Facebook Politics
November 29th, 2007 at 10:38 am by David FarrarOne of the applications in Facebook is NZ Politics. You can choose a party you support, and then see who all your friends support. You get to choose whether or not your support is made public.
I have 4 friends supporting the Greens, 7 supporting ACT, 12 supporting Labour and 24 supporting National. A total of 363 votes have been cast. Would be good to have others take the test.
Also a good Facebook app for political types is the Political Compass. It asks you question and places you on both an economic right vs left axis but also a social issues authoritarian.
59 of my friends have done the compass test. Only two of them are more right wing on the economic front (damn you Bishop! 
). On social issue around 24 people are more sociallly liberal than me, and 35 more socially conservative.
13 people are economically right and socially conservative. 20 are economically left and socially liberal. 26 are economically right and socially liberal, while only one is economically left and socially conservative.
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November 29th, 2007 at 11:03 am
The Political Compass concept is a great one. It illustrates the fact that the Left-Right spectrum is not the only relevant one to understanding modern politics.
It’s also very interesting to see where the compass puts the NZ political parties. For its placement of the parties in 2005 see:
http://politicalcompass.org/nz2005
While not perfect, I think the indicative placement of the parties is fairly correct. There’s all sorts of interesting issues about the NZ party system that this picture brings up – such as the fact that there is no significant party to represent those that are economically rightwing and socially liberal. The Act party prevaricates on social issues. I guess the old NZ Party of Bob Jones would have been in this corner.
Bryce
Vote:http://www.liberation.org.nz
November 29th, 2007 at 11:15 am
I find every time I do I swing madly around depending on whether I just ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’. It’s interesting, but not scientific.
I think I’ve moved towards the centre-ground is recent years, but that isn’t really reflected in my score.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 11:52 am
I’m surprised that the concept of the Political Compass has not moved on since the early 90s. It was an excellent tool for showing that one dimension is a very poor way of describing people’s political stance. But 2 dimensions is only one better. The standard political compass seems to always choose the same dimensions, as though they are somehow deeply profound. Using the standard fare of an social/political dimension, and an economic one, we get diagrams that seem to spread the variety of political parties in NZ around nicely.
But why stop there? I guess the first reason is obvious: It’s hard to draw more than 2 dimensions. Another is because what you find out when you start adding more and more dimensions is that, as with the transition from 1 dimension to 2, the clusters that seemed so deep and meaningful when the sum totality of human opinion is pressed flat onto a piece of paper don’t seem so clear cut, so easily generalized.
You find, for example, that the Liberal-Authoritarian dimension, if broken down further, has the same massive variety of positions. When someone proudly proclaims they are in the middle, you often find that they are quite opposed to the opinions of people whose score was actually the same as them. They could even be diametrically opposed, yet the squeezing of all opinion down into a number has placed them alongside their most hated enemy. They could have answered the exact opposite on every question as the other guy and because of that they got the same score.
So I think it’s an interesting tool, but be very wary of placing too much emphasis on it. Observing a cluster of dots in 2 dimensions and thus assuming that they are close together is as wrong as seeing a galaxy through your telescope which appears to near Alpha Centauri, and concluding that it’s therefore in the neighborhood of Alpha Centauri. It could actually be at the other end of the universe.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Hear hear, Bryce!
To me it seems inconsistent to be generally in favour of government interference in your economic life but against it in your social life, so I’d love to see a viable party in that sector (meanwhile, I vote Act).
The 2005 placements seem to over-estimate the social conservatism of almost all parties. New Zealand as a whole is rather socially liberal, and the National Party has treated most social legislation a conscience vote rather than taking a (relatively) conservative stance. I’d place National on the middle ground and Labour closer to where I rate on the vertical axis (roughly at the level the Greens are shown).
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Good point, Ben, also. Great metaphor.
For example, I find it very weird that politicalcompass.org labels Left Authoritarian as “voluntary regional communes” on some of it’s explanatory diagrams. Just my two cents, but I’d say that a relatively small percentage of the spectrum of beliefs in that quarter would be described that way by the people holding them.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Camryn, if you analyse National members’ conscience votes they’re overwhelmingly conservative. Except for a handful of MPs, National has voted against every single piece of progressive legislation that’s come before the house. If you look at Labour members they’ve voted overwhelmingly for progressive legislation, bar one or two social conservatives in their ranks.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
We’re just differing on perceptions. My perception is that on the overall scale of possible social legislation our recent legislation in NZ is quite far “liberal” or “progressive” (to use your term).
In that context, I think Labour (proposing and supporting this legislation) should be shown as more socially liberal than they are (it shows them as roughly neutral) and National (opposing as individuals via a conscience vote, unlikely to repeal as a party) should be shown as roughly neutral (it shows them as quite conservative).
