PoliType

Thesis

"Political identity is not a single axis. The left–right spectrum is a compression artifact."

The Problem

Existing political typology tools — most notably the Political Compass — reduce complex political identities to a single 2D axis. You end up placed somewhere on a left–right, authoritarian–libertarian grid, and that's it.

In Korean political discourse, this problem is even more acute. The conversation is dominated by a binary: progressive vs. conservative. But someone can hold left-leaning economic views while being socially traditional, or believe in strong state authority while supporting feminist policy. These dimensions are independent — collapsing them into one number destroys information.

The deeper issue is explanatory: most tools tell you what you believe, but not why. Moral Foundation Theory (Graham, Haidt & Nosek, 2009) argues that political differences aren't about disagreeing on facts — they stem from people weighting different moral foundations differently: Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, Purity. PoliType makes this visible.

The Solution

PoliType classifies political identity across four independent axes via 48 questions — producing a 4-letter type code (e.g. EPLA, RCAF) — like a political MBTI, but grounded in academic research.

Results are compared against research baselines from Moral Foundation Theory — showing how your moral profile (Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, Purity) maps to your political type and how it compares to typical profiles across the spectrum.

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