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American Politics Research
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Value Preferences and Ideological Structuring of Attitudes in American Public Opinion

Brendon Swedlow

Northern Illinois University, DeKalb

Mikel L. Wyckoff

Northern Illinois University, DeKalb

In this study, we investigate four attitudinal structures (including liberal, conservative, and libertarian configurations) associated with two ideological dimensions among American voters and demonstrate that these attitudinal structures are related in expected ways to differential preferences for the values of freedom, order, and equality/caring. Liberals are inclined to trade freedom for equality/caring but not for order, whereas conservatives are their opposites—willing to trade freedom for order but not for equality/caring. In contrast, libertarians are generally less willing than others to trade freedom for either order or equality/caring (although they probably prefer order to equality/caring). The fourth ideological type is more willing than the others to relinquish freedom, preferring both order and equality/caring. Depending on how our results are interpreted, this fourth type may be characterized as either communitarian or humanitarian. These findings help close the gap between unidimensional conceptions and multidimensional evidence of ideological organization in political attitudes by demonstrating that value structure and attitudinal structure are strongly related in two ideological dimensions.

Key Words: political ideology • belief systems • liberal • conservative • libertarian • communitarian • humanitarian

American Politics Research, Vol. 37, No. 6, 1048-1087 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1532673X09333959
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