I can’t assert that my perception is definitely more valid than yours because it’s just a perception. But, I *think* it is
In any case, the actual mapping of parties on the spectrum is even more of a nonsense than for individuals because it’s a subjective exercise to map observable manifestos and actual action to the beliefs-type questions used to plot the graph + parties (especially the ‘big tent’ ones) are a cloud of individuals with varying positions (as you allude to).
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
From my count on facebook:
ACT – 2 MPs (entire caucus)
Vote:National – 2 MPs
Labour – 1 MP (Helen Clark)
Greens – 4 MPs
Maori – 0
UF – 0
NZ1 – 0
Independents – 0
November 29th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Tane: Some ‘evidence’ for my point…
US Primaries 2007: http://politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2007
NZ Parties 2005: http://politicalcompass.org/nz2005
The National Party is roughly as conservative as McCain and Giuliani? I think not! Maybe you do think so.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
I’d say that the ACT party of today is much more socially liberal to the Pre 2005 one as well.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
MikeE – Yes, to my pleasure, they are.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
I think Ben Wilson’s points are quite true, but maybe he underestimates how much the general public and the ‘political community’ still view politics simply through a Left-Right lens. In this sense, the use of a second dimension based on social issues is still a huge advancement to understanding modern NZ politics. These ‘post-materialist’ issues are increasingly important in politics, yet most commentators simply think social liberalism equates to the Left and social conservatism equates with the Right. It’s interesting to reflect on how these two dimensions have fluctuated recently in how much they structure parliamentary politics.
The emergence of growing debate around social issues such as law and order policy, Treaty of Waitangi policy, drug reform, and environmental policy reflects a move towards political conflict occurring primarily over non-economic, non-materialist issues. This is interesting, because throughout the 1980s and 1990s, New Zealand politics have been overwhelmingly characterised by materialism, with political debate being dominated by traditional economic-class issues like unemployment, the provision of health and education, and increasing inequality. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s successful parties (and the then fast-rising new parties such as Act, the Alliance, and NZ First) concentrated their campaigns and general marketing on materialist issues.
By the time of the 2002 general election, ‘postmaterialist’ issues dominated the campaign, as most political parties ran campaigns that centred on societal issues. In particular, it is indicative that New Zealand First’s much-heralded three major issues of the 2002 election – immigration, crime, and the Treaty of Waitangi – were all non-economic issues. Act, likewise, also placed non-economic issues – namely law and order and the Treaty – at the centre of its campaign. On the so-called ‘left’ the adherence to the postmaterialist dimension has mainly been around issues such as the environment, anti-smacking, anti-smoking, identity politics, prostituion reform, anti-GM, Treaty settlements, anti-nuclear, civil unions etc.
In recent elections nearly all the parties have adopted hard-line law and order policies. In particular, it seems all the parties of the centre and centre-right have been attempting to outbid each other in order to differentiate themselves as the party of law and order. National, Act and New Zealand First all took harder lines on crime in 2002 than previously. Yet much of their rhetoric was stronger than their policies. In government, Labour has entered the competition to be the most hardline on law and order. It has shown little differentiation with the parties of the right, and in office, initiated legislation to lengthen sentences for serious crimes of violence.
The emergence of contentious social issues since the late-1990s suggests that the postmaterialist consensus that had been developing earlier in the 1990s has been breaking down, especially due to a concerted effort by conservative parties to differentiate themselves from the parties inhabiting the centre. It seems that because the new political centre is mostly based around the economic, third way consensus, any parties that wish to differentiate themselves must find other non-economic points of difference. In the past, when polarisation on the main socio-economic spectrum was greater, the parties could afford to move into a consensus on social issues, but once the spread on the socio-economic scale shrunk, polarisation on postmaterialist issues was triggered. Most parties have chosen societal issues and positions on ‘identity politics’ as a way of asserting points of difference. This is especially the case for parties of the right in opposition, as they cannot make any progress by emphasising their centrist economic policies since the parties to their left have already claimed the economic centre as their own. Instead, the parties of the right offer a move to more conservative social stances to complement their orthodox economic orientation. Because the party was increasingly similar to Labour in economic policy, National had to find other non-economic issues in which to differentiate itself, leading to socially conservative policies on issues like law and order and immigration. But essentially, National found it impossible to contest the middle ground in a way that is sufficiently differentiated from Labour’s approach without scaring off moderate voters. Hence we now have a parliamentary battle over non-economic issues – some of which are very important.
Bryce
Vote:http://www.liberation.org.nz
November 29th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
What i’d like to know is how they determined the Greens are that close to Anarchism/Libertarianism. Apart from what Russel Norman said about ‘Citizen’s Assemblies’ in relation to the EFB (that would be anarchistic) why else are they there? And why is ACT that far up?
