An Alternative Analysis of Mass Belief Systems: Liberal, Conservative, Populist, and Libertarian

by Stuart A. Lilie and William S. Maddox

Stuart A. Lilie is an associate professor in, and the chairperson of, the Department of Political

Science at the University of Central Florida, Orlando 32816. William S. Maddox is also an

associate professor in that department, and for 1981-82 he is a visiting assistant professor in the

Department of Political Science at the University of New Orleans, Louisiana 70122.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political

Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 1979.

Executive Summary

This study, based on the 1976 Center for Political Studies Election Study, suggests that at least four

different belief systems exist among the American public. We treat the dimension of government

intervention in economic affairs as distinct from the dimension of expansion of individual liberties.

The liberal supports govern- ment economic intervention and the expansion of individual liberties;

the conservative opposes both. The libertarian supports expanded individual liberties but opposes

economic intervention. The populist supports economic intervention but opposes expansion of

individual liberties. Some 72.4 percent of the sample can be classified as holding consistent or nearly

consistent political beliefs using these categories. The relationships between our ideological

categories and demographic group- ings are generally consistent with expectations about these

groups. We also explore the relation- ships between our classifications and ideological

self-identification, party identification, and presidential vote.

Political scientists use a variety of methods to measure the presence and direction of ideological

thinking among mass publics. A standard approach is to code responses to open-ended "like and

dislike" questions about candidates and parties according to ideological content. (1) Another

method is to use correlations across issues positions (2) or across issue clusters. (3) Pierce (1970)

added what he called the informational and affective dimensions of ideology, based on definitional

questions about ideology and feeling thermometer reactions to the terms liberal and conservative.

(4) Several studies use factor analysis to determine the number and nature of issue dimensions that

are necessary to structure opinions in both masses and elites. (5) Finally, the ideological

self-identification of respondents, often included in studies of particular elections, (6) has recently

received attention as an independent predictor of presidential voting. (7)

Despite the great variety of techniques, all these studies share a common approach; a single

liberal-conservative dimension is the primary tool for evaluating the presence and direction of

ideological thinking among mass publics. Thus respondents whose attitudes do not fit the

researcher's definition of liberal or conservative are categorized as nonideological or inconsistent.

This approach of course assumes that liberal and conservative are the most meaningful and logical

positions for a person to take. In recent years, however, researchers have become uncomfortable

with this unidimensional approach, as is indicated by various caveats and disclaimers. For example,

LeBlanc and Merrin admit that "there is no logical reason why voters could not be liberal on some

issues and center or conservative on others," (8) while Nie, Verba, and Petrocik conclude that

those whom they classify as inconsistent may be "consistent in ways we do not recognize." (9)

In spite of these caveats, analysts of mass belief systems continue to use a liberal-conservative

continuum in their research. We contend that there are empirical and theoretical reasons to go

beyond this unidimensional approach. Many of those respondents who are currently labeled

"inconsistent" may in fact be consistent on other dimensions as significant as the present

liberal-conservative continuum. By extending and refining ideological categories, we will more

adequately understand the belief systems of the American electorate.

To achieve this end, we propose a two-dimensional approach as the basis for the analysis of mass

belief systems. We measure attitudes toward economic intervention by government and attitudes

toward economic intervention by government and attitudes toward individual liberties as separate

dimensions and consider four ideological categories based on these two dimensions: liberal,

conservative, libertarian and populist. Our definitions of liberal and conservative are generally

consistent with current practice; there are also, we will argue, valid grounds for including the

categories of libertarian and populist. Our approach, then, is an outgrowth and complement to

current research in that it includes the liberal and conservative categories as traditionally defined, but

attempts to account for many of those others who are "consistent in ways we do not recognize."

Before developing specific definitions and categories, we will examine three arguments in support of

the use of a two-dimensional approach to contemporary ideologies. (10)

First, among public-opinion researchers, as a recent writer notes, there is "an observation of great

vintage: the content of mass political policy preferences is multidimensional...." (11) The origin of this

recognition is the work in the fifties by Stouffer (1955) and Lipset (1959), which showed that

working-class individuals are more "liberal" on economic issues but less "liberal" with respect to

civil-liberties issues. Since then the nature of these dimensions and their relationship to social and

economic status have been amplified and refined by many writers, including some who argue that

this classic relationship is becoming inverted. (12) (10) The work of Milton Rokeach (1973) is an

interesting exception to this reliance on a single continuum. He suggests that liberalism-conservatism

is not a bipolar ideology, but must be considered as having two dimensions -- attitudes toward

freedom and attitudes toward equality. This approach has value when analyzing competing

ideologies from a global perspective, but as Rokeach himself says, its usefulness is limited in a given

political system where there is a high degree of consensus, as in the United States, where certain

basic freedoms are highly valued by almost everyone. Our proposal is a two-dimensional approach

that clarifies ideological differences on economic and individual liberties issues, recognizing that these

differences are relatively subtle because they largely fall within the parameters of the American

consensus on these issues.

