A three-dimensional conceptualisation of ideological attitudes

Abstract
The use of spatial analogies such as left wing and right wing in describing ideological attitudes are ubiquitous in contemporary political society. However, the use of such terms is so widespread that their precise meaning is difficult to define. To provide a more accurate measure of ideological attitudes, political scientists have postulated that more than one dimension of political attitudes may exist, and that these dimensions can be arranged so as to form a multidimensional space. Whilst the two dimensions of economic and social policy are fairly well established, little attention has been paid to the prospect of a third dimension of foreign policy. Through a combination of qualitative research, assessing the emergence of a foreign policy dimension in a historical sense, and a quantitative investigation of ideological attitudes among a sample of students, I am able to demonstrate the existence of a foreign policy dimension that is salient and independent of other dimensions of ideology. By utilising new geometric technology I can conceptualise these three dimensions as part of an interactive cube of structured ideological attitudes. Ethical note: as part of this study, University of Exeter students were invited to participate in a survey assessing their ideological beliefs. Participants were made aware that their responses would be used in a dissertation study, but no personal or contact details were collected, and all survey data was captured with total anonymity. With the conclusion of this study, the data will now be destroyed.
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Introduction
The ideological labels left wing and right wing are some of the most overused, misused, and even abused terms in the modern political lexicon. Used at some time or another to describe seemingly every policy and politician, left and right have emerged almost redundant of qualifiable, let alone quantifiable meaning. Yet despite the largely indiscriminate way in which they are now deployed, the labels originally emerged with quite specific meanings. It was the French Revolution of 1789, catalyst of a great many other political and societal innovations, which introduced the language of left and right. In the chamber of the first National Assembly, Andrew Knapp notes, those noble members ... who wished to limit the powers of the monarch moved to sit with the commoners on the left of the Assembly; those who still supported the absolutism of what was shortly to become known as the ancien regime sat on the right (2006: 1). The left and right wings thus originated from the physical act of sitting oneself down in a particular area to signify ones political allegiance. This physical analogy probably explains the lasting ubiquity of left and right as political descriptors: although these terms were originally used in an historically and culturally specific context, the loading of left and right with primitive ideological content has persisted to this day. The notion of a line running between left and right that is, the idea that the two labels sit at either end of some sort of continuum is quite literally central to the concept. Thus, although where one sat in the first National Assembly was a strictly bipolar affair either one was for or against monarchical absolutism as Knapp notes, the seating of the modern
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multiparty National Assembly reflects a more general ideological continuum from the extreme left to the extreme right. With this sense of relative distance in the chamber emerges what Michael Laver describes as some form of space in which both distances and movement can be described (1997: 102). Anthony Downs, in his 1957 work An Economic Theory of Democracy, was the first theorist to appropriate this spatial analogy for the purposes of political science. Since Downs ingenious formalization (Stokes 1963: 368), the use of spatial modelling of ideology has offered the opportunity for the first time of picturing party relationships directly and simply (Budge et al. 1976: 129). Not only political parties, as in the National Assembly, but also political leaders and voters may be mapped onto points in this space (Mauser and Freyssinet-Dominjon 1976: 203) to form a dynamic ideological environment within which political preference can be meaningfully represented. However, the form that this space should take has been a matter of some contention. Most fundamental to this discussion is the number of dimensions of policy which might be expected to constitute the ideological space. As has been seen, the spatial analogy was borne out of the left and right wings of the French National Assembly, which was originally divided over the binary issue of monarchical absolutism. Thus when Downs formulated his spatial model, he borrowed the language as well as the structure of the National Assembly to create the left-right continuum, a one-dimensional structure upon which, it was hypothesised, ideological battles could be fought. As will be seen, this unidimensional structure remains a popular way to envisage political conflict, especially in view of its compelling simplicity. But modern democratic politics encompasses a vast range of substantive issues, policies and events, on which each voter might potentially hold an opinion; therefore, a single continuum will be shown to be an inadequate ideological battlefield. Instead, some theorists sought to

revise and improve the spatial analogy through the development of a multidimensional structure, whereby political stances are represented on more than one dimension of policy. Unfortunately, whilst a model containing many dimensions might be a more refined and accurate representation of ideology, as the number of dimensions grows so too does the complexity of the structure. With four or more dimensions, the model would not even be geometric in the sense in which we in our three-dimensional universe are accustomed, which would result in a model which no longer allows us to visualize a persons ideology directly and simply. Clearly we therefore require an ordering process through which to arrange certain issues and policies together, in order to create a rational and reasonable number of issue dimensions. In reality, many issue stances can be said to be closely linked, so people might be able to conceive of bundles of policies that can each be described in terms of some more general ideological dimension (Laver 1997: 104). Only by integrating certain policy positions, then, can we hope to make visual sense of a partys, politicians or voters ideology. As such, as Weisberg and Rusk have noted, the problem of the number of dimensions should be seen as an empirical question (1979: 1168), and it is to this empirical question that this paper ultimately seeks to provide an answer. If one dimension of ideological conflict is too simplistic and reductive, and if four or more dimensions are too geometrically complex to be represented spatially, it should follows that a two- or three-dimensional model would be the best structure upon which to visually represent ideology. Yet even portraying a three-dimensional structure has proved technically difficult. For example, in a relatively recent work Michael Laver confined his discussion of multidimensional competition to just two dimensions because he had access only to twodimensional pages on which to draw pictures of what is going on (1997: 132). However, recent technological developments have made it possible to construct an interactive, threedimensional model which can effectively visualise political ideology in cube-shaped form.
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This technology is utilised for the purposes of this study. Moreover, technological developments have coincided with what I contend is the emergence of a new, significant and independent third dimension of political belief, the foreign policy divide. By combining recent technology with new political developments, I will be able to show that a threedimensional conceptualisation of ideology is not only desirable but necessary to properly represent political belief systems in modern society.

Research question, hypotheses and outline of approach

In this paper, the research question addressed is: Should a foreign policy dimension be included in conceptualisations of ideological identity? There are two conditions that generally need to be met in order to demonstrate the emergence of an enduring policy dimension, namely salience to a sizeable section of the public and independence from other existing dimensions. Two main hypothesis can therefore be drawn from these conditions: 1. There exists is an independent and salient dimension of foreign policy which should be considered as a component of ideological identity. 2. The foreign policy dimension, if there is one, lacks either a. salience; or b. independence and should therefore not be used as a distinct component of ideological identity. In proceeding with the study, I follow Eric Stokes perception that: the usefulness of models depends absolutely on the interchange between theorybuilding and empirical observation (1963: 377) As such, I devote the first half of my study to a theoretical investigation into how dimensions of policy emerge. I begin with a review of the voluminous literature addressing the two most common dimensions of policy, before contending that in recent years a new foreign policy dimension has become salient to the public. I follow this qualitative section by describing the methodology and results of a quantitative survey I recently carried out, which conceptualised

foreign policy as one dimension in a three-dimensional ideological space, and tested the independence of this dimension from the other two. I then sum up my qualitative and quantitative findings and relate these back to the research question and hypotheses. Ultimately, I find that the first hypothesis above is proved to be correct. The combination of my qualitative and quantitative research demonstrates the existence of a salient and independent dimension of foreign policy. This finding therefore strongly recommends the inclusion of a foreign policy dimension in future, which if combined with the more traditional economic and social axes, would justify a three-dimensional conceptualisation of ideological attitudes.

