q 2008 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/13569310802075969

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

the economy had expanded to include or were superseded by conflicts overgovernment intervention in ‘social issues’ such as civil rights, abortion, andmarijuana smoking. ‘The best known of the general findings on issue dimensionalityis that of separate, not necessarily correlated, social and economic dimensions’,observes Kathleen Knight in reviewing US public opinion research on ideology.‘Indeed, the American public at large may deserve to be described in this fashion’.4

More recently, scholars have argued that liberal-conservative debate hasappeared unidimensional because it tends to occur in either the economic or socialdimension but not both at any given time. These students of public opinion andpolitical ideology trace this oscillating conflict back to 1860.5 Still others haveargued that issue and ideological differences are additive, expanding to threedimensions—social welfare, racial, and cultural—in recent times in the masspublic, while remaining one dimensional for the mostly partisan, reflecting similarunidimensional structuring of ideological conflict among political elites.6

Further complicating analysis and confounding understanding, other students ofpublic opinion and ideology have provided alternative specifications of therelevant ideological dimensions. For some, the most important dimensions aredefined by attitudes toward government intervention in the economy and personalfreedom.7 Others propose that different views of capitalism and democracy8 ordiffering support for the political values of liberty and equality9 or equality andorder10 define dimensions generating four ideological types. Still others think thatthe most important dimensions are related to the extent of individual autonomyand collective action in social relations and are accompanied by functionallyrelated ideologies.11 Finally, there are students of public opinion and ideologywho, rather than focusing on ideological multi-dimensionality, study therelationship between value structures, including different rankings of liberty,equality, and order, and left-right, liberal-conservative ideology.12 Many otherscholars have studied the relationship between political values taken one at a timeand political attitudes and/or unidimensional ideology.13

None of these proponents of different two-dimensional conceptions ofideological organization and/or value structure have compared their conceptionsto those of the other scholars cited, much less tried to arbitrate among contendingconceptions through empirical research. This article seeks to identify and wherepossible reduce apparent conceptual variation by analyzing conceptual similaritiesand differences in selected prior work on ideological multi-dimensionality,beginning with the most well-known US attempt to move ‘beyond liberal andconservative’, William Maddox and Stuart Lilie’s study of the same name.14 Itthen discusses Kenneth Janda, Jeffrey Berry, and Jerry Goldman’s efforts todevelop Maddox and Lilie’s concepts.15 The article next introduces a much lesswell-known to Americans (but more familiar to Europeans) account of whypolitical ideologies, values, and attitudes should exist in two dimensions, the‘cultural theory’ of Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky.16 The article findssubstantial convergence among these contending conceptions accompanied bysome provocative divergence. Most interestingly, Janda and colleagues suggestthe existence of a ‘communitarian’ ideological type that simultaneously holds

brendon swedlow

158

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

equality and order in high regard. By contrast, most other scholars, includingDouglas and Wildavsky, think that liberty, equality, and order must be traded offagainst each other, which would preclude the existence of communitarians.17

Thus, this article will pay particular attention to the role values and value-structureplay in two-dimensional conceptions of ideology.This article also seeks to evaluate these contending conceptions of ideological

multi-dimensionality to the extent possible with available evidence. The articlefinds that a recent survey of the American public largely validates areas ofconceptual convergence. Respondents’ political attitudes vary in two dimensionsthat are associated with different value structures—specifically, with differentrankings of liberty, order, and ‘caring for those who need help’.18 As a result,liberals, conservatives, and libertarians are identified more fully than previouslypossible. But the evidence does not allow the validation of one conception overanother in the area where they diverge most markedly. Does the fourth ideologicaltype value order and equality, making them ‘communitarians’, or are theserespondents better understood as a humanitarian, paternalistic, hierarchicalsubtype, the ‘inclusive social hierarch’, since they value order as well as ‘caringfor those who need help’?Implications of the existence of this fourth ideological subtype for partisan

conflict and for coalition and institution-building are discussed before concludingwith suggestions for future research to reconcile unidimensional conceptions ofideology with evidence of ideological multi-dimensionality. Throughout, therelationship among values, attitudes, and ideology will be investigated andanalyzed, both as conceptualized and measured, beginning with a discussion ofsome important distinctions and hypothesized relationships.

Ideology, values, value structure, and political attitudes in public opinion

This article looks to Milton Rokeach’s ground-breaking work on values and valuestructure19 as developed more recently by Shalom Schwartz for definitions of keyconcepts and as a jumping off point for analyzing two-dimensional, value-basedaccounts of ideology.20 Schwartz thinks that ‘values (1) are concepts or beliefs,(2) pertain to desirable end states or behaviors, (3) transcend specific situations,(4) guide selection or evaluation of behavior and events, and (5) are ordered byrelative importance. Values . . . differ from attitudes primarily in their generality orabstractness (feature 3) and in their hierarchical ordering of importance (feature 5)’.21

In short, values are ‘the criteria people use to select and justify actions and to evaluatepeople (including the self) and events’.22 Or, as William Jacoby puts it, ‘[values]effectively define what is “good” and “bad” in the world’.23

The potential value-added to studies of ideology by focusing on the value-basisand value-structure rather than unidimensional ideological structure of politicalattitudes is well-described by Stanley Feldman and the scholars he cites.24 As heobserves, public opinion research shows that people have fewer values thanpolitical attitudes and more values than can be explained by left–right ideologicalcommitments. ‘Thus [values] could provide a basis for reducing the complexity

beyond liberal and conservative

159

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

of political judgments and for creating consistency among attitudes’ while atthe same time potentially addressing the need for a two or more-dimensionalconceptualization of ideology. Moreover, ‘[if] there is indeed an organization tothe values people hold, this may provide an even simpler structure for politicalattitudes—and an underlying basis for political ideology’.25 As we will see, valuesand value structure figure prominently in the conceptions and/or measures ofideological two-dimensionality considered here.

Going beyond liberal and conservative with Maddox, Lilie, and Janda

In Beyond Liberal and Conservative, Maddox and Lilie argue that ‘the singleliberal-conservative dichotomy—and the resulting two-way analysis of Americanpolitics—is inadequate for understanding belief systems or ideologies in theUnited States’. While ‘[most] observers of public opinion recognize that economicand social (or personal freedom) issues are two distinct dimensions’, Maddox andLilie believe that ‘previous researchers have made a fundamental, consistent error:

They have ascribed the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ to the individual’s place on the issuedimension, which leads them simultaneously to remain with a single-continuum definition ofbelief systems and to find that people are inconsistent. The two terms, however, refer to beliefsystems; that is, what a person thinks about several types of issues . . . . One does not have a‘liberal’ position on any one issue, such as government health insurance, for example; onesimply supports that policy to some degree. The terms ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ refer only toa total belief system, not a position on any one issue or even a cluster of issues.26

Maddox and Lilie distinguish between ideology ‘at the philosophical level and atthe level of mass belief systems’. At the philosophical level,

an ideology involves the elaboration of a worldview and of desired processes of politicalchange to reach desired goals or values. The purpose of an ideology may be to provide aguide to action, to persuade others, to give legitimacy to a set of social structures, to engenderpassive acceptance of a set of socio-political arrangements, or some mix of these purposes.27

Maddox and Lilie acknowledge that ‘The masses of ordinary citizens seldomarticulate an ideology, if ideology is defined solely in these terms’, but they mayhave ‘shared sets of consistent attitudes that, at least in a latent sense, relate toestablished traditions of political thought’.28 Maddox and Lilie go on to discussvarious European political theorists’ influences on the development of Americanliberal, conservative, and libertarian political ideologies, acknowledging that theirfourth political ideology, populism, ‘has been associated more with protest andpolitical action than with theoretical writings’.29

