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Chapter 6: Issue Orientation (pp. 53-77), this is p. 75
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TABLE 6.17a: Mid 1950s: BV5.15 Soviet Expert Left-Right Rating
TABLE 6.17b: Early 1960s: BV5.15 Soviet Expert Left-Right Rating

the two sets of distributions are constrained due to the use of four categories in one set and the construction of three for the other. But both sources agree on the preponderance of "conservative" parties across the world. Although scores for the Soviet ratings were derived from a somewhat subjective process of content analysis of party descriptions, the process did not seem to be sufficiently subjective to warrant the assignment of adequacy-confidence assessments to the variable codes. The reliability of the process appeared to be satisfactory, owing to the 88 percent rate calculated from 23 exact matches in 26 judgments by two independent coders.

Experts' Ratings and the Issue Orientation Variables

The correlations of the experts' ratings with all thirteen issue orientation variables are presented in Table 6.18. The number of parties underlying each of these correlations vary from a low of 58 to a high of 109. The average number supporting the correlations with the U.S. experts' ratings is 71 for the first half and 79 for the second, while the comparable figures for the Soviet ratings are 73 and 87, respectively. Thus substantial numbers of political parties are involved in these correlations, and the results cannot be attributed to idiosyncratic patterns of a few cases.

TABLE 6.18: Correlation of the Experts' Ratings with the Issue Orientation Variables
Issue Orientation Variable
BV514: U.S. Experts
BV515: Soviet Experts
1st Half
2nd Half
1st Half
2nd Half
5.01

Ownership of Means of Production1

0.82
0.81
0.74
0.75
5.02

Economic Planning1

0.67
0.61
0.60
0.59
5.03

Redistribution of Wealth1

0.74
0.70
0.69
0.66
5.04

Social Welfare1

0.54
0.53
0.51
0.50
5.05

Secularization of Society1

0.40
0.39
0.46
0.40
5.06

Support of the Military2

-.28
-.29
-.43
-0.37
5.07

Alignment with East/West Blocs1

0.75
0.72
0.70
0.67
5.08

Anticolonialism1

0.44
0.38
0.45
0.40
5.09

Supranational Integration

0.01
-.12
0.08
0.02
5.10

National Integration

0.14
0.19
0.26
0.37
5.11

Electoral Participation2

-.12
-.15
-.15
-.24
5.12

Protection of Civil Rights2

0.23
0.26
0.21
0.25
5.13

Interference with Civil Liberties2

0.16
0.20
0.20
0.24

1 Variables that emerged on a Marxism factor after factor analysis. See Table 14.4.
2Variables that appeared on a liberalism factor after factor analysis.


There are several striking features in the data in Table 6.18. First, the correlations of our issue orientation variables with the U.S. ratings closely parallel our correlations with the Soviet ratings. This suggests that the U.S. and Soviet codes are themselves closely correlated. In fact, they correlate .87 over 84 parties existing during the first half of our period and .86 over 92 parties in the second. Finding such high correlations between party ratings on the left-right continuum by two such diverse sets of experts, we are encouraged in our own attempt to evaluate parties' positions on our specific issues from a broader ideological perspective. Whatever reasons underlie the experts' rating of parties on a left-right continuum, the experts largely agree in their judgments at a level of reliability greater than .80.

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