The Left-Right Dimension and Economic Policy

As has been seen, the historical emergence of the left-right continuum from the French National Assembly has been paralleled by theoretical work seeking to explain and utilise the concept for the purposes of political science. Anthony Downss groundbreaking 1957 theory drew upon the work of mathematician Harold Hotelling, whose 1929 article Stability in Competition investigated why commercial businesses crowd together as closely as possible (1929: 53) at the centre of a hypothetical Main Street to attract customers. Downss innovation was to borrow this commercial formulation for political purposes, whereby political parties adopt positions on an ideological continuum in order to attract support (usually in the form of votes in an election) from as many citizens as possible. Since Downs work, the left-right dimension has shown remarkable vitality (Inglehart and Sidjanski 1976: 255), as a tool for assessing or predicting the ideological identity of both mass publics and political elites, across a wide range of democratic societies. Downss model was a linear scale running from 0 to 100 in the usual left-to-right fashion (1957: 115), and, crucially, contingent upon every voters political preferences being consistent with the parties ordering along the left-right dimension (Mauser and FreyssinetDominjon 1976: 204). To say the least, the idea that every point of policy could be arranged in a linear fashion in terms of left and right, in a manner agreed upon by all voters (Downs 1957: 115), was an audacious assumption even on a hypothetical level. Therefore, to render his innovative model more realistic, Downs restricted the substantive content of his left-right continuum to just one sphere of policy. As Stokes notes, at least for illustration, Downs interprets this dimension as the degree of government intervention in the economy (1963: 368; italics mine). Unfortunately, Downs decision here to use just one dimension of policy,

even if it was originally only for illustrative purposes, inadvertently lent a degree of confusion to later work on the spatial model. Following Downs, political scientists utilising a unidimensional model have defined their version of the left-right continuum in various ways. For many, the terms left and right and the continuum they occupy have drastically broadened to include a wide range of political issues, many of which are unrelated to the original economic question posed by Downs. The classic view of the left-right continuum is as a super-issue which summarizes the programmes of opposing groups (Inglehart and Klingemann 1976: 244). Nonetheless, a strong association between left and right and economic issues still persists. Laver, for example, describes the left-right dimension of economic policy (1997: 104); Inglehart and Sidjanski see that a left-right dimension does exist, and an individuals stand on socioeconomic issues is linked with this definition (1976: 236). Clearly, this longstanding confusion over the precise definition and meaning of the left-right continuum is problematic. Indeed as Stenner notes, right wing has come to mean anything ... from intolerant of difference, to averse to change, to opposed to government intervention and redistribution (2005: 87). Furthermore, Inglehart and Klingemann note that over time, even simply taking Downss original example of government intervention, emphasis on centralized controls ... certainly was associated with the left; today the left often takes the lead in resisting excessive centralization (1976: 257; italics mine). Therefore, even the broadest, most abstract attempts to describe left and right in a modern sense are the subjects of doubt: the traditional interpretation [that] those who prefer the left are changeoriented (Inglehart and Sidjanski 1976: 228) is damaged by the reality that today, the left has become ... the champion of the status quo (Huber and Inglehart 1995: 84). Overall, left and right have proved themselves to be amorphous terms, constantly reshaped and reordered, it seems, by the incessant winds of political change.
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The confusion over the meaning of left and right is often exacerbated by the methodology employed by political scientists to investigate it. A number of studies (Inglehart and Sidjanski 1976, Inglehart and Klingemann 1976) utilise methods whereby respondents are asked to place themselves on a seven- or ten- point, left to right scale; these responses are then examined for correlation with answers to specific issue questions, so that certain issues can be deemed more or less related to the left-right continuum. But as Budge et al note, this method raises suspicions that by ... leaving the interpretation of these terms to electors themselves, each elector may be locating himself in a different substantive space (1976: 135). Furthermore, more recent studies have suggested that the presumed link between ideological self-identification and issue placement is a far from perfect assumption. Levitin and Miller, assessing a set of correlation data, find that ideological location is more than [just] a summary statement of policy preferences (1979: 756). This contradicts Downss original conception that a net position on the scale is a weighted average of all the particular policies held (1957: 132). Moreover, Conover and Feldman, assessing the meaning of liberal and conservative amongst the American public (American use of liberal and conservative is essentially analogous to the European use of left and right) find that the two ideological labels are not in fact bipolar and do not necessarily sit at two ends of the same scale. Having proved that these two labels are relatively independent of one another, they can argue that, for example, a conservative viewpoint was [more] heavily influenced by a strong focus on economic matters (1981: 640) than a liberal perspective. As such, if a conservative outlook is developed with more reference to economic affairs than is a liberal outlook, it is logically nonsensical to suggest that these two terms can be placed at either end of an economic policy continuum.

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Given this pair of findings it might be suggested that left and right have ceased to be very useful terms for accurately describing ones ideological outlook. Despite this objection, however, the fact remains that members of the public do indeed still employ them as a heuristic device: such terms are a powerful political symbol to many members of the public (Conover and Feldman 1981: 621). As such, more recent studies have persisted with a search for a truer understanding of their meaning. Huber and Inglehart took a fresh approach to this question. Acknowledging that the ideological and programmatic meaning of this [left-right] dimension varies over time and across cultures (1996: 75), the authors surveyed political experts in 42 countries, asking each to describe the particular meaning of left and right in the context of each society. The authors found further evidence that left and right were unquestionably still in use across broad swathes of the countries surveyed: eighty percent of the respondents declined to relabel the left and right poles of the primary dimension of political conflict (1995: 81). Having used an open-ended question to ask about the perceived issues associated with the continuum, they collapsed the large range of different responses they received into ten broad categories of policy, each of which had been drawn upon to some degree to describe the meaning of left and right. First and foremost on this list was economic or class conflict which accounted for a total of 54% of the total responses; in the case of Britain, this figure was 57%. In other words, British political experts in 1995 attributed a little over half the substantive content of the left-right continuum to economic and class-based issues. Clearly, then, economic issues must be seen as fundamental to any understanding of the leftright continuum in Britain. But at the same time, this finding casts serious doubt over prior assumptions that left and right can be thought of as two sides of a strictly economic debate: after all, what substantive issues constitutes the 43% of content not covered by economic policy? Whilst Huber and Inglehart tried to account for a multitude of different
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policy cleavages on one continuum, the more conventional approach has been to try to detect the presence of other policy dimensions independent of, or orthogonal to, the left-right dimension. As will be seen, this approach frequently yields the finding that other independent dimensions do indeed exist, although this is always somewhat dependent on place and time. Therefore in the next chapter, I examine the most prominent examples of an emergent second dimension. What, in sum, can be said about the left-right dimension in modern political consciousness, and how will I incorporate it into my investigations? The dimension indisputably continues to exert a strong influence on the public and political elite alike. However, the combined effect of work from Levitin and Miller, Conover and Feldman, and Huber and Inglehart is to demonstrate the limitations of the left-right continuum as an ideological device. Therefore, for my study I decided to largely dispense with the terms left and right altogether. I returned to Downss original conception of a continuum based on government intervention in the economy, and used the terms communistic and capitalistic where left and right would usually be used, in order to avoid confusion. I did, however, refer once in my survey to the traditional left-right dimension, to reflect Huber and Ingleharts aforementioned finding that economic policy accounts for more than half of the perceived content of the left-right continuum (see Appendix). As even Downs himself seemed to recognise, though, a purely economic continuum is unlikely to account for a comprehensive ideological stance, so I turn next to an analysis of another dimension of ideological competition.

