About 50% of Romanians do not consider themselves to be either left-wing or right-wing, from a political point of view, while 15% of respondents do not know what “left-wing” or “right-wing” means, according to a survey carried out by INSCOP. The director of the company explained that “the research data does not necessarily show a low level of political culture”.
INSCOP director: A change in political vocabulary could become inevitable PHOTO Shutterstock
From a political point of view, 13.4% of Romanians consider themselves more left-wing, 19.1% more right-wing, and 49.2% neither left nor right. 15% say they don’t know what “left” or “right” means, and 3.4% don’t know or don’t answer.
Photo: INSCOP
The profile of those who consider themselves neither right-wing nor left-wing
The profile of those who consider themselves neither right-wing nor left-wing shows that the voters of political parties also place themselves in this area of ideological neutrality. 43% of PSD voters, 46% of PNL voters, 40% of USR voters and 44% of AUR voters consider themselves neither left nor right.
44% of men and 54% of women share the same opinion, the gender differences being significant.
According to the age criterion, 47% of the 18-29 year olds do not declare themselves to be either left or right, with the same opinion being 53% of the 30-44 year old population, 52% of the 45-59 year olds and 45% of those aged 60 years.
People with primary education declare the lowest level of ideological neutrality (37%). 51% of those with secondary education and 52% of Romanians with higher education declare themselves neither left nor right.
Employees in the private sector declare themselves more ideologically motivated (56%) than employees in the state (48%).
Photo: INSCOP
According to the director of INSCOP, Remus Ştefureac, the research data “capture a major paradigm shift in the way Romanians are perceived from the point of view of political ideologies”.
“Thus, only a third of the citizens identify themselves as right-wing (19.1%) or left-wing (13.4%), while two-thirds either do not place themselves in the two political currents (neither left-wing nor right – 49.2%), or declare that they do not know what left or right means (15%).
This abandonment of ideologies is also observed among the voters of the political parties. Thus, 43% of voters PSD 46% of voters consider themselves neither left nor right PNL neither consider themselves left-wing nor right-wing, 40% of USR voters and 44% of AUR voters consider themselves neither left-wing nor right-wing”, specified Ştefureac.
The director of INSCOP states that these results cannot necessarily be attributed to a low level of political culture, but to “the inconsistency of political parties in explaining ideological affiliation” or on a “transformation phenomenon a political ideologies“.
“The research data does not necessarily show a low level of political culture. The explanations can be given by the inconsistency of the political parties in explaining the ideological affiliation and the reflection of the discourse in concrete actions and measures. It is also possible to talk about a broader phenomenon of transformation of political ideologies, also perceived at the population level, a move towards the center or towards a neutral zone where the political identity is no longer so clear and oriented according to traditional landmarks. From this point of view, a change in the political vocabulary could become inevitable when we describe the political parties in Romania“, explained Remus Ştefureac.
Methodology
The opinion poll was carried out by INSCOP Research on behalf of the News.ro press agency. The data were collected between June 19 and 27, 2024. Research method: interview via questionnaire. The data were collected by the CATI method (telephone interviews), the volume of the simple, stratified sample being 1100 people, representative of the significant socio-demographic categories (sex, age, occupation) for the non-institutionalized population of Romania, aged 18 and over . The maximum allowed error of the data is ± 2.95%, at a confidence level of 95%.
