How Neoliberal are You? Development and Validation of the Neoliberal Orientation Questionnaire

Abstract

We created a novel instrument to assess individual orientations toward the neoliberal capitalist system, the Neoliberal Orientation Questionnaire (NOQ), which is comprised of four dimensions: competitiveness, individual self-regulation, relational detachment, and public divestment. The instrument was intended to complement existing scales by (a) adopting a European perspective, and (b) incorporating personal as well as societal values, including lifestyle considerations. We sought to validate the NOQ in a European country with a strong history of public investment and social welfare provisions, namely France. In three nationally representative French samples, and one US student sample we assessed the internal consistency and construct validity of long and short versions of the scale. In terms of convergent and divergent validity, NOQ scores were positively correlated with scores on the Neoliberal Beliefs Inventory (NBI), general and economic forms of system justification, social dominance orientation, social and economic conservatism, internal locus of control, belief in free will, future-orientation, and a tendency to look on the ‘bright side’ in the face of hardships. The NOQ should prove useful for understanding the antecedents, concomitants, and consequences of attitudinal support versus opposition to the neoliberal capitalist system that dominates contemporary Western societies.