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The Second Dimension: Social Policy

While it was in many ways revolutionary, even Anthony Downs himself accepted that his spatial model of ideology was unrealistic (1957: 115) due to the assumption that all issues could be represented on a single dimension of ideology. This point was emphasised by Donald Stokes, who argued forcefully that the assumption of unidimensionality ... might as well be dispensed with (1963: 370). Yet while it is easy to understand how Downss leftright super-dimension might not be fully capable of representing every ideological conflict, and therefore that adequate representations require further dimensions (Budge et al 1976: 135), it is altogether much harder to describe precisely what constitutes these additional hypothetical dimensions. Weisberg and Rusk rightly note that the number of dimensions should be seen as an empirical question (1979: 116), and as can be seen from the literature, the search for new dimensions of ideology has been conducted on both qualitative and quantitative grounds. Broadly speaking, the discovery of new dimensions has turned on proving that they are both uncorrelated to the original left-right dimension and salient or significant enough to be thought of as a separate ideological debate. Within these parameters, the field of issues which has most often emerged as an independent, prominent second dimension can be termed broadly as social politics. As might be expected in light of the difficulties defining the left-right dimension, however, a precise description of the social politics dimension is difficult, and varies across different times and places. Downs does though provide us with a small hint as to where this dimension might emerge from. He notes a contradiction apparent on his unidimensional model: parties designated as right wing extremists in the real world are for fascist control of the economy rather than free markets (1957: 115). In other words, a party placed extremely far right will often exhibit
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characteristically left wing economic behaviour: indeed, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, from whose movement we derive the term fascism, succeeded in bringing a large proportion of business under state control. The corollary to this observation, taken up by the twentieth century sociologist Seymour Lipset, is the phenomenon whereby people traditionally thought to be on the economic left wing demonstrate stereotypically right wing behaviour, in the sense that authoritarian predispositions and ethnic prejudice flow more naturally from the situation of the lower classes (1959: 482). Embedded in Lipsets argument is a historical observation, namely that the emergence of the cold war [has] shown that the struggle for freedom is not a simple variant of the economic class struggle (1959: 83), emphasising that the discovery of new dimensions is grounded in a particular time and place. Generally, then, as psychologist Hans Eysenck summarises, to put communists and fascists at opposite ends of a continuum is manifestly absurd (1957: 280). Through addressing the perceived extremes of the left-right dimension, Eysenck logically concludes that what is needed is not one dimension or continuum but two, placed at right angles to each other (1957: 282). For Eysenck, the second dimension to emerge is that of tough-mindedness v tender-mindedness, whereby those with authoritarian proclivities are deemed toughminded, and the democratic and moderate are tender-minded. Of course, Eysencks model is by no means the only example of a bi-dimensional spatial theory, and others have developed a second dimension in the light of different historical phenomena. For example, a raft of literature has pinpointed a new dimension of social policy in America which is said to have emerged after the transformative events of the 1960s and 70s. This era ushered in a variety of social issues ... which do not fit easily into the traditional [left-right] spectrum (1981: 618), transforming the ideological landscape and

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suggesting that a supplementary dimension might be required. Among these social issues, as Weisberg and Rusk note, were [urban] problems, civil rights, [and] Vietnam (1979: 1177) to name but a few. Similarly, from analysing Gallup survey data, Scammon and Wattenberg find that as the 1960s wore on Americans became more and more likely to consider crime, civil rights and similar issues as the most important problem facing the nation in each given year. Alongside racial and criminal issues, Scammon and Wattenberg also highlight a range of other social issues which combined to transform American political debate. As they rather poetically describe, during the late 1960s, hair got long, skirts got short, foul language became ordinary [and] drugs became common (1970: 42) amongst Americas rebellious young generation. It was this combination of factors, alongside all the social ramifications of the Vietnam War, which allowed Scammon and Wattenberg to claim to have discovered a new and major voting issue in America ... an issue so powerful that under certain circumstances it can compete in political potency with the older economic issues. (1970: 40) The authors thus refer explicitly to a second independent dimension of policy here, which as other authors have suggested, can be labelled under the rubric of social issues (1976: 131). Others have however taken issue with the suggestion that the economic and social scales are, in the American context, actually independent. James Stimson, for example, argues that in his survey data, there is no discernable social dimension at work, and that most of prior work which alleges two independent dimensions are not based on systematic data analyses, hence not subject to disconfirmation (2004: 69). However, various studies of ideology in Western European democracies from the 1970s onwards have yielded more comprehensive evidence that social and moral affairs [are]
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matters which ... can be uncorrelated with those for different economic policies (1997: 106) amongst Western publics. In these studies, one of the primary methods used to interpret ideological space is to analyse public views of political parties in what is called preference ordering. From patterns observed in this ordering process, broader interpretations can be derived about the publics ideological outlook. An early example of such a method being utilised is that of Philip Converse, whose 1966 analysis of the French electorate found that one party of the time, the Popular Republican Movement, ended up in the notional centre of a simple left-right continuum, but only because partisans of both the orthodox left and the orthodox right felt the MRP to be ideologically distant. How, then, did Converse account for this apparent paradox? He noted that the MRP was founded as a party leftist in economic orientation without being anticlerical, as other leftist parties tended to be (1966: 195; italics mine). Thus whilst the economic left/right and the religious clerical/anti-clerical stances of the other French parties were correlated, and could therefore be arranged harmoniously on a unidimensional model, the MRPs outlook rendered this model insufficient for the French party system overall. As such, Converse concluded that the addition of at least a second dimension ... would account for these peculiarities more effectively (1966: 195). Of course, Converses study only addressed a particular place and time, and the clericalanticlerical question is by no means the sort of coherent and comprehensive ideological divide which could be easily generalised for other situations. However, it suggests the possibility that questions unrelated to economic matters may play a role in how voters view parties, and by logical extension, how they perceive ideology. Indeed, other studies take this suggestion further, and develop a more substantive and cohesive dimension.

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A good example of such a study is that of Cess Middendorp, whose 1989 article on the Dutch electorate found, from a twenty-question survey model, that the Dutch electorate shows a consistent and stable two-dimensional ideological structure (1989: 284). The first of these dimensions was the frequently observed left-right scale, largely relating to the extent to which the government should play a role in the economy. The second dimension was labelled authoritarianism v libertarianism, and encompassed items such as tolerance towards criminals, attitudes towards abortion and euthanasia and freedom of political expression. Crucially, Middendorp emphasises both the independence and the salience of this second dimension. The two dimensions are only slightly correlated (1989: 284), indicating independence, and are sustained by or rooted in a more abstract philosophical basis (1989: 280), such as socialism and liberalism, suggesting their longstanding salience to the public at large. Interestingly, Middendorp suggests that for a variety of reasons, among them political culture, Western European electorates have an ideological frame of reference which is much more varied and broader than in the United States (1989: 281). This suggests that Stimsons earlier observation about the lack of a second dimension in the American context, if it is indeed accurate, does not in any case hold true for Western Europe. Instead, Middendorps findings amount to a compelling example of a highly independent and visible second dimension at play, in a stable and unambiguous two-dimensional space. The libertarian-authoritarian axis developed by Middendorp is buttressed by a continent-wide 2002 study by Hooghe et al, which utilises a similar New Politics dimension. This dimension is said to be concerned at one end with ecology, alternative politics and libertarianism, and at the other, support for traditional values, opposition to immigration and defense of the national community (2002: 976). Furthermore, rather like the everevolving left-right economic dimension, the second dimension is still adapting to incorporate
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relevant new issues, such as Flanagan and Lees 2003 observation of a burgeoning battle between the growing individual demands for ever-increasing autonomy and ... the growing technostates capacity for surveillance (2003: 267). Finally, we can take another look at Huber and Ingleharts content analysis of the left-right continuum in their rigidly unidimensional model, in light of the second dimension observed elsewhere. As was seen above, economic or class conflict constituted 54% of the meaning of their single left-right continuum, thus leaving nearly half the meaning unaccounted for. Notably, they find that traditional v new culture, encompassing such concepts as morality, culture and moral order, was the second most cited category overall making a 10% contribution, and just behind that with 9% of total left-right meaning was authoritarianism v democracy, involving government control, individual liberties and civil rights (1995: 83). This finding is significant: if the two categories were fused into a broader social policy category, they would account for almost 20% of meaning on a unidimensional left-right model. In the case of Britain, authoritarianism v democracy accounted for fully 19% of the left-right meaning, with no data provided on the effect of the traditional v new culture value category. Clearly, even in the language of left and right, which has been seen to be traditionally linked to economic policy, the social politics dimension plays a strong role. Taken together, these various studies strongly suggest that social policy should be taken into account when measuring political ideology, and that this field of policy is independent and salient enough to merit a specific dimension of policy, orthogonal to the economic axis, thus creating a two-dimensional model. For the purposes of my investigation, the question remains as to precisely how the two ends of this second axis should be labelled. Taking into account the various dimensions discovered above, I decided that the labels socially prohibitive and socially permissive best described my second axis. While libertarian and authoritarian are popular, in much the same way as left and right they have become confused by the
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ubiquity of their use. Libertarian is also the term for a more comprehensive ideology which encompasses economic, social and foreign policy doctrines, whilst authoritarian is often used pejoratively to describe unsavoury autocratic regimes. Permissive and prohibitive, while not perfect, are the most precise and concise terms available. It could be argued that this biaxial model would provide a sufficient representation of contemporary ideology. However, it is the central contention of this paper that there is a third dimension of policy that prior studies have tended to overlook, but which is sufficiently salient and independent of other dimensions to merit inclusion in a comprehensive survey of ideology.

