Sorry for my late reaction. Anyway, thank you for your answers. In contrast to the two big US parties European parties often occupy only a subset of the opinion spectrum. There are small parties that distinguish themselves from e.g. Socialist parties on the one end of the spectrum vs. conservative parties on the other end by choosing a position somewhere in the middle of an issue scale. I am prepared to make the assumption that the L-R-scales or any of the other issue scales are of an interval scale nature. All comparable studies in political science have done the same. (I hear the sighs! These social scientists are far too liberal :) ) Marcelo Jenny Vienna, Austria =========================================================================== This list is open to everyone. Occasionally, less thoughtful people send inappropriate messages. Please DO NOT COMPLAIN TO THE POSTMASTER about these messages because the postmaster has no way of controlling them, and excessive complaints will result in termination of the list. For information about this list, including information about the problem of inappropriate messages and information about how to unsubscribe, please see the web page at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ ===========================================================================
