Beyond constraint: tightness and consensus of political belief systems

Abstract

Political ideology has regained prominence in political science and psychology. On the one hand, most of the literature recognizes that ideology is not characterized by a single dimension. On the other hand, recent scholarship has returned to Converse's classic conceptualization of ideology as a belief system: a network of interconnected political beliefs. Using survey data collected after the 2022 Italian general elections, I examine the dimensionality of political attitudes and compare latent and network conceptualizations. Results confirm that Italian political attitudes are bidimensional, and that a partial correlation network model captures their structure very well. I then apply Correlational Class Analysis to identify three distinct belief system types. Political orientations (left-right self-placement and vote) emerge as the strongest individual-level predictors of class membership. I explain these findings through an extension of Converse's theory: while he argued that belief systems primarily vary in tightness (internal consistency), I show that conflicting partisan cues might foster low belief consensus: disagreement over which attitudes should be held together.