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A Third Dimension?
Three-dimensional depictions of political ideology are rare but not unheard of, and some studies have indeed identified a third dimension for a particular time and place. Frognier, for example, finds that in Belgium, three cleavages are almost unanimously taken into account (1976: 189), namely the traditional left-right formulation, the clerical-anticlerical divide similar to that seen above from Converse, and what is termed a community cleavage, relating largely to Belgiums uniquely disparate linguistic groups. On top of the fact that the clerical-anticlerical divide, previously identified by Converse, is usually subsumed into a broader social policy dimension, the third dimension here is evidently specific to Belgiums particular demographic makeup, and can by no means be generalised to other societies. Similarly, assessing Switzerland, Inglehart and Sidjanski discover that for the ideological structure of the Swiss public, a three-dimensional solution is optimal (1976: 238). In this instance, along with a conventional left-right continuum and a variant of the clericalanticlerical dimension, they find a dimension that pits a relatively cosmopolitan and changeoriented Establishment against traditionalism (1976: 237). The three-dimensional systems that emerged in these two Western European countries were attributable, most likely, to the particular environmental conditions relevant to each. Nonetheless, a handful of authors have developed three-dimensional structures to represent public tastes more generally. In fact, a prominent example of a three-dimensional conceptualisation, from Herbert Weisberg, is developed not from the publics ideological proclivities, but from their opinion of political groups. In much the same way as the present analysis attempts to describe three independent dimensions of ideology, Weisberg perceived that public perceptions of the three main political groups in America Democrats, Republicans and Independents can be represented in three dimensions, as seen below.
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Weisberg, Figure 3 (1980: 37) As Weisberg notes, this Party Identification Cube results if the three dimensions are assumed orthogonal (1980: 43; italics mine) - put another way, the cube structure is only justified if the three dimensions can be shown to be largely uncorrelated to one another. Michael Laver also hypothesises, from an ideological rather than partisan perspective, that by adding a third dimension to the other two, at right angles to both, and we have a threedimensional ideological space (1997: 132), as seen below.

Laver, Figure 6.10 (1997:133) In this instance Laver uses the example of environmental policy; however, he reminds us that this model should only be developed in practice as long as a third dimension is important (1997: 132; italics mine), whatever the third dimension is. Weisberg and Laver thus refer to

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the same two requirements for creating a three-dimensional model as have already been seen above in the case of the second, social dimension: independence and salience. As such, the rest of this paper is concerned with justifying, through a combination of qualitative and quantitative work, the independence and salience of my chosen third dimension, foreign policy, within a three-dimensional conceptualisation. For evidence of an independent dimension of foreign policy we can look back first of all to the French National Assembly. As Andrew Knapp recounts, there are some political divisions, chiefly but not exclusively over Frances foreign relations, which have never fallen neatly into a left/right categorisation (2006: 2). It is significant that as far back as the French revolution, from where, of course, the original left and right wings emerged, foreign policy proved difficult to meaningfully portray on the single left-right continuum. Evidence accrued in the pioneering voting study The American Voter supported the contention that domestic and foreign stances might be uncorrelated. The authors found that for the year 1956 there was no relationship between scale positions on the domestic and foreign attitudinal dimensions (Campbell et. al 1960: 197); Stokes similarly showed that for 1963, there was no relation between attitudes toward social welfare policies and American involvement abroad. (1963: 370). However, later works claimed to find evidence that foreign policy attitudes could in fact be integrated onto a one- or two-dimensional structure. From a study of Danish legislative voting, Damgaard and Rusk claimed that a leftist stance represents anti-Nato, antiAmerican, anti-European Community attitudes (1976: 174); Inglehart and Klingemann suggested contemporaneously that amongst Europeans generally, opposition to European integration may be becoming linked with the left (1976: 257). However, Hooghe at als 2002 continent-wide study into European attitudes found instead that if one combines a left22

right dimension with an orthogonal dimension indicating level of support for European integration, the result is an inverted U [shape] (968: 2002). In other words, extremes on both left and right were opposed to integration, and more moderate elements were more favourable. Therefore, even on an issue such as European integration, which is usually characterised in popular parlance as a polarised left versus right issue, the most recent studies have suggested that attitudes can have a more nuanced and by no means linear relationship with other dimensions. That said, it is probably fair to suggest that until relatively recently, the observation that nationalism has traditionally been associated with the right and internationalism with the left (Inglehart and Klingemann 1976: 257) is broadly accurate. Certainly during the cold war, the global system was dominated by the USA and the USSR, two superpowers which in large part defined themselves and their large spheres of influence on the basis of capitalist and communist ideology respectively. Thus it is not hard to see how from a Western perspective, a more open-minded, internationalist attitude towards the USSR might be associated with an inclination towards a more leftist economic ideology. However, it is my argument that the end of the cold war, and the emergence of the United States as the worlds sole superpower, threw these old, easy associations and correlations into a state of instability. I contend that a process of ideological dealignment has occurred, so that an individuals stance on economic or social policy is effectively unrelated to the degree to which they believe their country should involve itself with the affairs of other nations. Lipset realised half a century ago that the conclusion of the fascist era and the emergence of the cold war have shown that the struggle for freedom is not a simple variant of the economic class struggle (1959: 483).

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Arguably, the end of the cold war era has wrought the analogous realisation that an interventionist or isolationist outlook is not a simple variant of the economic and social policy axes. This notion is articulated by Nick Cohen in his book Whats Left?, in which he laments the demise of internationalist and interventionist impulses among the traditional left wing, in favour of cultural relativism, which precludes interference in other societies abroad. As such, Cohen claims, liberals are far more likely than conservatives to excuse fascistic governments and movements (2007: 10). As Inglemann and Klingehart have suggested, issues ... may change in polarity in relation to the left-right dimension (1976: 257), and Cohen certainly argues that the issue of foreign intervention has shifted in just such a way, asking, in short, why is the world upside down? (2007: 10). But it seems unlikely that postcold war attitudes to foreign policy have undergone a simple diametric shift; ideological changes in the realm of foreign policy are probably more nuanced. The foreign affair which best encapsulates this ideological dealignment is the American- and British-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The effort was led by then-President George W Bush, who as Cohen notes, was elected on an isolationist ticket (2007: 83) until the events of September 11th 2001 drastically altered the foreign policy landscape. Of course, the terrorist attacks by no means altered Bushs economic and social outlook: Bush and his fellow socalled neo-cons were just as much in favour of privatisation ... and just as willing to make excuses for creationists (2007: 83) as other American conservatives. The only fundamental change in the attitudes of Bush and his supporters was the sudden emergence of a more outward-looking foreign policy, nicknamed the Bush Doctrine, which involved far greater efforts, both military and non-military, abroad. It is likely that Bushs activities overseas will cast a long shadow over attitudes to foreign policy in America, and the heavy British involvement led by Tony Blair will presumably have a similar effect in Britain. The limited, restrained and slightly ambiguous action recently
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taken in Libya by these leaders successors, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron, is not merely a response to the delicate situation on the ground in Libya, but also a reflection of the heavy price of Bush and Blairs more ambitious forays overseas. It is telling that in domestic terms, Camerons party is perceived to stand to the right of Blairs, and conversely Obamas Democrats are to the left of Bushs Republican Party: domestic ideology thus appears to have little impact on international decision-making. Instead, the factors involved in the debate about Libya were related to an entirely different dimension of attitudes, one upon which the moral imperative for humanitarian intervention is weighed against perceived costs in blood and treasure. Indeed, polls of Americans show that slim majorities of each political party approve of U.S. military action against Libya (CNN, 2011), and the lack of agreement within each partys support is a significant indicator of the independence of the foreign policy dimension from economic and social concerns at home. By testing for correlation between foreign policy responses and the answers to the economic and social policy question bundles, I can test this hypothesis more thoroughly. Nonetheless, even if an independent dimension of foreign policy is found, it will require a certain degree of salience amongst the public if it is to merit inclusion in an accurate conceptualisation of individual ideology. Indeed, it is easy to see how foreign policy might be perceived in existentially different terms to domestic politics. The psychologically and physically distant sphere of action might, it could be argued, put foreign policy in the same category as, say, space travel: an interesting issue upon which it is possible to have different opinions, for sure, but too far removed from the realities of day-to-day life to be considered a primary concern for the ordinary person. Of course, distance should not be conflated with indifference, and it is quite straightforward to see that foreign policy matters have a substantial impact on daily life. Whether it is over

