Open Source · Academic Research Tool

Multidimensional
Ideological Model

Explore 20 political ideologies as vectors in continuous 3D space — animated across 400 years of history and shaped by gravitational historical forces.

Find My Position → Open Tool Directly
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Three Dimensions of Ideology

Unlike traditional 1D left-right spectrums or 2D political compasses, this model captures ideology along three independent axes.

X
Economic Axis
Range: −1.0 to +1.0
← Collective / Left Right / Individual →

How should resources, production, and wealth be organized? From collective ownership and redistribution on the left, to private property and free markets on the right.

−1: Anarchism, Stalinism +1: Anarcho-Capitalism
Y
Authority Axis
Range: −1.0 to +1.0
← Libertarian / Free Authoritarian / Order →

How much authority should the state exercise over individuals? From maximum personal freedom and minimal governance, to strong central control and enforced social order.

−1: Anarchism, Libertarianism +1: Fascism, Theocracy
Z
Identity Axis
Range: −1.0 to +1.0
← Cosmopolitan / Progressive Nationalist / Traditional →

How should societies relate to national identity and culture? From open borders, globalism, and cultural pluralism, to national sovereignty, heritage, and cultural preservation.

−1: Eco-Socialism, Anarchism +1: Nationalism, Fascism

Why not just 2D?

The traditional Political Compass maps ideologies onto two axes — economic and social. While intuitive, academia has long criticized this as insufficient: it collapses distinct phenomena (nationalism, cultural values, identity) into a single axis.

Research published in Nature Human Behaviour (2025), Applied Network Science (2023), and at NAACL (2022) independently corroborates the need for multidimensional models. Our model adds a dedicated Identity axis to capture the nationalism-cosmopolitanism dimension that defines much of 21st-century politics.

Read more about the model →
1D Model
Left ←——→ Right
Cannot distinguish Fascism from Conservatism or Anarchism from Social Democracy.
2D Model (Political Compass)
Economic × Social/Authority
Better — but conflates identity, nationalism, and cultural values into one axis.
3D Model (This Tool)
Economic × Authority × Identity
Separates the three core dimensions of political thought with independent precision.

What you can explore

🌐
20 Ideologies
From Classical Liberalism to Maoism, Fascism to Municipalism — positioned with mathematical precision.
⏱️
400 Years
Animate from the French Revolution (1789) to the present. Watch ideologies emerge and shift.
🌌
Historical Gravity
Major events (1917, 1933, 1989) act as gravitational forces pulling ideologies through ideological space.
📍
Your Position
Place yourself in the model via the quiz or manual sliders. See which ideology you are closest to.
🔵
Live Clustering
K-means clustering reveals ideological groupings as they evolve through history in real time.
🎓
Academic Base
Grounded in sociophysics, political science literature, and formal mathematical formalization.

How to use it

Two paths, same destination — your place in ideological space.

Path A — Quiz
  1. Answer 15 political questions
  2. Get your position calculated automatically
  3. Land directly in the 3D model
Take Quiz →
Path B — Explore
  1. Open the 3D tool directly
  2. Set X, Y, Z sliders manually
  3. Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom
Open Tool

In the tool: drag to rotate · scroll to zoom · ← → ↑ ↓ keys to navigate · + / − to zoom

Where do you stand?

Take the 5-minute positioning quiz and see yourself in the ideological landscape.

Start the Quiz →