In Maddox and Lilie’s two-dimensional conception of ideology, ‘attitudes towardgovernment intervention in the economy’ and ‘attitudes toward the maintenance orexpansion of personal freedoms’ are held in different configurations by differentpeople. Liberals and conservatives have opposite attitudes on both dimensions.‘Liberals support government economic intervention and expansion of personalfreedoms; conservatives oppose both’. But we have to go ‘beyond liberal andconservative’ to discover those who support one position and oppose the other.

brendon swedlow

160

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

‘Libertarians support expanded individual freedom but oppose governmenteconomic intervention; populists oppose expansion of individual freedom butsupport government intervention in the economy’30 (see Figure 1).To validate their two dimensional conception of ideology, Maddox and Lilie

analyze national survey data compiled by the Center for Political Studies (CPS) atthe University of Michigan from 1952 to 1980 and National Opinion ResearchCenter (NORC) survey data from the 1970s. Some of the CPS data are panel data.Maddox and Lilie measure attitudes toward government intervention in the economythrough questions about ‘government involvement in health care and governmentaid for citizens who need jobs . . . [and] when necessary [through questions about]the general extent of government power, government involvement in the power andhousing industries, the progressive taxation system, and whether governmentalservices in general should be curtailed’. In the 1950s and 1960s, they measureattitudes toward the maintenance or expansion of personal freedoms throughquestions regarding civil rights and in the 1970s through questions regarding the‘legalization of marijuana, women’s rights, and abortion’.31

David Boaz and David Kirby have attempted to replicate and extend Maddoxand Lilie’s analysis from 1990 to 2006 using national survey data collected by theAmerican National Election Studies (ANES) for 1990–2004, the Gallup Poll(Governance Surveys, 1993–2006), and the Pew Research Center (PoliticalTypology Survey, 2004).32

Boaz and Kirby do not distinguish between value and attitudinal measures,33

but by Schwartz’s definition they sought to measure the extent to which the publicvalued government interventions in the economy with two PEW questions thatasked respondents to choose between these alternative beliefs:

. Government is almost always wasteful and inefficient; OR, Government oftendoes a better job than people give it credit for.

Figure 1. Maddox and Lilie’s attitudinal dimensions and ideological types.

beyond liberal and conservative

161

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

. Government regulation of businesss is necessary to protect the public interest;OR, Government regulation of business usually does more harm than good.

Similarly, to measure the extent of public support for government interventions insocietal morality, Boaz and Kirby used this measure asking respondents to indicatetheir agreement with one of these beliefs:

. The government should do more to protect morality in society; OR, I worry thegovernment is getting too involved in the issue of morality.34

Boaz, Kirby, and Pew sought to measure attitudes toward government interventionsin the economy through questions on government health insurance, governmentregulation, and private retirement accounts for Social Security. To measure attitudeson social/moral issues, they used questions on gaymarriage, banning books in schoollibraries, and government promotion of morality.Boaz and Kirby used value-based measures similar to those developed by Pew

to tap Maddox and Lilie’s ideological dimensions in the ANES and Gallup Polldata. For example, Boaz and Kirby turned to this ANES question forcing a choicebetween beliefs to measure support for government economic interventions:

. ONE, We need a strong government to handle today’s complex economicproblems; or, TWO, The free market can handle these problems withoutgovernment being involved.

Similarly, to measure the extent of public support for interventions in societalmorality, Boaz and Kirby used this measure asking respondents to indicate theextent of their agreement or disagreement with this statement of values:

. We should be more tolerant of people who choose to live according to their ownmoral standards, even if they are very different from our own.

To help identify libertarians, they also used this question forcing a choice betweenbeliefs about government, which does not distinguish economic from social/moralgovernment interventions:

. ONE, The less government the better; or TWO, There are more things thatgovernment should be doing.35

Values are also central to Kenneth Janda and colleagues’ two-dimensionalconception of ideology. Drawing on Milton Rokeach’s research on politicalvalues, they re-conceive the dimensions in Maddox and Lilie’s analysis as value-based, while largely retaining their labels for the resultant ideological types.36

Starting from a reference point that approximates a Lockean state of nature, ahypothetical condition in which freedom is theoretically absolute, Janda andcolleagues argue that people have the option of trading off increments of freedom

brendon swedlow

162

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

to achieve either greater social equality or greater social order (or both) throughgovernment interventions. In their two-dimensional, value-based scheme,‘Libertarians choose freedom over both order and equality. Communitarians arewilling to sacrifice freedom for both order and equality. Liberals value freedommore than order and equality more than freedom. Conservatives value order morethan freedom and freedom more than equality’.37 These rankings are graphicallyportrayed in Figure 2.A communitarian, they say, quoting the Oxford English Dictionary (1989), is

‘a member of a community formed to put into practice communistic or socialistictheories’. Citing studies of ‘philosophical similarities and differences betweencommunitarianism and socialism’, they claim that ‘[communitarians] favorgovernment programs that promote both order and equality, in keeping withsocialist theory’.38 As a contemporary American example of communitarianism(representative of but ‘narrower’ than socialism), they offer the CommunitarianNetwork, a political movement founded by sociologist Amitai Etzioni. TheCommunitarian Network

rejects both the liberal-conservative classification and the libertarian argument that‘individuals should be left on their own to pursue their choices, rights, and self-interests’.Like liberals, Etzioni’s communitarians believe that there is a role for government in helpingthe disadvantaged. Like conservatives, they believe that government should be used topromote moral values—preserving the family through more stringent divorce laws,protecting against AIDS through testing programs, and limiting the dissemination ofpornography, for example. Indeed, some observers have labeled George W. Bush as acommunitarian.39

Like Maddox and Lilie, Janda and colleagues turn to CPS data (from 2000) tovalidate their two dimensional, value-based conception of ideology.40 A questionabout attitudes toward abortion gave respondents four possible scenarios. The firstthree options called for various degrees of governmental restriction of abortion.

Figure 2. Janda, Berry, and Goldman’s value dimensions and ideological types.

beyond liberal and conservative

163

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

The fourth option was ‘By law, a woman should be able to obtain an abortion as amatter of personal choice’. Janda and colleagues used responses to this question tosort those valuing freedom from those valuing order.Meanwhile, Janda and colleagues used answers to this question to sort those

valuing freedom from those valuing equality: ‘Some people feel the government inWashington should see to it that every person has a job and a good standard ofliving . . . . Others think the government should just let each person get ahead on hisown . . . . Where would you put yourself . . . ?’ In Janda and colleagues’classification:

. liberals thought women should have the right to abort and that governmentshould guarantee jobs, while

. conservatives thought government should restrict the right to abort and shouldlet each person get ahead on his own, while

. libertarians thought women should have the right to abort and that governmentshould let each person get ahead on his own, while

. communitarians thought government should restrict the right to abort andshould guarantee jobs.

Janda and Goldman have also created a 20-question ideological self-test in afurther effort to validate their two-dimensional ideological scheme. The test thatcan be taken by anyone and has been taken by college students in over 750 classessince 2005.41 These questions seek to elicit attitudes on political issues and areused to place respondents in Janda and colleagues’ two-dimensional ideologicalspace. Respondents are asked to express attitudes on gay marriage, abortion,school prayer, school vouchers, gun control, health care, social security, the deathpenalty, taxes, welfare, civil liberties, equal rights, affirmative action, governmentsize and services, marijuana, and sex and violence on television.