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I just added you to my friends…so not a stalker just a reader of your blog.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I agree with Stephen query about the Greens being seen as so libertarian. Their position on the chart is somewhat more towards the centre on both the left-right scale and the libertarian one.
Act probably used to be a lot more socially liberal, but in recent years they’ve been chasing the votes of NZ First’s (and National’s old) constituency, and hence Act is now fairly conservative on things like law and order, defence, civil rights, etc.
Bryce
Vote:http://www.liberation.org.nz
November 29th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
but maybe he underestimates how much the general public and the ‘political community’ still view politics simply through a Left-Right lens.
Maybe you overestimate it. I think it takes quite a lot of training and conditioning to see the world that way, and further conditioning to get your head around the newer model. Prior to understanding either model, I would suggest most people attempt to fit all/ their opinions to a candidate. At least all the ones that matter to them. Since there is only a small selection of candidates, the fit will be poor, but people will take the one that is the least uncomfortable.
What I’m warning against is doing too much planning around this graph. Political opinion is really massively multidimensional, and different dimensions matter more or less at different times. The way that populations move in this n-dimensional space is very complex. If you want to capture a demographic you would be advised to take more dimensions into account, so that you can really be sure what the center of gravity of some apparent cluster is. You might find it’s not actually a big cluster, it’s 2 or more clusters separated by vast gulfs of distance in a dimension you are not measuring, which appear near each other for reasons you don’t understand at all.
If you want to move a demographic you’ve got an even bigger job. But it may be important to you to do so, for some reason.
I’ve long known where I’m placed on the 2D political compass. But I find that I don’t really care much for my neighbors, and I worked out why – it’s because the economic dimension doesn’t really matter to me. I’ve got a position, sure, but it’s really not my field of interest, exactly what the Minister of Finance is going to do. Someone could be at great variance to my position along that axis, and yet I would consider them much closer than others who had the exact same position economically, and only quite a small variance in the other ‘social political dimension’. Also, as I said before, someone could be in exactly the same position as me, for entirely different reasons, and this person I wouldn’t trust to represent me at all.
So, yes it’s an improvement upon 1 dimension, but it’s waaaay short of reality. It’s a massive simplification to categorize people entirely in 2 dimensions. It was for that reason that I find the Maori Party very hard to predict. From what I can tell, they would be scattered all over the political compass – it just doesn’t matter that much to them. What matters to them is Maori issues, for which you don’t have a dimension, and if you did it would also be a massive simplification.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Ah crap, the problem with using tags and not previewing.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Bryce, you clearly didn’t see ACT’s speeches on the Anti-Terrorism bill.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
‘The worlds smallest political quiz’ on Facebook would seem much easier to interpret…and keeping with the theme of this thread – to pigeonhole people with
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
The links don’t work ;(.
Also, I don’t agree with the placement of the parties on this site:
http://politicalcompass.org/nz2005
There is no way that National is more authoritarian than Labour when they’re trying to push through the EFB – the most restrictive legislation in NZ’s history.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
How did Labour get to be on the right? National needs to be further to the left to give ACT and its flat tax rates, limited social welfare etc. more room on the right.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Bryce… I’m not sure what ACT party you are talking about here:
“Act probably used to be a lot more socially liberal, but in recent years they’ve been chasing the votes of NZ First’s (and National’s old) constituency, and hence Act is now fairly conservative on things like law and order, defence, civil rights, etc.”
I’d say ACT used to chase the votes of NZ First with Newman et all. Now they are a lot more socially liberal, with law and order focusing on REAL crime, civil rights (freedom of speech, self ownership, equality before the law) etc.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
On that Compass ACT should be further south on the libertarian axis than the greens (greens controlling on issues such as cars, soft drinks, education etc), and the Libertarianz are missing all together who should be in the bottom right corner.
National should move to the centre economically. Maori party should also move more to the centre economically and further south (see stance on party pills). I’d say labour should move Further north (more authoritarian than nats) due to supporting party pill ban and regulations of freedom of speech in the EFB.
Progs should be more authoritarian due to stance on BZP.
NZ First just wear a blindfold and stick whereever you like on there, because noone really has a clue where they stand depending on the day of the week.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
I find it useful, but I must note that I am rated as being right in the middle of everything- yet most people would describe me as being more conservative than that.
Vote:I must admit that the nuances of political parties seems to me to be a bit too much for this system. It is better than left/right, but that is it.
November 29th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Those ‘most people’ probably know the right questions to ask.
Vote:November 29th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
FFS, more tag troubles…that third quote is not meant to be a quote.
Vote: