Voters can hold fundamentally different, not just opposite, ideological meanings

Evidence

To begin with, those studies (Asher, 1980; Weisberg & Rusk, 1970) which posit the existence of two liberal/conservative dimensions raise a possibility which paradoxically conflicts with a dimensional interpretation of the meaning of ideological terms. Namely, for some voters, one dimension might be significantly more salient than the other in determining the meaning associated with such terms. Some people, for example, might define ideological labels almost exclusively in terms of social issues while, at the same time, others may base their interpretation entirely on economic issues. Were this to occur, different groups of people would have fundamentally different, rather than opposing or bipolar, ideological perspectives. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1991

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the classic debate in political psychology over whether ideology is unidimensional, two-dimensional, or multidimensional — resonates with work by Converse and the belief systems literature. — connects to: Voters can assign a party its identity before the party itself realizes it. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 1480; People define what counts as political differently across contexts and interactions — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 145