EU Politics Test (EVS)

The European Values Study (EVS), conducted in coordination with the World Values Survey (WVS), represents one of the most comprehensive and enduring cross-national investigations of human beliefs, cultural norms, and social values ever undertaken. Originally initiated to track long-term moral, religious, and political shifts across the continent, the project gathers empirical responses from tens of thousands of citizens across dozens of European countries. Rather than attempting to force complex worldviews into narrow partisan labels, the survey systematically captures the varied, multifaceted priorities that guide everyday civic life, providing an extensive empirical foundation for understanding public opinion.

This assessment draws upon an authored selection of 37 core political questions from the survey, structuring them into eight distinct domains. Economic Left measures preferences regarding state provision, government ownership, and income redistribution versus individual market incentives. Social Freedom evaluates moral tolerance across private personal decisions, while Gender Equality tracks the active rejection of traditional, unequal domestic and professional roles. Democratic Rule gauges explicit commitment to representative democratic governance alongside the clear rejection of authoritarian, strongman, or military rule. Public Trust assesses self-reported confidence across foundational civic institutions, including national parliaments, civil services, and governments.

The remaining domains capture civic participation, views on immigration, and government surveillance. Migrant Openness reflects attitudes toward the cultural and economic contributions of immigrants and general social acceptance. Civic Action measures engagement in public life, including interest in politics and participation in petitions, boycotts, and peaceful demonstrations. State Monitoring examines views on the acceptability of government digital and video surveillance powers.

The grouping used here is descriptive and authored for this test; it is not an official EVS scale or a published factor model. Someone may favor social freedom and market-oriented economic policies at the same time, or support democracy while distrusting the current government. Adding those positions into a grand total would hide the differences. Each facet contains at least three questions, and the spider chart shows how the eight scores form your overall pattern.

The comparison data come from 34,473 EVS respondents in 21 EU countries included in the joint EVS/WVS dataset. The observations were collected during the EVS 2017 wave, whose fieldwork extended into 2021. Each domain uses only respondents who answered all its questions, so sample sizes vary. Survey weights apply within countries, and countries contribute equally to the comparison. The markers are estimates from published survey data, not validated norms or population percentiles. They do not represent all 27 EU countries, current voting intentions, or a population-weighted EU average. A score of 70% describes the selected orientation, not a rank above 70% of Europeans.

This test is provided for educational and self-reflective purposes only. It does not provide voting guidance, diagnostic evaluations, or political endorsements. Your results reflect your self-reported alignment across distinct civic themes at this moment in time. This assessment is based on the European Values Study political profile: original 37-item selection (EVS) and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the European Values Study or the World Values Survey Association.

This version presents 32 attitude statements on a five-point scale ordered from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Behavioral questions and forced choices retain their source options. Each item is normalized to its own response range before the domain average is calculated, so all items have equal weight. Historical responses are mapped to the same endpoints; changing the wording and number of categories makes this an approximate comparison. The median marks the middle of the reference distribution. “Above the mean” compares your score with the reference mean as a relative percentage: 100 times the difference divided by that mean.

References

• EVS/WVS. (2024). European Values Study and World Values Survey: Joint EVS/WVS 2017–2022 Dataset (Version 5.0.0) [Data set]. JD Systems Institute & WVSA. doi:10.14281/18241.26.
• European Values Study. (2018). EVS 2017 English master questionnaire (CAPI, May 2018). GESIS Data Archive.

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