Equivalence in survey design and implementation is a core issue in cross-national research. Construct equivalence deals with the validity of concepts measured by survey questions and is a prerequisite for meaningful cross-national analyses. Since respondents are socialized in different cultures and political systems, their interpretation of concepts in the same way cannot be taken for granted. This study is about the construct equivalence of the left-right scale from a cross-national perspective. The left-right scale is a standard survey question used to measure ideological orientation in a minimalist way. However, ideological orientation may be measured in different dimensions from cross-national perspective, and thus, the conceptual understanding of the left-right scale as an indicator of the left-right dimension may differ across countries, which may challenge the comparability and the cross-national validity of the left-right scale. To test the understanding of left and right, we asked about individual associations by using probe questions in a cross-national survey. We checked for nonresponse and shared and country-specific explanations of left and right. Our results show that respondents from different countries or with different political orientations do not have the same ideas about left and right. For leftist respondents, shared explanations of left are more relevant, whereas for rightists, country-specific interpretations of right are more influential. These results challenge the cross-national usability of the left-right scale, and so conclusions based on this scale may not be comparable.

中文翻译：

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构建跨国视角下左右尺度放置的等价性

调查设计和实施的等效性是跨国研究的核心问题。结构对等处理由调查问题衡量的概念的有效性，是进行有意义的跨国分析的先决条件。由于受访者在不同的文化和政治制度中被社会化，他们对概念的解释不能被视为理所当然。本研究从跨国视角探讨左右量表的结构对等性。左右量表是一个标准的调查问题，用于以极简的方式衡量意识形态取向。然而，意识形态取向可能从跨国角度以不同的维度来衡量，因此，左右尺度作为左右维度指标的概念理解可能因国家而异，这可能会挑战左右量表的可比性和跨国有效性。为了测试对左右的理解，我们在跨国调查中使用探索性问题询问了个别协会。我们检查了无响应情况，并就左右两边的共享和特定国家的解释进行了检查。我们的研究结果表明，来自不同国家或不同政治取向的受访者对左派和右派的看法并不相同。对于左派受访者而言，对左派的共同解释更具相关性，而对右派而言，针对特定国家的右派解释更具影响力。这些结果挑战了左右量表的跨国可用性，因此基于该量表的结论可能没有可比性。