Vääriä kysymyksiä vai vääriä vastauksia? : vasemmisto-oikeisto-ulottuvuus vuosien 2003-2015 vaalitutkimusten valossa

Authors

• Elina Kestilä-Kekkonen
• Aino Tiihonen
• Jussi Westinen

Abstract

The left and right scale has been one of the key measures of grasping political orientations of the electorate. Yet, it is not clear which are the most important indicators determining the position of a citizen in this dimension. This article focuses on exploring what the left-right-dimension actually measures in the Finnish electorate and which issues best reflect its division to left and right. The results show that the questions that correlate strongest with a citizen’s self-positioning in the left-right-scale are diverse in nature. They contain not only socioeconomic issues but also issues concern­ing moral values, security politics, EU-membership and energy production. However, questions related to immigration, environment, regional politics, language politics or gender equality do not correlate with self-positioning on the left-right scale. Hence, it seems that left and right do not constitute a super dimension but they are neither a pure reflection of socioeconomic attitudes. The results also underline the need to be as concrete as possible when formulating survey research questions in order to truly capture voters’ political orientations. General questions regarding, for instance, public services and taxation do not reflect left-right-orientation. The differences in the electorate, however, become more visible the more concrete the questions are.