More recently, studies using factor analysis have also identified a number of separate dimensions in

mass attitudes, including separate economic and social dimensions. (13) While the existence of these

two dimensions is now an observation "of great vintage," little has been done to develop the full

implications of this observation for categorizing individuals as liberal or conservative.

A second body of literature that demonstrates the inadequacies of a unidimensional approach is elite

studies. For example, in his analysis of the Supreme Court, Schubert (1965) scaled liberalism into

two basic dimensions, political and economic. He defined political liberalism in terms of "claims and

personal (as distinguished from property) rights and freedoms" (p. 101) and economic liberalism as

relating to "conflicts of interest between the economically affluent and the economically

underprivileged" (p. 128). Schubert's analysis of the components of ideology is more sophisticated

than that used here, but his work demonstrates the inadequacy of unidimensional definitions of

liberalism and conservatism in elite analysis and again suggests that the two basic dimensions of

ideology are economic issues and questions of personal liberty. Students of the U.S. Congress have

found that while congressional roll-call votes show party as a strong predictive variable, a number of

other dimensions are significant in explaining divisions in legislative votes, including several "policy

domains" or "issue sets." (14) One student of Congress concludes that "different alignments form as

the policy content changes . . . liberal and conservative ideologies do not provide the bases for

many, many policy decisions." (15) Thus analyses of two significant segments of political elites, the

Supreme Court and the Congress, call into question the assumption that elites rely simply on a

liberal-conservative continuum in their decision Making.

A third reason for going beyond an unidimensional approach in the study of mass belief systems is

that liberal and conservative are not the straightforward terms they are often assumed to be. While

early-nineteenth-century liberal thought emphasized the expansion of individual liberties, including

the absence of government intrusion in economic choices, by the late nineteenth century debate over

the relationship of liberty and equality often focused on the proper role of government in acting to

alleviate the perceived hardships of a capitalist economy. Indeed, the connection between

government's economic role on the

one hand, and individual liberties on the other hand, has been the crux of much of the ideological

debate in recent Anglo- American thought. Traditional theory provides no logically necessary reason

to place attitudes about economic issues on the same dimension as attitudes about individual

liberties. In fact, to do so obscures much of the theoretical debate of the past one hundred years.

If the advantages of supplements to the liberal- conservative continuum are so obvious, why has a

unidimensional approach persisted? This question deserves more extended treatment, but two

factors are notable here. One is the assumption by many researchers that liberal and conservative

define the context of American politics. It is the basic division among elites and is therefore the

relevant continuum for the voter. If mass publics hold other ideological positions, these are largely

irrelevant to the dynamics of the political system. However, while it is true that political elites and the

media use liberal-conservative terminology, scholars have found, as we have indicated, that close

analysis of elite behavior often requires that they discard or modify the liberal-conservative

continuum. A second factor is the methodological simplicity of a unidimensional approach.

Conceptualization, question and scale construction, statistical analysis, and even graphic

representation of data are simplified when working with a single dimension. Perhaps both these

factors are reflected by the authors of a recent article, who conclude that it is necessary to analyze

issue consistency on a liberal- conservative scale so that "electoral mandates could be easily

interpreted." (16)

Empirical Definition of Belief Systems

Taken together, these three arguments provide theoretical and empirical bases for going beyond the

traditional liberal- conservative dimension in the analysis of mass belief systems. They also suggest

that the question of government intervention in the economy is separable from the question of

individual liberties. To operationalize these two dimensions with available survey data, we selected

three issue questions for each dimension from the 1976 Center for Political Studies Election Survey.

As other political scientists have done, we selected issues that appear to represent each dimension;

(17) we also found some empirical support for our selection of issues. The respondents in the

survey tended to treat these issues as representative of distinct dimensions, as indicated by a

statistical technique called factor analysis. Factor analysis identifies types of issue questions to which

people responded in similar ways.

We performed a factor analysis with varimax rotation of twenty-five issue questions. This analysis

revealed eight factors, of which two explained a tot a] of 60.7 percent of the variance. The two

dimensions used here are defined by the three issues with highest loadings on those two factors that

were the issue questions we originally chose. Factor I, economic intervention, is represented by

government guarantee of jobs (with a loading of .57), government health insurance (.43), and

progressive taxation (.39). Factor II, individual liberties, is represented by legalization of marijuana

(.54), abortion (.43), and equal role for women (.33).