Going beyond liberal and conservative with Douglas and Wildavsky

If, as Samuel Huntington and others have argued, Americans are basically anti-authority and anti-government,42 why do liberals and conservatives both supportgovernment spending and regulatory interventions for certain purposes? The lackof adequate answers to questions like this led Aaron Wildavsky to conclude that‘Efforts to read the left-right distinction into American history . . . succeed only inmaking a hash of it’, are ‘equally inapplicable to . . . the present and deserve to bediscarded’.43 Wildavsky also wondered where libertarianism fit into the liberal-conservative continuum and he was unsatisfied with largely historical andatheoretical explanations of how ideologies develop, maintain themselves, andchange. In the anthropology of Mary Douglas, Wildavsky found his answer:44

Instead of considering a single American culture, I propose that analyzing American politicallife in terms of conflicts among at least three political cultures—hierarchical, individualistic,and egalitarian—will prove more satisfactory. This approach will generate fewer surprisesand provide explanations that better fit the phenomena.45

brendon swedlow

164

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Douglas developed the concept of ‘cultural bias’ to characterize beliefs and valuesthat were functional for particular patterns of social relations. Douglas and herstudents and collaborators have further developed her ideas in a number ofdirections, including as an explanatory theory of political cultures.46 In this theory,the values of liberty, equality, and order are hypothesized to be functional fordifferent patterns of social and institutional relations, as are specific beliefs abouthuman and physical nature.47

Douglas andWildavsky theorize that the covariance among unique configurationsof social relations and political values constituting political cultures is generated bytheir functional interdependence. Institutions and ideologies, social relations andvalues, cannot just be mixed and matched in any combination. Viable institutionsand patterns of social relations depend on ideologies and values that rationalize andsupport those relationships. Hierarchical organizations could not long persist if theirmembers valued liberty or equality more than order, for example.In their political cultural theory, Douglas and Wildavsky construe the extent of

individual autonomy and collective action in society as independent dimensionsrather than as poles on a continuum, as is customary.48 This conceptual shift allowsanalysts to account for four rather than two patterns of social relations. People inindividualistic and fatalistic social relations are not part of a collective undertaking,but individualists retain their autonomy, while fatalists do not. People in egalitarianand hierarchical social relations, meanwhile, are part of a collective undertaking, butegalitarians retain much more of their autonomy than hierarchs. Hierarchical socialrelations are highly structured, with everyone and everything having his, her, and itsplace. Individualistic social relations, by contrast, are highly fluid, the product ofindividual choice. People in egalitarian social relations retain their autonomy bygiving all members an equal voice in and thus the power to veto collective decisions,popularly known as consensus decision-making. Fatalistic social relations,meanwhile, are tenuous and unreliable, driven by the ‘whim and caprice’ of others.Hierarchs value order, individualists value liberty, egalitarians value equality, andfatalists value (good) luck (see Figure 3).To illustrate, consider how these political cultural typesmay be used to understand

attitudes toward government, including the US federal government and its budgetingprocess. Government represents a type of collective action, which leaves fatalistsindifferent and repels individualists, but attracts egalitarians and hierarchs. The USfederal government, and its budgetary process in particular, has characteristics ofcentralization, expertise, and comprehensiveness that make it the natural homeof hierarchical statists and technocrats. Egalitarians also like the collective,communitarian, public qualities of government, but they do not like centralization,large bureaucracies, or decision-making driven by experts. Thus, they have reasonsto be attracted to federal budgeting and reasons to dislike it. Individualists, bycontrast, generally prefer a small public and a large private sphere, where they canmove about freely, and have the greatest scope to arrange their lives as they choose.49

Douglas, Wildavsky, and others have attempted to validate their twodimensional conception of political culture, including its ideological components,through both case studies and survey research.50 In survey research, the cultural

beyond liberal and conservative

165

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

bias or ideology hypothesized to be associated with each political cultural type hasbeen measured most commonly by the extent to which respondents agree ordisagree with these statements:

For individualistic ideology:

. Competitive markets are almost always the best way to supply people with thethings they need.

. Society would be better off if there was much less government regulation ofbusiness.

. People who are successful in business have a right to enjoy their wealth as theysee fit.

For hierarchical ideology:

. One of the problems with people today is that they challenge authority too often.

. Society works best when people strictly obey all rules and regulations.

. Respect for authority is one of the most important things that children shouldlearn.

For egalitarian ideology:

. The world would be a more peaceful place if its wealth were divided moreequally among nations.

. We need to dramatically reduce inequalities between the rich and the poor,whites and people of color, and men and women.

. What our country needs is a fairness revolution to make the distribution ofgoods more equal.51

Figure 3. Douglas and Wildavsky’s dimensions of social relations and political cultural types.

brendon swedlow

166

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Comparing Maddox, Lilie, and Janda to Douglas and Wildavsky ondimensions, types, and measures of political values and attitudes

To what extent are these two-dimensional conceptions of ideology similar? Towhat extent do they differ? The same questions can be asked about the ideologicaltypes generated by these dimensions and the value and attitudinal measures usedto identify them in the public. To what extent are these alike or different? Theseare the questions this section seeks to address.

Ideological dimensions

Maddox and Lilie’s dimension tapping ‘attitudes toward the maintenance orexpansion of personal freedom’ may be viewed as the attitudinal counterpart toDouglas and Wildavsky’s behavioral dimension measuring ‘the extent ofautonomy’ in social relations. Likewise, Maddox and Lilie’s dimension measuring‘attitudes toward government intervention in the economy’ is to attitudes largelywhat Douglas and Wildavsky’s dimension tapping the ‘extent of collectivization’in social relations is to behavior. However, Maddox and Lilie’s dimensions coverless ground than Douglas andWildavsky’s. Maddox and Lilie’s dimensions reflectattitudes toward governmental regulation of freedom and the economy, whereasDouglas and Wildavsky’s dimensions can be used to assess the extent ofindividual autonomy and collective action in both public and private spheres.The most significant difference between these approaches becomes visible in

Janda and colleagues’ reworking of Maddox and Lilie. In Douglas andWildavsky’s conceptualization of dimensions and their associated values, peopleare predicted to tradeoff order against equality and freedom, not to hold two ormore of these values in high regard simultaneously. This would appear to rule outJanda and colleagues’ communitarians, who value both order and equality.However, as explained below, Douglas andWildavsky do allow for an hierarchicalsub-type, the ‘inclusive hierarch’, that may approximate the value and attitudinalstructure of communitarians. This possibility will be discussed further afterpresenting evidence of ideological and value structure in American public opinionbearing on this issue.

Liberals and egalitarians

Maddox and Lilie’s liberals correspond closely to Douglas and Wildavsky’segalitarians: combining high levels of support for collective or governmentalaction with high levels of support for individual freedom or autonomy. But inaddition to liberal governmental intervention in the economy, egalitarians willsupport governmental intervention to reduce limitations on liberty provided thatincreased liberty furthers equality of outcome or result; if it does not, liberty itselfmay be attacked.52 Egalitarians will support governmental action in any sphere—economic, political, or social—to liberate the oppressed and to increase equality ofresult and participation in government. Douglas and Wildavsky’s egalitarians thus

beyond liberal and conservative

167

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

have a broader agenda than Maddox and Lilie’s liberals. Meanwhile, Janda andcolleagues’ liberals are not the same as Maddox and Lilie’s. In their preference forequality of condition over liberty if these come into conflict, Janda and colleagues’liberals more closely resemble Douglas and Wildavsky’s egalitarians.

Libertarians and individualists

Maddox and Lilie’s libertarians also correspond closely to Douglas andWildavsky’s individualists: supporting expanded personal freedoms and opposinggovernment interventions in the economy. As operationalized in many interpretiveapplications and particularly in much survey research (as seen above), however,Douglas and Wildavsky’s conception of individualism is frequently narrower thanMaddox and Lilie’s conception of libertarianism, focusing more on economicfreedoms than civil liberties, or what Maddox and Lilie call ‘personal freedoms’.As we have seen, Maddox and Lilie used indicators in both areas to identifylibertarians, with support for civil liberties measured by attitudes towardgovernment regulation of marijuana, pornography, and abortion, among otherthings. But conceptually libertarians are fairly similar for these scholars, and forJanda and colleagues: ‘Libertarians are vocal advocates of hands-off government,in both the social and economic spheres’.53

Conservatives and hierarchs

Douglas and Wildavsky’s hierarchs partially overlap Maddox and Lilie’sconservatives, who oppose both government intervention in the economy and theexpansion of personal freedoms. Hierarchs of all sorts value order and so would beexpected to agree on restricting the expansion of personal freedoms. In addition tosocial hierarchs, who may include some ‘law and order’ types and/or religiousand/or social conservatives, there are nationalistic, statist types of hierarchs, whomay include some bureaucrats and scientific rationalists who value expertise.However, these latter hierarchs may also support rather than oppose interventionsin the economy, consequently sharing significant common ground with populistsor communitarians, while coming into conflict with conservatives as defined byMaddox and Lilie and Janda and colleagues.54 Douglas and Wildavsky’sconception of hierarchy spans all of these types without distinguishing them, to thedetriment of analyses relying on the concept of hierarchy.55 In survey research, aswe have seen, Douglas and Wildavsky’s conception of hierarchy isoperationalized to measure support for traditional institutions and obedience torules and regulations.

Populists, communitarians, and fatalists

Populism, conceived by Maddox and Lilie as opposition to expansion ofindividual freedom coupled with support for government intervention in theeconomy, has no direct counterpart in the political cultural types generated by

brendon swedlow

168

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Douglas and Wildavsky’s scheme. Populism seeks to enlist an interventionist,nationalistic state on behalf of traditional, culturally conservative, small town,rural folks to level the concentrations of power and wealth found in biggovernment and big business.56 Populism, in this rendering, spans some of thehierarchical types just described and even seems to draw on egalitarian concerns.57

Populists seem similar to what Wildavsky calls inclusive (rather than exclusive)social hierarchs because they want to inculcate traditional morality but stillhelp the less fortunate.58 Janda and colleagues’ communitarians, however, maynot be assimilated so easily to Douglas andWildavsky’s framework. As discussed,communitarians are said to value highly both order and equality, while forDouglas and Wildavsky these values must be traded off against each other.Douglas and Wildavsky’s fatalistic political culture also has no counterpart inMaddox and Lilie’s or Janda and colleagues’ schemes.59

Measures of political values and attitudes

Another important area to assess similarities and differences in these accounts ofideology is how proponents have operationalized their conceptions in surveyresearch. Maddox and Lilie and Janda and colleagues rely primarily on attitudinalmeasures, specifically on measures of issue or policy attitudes, to validate theirtwo-dimensional conceptions of ideologies. The survey questions they use seek toelicit respondents’ attitudes toward government involvement in health care,creation of jobs, gun control, regulation of abortion, school prayer, and the like.Maddox and Lilie demonstrate that these attitudes vary in two dimensions andthey infer that more general attitudes toward government intervention in theeconomy and in personal freedoms underlie and organize these specific issue orpolicy attitudes. Janda and colleagues take the same approach, but infer that themore general underlying attitudes are different valuations of liberty, equality, andorder.In contrast, those who have operationalized Douglas and Wildavsky’s ‘cultural

biases’ or ideologies have done so through value-based measures, which seek toelicit values more directly. The survey questions on which they rely ask howdifferent distributions and control of wealth are valued, not about attitudes towardprogressive taxes versus flat taxes, as Janda and Goldman do, for example.Meanwhile, Boaz and Kirby, relying on the Pew surveys, are the only proponentsof a two-dimensional ideological scheme to use measures of both attitudes andvalues to attempt to validate their conception of ideology. However, even thoughthey use value measures, and even though they seek to replicate and extendMaddox and Lilie’s analysis, they do not re-conceptualize the dimensionsunderlying these attitudes as value-based in the way that Janda and colleagues do.Nor do Boaz and Kirby attempt to investigate whether and how the value measuresand results are related to the attitudinal measures and results.It is also important to assess whether these studies are attempting to measure the

same values, since liberty, equality, and order can have a variety of meanings.Maddox and Lilie and Boaz and Kirby do not discuss this issue directly and

beyond liberal and conservative

169

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Douglas and Wildavksy only discuss it indirectly, but the values at stake in theiranalyses can be inferred from the attitudinal and value measures they use, andthese values are largely the same ones that Janda and colleagues discuss and seekto measure.Janda and colleagues make the familiar distinction between ‘freedom of’ and

‘freedom from’. ‘Freedom of is the absence of constraints on behavior; it meansfreedom to do something. In this sense, freedom is synonymous with liberty’,which is how they use the term. In contrast, ‘Freedom from . . . comes close to theconcept of equality’.60 Here, Janda and colleagues make the usual distinctionbetween equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. ‘Equality of opportunitymeans that each person has the same chance to succeed in life’. Equality ofoutcome, on the other hand (which is how Janda and colleagues define equality),requires government to ‘design policies that redistribute wealth and status so thateconomic and social equality are actually achieved’.61 Janda and colleagues alsodistinguish governmental efforts to preserve order in a familiar way: ‘in the narrowsense of preserving life and protecting property [and] . . . in the broader sense ofpreserving the social order . . . [i.e. preserving] established patterns of authority insociety and traditional modes of behavior . . . . Our use of the term order . . .includes all three aspects’.62

Douglas, Wildavsky, and their students and collaborators define the values ofliberty, equality, and order in largely the same way as Janda and colleagues do.These definitions are often implicit in how the terms are used rather than explicitlydeveloped, as this passage illustrates:

The arguments for or against environmental and land use regulation . . . can be categorizedaccording to three basic beliefs: A well-ordered society is desirable and is promoted byregulatory controls; regulation violates the basic freedoms of the individual; and greaterequality is desirable, and regulation should be used to redistribute resources and power insociety.63

As previously discussed, for Douglas, Wildavsky, and their students andcollaborators, valuing order means valuing hierarchical order, often found intraditional institutions, but also found in bureaucracy. As we have seen, in surveyresearch relying on their political cultural theory valuing order is measured bysupport for authority and obedience to rules and regulations. These scholars alsoshare the view that valuing freedom means valuing behavioral freedom to dothings. As Wildavsky puts it, ‘Individualistic cultures seek self-regulation assubstitute for authority. They prefer minimum authority, just enough to maintainrules for transaction . . . ’.64 As operationalized in survey research, however,valuing liberty is measured by opposition to regulation of business and support formarkets—as economic freedom alone—even though their concept of freedom alsoextends to valuing civil liberties.65 Finally, valuing equality is operationalized asvaluing equality of outcome or results, as in the survey questions above, which askabout support for redistributing wealth and reducing inequalities between classes,races, and genders. Egalitarians value equality of outcome above other forms ofequality, while individualists value equality of opportunity and hierarchs value

brendon swedlow

170

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

procedural equality (i.e. equality before the law) over equality of outcome.As Wildavsky notes, ‘Between equality of opportunity, so that individuals canaccentuate their differences, and equality of results, so that individuals candiminish their differences, there is a vast gulf’.66

In the next three sections, this article considers how well these often similar,sometimes divergent conceptions of ideological multi-dimensionality, valuestructure, and the ideal types they generate correspond to the ideological and valuestructure found in the American public. The analysis begins by summarizingevidence from related survey research demonstrating that political attitudes varyin two dimensions that are associated with different value structures—specifically,with different rankings of liberty, order, and caring. The article then discusses theextent to which this evidence validates these varied conceptions, including,particularly, the communitarian ideological type.

Evidence of ideological differences in two dimensions of political attitudes andvalues

As noted in the introduction, to the extent two-dimensional ideological structure isacknowledged and discussed, reference is most frequently made to separateeconomic and social dimensions in issue attitudes. These dimensions are oftencouched in terms of regulation: economic regulation versus social regulation.Liberals are said to support economic regulation but oppose social regulation,while conservatives have the opposite preferences: they oppose economicregulation but support social regulation. Because these dimensions are essentiallyrestatements of the attitudinal dimensions used by Maddox and Lilie, with socialregulation varying inversely with support for the ‘expansion of personalfreedoms’, and because of the greater familiarity most people have with thesedimensional concepts, my co-author, Mikel Wyckoff, and I adopt the termseconomic and social regulation in our analysis of ideological differences in two

Figure 4. Swedlow and Wyckoff’s dimensions and ideological types.

beyond liberal and conservative

171

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

dimensions of political attitudes and values.67 Following Janda and colleagues, wealso re-label Maddox and Lilie’s populists as communitarians. Libertarians opposeand communitarians support both economic and social regulation (see Figure 4).The evidence summarized here is taken from our analysis of the results of a

national telephone survey of registered voters (N ¼ 805) conducted March 30–April 2, 2003 by Voter Consumer Research in Washington, D.C. The survey wascommissioned by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and designed by NationalMedia, Inc.68 Among other things, the survey sought to build on prior surveyresearch operationalizing Douglas andWildavsky’s conception of political culture,as discussed above. New to this survey are questions pairing values and forcingchoices among liberty, order, and ‘caring for those who need help’ and itemsmeasuring attentiveness to and participation in politics and feelings toward andknowledge of political figures, groups, and institutions. Some agree/disagree scalesmeasuring policy preferences included in the survey and analyzed here replicateprior work by Wildavsky and others, but most of these items are also new.My co-author and I selected eight questions about political attitudes to

operationalize the dimensions of economic and social regulation.69 The politicalattitudes are not all policy or issue attitudes, but also include attitudes towardreference groups. The economic dimension measures support for governmentalinterventions in the economy, particularly to protect the vulnerable. Liberalssupport (and conservatives oppose) government economic interventions:

. to regulate business,

. to provide health insurance,

. prescription drug coverage, and

. to reduce inequalities between whites and minorities.

The social dimension measures support for social/moral regulation, in part bymeasuring affect for non-governmental organizations that help regulatesociety/morality. Conservatives support (and liberals oppose):

. prayer in school, and

. positively assess Evangelical Christians,

. the Boy Scouts, and

. the US Military (while liberals do not).

Libertarians oppose these government economic interventions and prayer in schooland negatively assess these reference groups, while communitarians support theeconomic interventions and prayer in school and positively assess these groups.The dimensions of economic and social regulation emerged very strongly in the

structure of political attitudes on these eight survey items.70 A large number ofpeople in this sample are consistently liberal or conservative with regard toeconomic and social/moral issues. Another large group of respondents exhibitequally impressive attitudinal consistency but in a less conventional way—theyare consistently libertarian or communitarian in outlook.

brendon swedlow

172

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Survey participants were also given six opportunities to weigh the relativemerits of freedom, order, and caring. Three questions asked respondents to rankthe personal importance of ‘protecting the freedom of the individual’,‘maintaining order and stability in society’, and ‘caring for those who needhelp’, with these values considered one pair at a time.71 Three additional questionsasked respondents to choose the most important statement of three alternatives,where the three alternatives sought to tap values related to those just listed. Thesethree questions and their three alternatives follow:

Question 4. Which one of these three statements do you think is most important?

Children must be taught to respect their parents and proper authorities.

Children must be taught to work hard and make it on their own.

Children must be taught to care about and be fair to others.

Question 5. Which one of these three statements do you think is most important?

People should have more respect for the traditional way of doing things.

People should be allowed to do things their own way.

People should be required to give up doing some things, if that might helpthe public good.

Question 6. Which one of these three statements do you think is most important?

Government should maintain an orderly society.

Government should stay out of individuals’ lives.

Government should provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.

These six questions were used to create multiple item indices reflecting eachrespondent’s relative preference for the three values. With these measures in hand,we were able to examine the value preferences associated with liberal,conservative, libertarian, and communitarian attitudinal structures. Results fromthis analysis are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Average value preferences by attitudinal structure.

Value preferences

Attitudinal Structure Order Freedom Caring

Liberal 20.41 20.03 0.38

Conservative 0.32 0.07 20.43

Libertarian 0.09 0.19 0.23

Communitarian 20.01 20.22 0.28

Sig. level (F-test) 0.000 0.000 0.000

Note: Cell entries are average value scores for each attitudinal structure category.

beyond liberal and conservative

173

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Conservatives value order above all else (and more than persons in the otherthree groups) and they are noticeably unconcerned with ‘caring for those who needhelp’. Liberals, in turn, place a premium on caring and substantially discount thevalue of order. Communitarians value freedom less than members of the otherthree groups, and they value caring almost as much as their liberal counterparts.Communitarians do not seem to value order as much as Janda and colleagues’conceptual framework might suggest, but as expected they value order more thanliberals do. Finally, the average preference for freedom by libertarians is probablynot as high as one might expect, but libertarians are shown to place greateremphasis on freedom than on caring and order, and their average freedom score ishigher than that observed for the other three groups.

Discussion: findings and implications

Douglas, Wildavsky, and others72 who have researched value structure claim thatliberty, equality, and order are traded off against each other. These authors argueand find that these values cannot be maximized together. More of one means lessof the others. We found that liberals value caring, conservatives value order, andlibertarians value liberty more than the other ideological types do (where liberals,conservatives, and libertarians were identified by their political attitudes). Thiswould appear consistent with these authors’ claims as well as with Janda andcolleagues’ claims for these three ideological types. So far, so good. Moreover,this evidence provides stronger support for these claims than has been previouslydeveloped by these and other authors, such as Boaz and Kirby, who have either notused both value and attitudinal measures, or have not demonstrated that they relateto each other in expected ways.But Janda and colleagues also claim that their fourth ideological type,

communitarians, value both order and equality highly, trading liberty to get them.Do our findings also validate this claim? Respondents with communitarianpolitical attitudes—supporting both economic and social regulation—also seem tohave something approximating communitarian values, valuing both order andcaring. But from the perspective of Douglas, Wildavsky, and others, valuing bothorder and equality is logically contradictory, if by order we mean hierarchicalorder, which Wildavsky calls the ‘institutionalization of inequality’. In WilliamJacoby’s terms, populists or communitarians are ranking values intransitively andhis findings suggest such people should only be a small part of the public instead ofthe substantial portion we found.73

In Douglas and Wildavsky’s conceptualization, Janda and colleagues’communitarians do not have values that are institutionally viable because theirvalues are contradictory and at war with themselves. In their view and that ofJacoby and others, it is not possible to value equality and order at the same time, ifby order we mean hierarchical order. According to Douglas and Wildavsky,people with communitarian political values and attitudes will not be able toconstruct institutions that reflect their values.

brendon swedlow

174

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

Alternatively, perhaps the political and institutional consequences of holdingcommunitarian views are found not within specific institutions but between them. Itcould be that communitarians are theglue ofmuch ideological bipartisanship, helpingto support liberal and conservative coalitions and the construction of institutionsthat combine their attitudes and values. For Wildavsky, the institutionalization of anegalitarian and hierarchical alliance resembling communitarianism is found in apolitical regime exemplified by European social democracies.74

