Measuring Politicians' Values: Administration and Assessment of a Ranking Technique in the British House of Commons

Despite their prominence in political affairs, values have rarely been studied through survey research. This article offers groundwork for quantitative investigations of politicians' values by describing the development, administration and assessment of a ranking technique in the British House of Commons. It uses tape-recorded interviews which suggest that values are intelligible components of politicians' belief systems and help identify difficulties in conceptualizing and measuring them. The ranking instrument employed to measure values demonstrates its adequacy by reproducing familiar cleavages between political camps, distinguishing ideological party factions and generating data related to themes MPs put forward when discussing institutions and policy problems.