We combine the two major issue dimensions into a fourfold typo logy, which we use to approach

the ideological orientation of the public. Perhaps the most straightforward of our four types is the

libertarian who opposes government intervention but supports a high degree of individual liberties.

This is the classical liberal position of the nineteenth century, represented by such figures as the early

John Stuart Mill and (in extreme form) by Herbert Spencer. Because the mainstream of

contemporary liberal thought has moved away from this position, it is confusing to label it liberal.

However, the term libertarian is generally used today to describe this position. The libertarian

position has recently received attention through the efforts of the Libertarian party (their 1980

presidential candidate received 1.1 percent of the popular vote). In the latter part of the nineteenth

century such liberals as the later J. S. Mill and T. H. Green argued that if the liberal goal of

promoting the independence and well-being of the individual were to be achieved, opposition to all

forms of government economic intervention must be modified. Thus the state should take some

responsibility for individual welfare through such measures as wage and hour laws, compulsory

public education, and health and safety regulations. At the same time, liberals continued to support

such personal liberties as freedom of speech and conscience. This position, sometimes called

"welfare state liberalism" (although for obvious reasons liberals in the United States rarely use this

term), is generally what is meant by liberalism in contemporary usage. Thus in terms of our two

dimensions the liberal supports government intervention but also supports an expansion of individual

liberties. On the other hand the conservative position as it has developed in the United States has

been that human nature is sufficiently deficient that, without constraints imposed by society, the

individual is likely to behave in deviant and socially harmful ways. Thus some restrictions on

individual liberties are in principle desirable. In addition, American conservatives argue that in the

economic realm, perhaps again because of man's selfish nature, the workings of the market should

be relatively free from government intervention, in order to be efficient and productive. In terms of

our two dimensions, the conservative supports restrictions on personal liberties but opposes

government economic intervention. Finally the populist, while sharing the moralism of the

conservative in regard to individual liberties, feels that an unregulated economy often means an unfair

concentration of wealth at the expense of the poor. Thus the populist, while opposed to the

expansion of individual liberties, does support government economic intervention.

Following earlier researchers, we recode the answers to each of the six questions (government

guarantee of jobs, government health insurance, progressive taxation, legalization of marijuana,

abortion, and equal role for women) into three categories: support, opposition, and centrist. A

consistent liberal supports government action on all three economic issues and supports expansion

of individual liberties on all three of those issues; the consistent conservative takes the opposite

position on all six issues. The consistent libertarian opposes all three government actions in

economic affairs and supports all three individual-liberty proposals. The consistent populist supports

all three economic interventions but opposes all three of the expansions of individual liberties.

Because of the complex nature of our measure, only respondents who expressed an attitude on four

or more of the six issues (90 percent of the sample) are considered for classi- fication as consistent,

although the percentages of all tables are based on the total sample. Our findings support the earlier

conclusions that perfect consistency is rare in the American public; the proportion we find as

consistent (7.3 percent of the sample) is lower than the 17.8 percent found by LeBlanc and Merrin

(1977), probably because our definition of consistency involves two dimensions.

LeBlanc and Merrin suggest that to measure perfect consistency is "too stringent a test" and use the

term "nearly consistent" for those who deviate from consistency on only one issue or whose attitudes

include liberal and centrist or conservative and centrist positions. (18) We follow the same strategy

and define the "nearly consistent" as those in each category who are inconsistent on only one issue

on each dimension. The nearly consistent populist, for example, takes the populist position on at

least two of three economic intervention issues and on at least two of the three individual-liberties

issues. The "deviant" attitudes may be a response in the non populist direction, a centrist response,

or no response at all. Table 1 presents the distribution of the totally consistent ideologues, the nearly

consistent, and the results of combining the consistent with the nearly consistent respondents.

We find that 72.6 percent of the sample can be classified as consistent or nearly consistent. The

"traditional ideologies" of liberal and conservative do not appear to explain more belief

Table 1

Attitude Consistency in the American Public: 1976

Totally Consistent

Libertarian

0.7

Liberal

2.4

Center

0.0

Conservative

1.5

Populist

2.7

Sub-Total

7.3

Nearly Consistent

Libertarian

12.4

Liberal

14.0

Center

1.6

Conservative

16.4

Populist

20.9

Sub-Total

65.3

Divided

17.6

Hold fewer than 4 of 6 attitudes (inattentive)

9.8/100.00

Summary

Populist

23.6

Conservative

17.9

Divided

17.6

Liberal

16.4

Libertarian

13.1

Inattentive

9.8

Center

1.6

NOTE: The data in this table and those that follow were made available by the Inter-University

Consortium for Political Research. Neither the Center for Political Studies nor the consortium bears

any responsibility for the analysis or interpretation presented here. systems than do the two

additional orientations. The populist group is the largest, followed by the conservatives, liberals, and

libertarians. Many of the "inconsistents" so long lumped together as a group in fact can be classified

according to belief systems measured by a more complex standard than that used to identify only

liberals and conservatives in previous research. Rather than a mass public consisting of a few

ideologues and many inconsistents, we find a much more divided and diverse public.

