Beyond Left and Right: A Scale to Measure Political Ideology in India

Abstract

Most work assessing political ideology and its underpinnings has used primarily western samples. Given India’s unique position as the world’s largest parliamentary democracy with a multiparty system, the present research aimed to develop a scale to measure political ideology in India. Pilot work indicated that the social and economic bifurcation of the conception of political ideology was inadequate in assessing Indians’ stance on political issues. Therefore, in Study 1, 48 items were written relevant to the complex context of political ideology in India. Three factors were extracted based on a sample of 541 Indians (Mage = 24.80, SD = 8.44): purity-based cultural norms, obedience to hierarchy, and economic ideology, highlighting the importance attributed to social concerns. In Study 2, 382 Indians responded to a revised scale (Mage = 26.15 years, SD = 9.00). Based on a confirmatory factor analysis, the three-factor structure was retained. Measurement invariance revealed expected differences between men and women in a few gendered issues such as dowry. Across both studies, economic ideology had poor fit, indicating unreliability of economic issues constituting a consistent ideology in India. Implications, especially with respect to temporal contexts and economic ideology, are discussed.