Or perhaps communitarians help fuel the war between liberals and conservativesand between egalitarians and hierarchs, by supporting the political parties andinstitution-building of these ideological foes. Our analysis indicates thatcommunitarians more than the other ideological types vote for both parties equally.Challenges operationalizing our dimensions with measures of political attitudes

and values indicate that another explanation may also be possible. The survey onwhich we relied did not ask respondents whether they valued equality over order.Rather, respondents were asked whether they considered ‘caring for thosewho need help’ more important than ‘maintaining order and stability in society’.While order is frequently seen as a core value of conservatives and is a value thatdifferent kinds of hierarchs share, valuing order is not necessarily the same thingas valuing an hierarchical order. From one perspective, order is a rather innocuous,generic term. All of Douglas and Wildavsky’s political cultural types are, after all,social orders of one kind or another. Order, consequently, is a value that coulddraw support from all political cultural types and so confound supporters ofequality with supporters of inequality, among others. However, as we have seen,support for hierarchical values was also measured with questions about respectingtradition, parents, and proper authorities, values that are more strongly associatedwith the social conservative subtype of social hierarch. Moreover, order and caringwere not equally valued by communitarians; order was less valued than caring,suggesting that communitarians share greater value affinities with liberals oregalitarians than with conservatives or social hierarchs.Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, valuing ‘caring for those who need

help’ is not the same thing as valuing equality. While those who value equalityprobably chose caring over the available alternatives, they are not the only politicalcultural type that might highly value ‘caring for those who need help’. As discussedabove, what Wildavsky calls ‘inclusive social hierarchs’ seem to be likecommunitarians: both types value hierarchical order but also value caring. Thismight be called humanitarianism, paternalism, or President Bush’s ‘compassionateconservatism’. Consequently, it is not clear that we have validated Janda’sconceptualization of communitarians as people who highly value both hierarchical(unequal) order and equality. Perhaps we have only identified and providedevidence of an hierarchical subtype, the ‘inclusive social hierarch’. This may be theconclusion best supported by our evidence, which validates Douglas andWildavsky’s claim that there are ‘inclusive’ social hierarchs (who we have beencalling communitarians) and ‘exclusive’ social hierarchs (conservatives).However, this interpretation of our findings becomes more difficult to sustain

when we examine the political attitudes rather than values of respondents we have

beyond liberal and conservative

175

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

labeled communitarian. Here we find strong support both for reducing inequalitiesbetween minorities and whites and for hierarchical organizations, mostprominently the US military. Janda and colleagues’ conceptualization ofcommunitarians as those who value both order and equality better seems tocapture this configuration of values than Wildavsky’s hierarchical subtype, the‘inclusive social hierarch’. These attitudinal measures come closest to identifyingpeople who support both equality and inequality simultaneously. However,question wording again prevents a complete validation of Janda and colleagues’claims regarding the value and attitudinal structure of communitarians. The racequestion asks about reducing, not about eliminating inequalities. It could besupported by inclusive social hierarchs who would endorse some flattening ofracial hierarchies but probably would not be comfortable with complete racialequality.75 Also, the US military, once racially segregated, is now widely seen aspromoting equal treatment of races and as providing upward mobility for racialminorities, so those who value equality might have positive feelings toward it.Moreover, racial equality is a special case historically in the United States.Supporting reduction of inequalities between minorities and whites is not the samething as supporting reduction, much less elimination, of all racial inequalities, norof other inequalities, between genders, sexual orientations, or in the chain ofcommand. Would communitarians support widespread reductions or eliminationsof power differences along so many dimensions in a variety of institutions? WhatWildavsky calls ‘radical egalitarians’ would; his ‘inclusive social hierarchs’ areless likely to do so.76

Conclusion

Differences in conceptualization and measurement of dimensions and typesclearly exist in the literatures on multi-dimensionality in political attitudes andideologies and in the literatures on how values are structured, as this comparison ofa handful of approaches serves to illustrate. These differences are important andneed to be explored and reconciled if possible. The measures of political attitudesand values on which we have relied demonstrate strong two-dimensional structure,show the inadequacy of conventional left-right, liberal-conservative conceptionsof ideology, and largely validate significant areas of convergence in conceptionsof ideological multi-dimensionality. While these measures are not sufficient tovalidate Janda and colleague’s conception of how political attitudes and values arestructured nor to invalidate Douglas, Wildavsky, and other’s in the area where theydiverge most markedly, the foregoing discussion suggests that it should bepossible to construct measures that will allow a more refined comparison ofcompeting claims.Janda and colleagues’ claim that communitarians simultaneously value equality

and order may be further validated with survey instruments that have multipleattitudinal and value measures of both equality and order. To validate Douglas andWildavsky’s claims, measures need to be developed to identify different kinds ofhierarchs beyond inclusive versus exclusive hierarchs. In particular, statist,

brendon swedlow

176

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

bureaucratic, or technocratic and scientific hierarchs need to be distinguished fromsocial and religious hierarchs. Measures are also needed to distinguish economiclibertarians from civil libertarians, and to distinguish among different kinds ofegalitarians. How inclusive is the community to which they want to apply theirvalue of equality? Do they want to equalize classes, races, genders, sexualorientations, and non-human species, or some smaller subset of this list? Alsoneeded are measures of fatalism, better measures of beliefs about human natureand the environment, and measures of the social dimensions of cultural theory.This article points to the need to resolve the tensions between unidimensional

conceptions andmultidimensional evidence of ideological organization in politicalattitudes and values by developing multidimensional conceptions that accord withthat multidimensional evidence. Such conceptual advances and related changes inmeasurement are likely to increase the explanatory and predictive power ofideology and values in analysis of political attitudes and behavior.

Notes and References

1. Stanley Feldman, ‘Values, Ideology, and the Structure of Political Attitudes’, in David O. Sears, LeonieHuddy and Robert Jervis (Eds) Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2003),p. 477.

2. I would like to thank Fred Smith at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Alex Castellanos andWill Feltusat National Media, Inc. for soliciting my input on development of the survey used in this article and forpermission to analyze its results. I would also like to thank Brenda Wigger at Voter/Consumer Research forproviding information regarding survey administration and the Earhart Foundation for supporting analysis ofthe survey data. Thanks as well to Mikel Wyckoff, my co-author on a companion piece (cited in Ref. 18),whose collaboration on that work and critical comments on this one have made this article possible. Ouranalysis benefited from initial studies of this data undertaken by Alex Castellanos, Don Devine and WillFeltus, and we would like to express our appreciation for that. Thanks too to Larry Arnhart and Art Ward fortheir valuable feedback. Precursors of the empirical work summarized in this article were helpfully reviewedby Barbara Burrell, Ben Highton, Bill Jacoby, Ken Janda, Randy Piper, Laura Stoker and Matt Streb. JamesBagaka provided valuable research and editorial assistance and Paula Propst and Ken Erickson essentialtechnological services. Michael Freeden’s guidance, the comments of his anonymous assessors, and theeditorial assistance of Chandra Hunter Swedlow were also very important to the final shaping of this article.Any remaining errors are of course my responsibility.

3. See, e.g. Arthur H. Miller, Warren E. Miller, Alden S. Raine and Thad A. Brown, ‘A Majority Partyin Disarray: Policy Polarization in the 1972 Election’, American Political Science Review, 70 (1976),pp. 753–778.

4. Kathleen Knight, ‘Liberalism and Conservatism’, in J.P. Robinson, P.R. Shaver and L.S. Wrightsman (Eds)Measures of Political Attitudes (New York: Academic Press, 1999), p. 681.