Although LeBlanc and Merrin (1977) found that attitude consistency was related to expressing

fewer attitudes, we find that this is true only for the populist group, whose proportion of the sample

declines from 58.6 percent of those holding only four attitudes to 16 percent of those expressing six

attitudes. For the other three ideological groupings, however, the reverse is true. Their

representation is actually greater among those who express more attitudes. (19) Note, however,

that all respondents categorized as holding a type of belief system expressed opinions on at least

four of the six issues.

Social Groups and Belief Systems

Table 2 summarizes a demographic analysis of our four types of ideologues. In general, the

demographics reflect the scholarly and practical assumptions about the relationship of belief systems

and social groups. Of particular note are the relationships of our categories to income, education,

age, and region. Analysis of place of residence, length of residence, religion, union membership, sex,

and subjective social class revealed few differences between ideological types.

Income. Predictably there is a strong relationship between income and ideological type. The populist

category virtually preempts the other ideologies in the lowest income category and is barely found in

the highest income group. Part of this tendency may be explained by the dominance of populism

among nonwhites, who also make up much of the lower income categories. The libertarian category

is the largest for the two highest income groups, representing 33 percent of those with an income of

$35,000 and over. Distinctions that might be overlooked or obscured with a liberal-conservative

continuum are obvious in this table. For example, the high proportion of libertarians among the

wealthy may in part explain the "inversion" of the class base of liberalism and conservatism analyzed

by Ladd and Hadley (1978). Many of the issues that Ladd and Hadley use to indicate that upper

income strata are becoming more liberal are in fact issues of individual liberty -- abortion, marijuana,

and sexual relationships, for example.

Table 2

Demographic Characteristics of Ideological Types*

Populist

Conservative

Liberal

Libertarian

Divided

National

(N) 24%

(565)

18% (425)

16%

(392)

13% (313)

18%

(442)

Income

0-5,000

5-10,000

10-15,000

15-20,000

20-25,000

25-35,000

35 & Above

Race

White

Nonwhite

Education

Grade

School

High School

Some

College

Degree

Advanced

Degree

Age

18-25

26-30

31-35

36 & over

Region

Northeast

Midwest

South

West

Ideological Self-Classification**

Liberal

Moderate

Conservative

No Answer

* Percentages add across the rows except where noted (**). Inattentives and the small centrist

categories are not listed here. Therefore, the percentages add up to less than 100 percent.

** Percentages add down the columns.

Education. As can be seen from table 2, education relates strongly to ideological type. The most

obvious relation- ship is the predominance of the populist category among those with grade-school

and high-school education, and the relatively small percentage of populists beyond high school.

Conservatives are drawn about equally from each of the educational groups, while the proportions

of liberals and libertarians increase quite significantly with higher levels of education. For those with

college and advanced degrees, these two types represent about half the group.

Age. The data show interesting generational differences. If we look at the period in which people in

each age category reached political maturity, the differences may be explained in terms of the

political "milieu" of the time. Among the oldest group, many of whom matured during the depression,

the predominant categories are populist and conservative. This reflects the New Deal conflicts,

which were primarily about questions of government intervention; the expansion of individual

liberties was not a primary division.

The second age group came to political maturity in the late fifties, often characterized as the period

of "the end of ideology." People in this age group are clustered remarkably close together -- our

four ideological categories are within 5 percent of each other in size. The next age group matured

during the early sixties, a period symbolized by John Kennedy and a liberal sense of confidence and

mission. This age group is distinguished by a greater number of liberals than the older groups, with

the other ideological categories remaining about the same size.

Our youngest group reached maturity in the mid- seventies, with a general disillusionment with

government, but also an increased concern with the "social issues" that relate to the

individual-liberties dimension. This younger group seems to be distinguished by a commitment to

individual liberties in that the two largest categories are liberal and libertarian. Thus this youngest

group is divided over the effectiveness of govern- ment economic intervention, but not over a

commitment to individual liberties, whereas the oldest group is divided over government intervention

but is in agreement that individual liberties should not expand. Region. As one would expect, given

the historical and economic factors in Southern politics, Southerners are more heavily populist than

any other category, with conservative being the second largest category for that region. The South

has a few liberals or libertarians. In the Midwest, conservatism is represented equally with populism

while in the Northeast populism is the largest category with liberalism a close second. Perhaps the

most interesting region is the West, which consists mostly of California residents in this sample. Here

the largest category is the divided one, and no ideological category stands out as particularly large.

