Lingua Franca of Ideology? Common and Country-Specific Measures of Symbolic and Operational Ideology in Asian and Western Countries.

Comparative public opinion surveys, including the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), often rely on identical labels and question items to measure respondents' symbolic and operational ideology across countries. However, it remains unclear whether common symbolic measures of ideology carry the same meaning across contexts, or whether the issue items used to construct common operational measures are equally relevant in national settings. To address these concerns, we compare symbolic and operational ideology as measured using common cross-national items and country-specific items. We conducted public opinion surveys before and after national elections in seven Asian and Western countries. Our analyses reveal that (i) country-specific measures of ideology are generally more stable over time than common measures, (ii) country-specific symbolic and operational ideology are more strongly associated with each other than their common counterparts, (iii) respondents tend to have a greater understanding of country-specific ideological labels than common ones, (iv) country-specific measures are generally more predictive of vote choice in elections, and (v) ideological extremity, as measured by these two types of indicators, shows different correlations with respondents' attitudes toward democratic values. These findings suggest that researchers should use country-specific measures of ideology in comparative public opinion research.