[chrisdevereux]

Given that we tend to over-emphasise the differences between ideological positions that we're more familiar with, and under-emphasise the difference between positions that we aren't, it's hard to see how an exercise like this tells us anything except the author's own political experience and imagination. Even if there were empirical data here, how could we objectively determine the distance between ideological perspectives? And what dimensions of their many differences do we emphasise?

We see this most clearly when we look at ideologies that are dominant today. For example, a fairly core ideology over the last 30 years is that more and more aspects of society either should, or inevitably will, be governed by the market. As a result, ideologies that don't subscribe to this this idea are generally viewed as similar no matter how much they might otherwise be unrelated. Which is kind of strange, since 'ideologies that don't subscribe to this idea' amounts to most of the ideologies adopted over the course of human history.

[jernfrost]

Exactly. Here in Norway e.g. the non-market oriented political ideologies would be represented by at least 5 different parties: communists, socialists, social-democrats, social-liberals, and liberal-Christians.

Although the social-liberals and liberal-Christians are not usually considered pro market, although they don't seem to be the American sense of pro-market. Like they are not actively pushing privatization as a major focus. Rather they are more against state infringement on individual rights.