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Center-Right world?

One of the persistent structural issues with American politics is that a greater number of Americans self-identity as conservative than liberal, so the Republican party can be dominated by conservatives in a manner in which the Democratic party can not. This is not to speak to whether people are in substance more conservative or not, rather, I’m still addressing self-perception. You can see the trend over the past 30 years from the GSS in the United States:

I was curious as to whether this bias is an international phenomenon. There is a question in the WVS which asks: ‘In political matters, people talk of “the left” and “the right.” How would you place your views on this scale, generally speaking?’ The scale goes from 1, which is furthest Left, to 10, which is furthest Right. I looked at the WVS 3, 4 and 5 (a span from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s). Here is a histogram generated from the median values of all the nations (some replicated across waves):

As you can see, the central tendency just a bit to the Center-Right. The median value in the data set is 5.6 (standard deviation 0.68). No idea if this means anything, but I did wonder if sometimes there’s a human cognitive bias to perceive oneself as “conservative” because of risk-aversion, but these results don’t seem to be very strong (I’m sure some of the results, such as Vietnam, are due some strange quirks of phrasing which didn’t translate well). Here’s a table of the data points….

CountryMean Political 
Zimbabwe3.7
India4.4
Egypt4.5
Spain4.6
Andorra4.6
Burkina Faso4.7
Germany4.7
Spain4.7
France4.8
Bulgaria4.8
Iran (Islamic Republic of)4.8
Germany4.8
Spain4.8
Serbia and Montenegro4.8
Iraq4.9
France4.9
Russian Federation4.9
Russian Federation4.9
Slovenia5
Republic of Moldova5
Italy5.1
Bosnia and Herzegovina5.1
Greece5.1
Hungary5.1
Israel5.1
Netherlands5.1
Slovakia5.1
Great Britain5.1
Albania5.1
Bosnia and Herzegovina5.1
Hungary5.1
Macedonia, Republic of5.1
Netherlands5.2
Switzerland5.2
Uruguay5.2
Chile5.2
Germany5.2
Macedonia, Republic of5.2
Serbia and Montenegro5.2
Croatia5.2
Republic of Korea5.2
Slovenia5.2
South Africa5.2
Great Britain5.3
Slovenia5.3
Cyprus5.3
Albania5.3
Belgium5.3
Croatia5.3
Portugal5.3
Sweden5.3
Australia5.3
Belarus5.3
Romania5.3
Slovakia5.3
Sweden5.3
Switzerland5.3
Ukraine5.3
Brazil5.4
Chile5.4
Mali5.4
Austria5.4
Italy5.4
Republic of Korea5.4
Lithuania5.4
Luxembourg5.4
Poland5.4
Armenia5.4
Chile5.4
Estonia5.4
Latvia5.4
Canada5.5
Japan5.5
Canada5.5
Denmark5.5
Nigeria5.5
Uganda5.5
Ukraine5.5
Azerbaijan5.5
Australia5.6
Norway5.6
Sweden5.6
Finland5.6
Ukraine5.6
Rwanda5.6
Ireland5.6
Republic of Moldova5.6
Northern Ireland5.6
Finland5.6
Nigeria5.6
Norway5.6
United States5.7
Argentina5.7
Peru5.7
New Zealand5.7
Morocco5.7
Jordan5.7
Belarus5.7
India5.7
Japan5.7
Peru5.7
South Africa5.7
Argentina5.7
Mexico5.7
Poland5.7
Uruguay5.7
South Korea5.8
Bulgaria5.8
Finland5.8
Iceland5.8
Latvia5.8
Malta5.8
Romania5.8
Turkey5.8
United States5.8
Bulgaria5.8
Lithuania5.8
New Zealand5.8
Peru5.8
United States5.8
Poland5.9
Serbia5.9
Guatemala5.9
Estonia5.9
Jordan5.9
Morocco5.9
Pakistan5.9
Brazil5.9
Czech Republic5.9
Georgia5.9
Japan5.9
Romania6
Taiwan6
Moldova6
Georgia6
Argentina6
Czech Republic6
Trinidad and Tobago6.1
Philippines6.1
Turkey6.1
Mexico6.2
Turkey6.2
Thailand6.2
Algeria6.2
Kyrgyzstan6.2
Venezuela6.3
El Salvador6.3
Hong Kong6.4
Philippines6.4
Ghana6.5
Indonesia6.6
Ethiopia6.6
Indonesia6.6
Puerto Rico6.6
Taiwan Province of China6.6
Colombia6.6
Dominican Republic6.6
India6.6
South Africa6.7
Zambia6.7
Mexico6.7
Puerto Rico6.7
Venezuela6.7
Colombia6.8
Tanzania, United Republic Of6.8
Bangladesh7
Bangladesh7.6
Viet Nam9
Viet Nam9.1

Note: The scale on the question is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. So 1-5 would be on the Left side, and 6-10 on the Right.

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