25

trade deals or terrorism, the decisions taken by national leaders on the international stage ultimately rebound to affect the course of life at home; and most dramatically of all, as was seen in wake of the so-called War on Terror, modern wars can still carry a substantial fiscal and physical cost. Furthermore, studies have shown that the public are able to link foreign policy outcomes with the decisions of politicians. A study by Aldrich et al on the 2004 presidential election in America found that one third of the voters stated that foreign policy issues were the most important factor in determining their vote choice (Aldrich et al 490). Britain does not have an equivalent example of an election so affected by foreign policy since the end of the cold war, but the debate over the countrys role in the invasion of Iraq dominated the political landscape for many months, epitomised by the million-strong march on London to protest the invasion in 2003 (BBC, 2003). Given this preliminary evidence suggesting an independent and salient foreign policy dimension, how should the ends of the axis be labelled to best express its substantive meaning? Much of the discussion thus far has turned on the question of to what extent a government should intervene in the affairs of other countries. However, this division might at first glance be misleading. If a country is interventionist in its outlook, the sort of action it takes beyond its borders can vary wildly. Generous donations of humanitarian aid, for example, is surely not equivalent to declarations of war. This point was taken up by Wittkopf in a 1986 study of the dimensionality of foreign policy beliefs. Writing near the end of the cold war era, Wittkopf saw two distinct types of internationalist attitudes, described by the terms cooperative and militant internationalism (1986: 428). Within this framework, foreign policy attitudes can be described in a more accurate way. Moreover, as Holsti has noted, these two dimensions correspond closely to the most venerable approaches to international relations: realism and liberalism (1992: 449), notably similar to Middendorps earlier

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description of the two domestic policy dimensions rooted in a more abstract philosophical basis (1989: 280). However, it is important not to overstate the salience of foreign policy, and having integrated economic and social policy issues onto one axis apiece, sustaining two separate foreign policy axes would lend too much perceived weight to this area of ideology, not to mention the technical and geometric limitations associated with a four-dimensional model. Therefore, the two axes outlined by Wittkopf need to be compressed and simplified into one. Despite the reservations expressed above, it is possible to formulate a single dimension based upon the degree to which the government should intervene abroad, and thus to label the two poles of the axis interventionist and isolationist. This is achieved by essentially recasting Wittkopfs cooperative and militant dimensions, which might be deemed the means of foreign policy, in terms of a more abstract single dimension grounded in ends or ideal outcomes. Thus, for example, in one instance in my survey the respondent is asked whether a nuclear deterrent is necessary, and in another, whether military force can be justified to uphold the human rights of foreigners. Both these questions entail military means, but their intended outcomes are, in this formulation, diametrically opposed: the former promoting isolationism, and the latter interventionism. Thus answering in the affirmative to the first question will have the same impact on results as answering in the negative to the second, thereby abstracting the instruments of foreign policy somewhat from the more fundamental consequences desired of it. Now that this dimension of foreign policy has been defined, and, in qualitative terms, justified, the rest of the paper describes the quantitative research undertaken into the viability of a three-dimensional conceptualisation of ideology, built upon the theoretical foundations that have been described thus far.

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Methodology
The previous section has suggested, in preliminary, qualitative terms, that a salient and independent dimension of foreign policy exists. The next section tests this theory in light of survey data commissioned especially for this subject. However, in constructing this research survey, there were a large number of methodological issues to consider, and these are explained below. Scope of the survey While cross-national surveys of ideological dimensionality, such as that of Huber and Inglehart, are enlightening as to the nature of ideology on a global scale, many more surveys are associated with particular places and times (Frognier 1976; Mauser and FreyssinetDominjon 1976). The hypothesis posited the existence of an independent foreign policy dimension in the context of Britain at the present time, so the scope of the survey is limited to British responses, and it took place recently, between 1st April 2011 and the 1st May 2011. Moreover, there is a further reason why the nature of this survey in particular merits a focus on the populace of one individual country: in its very subject matter, foreign policy is based upon the existence of external actors, a world beyond our borders, with which to interact with or isolate oneself from, depending on ones ideological perspective. Therefore the perspective of a single country was needed to ensure the data had cohesive meaning. More specifically, the sample was deliberately limited to a particular group, students of Exeter University, for a number of reasons. Firstly, various studies have shown that having the political sophistication to perceive ideology is linked to a higher level of education, a condition which students meet by definition (Levitin and Miller 1979). Furthermore, Inglehart and Klingemann note that ones likelihood of using relatively abstract and general concepts to orient oneself towards politics varies with [ones] degree of political
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involvement (1976: 261). As such, politics students generally, and members of an electoral politics class specifically, were more strongly encouraged to take part. Secondly, age is an important criterion in political perception: as Weisberg and Rusk note, not having long participated in the political system, [young people] tend to be less firmly identified with a party (1979: 1185), and Inglehart and Klingemann have discovered in turn that the ideological component [is] more important in cases where political party identification is breaking down (1976: 246). As such, young people are more likely to perceive ideology devoid of overt partisan influences. Finally, access to Exeter students was easier than to other potential participant groups, which offered the prospect of a potentially larger sample size. Therefore, this set of respondents was chosen not randomly, but for very specific qualities that would enable some greater degree of familiarity with the questions, increasing the likelihood of meaningful results. As the survey was readily accessible online to anyone who had the URL, the database logged whether or not a participant ticked a box captioned please tick this box if you are a University of Exeter student (see Appendix), and only the results of those participants who indicated they were students were used in the research which followed. This approach was by no means failsafe, but there is certainly no evidence of any sabotage by erroneous participants. Survey method A large number of different methods have been used to analyse ideological dimensions. Many studies have used respondents opinions towards different political parties as the point of departure for interpreting the ideological dimensions that underlie these opinions. Converses study of the French electorate, for example, asked respondents to list national parties in order of preference, then used this information to determine how many different dimensions were needed to logically represent the electorates perceived party space (1966). Similarly, Rusk and Borres analysis of the Danish electorate relied on so-called feeling
29

thermometers, on which voters are asked to describe their opinion of political parties on a 100 to +100 scale. From this data, they assumed that the more closely voters rated two parties, the more similar they viewed them, and subsequently used a goodness of fit measure to determine the number of dimensions in which party distance could best be represented (1976). These types of methods, using opinions of parties as a starting point, have obvious benefits: opinions of parties are generally more salient to the public, and can more directly explain voting changes at elections, which, after all, are conducted in terms of choosing parties. But using parties also has problematic aspects: as Budge et al. note, dimensions based on party placements have no direct substantive interpretation (1976: 132); instead, authors must essentially estimate the meanings of particular dimensions. As such, the first dimension discovered is usually referred to as the left-right dimension, which helps to explain the persistent confusion over its precise meaning. Furthermore, whilst some studies have deliberately measured party opinion across a set time period in order to directly measure vote change between two elections, the present study is concerned with finding a more permanent ideological structure. As such, while public opinion of parties can be affected by anything from the latest growth report to a ministerial scandal, a pure policy continuum ... is more stable over time (Budge et. al 1976: 195) and suggestive of longer-held ideological values. Therefore, my method involved deciding a priori the three ideological dimensions upon which voters opinions would be surveyed (in line with my hypothesis), defining these substantively (in the previous three chapters), then testing the dimensions for correlation and salience. Before turning to the results, however, the process by which questions were decided upon, and the procedure by which they were answered, still needs to be described.