The difficulty of building a coalition here is obvious. Some of the more bizarre aspects of California

politics may reflect this lack of ideological agreement in the region.

The Political Behavior of Ideological Types in 1976

As Stimson (1975) argued, the identification of types of belief systems should be supplemented by a

discussion of the behavior of those types of citizens. Do they behave in patterns that indicate that the

belief system is in some way useful to them? Can we make predictions about the behavior of those

in different belief categories? With the fourfold classification we have presented, these questions

become even more complex. While the political world may be relatively well defined for liberals and

conservatives, populists and libertarians may find the definition of American politics provided by the

media more difficult to match with their own perspectives. We examine how these four types of

ideologues respond to four major political choices: the liberal-conservative continuum as a means of

self-classification, party identification, presidential vote, and the evaluation of political candidates.

Ideological Self-Classification. The comparison of the four ideological groups' responses to the

liberal-conservative self-placement scale (trichotomized with the no-answer group presented

separately) is at the bottom of table 2. The figures here add down the columns: We are interested in

how members of each group classify themselves. The results generally confirm expectations. Almost

the same proportion of liberals and conservatives correctly label themselves on this scale. In both

cases about one-quarter choose to take the moderate way out, thus avoiding either of the two

extreme labels. However, we cannot expect a perfect correspondence between classification based

on issue positions and self-classification. (20) Just because a respondent holds a set of attitudes that

analysis would describe as liberal, for example, does not mean that he understands the accepted

definitions of that term or that he himself uses the same definition. Furthermore, in responding to the

liberal-conservative scale, the person may be reacting more to the label and its connotations than to

its representation of a set of issue positions. Some liberals, for example, may not wish to use the

label (as in the 1976 campaign, when some liberal candidates or president suddenly became

"progressive") because of negative connotations of big government and wasteful spending.

Furthermore, Holm and Robinson suggest that some people in fact have an ideological framework

for understanding politics but are not conscious of it. (21) The liberals and conservatives found here

who choose the moderate or no-response option may be such people.

Self-classification is impossible for almost half of the populists; they have no obvious alternatives. Of

those populists who do choose a label, almost four times as many choose either conservative or

moderate as choose liberal, perhaps reflecting a hostility to the connotations of that term, despite the

fact that they support major liberal economic initiatives. Libertarians do make a choice; their 11

percent non response is the lowest of any group (probably reflecting their higher education levels).

Furthermore, they are more likely to choose conservative (37 percent) or moderate (34 percent)

rather than liberal as their label. Perhaps the word "liberal" for populists too strongly suggests

changing social values or welfare spending. "Liberal" may remind libertarians chiefly of government

spending and increased taxation.

Party Identification. Table 3 presents evidence on the partisan choice of the four major belief

systems. Again, the percentages add down, indicating the distribution of each ideo- logical group

across the three partisan choices. Libertarians are the group most likely to be independent of the

parties. Some libertarians may reason that Republicans are the most likely to minimize government

economic intervention and yet not drastically alter the state of individual liberties. Others, particularly

the large group of younger libertarians, may reason that both parties are capable of deficit spending

and increased government activity, but the Democrats are closer to their position on questions of

individual liberties and changing lifestyles.

The strong Democratic identification among populists (47 percent) may reflect the appeal of

Democratic candidates -- for example, Jimmy Carter in his support of economic intervention for the

disadvantaged combined with lukewarm support for liberalization of individual liberties; or George

Wallace, the candidate most often labeled a populist in recent years. Further, the endurance of party

identification from its early formation and the fact that party identification may lag behind changing

issue attitudes and realignments (22) suggests that populists, who may have formed partisan ties with

the Democrats in earlier years when divisive social issues were not present (see our earlier

discussion of age), should choose Democratic affiliation most often. The strength of candidates like

Carter and Wallace in the presidential primaries of recent years is certainly not surprising given this

finding. We must not overlook the substantial number of populists who call themselves independent

and Republican, however. For someone with a populist set of issue positions, the choice between

the two parties is a difficult one to make.

