Find out where you stand.
Five dimensions, 80 questions, 21 named results. Takes 5 to 15 minutes depending on which version you choose.
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In-depth definitions, real sources, reflection questions.
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Why I built FindMyPolitics
The Political Compass test has been around since 2001. Millions of people have taken it. It's also been systematically criticized by political scientists, researchers, and journalists for over two decades. I decided to make something better.
What's wrong with the original test
Everyone ends up in the same quadrant
The Political Compass is widely criticized for tending to place respondents in the libertarian-left quadrant. Many of its questions are written as value-laden statements rather than neutral policy questions, and critics argue this framing nudges results in a consistent direction. When a large share of results cluster in one corner of a four-quadrant grid, the grid stops telling you much.
Source: Eysenck, H.J. (1954). The Psychology of Politics. Routledge, the origin of the two-axis model the Political Compass builds on. Framing and clustering criticisms have been widely discussed by political scientists and journalists.
Two axes can't capture modern politics
The economic left-right axis and a single social axis fails to distinguish between, say, someone who is far-left economically but wants maximum personal freedom, and someone who is left but trusts institutions to deliver change, people with very different politics who would score identically. Political scientists have long argued that political identity requires multiple independent dimensions to describe accurately. The American National Election Studies uses many more.
Source: Nolan, D. (1971). "Classifying and Analyzing Politico-Economic Systems." The Individualist. Feldman, S. (2013). "Political Ideology." Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology.
Questions are vague and outdated
Questions like "the rich must pay more taxes" don't specify more than whom, compared to what, or by how much, making them meaningless for distinguishing political positions. The questions were written in 2001 and haven't been updated, meaning they miss entirely the fault lines that define politics today: platform moderation, vaccine mandates, climate sovereignty, institutional trust.
Source: Multiple methodological critiques compiled at politicalcompass.org/faq. Academic criticism: Bobbio, N. (1996). Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction. University of Chicago Press.
No explanation, no context, no nuance
The original test places a dot on a grid and offers nothing else. No named ideology. No explanation of what your position means. No historical or global context. Research in political psychology consistently shows that people understand their own beliefs better when given comparative context and plain-language descriptions, not abstract coordinates.
Source: Converse, P.E. (1964). "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics." In Ideology and Discontent, ed. Apter, D. Free Press. Jost, J.T. (2006). "The End of the End of Ideology." American Psychologist.
What I built instead
| Political Compass | This test | |
|---|---|---|
| Dimensions | 2 axes | 5 axes |
| Balance | Documented left bias | 8 questions each direction per axis |
| Context | None | Sourced context on every question |
| Questions | Written in 2001 | Current, specific debates |
| Results | 4 quadrants, no explanation | 21 ideologies, full context |
| Comparison | None | 50 countries or 50 states, 75 figures |
Five independent axes, not two
Economic, Social, Civil Liberties, Governance, and System Trust. The last one is unique to this test. System Trust is what separates a cynical leftist who thinks the whole system is rigged from a progressive who wants to work within it. No other test measures that.
Mathematically balanced
Every axis has exactly 8 questions that push left and 8 that push right. Each question was reviewed to make sure neither the framing nor the content gives one side an unfair advantage. You can inspect the full question set yourself.
Every question has context
Every question has an optional ⓘ button. Click it and you get real background on what the debate is actually about, what the numbers are, and what both sides argue. The goal is that you're answering based on the substance, not just reacting to how a question is phrased.
Current, specific questions
The questions are about things actually happening: NATO funding, encryption rights, the 2020 election result, trade tariffs, police reform. They're specific on purpose. Vague questions produce vague results. The goal is to surface real differences in how people think, not just put them in a broad bucket.
21 named, defined results
You get a named ideology with a full definition, real-world examples of people and movements that fit it, and a plain-English explanation of where it sits on the traditional left-right spectrum. The results are written for someone with no political background, not for someone who already knows what "libertarian socialist" means.
Global and historical context
Your results include a comparison against 50 countries (or all 50 states in the US edition) and 75 historical and contemporary political figures. Knowing your score is one thing. Knowing you sit closer to Angela Merkel than to Bernie Sanders is something you can actually picture.
Non-partisanship
I built this test with the goal of helping people understand their own political values, not to push them toward any particular conclusion. The question set is mathematically balanced (verifiable by inspecting the source code). Questions are framed using the strongest version of both sides' arguments. Results describe ideological traditions as they actually exist, not as caricatures. If you find a question you believe is biased, the contact information below is genuine, feedback on findmypolitics.com is taken seriously.
If you're looking for an alternative to the political compass, a more accurate political alignment test, or just want to understand where you actually stand, this is what I built it for. findmypolitics.com is free (obviously) and anonymous, and takes 5 to 15 minutes.
Liam Petry
I started this because I wanted a better way for young people like me to understand their actual politics; the test was actually meant to just be for me. But then I realized the impact it could have, so I spent a great deal of time improving it. My goal is simple: build something that overtakes the original Political Compass.
As a high school student, I'm currently in the process of looking for summer internships and research collaborations. If you're interested in working with the dataset alongside me or collaborating on something, reach out, please!
How this was built
Everything of substance on this site is a result of my work. I wrote all 80 questions in both the global and US editions and the sourced context behind each one; I designed the five-axis model and the scoring math behind it; wrote every ideology definition; and placed all 75 political figures and 50 countries myself. The political thinking and the methodology are results of months of my work, and an accumulation of peer feedback and public opinion. However, I am not a programmer. To turn that work into a site I could actually ship, I used Claude Code, to help write the front-end code. Claude built what I did not have the coding ability to build on my own. However, it is imperative to establish that it did not decide what this test measures, how the questions are worded, or how you are scored. That part is all me.