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Substantive design of the survey I concluded each of my substantive chapters above by defining the labels which would be used for the end points of each axis. Within these parameters, I developed a series of thirty questions, ten for each dimension, the answers to which would influence each respondents placement on each of the three axes. Some, like Herbert Asher, have criticised this method, on the basis that a list of predetermined questions may not be a fair representation of all issues important to a voter. It has been suggested instead that a better strategy is to allow the respondents themselves to define the issues that are of importance to them (1976: 101). Of course, allowing respondents to do this on my survey would have resulted in a wide range of qualitative answers that would be difficult to codify and quantify for a geometric space. Nonetheless, it was vitally important that the questions chosen covered a broad range of issues significant to each dimension, and so in writing the questions I drew upon the work of Huber and Inglehart (1995), who, as has been seen above, invited experts across a wide range of nations to contribute meaning to the left-right dimension. They collapsed these issues into ten main categories of substantive meaning, conveniently allowing me to draw out, from the categories associated with my dimensions, some of the most common examples. For instance, Huber and Ingleharts economy and class conflict section contained such notions as private ownership, taxation, and unions, and so I devised various questions based upon these. Of course, Huber and Ingleharts findings were not all directly related to my predetermined dimensions: as was seen earlier, in relation to the social dimension, both the categories authoritarianism v democracy and traditional v new culture were in some ways reminiscent of my somewhat broader social dimension. Furthermore, these findings were aggregated from a cross-national survey, with no data provided for each country individually, and I felt it necessary to include questions which related more specifically to Britain. I

31

therefore drew upon a wide range of other sources to help develop a representative set of questions. A rare example of a set of questions designed for British respondents emerges from Hans Eysencks study, and this was particularly useful for the social dimension. Although many of the statements suggested are now uncomfortably out of date, questions over fox hunting and the monarchy persist, so I drew these topics into my survey. Work by Cass Middendorp (1989: 285) was also helpful, including measures of the respondents attitude towards government aid to education, which I modulated into two economic questions, one on learning languages and one on student fees. As for the foreign scale, obviously this study is in itself a response to the overall lack of attention paid to foreign affairs in prior research, but I was able to locate a few questions on foreign policy that were lumped in with social or economic scales. For example, a question on foreign aid from Middendorp was adapted for my survey. Finally, I drew upon the work of Flanagan and Lee, who described the growing technostates capacity for surveillance (2003: 267) as one of the major issues on their libertarian/authoritarian axis, to devise a question on Britains CCTV usage for my social dimension. With the subject matter for my thirty questions thus coming from a wide range of sources, the wording of the questions was also carefully considered to preclude any possible bias. This was especially important for the social dimension, which contained plenty of contentious issues which needed to be described in as neutral terms as possible. In particular, I borrowed some language from the 2005 World Values Survey (WVS, 2005), particularly the word justifiable in asking about social issues such as prostitution, abortion and euthanasia. However, in my survey some of these issues were rendered more relevant to a British audience by noting their current legal status and whether this should be changed. See appendix for the full list of questions.
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Conversion of responses into results The process by which a respondents answer was converted into a geometric placement on each of the three axes is a more elaborate version of one used by Eysenck. In Eysencks model, respondents were presented with a series of statements, with which they could strongly agree, agree on the whole, cant decide for or against, disagree on the whole or strongly disagree (Eysenck 304). Each answer (aside from a few filler questions which had no impact) would affect the positioning on one of the scales by the allocation of a 1, 0 or -1 depending on the answer, where positive numbers shifted the position one way and negative answers the other. After all the questions were answered, the total score for each axis resulted in a fixed placement, and the axes were represented together two-dimensionally. While retaining the basic essence of this model for my investigation, I made a number of modifications to how it worked. Firstly, I did not include any of the filler questions: each answer had an impact on the final result. Secondly, I noticed that Eysencks model strangely did not discriminate between whether a strongly or on the whole answer had been given. In describing his unidimensional conception, Downs suggested that each citizen may apply different weights to the individual policies, since each policy affects some citizens more than others (Downs 133), and I applied this principle to my study. Therefore like Eysenck, I presented users with five options, but unlike Eysenck I designed the scoring so that the answer would be weighted double if the respondent indicated a stronger belief. The following is a sample question from the social policy section, annotated with the resulting scores depending on the response given:

Effect of choice on score: (unseen by participant) 33

+2

+1

-1

-2

Agreeing with the statement in this example, therefore, indicates a degree of social permissiveness, and so this would be recorded with the value of -1. Eysenck notes that the statements in his survey were chosen in such a way that most people are likely to agree with some and to disagree with others (Eysenck, 304), and for the sake of impartiality I followed this principle, by including some statements with which agreement would, in the social case, imply prohibitive views, such as the sample question below, again annotated:

Effect of choice on score: (unseen by participant)

-2

-1

+1

+2

Here, the effect is reversed, and the responses are coded accordingly. As such, each respondent gets an end result from each axis which has an absolute value. We have seen that the higher the social policy score, for example, the more socially prohibitive the respondent is, but the following table shows the full range of scores for each axis, with definitions. Policy axis Economic Social Foreign Score of -20 indicates: Very communistic Very prohibitive Very isolationist Score of +20 indicates: Very capitalistic Very permissive Very interventionist

As can be seen, the introduction of codified double-strength responses means that the possible range of results on each scale ranges from -20 to +20, as there were ten questions per axis. This allows for a more accurate analysis of a concept called centrality, which Converse describes as the relative ... importance of different issues dimensions from voter to voter (Converse problems 199). It does intuitively seem correct that different people will have different areas of particularly intense political belief, and this doubling mechanism represents this more accurately. In the results section below, I analyse the proportions of each
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type of answer no opinion, moderate (dis)agreement and strong (dis)agreement to the questions on each axis, to judge whether overall one dimension is felt to be more central to the participants than the others. My final innovation was the inclusion, before the sets of questions, of three self-placement scales, requiring users to indicate where they felt they stood on each of the three policy dimensions. These scales were marked at either end with the labels for each dimension established above, and furnished with a short one-sentence description (see Appendix). This mimics similar measures frequently used in other studies, in which the respondent is presented with a graphic representation of the liberal-conservative [or left-right] continuum (Knight 311), usually made up of seven points. This measure was not vital to my investigations and will not offer concrete conclusions, but correlating individuals predictions with their results might lead to some interesting speculative findings about how well individuals perceive their own ideology. Capture and manipulation of data When each individual survey was completed, the following data were anonymously collated: The respondents self-placement on each of the three scales, ranging from -20 to 20; The answer given to each individual question, ranging from -2 to 2; The respondents aggregated result for each scale, ranging from -20 to 20 Whether the respondent had affirmed that he or she was a University of Exeter student The time and date the survey was taken

When the survey was completed, the entire data set was imported into the spreadsheet programme Microsoft Excel. Next, all the data pertaining to non-Exeter students was

35

removed. From the resultant data set I used the functions of the programme to make all the calculations which follow.