Liberals also are strongly Democratic (47 percent), but nearly as many identify themselves as

independent. The conservative group is most evenly split across partisan choices, although the

Table 3

Relationship of Ideological Type to Party Identification, Controlling for Education,

Income, and Race

(N)

Libertarian

(313)

Conservative

(425

Liberal

(392)

Populist

(565)

Party

Identification

Democrat

Independent

Republican

Grade School

(16)

(56)

(25)

(163)

Democrat

Independent

Republican

High School

(129)

(220)

(153)

(318)

Democrat

Independent

Republican

College

(175)

(147)

(215)

(83)

Democrat

Independent

Republican

Low Income

(69)

(108)

(133)

(327)

Democrat

Independent

41 21 35 25

Republican

High Income

(232)

(294)

(235)

(205)

Democrat

Independent

Republican

Whites

(298)

(408)

(321)

(457)

Democrat

Independent

Republican 36

38 14 25

Republicans are strongest. The failure of Republicans to tap their "natural constituency" is indicated

by the one-third of the conservatives who choose the independent label and the one-third who

choose the Democratic party.

The relationship between ideological views and partisan identification may be contaminated by

demographic factors, however. While there are some demographic differences in the degree to

which ideological types identify with the parties or remain independent, we find in table 3 that the

same pattern exists for most demographic categories. First, Democrats in the total sample are the

strongest among liberals and populists; they are less well represented among conservatives and do

poorly among libertarians. That same pattern exists among Democrats with grade-school or

high-school education, among both Democratic income groups, and among white Democrats. Only

when we compare ideologues among Democrats with college education do we find a slight

variation. Democrats are stronger among libertarians than among conservatives, but, even there,

liberals include more Democrats than does the populist group, and the populist group in turn is more

Democratic than the two remaining groups. Secondly, independents in the total sample are strongest

among libertarians and liberals, followed by conservatives and populists; subgroups of independents

show some variations from this pattern. Among the lowest education group of independents, all

types are notice- ably weaker except the libertarians. Among the high school educated group and

those with low incomes, populists are stronger than conservatives among independents, hut

otherwise the national pattern is repeated. Among independents with college education, the liberals,

libertarians, and conservatives are virtually even, and in the high income group all four types are

virtually even. Finally, Republicans are most strongly represented in the conservative and libertarian

groupings in the total sample, followed by populists and liberals last. For all of the control groups

except one, this same pattern is replicated. Among the high income segment, Republicans are

slightly more represented among libertarians than among conservatives, but generally speaking the

relationship between ideological orientation and Republican identification holds constant even when

controlling for demographic factors.

Presidential Voting. In the 1976 election, most voters perceived Carter as a liberal and Ford as a

conservative. (23) To the extent that liberals and conservatives share the majority perception they

should have been able to make a clear choice. For populists and libertarians the problem was not

just that the two candidates did not reflect their views on major issue dimensions but that the

definition of the candidates was generally in liberal-conservative terms. Populists, however, could

have responded to Carter because he de-emphasized lifestyle issues and focused on economic

issues and trust in government. (As Miller 1978 points out, Carter tended to defuse those issues that

had divided the Democrats in 1972.) Their tendencies toward Democratic identification obviously

would have propelled many into Carter's column. For libertarians, many of whom are independents,

the presidential choice was between two candidates whose pronounce- ments on questions of

individual liberties did not greatly differ, although Carter probably more clearly supported women's

rights and showed less enthusiasm for a "hard line" against legalization of marijuana and abortion. On

the other hand, libertarians may have found Betty Ford's feminism and tolerance of changing

lifestyles more appealing than Carter's Southern Baptist image. On the economic dimensions,

however, Ford obviously opposed government intervention more than did Carter, whose campaign

return to traditional Democratic liberalism may have muted his "un-Democratic" conservative

economic views, which were noticeable earlier in the year. Thus a choice for Ford would have been

the most defensible for the libertarian voter in 1976.

The proportion voting for Carter presented in table 4 indicates that our expectations are borne out.

Sixty-six percent of liberals voted for Carter, slightly ahead of the 59 percent given him by populists.

Conservatives gave him only 32 percent of their votes and libertarians supported Carter even less.

The support for Carter among "self-identified" liberals is higher (79 percent) than the Carter support

among the liberals as we have defined them. Similarly, the Ford vote among self-identified

conservatives is higher than any conservatives as defined by our two-dimensional typo logy. We do

not see this as a refutation of our classification, however. Those classified as liberals or

conservatives in our method face a much more stringent test of classification than those classified by

self-identification. Furthermore, the vote of "liberals for Carter" and "conservatives for Ford" by

self-classification may mean little more than voter response to ideological labels that are repeatedly

presented to them throughout a campaign, as both Field and Anderson (1969) and Pierce (1970)

suggest happened during the 1964 campaign. Finally, our fourfold classification allows us to make

predictions about two other groups, populists and libertarians, that are for the most part buried in

the mountain of moderates and don't-knows of the self-classification scale.