5. Gary Miller and Norman Schofield, ‘Activists and Partisan Realignment in the United States’, AmericanPolitical Science Review, 97 (2003), pp. 245–260; Norman Schofield, Gary Miller and Andrew Martin,‘Critical Elections and Political Realignments in the U.S.: 1860–2000’, Political Studies, 51 (2003),pp. 217–240; and Norman Schofield and Gary Miller, ‘Elections and Activist Coalitions in the UnitedStates’, American Journal of Political Science, 51 (2007), pp. 518–531. For related analysis also extendingback to 1860 using Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky’s political cultural types (discussed in text below),see Sun-Ki Chai and Aaron Wildavsky, ‘Cultural Change, Party Ideology, and Electoral Outcomes’, inAaron Wildavsky, Culture and Social Theory, Sun-Ki Chai and Brendon Swedlow (Eds) (New Brunswick,NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998).

6. Geoffrey C. Layman and Thomas M. Carsey, ‘Party Polarization and “Conflict Extension” in the AmericanElectorate’, American Journal of Political Science, 46 (2002), pp. 786–802.

7. William S. Maddox and Stuart A. Lilie, Beyond Liberal and Conservative: Reassessing the PoliticalSpectrum (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 1984).

8. Dennis Chong, Herbert McClosky and John Zaller, ‘Patterns of Support for Democratic and CapitalistValues in the United States’, British Journal of Political Science, 13 (1983), pp. 401–440; Herbert

beyond liberal and conservative

177

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

McClosky and John Zaller, The American Ethos: Public Attitudes toward Capitalism and Democracy(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).

9. Milton Rokeach, The Nature of Human Values (New York: Free Press, 1973).10. Kenneth Janda, Jeffrey M. Berry and Jerry Goldman, The Challenge of Democracy (7th edition) (Boston,

MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002).11. Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis and Aaron Wildavsky, Cultural Theory (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,

1990); Richard J. Ellis and Fred Thompson, ‘Culture and the Environment in the Pacific Northwest’,American Political Science Review, 91 (1997), pp. 885–897; Wildavsky, Culture and Social Theory, op. cit.,Ref. 5; and Aaron Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis: Politics, Public Law, and Administration, in BrendonSwedlow (Ed.) (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2006).

12. See, e.g. William G. Jacoby, ‘Core Values and Political Attitudes’, in Barbara G. Norrander and ClydeWilcox (Eds)Understanding Public Opinion (2nd edition) (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press,2002); William G. Jacoby, ‘Value Choices and American Public Opinion’, American Journal of PoliticalScience, 50 (2006), pp. 706–723; William G. Jacoby, ‘Testing for Hierarchical Structure and PrimingEffects among Individual Value Choices’ (2006), unpublished paper, available at http://polisci.msu.edu/jacoby/; and William G. Jacoby and Paul M. Sniderman, ‘The Structure of Value Choices in the AmericanPublic’, presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, 2006.

13. For reviews and citations, see Stanley Feldman, ‘Structure and Consistency in Public Opinion: The Role ofCore Beliefs and Values’, American Journal of Political Science, 32 (1988), pp. 416–440; Feldman, op. cit.,Ref. 1, pp. 477–508; and Jacoby, ‘Value Choices and American Public Opinion’, ibid.

14. Maddox and Lilie, op. cit., Ref. 7.15. Janda, Berry and Goldman, op. cit., Ref. 10.16. Thompson, Ellis and Wildavsky, op. cit., Ref. 11; Wildavsky, Culture and Social Theory, op. cit., Ref. 11;

and Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis, op. cit., Ref. 11.17. See, e.g. Jacoby, ‘Value Choices and American Public Opinion’, op. cit., Ref. 12; and Jacoby and Sniderman,

op. cit., Ref. 12.18. This evidence is developed in Brendon Swedlow and Mikel Wyckoff, ‘Value Preferences and Ideological

Structuring of Attitudes in American Public Opinion’, (forthcoming).19. Rokeach, op. cit., Ref. 9.20. This is also the approach taken by Stanley Feldman, whose observations on ideological conceptualization

head this piece.21. Shalom Schwartz, ‘Universals in the Content and Structure of Values’, in M.P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in

Experimental Social Psychology (New York: Academic Press, 1992), p. 4; as quoted in Feldman, op. cit.,Ref. 1, p. 480.

22. Schwartz, ibid., p. 1; as quoted in Feldman, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 479.23. Jacoby, ‘Value Choices and American Public Opinion’, op. cit., Ref. 12, p. 706.24. Feldman, op. cit., Ref. 1. The importance of value structure in organizing public opinion is also emphasized

and demonstrated by Jacoby, ibid.; and Jacoby and Sniderman, op. cit., Ref. 12.25. Feldman, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 479.26. Maddox and Lilie, op. cit., Ref. 7, pp. 33–34.27. Maddox and Lilie, ibid., p. 5.28. Maddox and Lilie, ibid., pp. 5–6.29. Maddox and Lilie, ibid., p. 18.30. Maddox and Lilie, ibid., p. 4.31. In the 1960s, a question regarding school prayer is used in addition to the questions on civil rights; in 1980

the school prayer question is substituted for the question regarding the legalization of marijuana, which wasno longer asked in that year. Maddox and Lilie, ibid., pp. 60–61.

32. David Boaz and David Kirby, ‘The Libertarian Vote’, Cato Institute Policy Analysis, 580 (2006), http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa580.pdf

33. Boaz and Kirby, ibid., pp. 8–11. As the Pew Center does in its own analysis, Boaz and Kirby used the Pewsurvey’s attitudinal measures as well as value measures to attempt to tap the economic and personal freedomdimensions of Maddox and Lilie’s conception of ideology, dimensions they call economic conservatism andsocial liberalism. For the ANES data and Gallup Poll data, Boaz and Kirby rely on value measures alone forthis purpose.

34. Boaz and Kirby, ibid., pp. 10–11.35. Boaz and Kirby, ibid., p. 10.36. Janda, Berry and Goldman, op. cit., Ref. 10; and Rokeach, op. cit., Ref. 9. After using Maddox and Lilie’s

term ‘populists’ in the first four editions of their book, Janda and colleagues have re-labeled populists ascommunitarians because they believe ‘communitarian is more descriptive of the category’ and because

brendon swedlow

178

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

populism has been used recently to describe the political style of candidates that exploit mass resentment ofthose in power, adding further confusion to its contested historical meaning. Janda, Berry and Goldman,ibid., p. A35, Ref. 28.

37. Janda, Berry and Goldman, ibid., pp. 27–28.38. Janda, Berry and Goldman, ibid., pp. 25–26. The studies are found in Alexander Koryushkin and Gerd

Meyer (Eds) Communitarianism, Liberalism, and the Quest for Democracy in Post-Communist Societies(St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg University Press, 1999). It should be noted that with this definition ofsocialism, Janda and colleagues part company with Rokeach, for whom a socialist is someone who highlyvalues both liberty and equality, a value combination not possible in Janda and colleagues’ reworking ofRokeach. These scholars, in turn, are at odds with Douglas, Wildavsky and other scholars’ claims that liberty,equality, and order have to be traded off against each other. It should also be noted that Rokeach’s schemedoes not allow for the communitarian combination of values. Meanwhile, stoking the fires of conceptualconfusion, Dennis Chong, Herbert McClosky and John Zaller claim that positive attitudes toward capitalismand democracy, and more generally toward liberty and equality, define an ideological type they calla ‘classical 19th century liberal’, a ‘socialist’ in Rokeach’s scheme! Chong, McClosky and Zaller, op. cit.,Ref. 8; McClosky and Zaller, op. cit., Ref. 8.