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Survey Findings
Participation: n = 71 The survey was completed by 71 unique students from the University of Exeter, who each provided a full complement of 30 responses to the questions, as well as placing themselves on the three scales. The results from these 71 responses are all used, and are the only data used, in the results and conclusions which follow. Hypothesis: minimal correlation found The headline finding from this survey is that the foreign policy dimension is statistically independent of both economic and social policy dimensions, which proves the hypothesis outlined at the start to be correct. Each respondents aggregate scores on each dimension were correlated, and the following table displays the Pearson correlation coefficient, significant to four figures, which resulted for the three combinations of axes. Combination of axes Economic Policy and Social Policy Economic Policy and Foreign Policy Social Policy and Foreign Policy Correlation coefficient -0.2376 -0.1751 0.01455

As Eysenck has noted, correlations between different [ideological] attitudes usually range from about 0.2 at the lower end, to about 0.7 or 0.8 at the higher end (Eysenck, 284). It is evident from these findings therefore that foreign policy bears little or no relation to either of the more established dimensions. In fact, the relationship between economic and social policy, the two more established dimensions, is the most statistically significant, albeit only to a small extent. Unfortunately, due to technical constraints it was impossible to represent every response on the three-dimensional cube model, but the following graphs help to represent spatially the lack of correlation between each axis combination.
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Economic and Social Policy

20 15 10 Social Policy 5 0 -10 -5 0 -10 -15 -20 Economic Policy 10 20 Unique responses

-20

Economic and Foreign Policy

20 15 10 Foreign Policy 5 0 -10 -5 -10 -15 -20 Economic Policy 0 10 20 Unique responses

-20

Social and Foreign Policy

20 15 Foriegn Policy 10 5 0 -10 -5 0 -10 -15 -20 Social Policy 10 20 Unique responses

-20

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This finding, in conjunction with the historical and theoretical argument above, unequivocally demonstrates that a three-dimensional model, using foreign as well as economic and social policy scales, is a feasible and justifiable conceptualisation of individual ideology. Salience and centrality of the three dimensions Beyond the central finding of the study, there are a number of other interesting discoveries which further support the case for including a foreign policy dimension. As alluded to in the methodology above, in analysing the responses to the questions for each axis, it is possible to gauge what types of answers were most common. This is useful for a number of reasons. Firstly, a pattern of strongly agree responses to questions on a particular dimension would indicate that that dimension enjoys a higher degree of centrality and salience than others. In contrast, a noticeably high rate of no answer responses to a particular dimension would suggest either that respondents do not feel as strongly about that field of policy, or that they do not grasp the meaning of the subject matter, which if discovered would suggest a worrying lack of salience for the dimension in question. To assess this possibility, the full data set of every individual answer to each question from every respondent was analysed. The full set of individual answers was separated into the three policy dimensions to allow for comparison, and each answer was converted to its absolute value, since it was the strength not the content of opinion which was under question. Now that each answer was either 0, 1 or 2, the proportions of each of these three possibilities were calculated separately for each dimension. There were 71 respondents and ten answers per dimension, which yielded 710 individual responses for each dimension. The proportions of each type of answer are shown in the table below, with the total number of actual responses in parentheses.

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Policy dimension Proportion of no opinion responses (score = 0) Economic Social Foreign 17% (118) 12% (88) 17% (118)

Proportion of opinionated responses (score = 1) 54% (387) 45% (320) 58% (412)

Proportion of strongly opinionated responses (score = 2) 29% (205) 43% (302) 25% (180)

Total

100% (710) 100% (710) 100% (710)

There are a number of points to be drawn from this analysis. Firstly, overall the results show an impressive level of consistency across all three dimensions. There are no obvious outliers which would have suggested a seriously skewed set of questions. In particular, the proportion of no opinion responses remains relatively low across each dimension, and, as it happens, there were the same number of these for the economic and foreign scales, a further vindication of the relative salience of foreign policy. The only noticeable variation in this data is the somewhat higher proportion of strongly held views on the social dimension, and the correspondingly lower proportion of more moderate responses. This may very tentatively suggest a higher level of centrality for social issues compared with the other two dimensions of policy, though the differences involved are fairly small. On the level of individual questions, only one of all thirty questions received a no opinion response in more than one in three cases, namely Competition laws represent an attack by governments on the natural economic cycle from the economic dimension. This is likely due to the more complex subject matter involved in this question compared with others. This anomaly aside, generally the questions seem to have been largely understood, and every question incited a plurality of different opinions.

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Comparison of self-perception with results As alluded to earlier, before respondents could take the survey they were required to place themselves on three scales indicating where they felt that they stood on each policy dimension. By comparing these perceptions, on a scale from -20 to 20, with their aggregated results, which also ranged from -20 to 20, we can get some sense, though not conclusive evidence, of how well the participants were able to perceive their ideology. Thus the following table shows the Pearson correlation coefficient, significant to four figures, which emerged from the prediction-results comparison for each dimension. Policy dimension Economic Social Foreign Correlation coefficient 0.6899 0.4166 0.6032

As can be seen, the economic dimension has the highest coefficient, ahead of the foreign dimension, with the social score disappointingly further back. There are too many variables to make any concrete assertions, but this finding goes some way to suggest that even to this day, the traditional left-right dimension of economic policy is still the easiest heuristic by which to define oneself ideologically. More generally, this measure shows a moderate to strong capability on the part of the participants in perceiving their own ideology in common terms. All in all, these measures have unambiguously demonstrated that an independent third dimension of policy foreign policy exists, and suggested that the issues underpinning it are generally as well understood as the two more traditional dimensions.

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Conclusion
After introducing the concept of the spatial analogy, assessing the literature regarding the two more conventional dimensions, and establishing that the introduction of new dimensions is conditional upon their salience and independence, I conducted qualitative and quantitative research designed to test these criteria in relation to a third foreign policy dimension. I observed that the emergence of fascist and communistic western nations in the early twentieth century, and the wars fought as a result, helped to bring about recognition of a second dimension of policy related to social and moral affairs. I then argued that in an analogous sense, the end of the cold war and the subsequent shifts in global order have created a perceptible and enduring third dimension of policy, relating to the extent to which citizens want their government to involve itself in the affairs of other nations. I then described the research I undertook to investigate the salience and particularly the independence of the foreign policy dimension in a quantitative sense. After detailing my methodology, I turned to my results, which showed there was no or very little statistical correlation between foreign policy and the two other policy axes, as well as suggesting that the foreign policy dimension holds a good degree of salience and even in some cases centrality to the participants. As such, combining the results of my theoretical and empirical research offers a forceful case in favour of my first hypothesis, that: There exists is an independent and salient dimension of foreign policy which should be considered as a component of ideological identity. Why, in short, is this outcome significant? Firstly, these findings demonstrate the inadequacy of the old adage that politics stops at the waters edge. The last decade has shown that
42

foreign policy decisions can dominate the political landscape, and while some have been tempted to lump various aspects of foreign policy in with the established economic and social dimensions (the effect of trade agreements on domestic employment, or the effect of national security measures on domestic civil liberties, for example), this paper demonstrates that the interventionist-isolationist attitude scale is largely independent of the other two dimensions. This study has consciously avoided any discussion of voting behaviour or party identification, as all too often these factors have had the adverse effect of skewing individuals purer, more deeply felt ideological preferences. However, the findings herein might serve as a timely reminder to politicians that foreign policy stances can be just as much a vote-winner (or -loser) as economic or social policy decisions. Voting, then, does not stop at the waters edge. Finally, this study might serve to reflect the fact that in this age of political apathy and partisan dealignment, ideological beliefs and values still matter. My sample size was small and deliberately chosen for its political sophistication, but in a broader sense the popular success of online political compasses and their integration with social networking sites suggest that even if the political process is frequently despised, the outcomes of that process still matter immensely to the public at large. Above all, however, my three-dimensional conceptualisation of ideological preference, with the inclusion of a foreign policy dimension now justified, represents a more insightful ideological model than previous one- and two-dimensional efforts, whilst retaining or even enhancing the clarity and cogency that makes the spatial analogy of ideology so compelling.