We do not claim that membership in one of these ideological groupings is by itself the best predictor

of a presidential vote. We suggest that a person's belief system may in some cases operate in

conjunction with his partisanship to reinforce voting decisions or, in other cases, lead to defection.

Further, the belief system should serve as a good predictor of presidential vote among self-identified

independents. For evidence on this point, the lower part of table 4 presents the percentage voting

for Carter in each ideological group while controlling for identification. As we expect, there are clear

Table 4

Relationship of Ideological Type and Vote for Carter Controlling for Education, Income,

and Race

Libertarian

Conservative

Liberal

Populist

Vote for Carter

30%

33%

66%

59%

By Party Identification

Democrat

61 (52)

71 (105)

85 (143)

84 (176)

Independent

30 (91)

29 (94)

52 (116)

45 (107)

Republican

13 (95)

7 (132)

26 (31)

25 (93)

Grade School*

High School

College

Low Income

High Income

Whites

*N's for remaining categories are same as in table 2.

differences attributable to partisanship. All Democrats vote heavily for Carter regardless of

ideology; all Republican identifiers supported Ford at high rates despite ideological classification.

However, the voting tendencies of ideological groupings do appear even when party is controlled.

Among Democratic identifiers, the highest rates of defection are among libertarians and then

conservatives, while liberals and populists supported Carter at the highest rates. Among

Republicans, more defections from Ford occur in the liberal and populist groups; Ford held 93

percent of the conservatives and 87 percent of libertarians. Furthermore, the figures among

independents are similar in direction to those of the total sample. Party identification obviously was a

better single explanation of presidential vote choice in 1976, but our ideological classi- fication

offers an additional set of evidence about partisan defection rates and about the behavior of

independents. The remainder of table 4 presents the vote for Carter by ideological classification,

controlling for education, income, and race. Here we find that, although there is some variation in the

magnitude of support for Carter across ideological groups when demographic factors are

controlled, the same general directions are present in almost every case: The order of Carter's

support goes from liberal, populist, conservative, to libertarian. Only in the case of

grade-school-educated respondents do we find any variations, but the small cell size here may

account for the findings.

Another means of testing the utility of our typo logy is to examine voter perception of the candidates'

standing on the issues. The 1976 survey asked respondents to evaluate the presidential candidates'

positions on the three economic- intervention questions and two of the individual-liberties questions.

(No question was asked about candidate stand on abortion.) The data in table 5 indicate that, in

general, the four ideological types evaluate candidates consistent with our expectations. Liberals and

populists who voted for Carter generally perceived Carter as being more favorable to government

economic intervention, while conservatives and libertarians who voted for Carter perceived him as

being more opposed to these government actions. When we turn to two individual-liberties

questions we find a different set of perceptions. Here liberals and libertarians who voted for Carter

tend to perceive his position similarly while conservative and populist Carter sup- porters saw him

as being more opposed to expanding individual liberties. Thus for Carter supporters the fourfold

classi- fication provides an explanation for voter perceptions of the candidate that the

liberal-conservative continuum by itself could not.

For Ford voters the patterns are not quite as clear. On government health insurance and government

jobs, liberal and populist Ford voters perceived Ford as more in favor of government intervention,

while conservatives and libertarian Ford voters saw

Table 5

Perception of Candidate Issue Positions* by Their Supporters, According to Ideological

Type

Carter Voters' Perception of

Carter

Ford Voters' Perception of

Ford

Economic Issues

Lib.

Pop.

Cons.

Lbt.

Lib.

Pop.

Cons.

Lbt.

Progressive

Taxation

2.91

3.28

3.73

4.13

4.05

3.84

4.33

4.40

Government Health

Insurance

2.94

3.29

3.69

3.72

3.40

4.83

5.10

Government Jobs

3.13

2.97

3.61

3.50

4.50

3.69

5.04

4.93

Individual-Liberties Issues

Lib.

Pop.

Cons.

Lbt.

Lib.

Pop.

Cons.

Lbt.