39. Janda, Berry and Goldman, ibid., p. 25.40. Janda, Berry and Goldman, ibid., pp. 140–142.41. Janda and Goldman’s IDEAlog test, question sources, results, and a tutorial in Janda and colleagues’ two-

dimensional conceptualization of ideology can be found at http://www.ideolog.org42. Samuel Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press,

Harvard University Press, 1981).43. Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis, op. cit., Ref. 11, p. 13.44. See, for example, Mary Douglas, ‘Cultural Bias’, In the Active Voice (London: Routledge, 1982) and Mary

Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological andEnvironmental Dangers (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982).

45. Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis, op. cit., Ref. 11, p. 17.46. See Wildavsky, ibid., for a bibliography of applications, reviews, and critiques of cultural theory.47. See Dennis J. Coyle, ‘“This Land is my Land, this Land is your Land”: Cultural Conflict in Environmental

and Land-Use Regulation’, in Dennis J. Coyle and Richard J. Ellis (Eds) Politics, Policy, and Culture(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), p. 35, Table 2.1; and Michiel Schwarz and Michael Thompson,Divided We Stand: Redefining Politics, Technology and Social Choice (Philadelphia, PA: University ofPennsylvania Press, 1990), pp. 66–67, Table 5.1, for quick overviews of these elements of cultural theoryand Schwarz and Thompson, ibid., and Thompson, Ellis and Wildavsky, op. cit., Ref. 11, for exposition ofthe theory.

48. This description of Douglas and Wildavsky’s cultural theory tracks that found in Thompson, Ellis andWildavsky, ibid., fairly closely. However, the dimensions have been relabeled to make their theory‘translate’ better into terms that political scientists already understand. Thus, the extent of collective action insocial relations corresponds to the extent of ‘group’ in their formulation, while the extent of individualautonomy corresponds (inversely) to the extent of ‘grid’. The extent of collective action means the extent towhich a relational pattern is defined by an external group boundary. The extent of individual autonomymeans the extent to which individuals are free from coercion and free to act as they please in their socialrelationships; individual autonomy implies some personal power or efficacy.

49. This and the previous paragraph adapted from Brendon Swedlow, ‘Postscript: Aaron Wildavsky, CulturalTheory, and budgeting’, in Aaron Wildavsky, Budgeting and Governing, Brendon Swedlow (Ed.) (NewBrunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001, 2006), pp. 335–357.

50. See bibliography in Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis, ibid.; see also Wildavsky and Sun-Ki Chai, op. cit., Ref. 5.51. These measures are taken from Ellis and Thompson, op. cit., Ref. 11, Table B-3, p. 895. These measures were

initially used to operationalize cultural theory for the study of risk perception, and have been used in manyother surveys for this purpose (see bibliography in Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis, ibid., for citations). Forattempts to operationalize cultural theory for survey research using NORC General Social Survey (GSS)data, see Richard P. Boyle and Richard M. Coughlin, ‘Conceptualizing and operationalizing cultural theory’,in Coyle and Ellis, op. cit., Ref. 47; and Charles Lockhart and Richard M. Coughlin, ‘Grid-group theory andpolitical ideology: a consideration of their relative strengths and weaknesses for explaining the structure ofmass belief systems’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 10 (1998), pp. 33–58.

52. See Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis, op. cit., Ref. 11; Aaron Wildavsky, The Rise of Radical Egalitarianism(Washington, DC: The American University Press, 1991), pp. 133–150; and Richard J. Ellis, The Dark Sideof the Left: Illiberal Egalitarianism in America (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1998).

53. Janda, Berry and Goldman, op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 22.

beyond liberal and conservative

179

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14

54. ‘Conservatives want smaller government budgets and fewer government programs. They support freeenterprise and argue against government job programs, regulation of business, and legislation of workingconditions and wage rates’. Janda, Berry and Goldman, ibid., p. 24.

55. See Dennis J. Coyle’s foreword to Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis, op. cit., Ref. 11; and Dennis J. Coyle, ‘TheTheory that Would be King’, in Coyle and Ellis, op. cit., Ref. 47 for a discussion of this problem.

56. Maddox and Lilie, op. cit., Ref. 7, pp. 18–20.57. The egalitarian element makes populism a political cultural coalition similar to that supporting European

social democracies, where egalitarians enlist the coercive power of the hierarchical, bureaucratic state inredistribution to help the less fortunate. See Gary Lee Malecha, ‘A Cultural Analysis of Populism in Late-Nineteenth Century America’, in Coyle and Ellis (Eds) op. cit., Ref. 47, pp. 93–116; Ellis, op. cit., Ref. 52;Wildavsky, op. cit., Ref. 51; andWildavsky,Cultural Analysis, op. cit., Ref. 11. But the socially conservativeelements pursuing this leveling for their own benefit make populists more resemble nationalistic, racist, andxenophobic European right wing parties than European social democracies.

58. As Wildavsky puts it, ‘Inclusive hierarchies (my father’s house has many mansions and there is room forall—rich and poor, gay and straight, black and white) differ from exclusive hierarchies (there is no room atthe inn for anyone who does not conform)’. Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis, op. cit., Ref. 11, p. 236.

59. Fatalism could be a useful concept for public opinion researchers because the dynamics of fatalistic politicalculture might help account for the values and political attitudes of apathetic, disaffected, disengaged,distrustful, non-voting or otherwise non-participating members of the public. Chong, McClosky and Zaller’s‘anti-regime’ types seem to have fatalistic political attitudes. Chong, McClosky and Zaller, op. cit., Ref. 8;and McClosky and Zaller, op. cit., Ref. 8.

60. Janda, Berry and Goldman, op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 13. Emphases in original.61. Janda, Berry and Goldman, ibid., Ref. 10, p. 16. Emphases in original.62. Janda, Berry and Goldman, ibid., Ref. 10, p. 14.63. Coyle, op. cit., Ref. 47, p. 33.64. Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis, op. cit., Ref. 11, p. 12.65. See, e.g. the analysis in Brendon Swedlow, ‘Cultural Influences on Policies Concerning Mental Illness’, in

Coyle and Ellis, op. cit., Ref. 47, pp. 71–89.66. Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis, op. cit., Ref. 11, p. 12.67. Swedlow and Wyckoff, op. cit., Ref. 18.68. See Fred L. Smith, Jr and Alex Castellanos (Eds) Field Guide for Effective Communication (Washington, DC

and Alexandria, VA: Competitive Enterprise Institute and National Media, Inc., 2004), for a copy of the fullquestionnaire and preliminary analysis of results.

69. See Swedlow and Wyckoff, op. cit., Ref. 18, for justification and explanation of how these measures wereconstructed.

70. See Swedlow and Wyckoff, ibid., for evidence and analysis of these relationships.71. See Swedlow and Wyckoff, ibid., or Smith and Castellanos, op. cit., Ref. 61, for copies of these questions as

they appeared on the questionnaire.72. See, e.g. Jacoby, ‘Value Choices and American Public Opinion’, op. cit., Ref. 12; and Jacoby and Sniderman,

op. cit., Ref. 12.73. Jacoby, ibid.; as further discussed in Swedlow and Wyckoff, op. cit., Ref. 18.74. Wildavsky, Culture and Social Theory, op. cit., Ref. 11; and Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis, op. cit., Ref. 11;

and, Wildavsky, Budgeting and Governing, op. cit., Ref. 49.75. See Paul M. Sniderman and Thomas Piazza, The Scar of Race (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

1993) for the subtleties of white attitudes toward blacks.76. Ellis, op. cit., Ref. 52; Wildavsky, op. cit., Ref. 51; and Wildavsky, Cultural Analysis, op. cit., Ref. 11.

brendon swedlow

180

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Swan

sea

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

0:56

04

Nov

embe

r 20

14