We investigate the structure of political belief systems across Europe to investigate what belief systems in European societies, and those who hold them, have in common. In doing so, we answer three questions: First, are political belief system structures similar across Europe? Second, which demographic groups are likely to have similar belief systems within countries? Third, how are belief systems related to voting behaviour? Results from Correlational Class Analyses on data from 23 European countries indicate that a wide variety of belief systems exist in Europe (2–5 per country), but that these can be summarized into two diverse groups, although belief systems in one group were more similar than in the other. Unexpectedly, the groups did not differ in the strength of association between beliefs. While cultural and economic belief dimensions were not consistently found, and tended to be weak, they were positively associated in the first group and negatively associated in the second. Belief systems of the first group were more likely to be from Western European countries and its members more likely to be higher educated compared to the second group. Membership in the second group was associated with more populist far-right voting and vote abstention.

中文翻译：

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欧洲信仰体系的性质和结构：探索 23 个欧洲国家信仰体系的多样性

我们调查整个欧洲政治信仰体系的结构，以调查欧洲社会的信仰体系以及持有这些信仰体系的人有哪些共同点。在此过程中，我们回答了三个问题：首先，整个欧洲的政治信仰体系结构是否相似？其次，国家内哪些人口群体可能有类似的信仰体系？第三，信仰体系与投票行为有何关系？对 23 个欧洲国家的数据进行相关类别分析的结果表明，欧洲存在多种信仰体系（每个国家 2-5 个），但这些信仰体系可以归纳为两个不同的群体，尽管一组中的信仰体系更为相似比在另一个。出乎意料的是，这些群体在信仰之间的关联强度上没有差异。虽然文化和经济信仰维度的发现并不一致，而且往往较弱，但它们在第一组中呈正相关，在第二组中呈负相关。与第二组相比，第一组的信仰体系更有可能来自西欧国家，其成员更有可能受过高等教育。第二组的成员资格与更民粹主义的极右翼投票和弃权票有关。