Legislation

Marijuana

4.40

3.90

4.97

5.37

4.21

4.57

4.98

5.35

Equal Role for

Women

2.62

2.82

3.63

3.41

3.17

3.64

3.59

3.66

*Figures shown are the mean score for each group's perception of the candidate's positions on a

1-7 scale. The lower the score the more the candidate is perceived as supporting the policy in

question him as being opposed. On progressive taxation, the distinctions in perceptions of Ford

were minor and not consistent with our expectations. On legalization of marijuana, most voters saw

Ford as opposing such a move, although the libertarians and populists clearly saw Ford's position

quite differently. On women's rights, the Ford libertarians perceived Ford as being slightly favorable,

while the other three groups perceived Ford's position as barely on the favorable side. In summary,

the perception of the candidates by their supporters generally is predictable by a supporter's belief

system. By a simple liberal-conservative distinction, liberals and conservatives should represent two

opposing views of the candidates' positions. In fact, we find that liberal and populist voters perceive

their candidates similarly on economic issues, with conservatives and libertarians' perceptions of the

candidate clustered together in the opposite direction. When we look at individual-liberties issues,

we find that libertarians and liberals perceive the candidates similarly (especially for Carter voters),

while conservatives and populists share a different set of perceptions.

Conclusion

We have presented an alternative approach to the analysis of mass belief systems, showing that it is

useful to conceptualize mass belief systems in terms of two dimensions -- government intervention in

economic affairs, and expansion of individual liberties -- rather than in terms of the traditional liberal-

conservative continuum. Using these two dimensions, we defined four ideological categories, which

we label liberal, conservative, populist, and libertarian. We believe our approach more accurately

reflects the complexities of the philosophical traditions of liberalism and conservatism as well as the

realities of contemporary politics. The interrelationships of economic freedom and personal freedom

have been much debated in the development of western political thought in the last two centuries;

our use of a two- dimensional approach to mass belief systems more accurately reflects this debate.

In addition, the literature analyzing elite behavior -- Congress and courts, for example -- often is

forced beyond the single liberal-conservative dimension. We see our approach as a logical

extension of previous research, rather than a totally new departure.

By clarifying the liberal and conservative labels and adding two new categories, we are able to more

completely explain the behavior of the American electorate than can be done with a unidimensional

approach. We find tendencies for our four groups to behave differently (even after controlling for

various demo- graphic factors) in such areas as party identification, presi- dential vote, and

evaluation of candidates' issue positions. Further, we can speculate that the existence of two major

groups of people who hold political beliefs for which the traditional language and labels of American

politics provide more confusion than clarity has long-range implications for the political system.

For example, growing evidence suggests that the traditional coalitions of the two parties are

changing, that the number of independent identifiers is increasing, that split-ticket voting is growing,

and that in general the electorate is more volatile and less predictable now than in the immediate

past. Evidence of dissatisfaction with political parties (among other institutions) is also plentiful.

While these changes relate in part to the impact of television, changing campaign styles, improved

education, and -the cumulative impact of the perceived failures and scandals of political institutions

in recent years, they may also be related to the presence of two ideological groups in society whose

belief systems are not reflected by the Democratic or the Republican party nor by their candidates.

If our analysis is correct, the major parties and their candidates will have to deal with the presence

of at least four, rather than two, ideological groupings in the American electorate. And those who

seek to predict or explain voter behavior including voter apathy will especially have to recognize

these four distinct groups.

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_____; Clausen, Aage; and Miller, Warren. 1965. "Electoral Myth and Reality: The 1964 Election."

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_____. 1978. Transformations of the American Party System. 2d ed. New York: Norton.

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FOOTNOTES

(1) Campbell et al. 1960, Converse 1964, Field and Anderson 1969, Pierce 1970. (2) Converse

1964, Nie and Anderson 1974. (3) Stimson 1975, Kritzer 1978. (4) These were also used by

Holm and Robinson 1978 in a different context. (5) Luttbeg 1968, Stimson 1975, and Kritzer

1978. (6) Converse et al. 1965, Converse et al. 1969, Miller and Miller 1975, and Miller 1978, for

example. (7) Holm and Robinson 1978, Levitan and Miller 1979. (8) LeBlanc and Merrin 1979, p.

61. (9) Nie, Verba, and Petrocik 1976, p. 138.

(11) Knoke 1979, p. 772.

(12) Ladd and Hadley 1978. For a summary of this literature and a multi variate analysis of this

relationship, see Knoke 1979.

(13) Miller and Miller 1975, Stimson 1975, Pomper 1975, for example.

(14) Turner 1951; MacRae 1958; Truman 1959; Mayhew 1966.

(15) Clausen 1973, p. 31

(16) LeBlanc and Merrin 1979, p. 61.

(17) See, for example, Knoke 1979.

(18) LeBlanc and Merrin 1977, pp. 1063-64.

(19) Data analysis relevant to this point is not presented here, as it is not our major concern. This

information is available on request from the authors.

(20) See Free and Cantril 1967.

(21) Holm and Robinson 1978, p, 237.

(22) See Ladd and Hadley 1973, for example.

(23) Miller 1978.

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