Fiscal
How the state should shape the economy: taxation, public spending, redistribution, and fiscal discipline.
Redistributive
The state plays an active role in shaping economic outcomes through taxation, public spending, and redistribution, with the aim of influencing growth, stability, and social outcomes.
Spend more on public services, welfare and infrastructure — funded through higher taxes or borrowing.
Restrained
The state limits its role in directing economic outcomes, prioritising balanced budgets, low taxation, and reliance on market mechanisms to allocate resources.
Keep taxes down, limit public spending, and prioritise balancing the books even if that means fewer programmes.
Intervention
How far government should coordinate and regulate social and economic life versus leaving outcomes to markets and voluntary choices.
Directive
Social and economic activity is guided by detailed rules, standards, and oversight, with the state taking responsibility for coordinating behaviour and outcomes.
Government should actively shape outcomes — regulate markets and coordinate activity to steer society and the economy.
Market-Led
Social and economic activity operates with fewer formal rules, placing greater weight on individual judgement, voluntary arrangements, and market processes.
Let competition and voluntary choices do more of the work — keep regulation lighter and trust markets/individual judgement.
Culture
What sustains social cohesion: pluralism and diversity versus shared norms, continuity, and common reference points.
Pluralist
Social cohesion is understood to arise from recognising, accommodating, and valuing a range of cultural identities and ways of life within society.
Society should evolve — embrace diversity and changing norms, and make space for different identities and ways of life.
Continuity
Social cohesion is understood to arise from maintaining common norms, traditions, and cultural reference points shared by the majority of the population.
Protect shared traditions and common reference points that hold society together.
Nationhood
Where political responsibility is centred: domestic/national obligations versus international or global responsibilities.
Global
Political decision-making gives significant weight to international commitments, global challenges, and the interests of people beyond national borders.
Work closely with international partners — shared rules and cooperation matter, even when it constrains national freedom of action.
National
Political decision-making prioritises the interests, obligations, and welfare of the national community and its citizens.
Keep control at home — national sovereignty and domestic obligations come first.
Mandate
Where governing legitimacy comes from: institutional procedure and rules versus electoral endorsement and leadership judgement.
Procedural
Political authority is seen as deriving primarily from adherence to established rules, legal frameworks, and institutional decision-making processes.
Power should be exercised carefully through rules, parliament, courts and institutions.
Mandate-Driven
Political authority is seen as deriving primarily from democratic endorsement and the capacity of leaders to exercise judgement in response to circumstances.
If voters choose a leader, that leader should act boldly on judgement and direction, not just process.
Moral Authority
How leaders justify authority: internal consistency and restraint versus open moral explanation and accountability language.
Exemplary
Authority is justified by coherence between stated principles and actions, including a willingness to accept costs or limits in order to remain consistent.
Lead by example — show integrity and consistency rather than making moral arguments.
Advocative
Authority is justified through explicit moral reasoning, persuasion, and the use of moral language to explain decisions and hold actors to account.
Use moral language to explain/advocate approaches and hold people to account.
Governing Posture
The public style of authority: formal and structured versus adaptive, personal, and socially familiar.
Structured
Authority is expressed through a restrained, deliberate, and serious manner that emphasises professionalism and distance from everyday social life.
A careful, formal, methodical style — professional distance and structure.
Adaptive
Authority is expressed through a more personal, approachable, and socially familiar manner intended to signal closeness to everyday experience.
A flexible, adaptive style — more personal, responsive, and socially familiar.