Thursday, September 24, 2015

Things They Should Invent: reconcile Vote Compass and Political Compass

When I took the Vote Compass quiz, I was surprised to see that the relative positions of the Green Party, Liberal Party and NDP were different from their relative positions on Political Compass.

I want to make it clear: I'm not complaining that one of the axes is inverted (although it is) or that the scales are different (although they are).  I'm saying that the positions of the parties relative to each other are different on the two tools.

On Vote Compass, the Green Party was the furthest left economically.  In other words, if you drew a line of best fit through the plot of all the parties, their order, from left to right, would be Green, NDP, Liberal and Conservative

On Political Compass, NDP was furthest left economically.  In other words, if you drew a line of best fit through the plot of all the parties, their order, from left to right, would be NDP, Green, Liberal and Conservative.

They can't both be right. Someone, somewhere, must be missing something.  And it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, for an ordinary voter to figure out who might be missing what.

I'd love to see the Vote Compass people and the Political Compass people get together, discuss their interpretations of the platforms, and arrive at a consensus about the relative positions of the parties.

Both tools are trying to achieve the same thing - trying to give voters objective information about which parties best align with their own political views. They could better achieve this, and appear more objective and more credible, by pooling their respective expertise and arriving at a consensus.

4 comments:

Lori said...

Have you tried the AIS Ideology Sorter?

impudent strumpet said...

No, I'll have to have a look at that!

laura k said...

If I recall correctly, Political Compass has broad applications and a more global scale. Vote Compass is (I think) CBC's Canadian-parties-only version. In other words, I think they were meant to measure different things.

impudent strumpet said...

I got the impression that the left-right economic scale measured the same thing in both tools, just on a different scale. Vote Compass encompasses the parties in the current election, Political Compass encompasses all past, present and possible future political parties. (For example, Vote Compass could put the 2015 Canadian Conservative Party in the farthest right position on its scale, but Political Compass probably wouldn't because that position has to go to the farthest right political party humanly possible, whether or not it exists.)

It's like how a thermometer for measuring outdoor temperature might have more numbers on it than a thermometer for measuring indoor temperature, but they still measure the same thing. And human body temperature should be between the freezing point of water and the boiling point of water on both thermometers.