We spend a lot of time asking people where they stand politically. Liberal or conservative? Republican or Democrat? Left or right? But that leaves out another important question:
How do you want political leaders to govern?
Should elected officials treat an election victory as a mandate to push ahead with the program they promised? Or should they be willing to modify that program, compromise, and build broader agreement before acting? Those inquiries aren’t necessarily the same question as liberal versus conservative.
That’s what the Madison Governing Test is designed to explore.
10 Questions. About Two Minutes.
The test is intentionally short. Five questions look at your general policy views. Five look at how you think political leaders should approach governing. When you’re finished, you’ll get two scores and a place on the Madison Governing Chart:
- Policy: more liberal to more conservative
- Governing: more mandate-driven to more coalition-building
There are no right answers, and the purpose isn’t to tell you what political label you should wear. The interesting question is simply: Where do you land?
Take the Madison Governing Test
Take the 10-question test … click here
Then Share Your Result
I’m also interested in something bigger than any one person’s score. What happens when we start plotting lots of people? Do conservatives and liberals differ in how they think leaders should govern? Are mandate-driven and coalition-building voters found on both sides? Do people who disagree strongly about policy nevertheless share similar ideas about governing? We won’t know without more results.
So after you take the test, share your result—and, more importantly, share the test with a few friends. And don’t just send it to people who agree with you. Send it to the conservative friend, the liberal friend, the independent, the political junkie, and the person who would rather never talk about politics at all. The more varied the people who take it, the more interesting the picture becomes.
Ten questions. About two minutes.
Where do you land?
Take the Madison Governing Test
AI Note: I used AI to help draft and edit this post. The ideas, arguments, and conclusions are my own.