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References
Academic sources Aldrich, John H., Christopher Gelpi, Peter Feaver, Jason Reifler, and Kristin Thompson Sharp, 2006. Foreign Policy and the Electoral Connection. Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 9, pp. 477-502. Asher, Herbert B., 1976. Presidential Elections and American Politics: voters, candidates, and campaigns since 1952. Homewood: Dorsey Press. Budge, Ian, Ivor Crewe and Dennis Farlie (eds.), 1976. Party Identification and Beyond. London: John Wiley & Sons. Campbell, Angus, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes, 1960. The American Voter. New York: Wiley. Cohen, Nick, 2007. Whats Left?. London: Harper Perennial. Conover, Pamela Johnston and Stanley Feldman, 1981. The Origins and Meaning of Liberal/Conservative Self-Identifications. American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 617-645. Converse, Philip E., 1966. The Problem of Party Distances in Models of Voting Change. In: M. Kent Jennings and L. Harmon Ziegler, The Electoral Processes. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Damgaard, Erik and Jerrold G. Rusk, 1976. Cleavage Structures and Representational Linkages: A Longitudinal Analysis of Danish Legislative Behaviour. In: Ian Budge, Ivor Crewe and Dennis Farlie (eds.), Party Identification and Beyond. London: John Wiley & Sons. Downs, Anthony, 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper & Row. Eysenck, Hans, 1957. Sense and Nonsense in Psychology. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Flanagan S. and A. R. Lee, 2003. The New Politics, Culture Wars, and the AuthoritarianLibertarian Value Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies. Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 235-270. Frognier, Andre-Paul, 1976. Party Preference Spaces and Voting Change in Belgium. In: Ian Budge, Ivor Crewe and Dennis Farlie (eds.), Party Identification and Beyond. London: John Wiley & Sons. Hooghe, Liesbet, Gary Marks and Carole J. Wilson, 2002. Does Left-Right Structure Party Positions on European Integration? Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 35, No. 8, pp. 9650989.

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Holsti, Ole R., 1992. Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: Challenges to the AlmondLippmann Consensus. International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 439-466. Hotelling, Harold, 1929. Stability in Competition. The Economic Journal, Vol. 39, No. 153, pp. 41-57. Huber, John and Ronald Inglehart, 1995. Expert Interpretations of Party Space and Party Locations in 42 Societies. Party Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 73-111. Inglehart, Ronald and Hans Klingemann, 1976. Party Identification, Ideological Preference and the Left-Right Dimension among Western Mass Publics. In: Ian Budge, Ivor Crewe and Dennis Farlie (eds.), Party Identification and Beyond. London: John Wiley & Sons. Inglehart, Ronald and Dusan Sidjanski, 1976. The Left, The Right, The Establishment and the Swiss Electorate. In: Ian Budge, Ivor Crewe and Dennis Farlie (eds.), Party Identification and Beyond. London: John Wiley & Sons. Knapp, Andrew, 2006. The Government and Politics of France. 5th ed. London: Routledge. Knight, Kathleen, 1984. The Dimensionality of Partisan and Ideological Affect. American Politics Research, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 305-334. Laver, Michael, 1997. Private Desires, Political Action: An Invitation to the Politics of Rational Choice. London: Sage. Levitin, Teresa A. and Warren E. Miller, 1979. Ideological Interpretations of Presidential Elections. The American Political Science Review, Vol. 73, No. 3, pp. 751-771. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. Democracy and Working-Class Authoritarianism. American Sociological Review, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 482-501. Mauser, Gary A. And Jacqueline Freyssinet-Dominjon, 1976. Exploring Political Space: A Study of French Voters Preferences. In: Ian Budge, Ivor Crewe and Dennis Farlie (eds.), Party Identification and Beyond. London: John Wiley & Sons. Middendorp, Cess P., 1989. Models for Predicting the Dutch Vote along the Left-Right and the Libertarianism-Authoritarianism Dimensions. International Political Science Review, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 279-308. Rusk, Jerrold G. and Ole Borre, The Changing Party Space in Danish Voter Perceptions, 1971-73. In: In: Ian Budge, Ivor Crewe and Dennis Farlie (eds.), Party Identification and Beyond. London: John Wiley & Sons. Scammon, Richard M. and Ben J. Wattenberg, 1970. The Real Majority. New York: CowardMcCann. Stenner, Karen, 2005. The Authoritarian Dynamic. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Stimson, James A, 2004. Tides of Consent: How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. Stokes, Donald E., 1963. Spatial Models of Party Competition. The American Political Science Review, Vol. 57, No. 2, pp. 368-377. Weisberg, Herbert F. and Jerrold G. Rusk, 1979. Dimensions of Candidate Evaluation. The American Political Science Review, Vol. 64, No. 4, pp. 1167-1185. Weisberg, Herbert F., 1980. A Multidimensional Conceptualization of Party Identification. Political Behavior, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 33-60. Wittkopf, Eugene R., 1986. On the Foreign Policy Beliefs of the American People: A Critique and Some Evidence. International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 425-445.

Other sources Anonymous, 2003. Anti-war rally makes its mark. BBC, [Online], 19th February. Available at: < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2767761.stm> [Accessed 27th April 2011.] Anonymous, 2005. Root version of the WVS 2005 questionnaire. World Values Survey, [Online]. Available at <http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/survey_2005> [Accessed 29th April 2011.] Stewart, Rebecca, 2011. Poll: Americans approve of military action in Libya. CNN, [Online], 23rd March. Available at: <http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/23/pollsamericans-approve-of-military-action-in-libya> [Accessed 27th April 2011.]

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Appendix
Below is the user experience for survey participants (live version at <www.politicube.org>). Welcome screen

Self-placement screen

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List of questions and codified responses Question Codified response: If agree = +1, strongly agree = +2, disagree = 1 and strongly disagree = -2. If agree = -1, strongly agree = -2, disagree = +1 and strongly disagree = +2. - 20 = very communistic; +20 = very capitalistic Agree +1 Agree +1

Economic questions It is wrong to tax anyone at a rate of 50% and higher. At times of economic hardship, cutting some government services is a justifiable way of ensuring the long-term stability of a country's finances. It is wrong that foreign nationals, including those from the EU, should be able to take jobs in this country. It does not make sense for the government to spend money promoting the learning of minor languages, if the economic return on these languages is likely to be minimal. The fact that 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' has been spread over two films, despite being shorter than some of the other books in the series, illustrates the negative impact of commercialisation on popular culture. Controlling inflation is more important than lowering unemployment. Competition laws represent an attack by governments on the natural economic cycle. Striking continues to be a legitimate action for improving pay and workers rights. An estate tax is a fair way to redistribute the wealth accumulated over an individuals lifetime. A rise in student fees is justifiable to fill a gap in university funding. Social questions The state should legally recognise monogamous homosexual relationships.

Agree -1

Agree +1

Agree -1

Agree +1 Agree +1 Agree -1 Agree -1

Agree +1 -20 = very permissive; +20 = very prohibitive Agree -1

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The monarchy is worth preserving, at the current cost. A high level of CCTV surveillance makes me feel safer. Prostitution is justifiable, and should be legalised. Euthanasia, or assisted suicide, is a justifiable act, and should be legalised. The recreational use of marijuana is a justifiable act, and should be legalised. Fox hunting is a legitimate practice and should be legalised. There is justification for some limitations on free speech, such as those to prevent the inciting of racial hatred.

Agree +1 Agree +1 Agree -1 Agree -1 Agree -1 Agree -1 Agree +1

It is justifiable for women to have abortions, Agree -1 as allowed by current law. The voting age should be lowered to 16. Agree -1 Foreign questions -20 = very isolationist; +20 = very interventionist International institutions, such as the Kyoto Agree +1 Protocol, are the most effective way for governments to reduce carbon emissions in their own countries. As countries with the same international Agree +1 interests, it makes sense for Britain and France to sign new military cooperation agreements, even if this is at the expense of some of Britain's military independence. Membership of NATO is an important way Agree +1 of countering global security threats. The EU has a role to play in the Agree +1 advancement of international human rights. It is naive to promote democracy in far-off Agree -1 countries, whose inner workings we do not fully comprehend. Some British tax revenue should be given in Agree +1 aid to the needy overseas. Britain has the necessity to retain a nuclear Agree -1 deterrent. Following the disintegration of its empire, Agree +1 Britain still has a prominent role to play in
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the affairs of other countries. The use of military force can sometimes be justified to uphold the human rights of foreigners. As modern terrorism is global in nature, we as individuals are safer when governments share intelligence with each other.

Agree +1

Agree +1

Example results page (A test user predicted moderate attitudes for all scales; answers given were very capitalistic, very permissive and very interventionist respectively)

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