The 9Axes Test: Your Politics on Nine Axes

The 9Axes test is an online political values quiz. It shows you statements one at a time, asks how far you agree with each, and turns your answers into nine percentages, one per axis. Each axis is a contest between two opposing values, such as Security and Freedom or Secular and Religious.

The 9Axes test was published on GitHub in July 2017 as an open-source extension of 8values, the four-axis quiz released earlier that year. Its author kept the 8values format of five answer buttons and percentage bars but split the four broad 8values axes into nine narrower ones. The original site was last updated in 2021 and was available in English and Russian.

This page runs an independent version of the 9Axes quiz with the original statements and scoring, plus Portuguese and Spanish translations. The 9Axes test here is free and needs no account.

The 9Axes political test draws on a bank of 216 statements, 24 for each axis. On every axis the 24 statements sit in eight groups of three: four groups argue for the first value and four for the second, and each side runs from mild claims to extreme ones.

There are two lengths. The short 9Axes test asks 45 statements, 5 per axis: for each axis it takes three groups from one side and two from the other, with the side chosen at random, and one random statement from each group. The full 9Axes test asks all 216, and in both versions the order is shuffled across the nine axes.

There are five answers. Strongly agree counts +2, agree +1, neutral or unsure 0, disagree −1 and strongly disagree −2, and the sign is reversed when a statement argues for the second value of its axis. In the short version your axis score is 50 plus 5 times your total, so it runs from 0 to 100; the full version scales its larger total the same way, so it also runs from 0 to 100 (the original full version stopped at 2 and 98).

An example from the short 9Axes test: on Federal vs Unitary you strongly agree with one federal statement (+2), agree with two more (+2), stay neutral on one unitary statement (0) and agree with the other (−1). Your total is 3, so the score is 50 + 5 × 3 = 65% Federal and 35% Unitary.

The 9Axes test scores each axis separately, using only the statements written for it. Three axes deal with how power is organised. Federal vs Unitary asks whether states, provinces and cities should write most of their own rules or follow one national government. Democratic vs Authoritarian weighs elections and popular opinion against strong leaders who do not depend on them. Security vs Freedom sets surveillance, policing and law and order against privacy and personal choice.

Two axes cover a country's place in the world. Globalist vs Isolationist runs from support for alliances, the United Nations and even a world government to staying out of international affairs altogether. Militarist vs Pacifist runs from treating armed force as a normal tool of policy to rejecting war and military spending.

Equality vs Markets is the economic axis: public ownership, redistribution and universal services on one side, private enterprise and free markets on the other. Secular vs Religious asks how much faith should shape law, schooling and public life, from banning religion to running a theocracy.

Progressive vs Traditional mixes attitudes to social change with attitudes to technology, from welcoming AI and genetic modification to returning to older ways of living. Assimilationist vs Multiculturalist asks what a country should expect of newcomers, from closed borders and a single national language to open borders and a blend of cultures.

Your 9Axes test results show nine bars. Each score is your share of the first value on that axis, so 65% Federal also means 35% Unitary, and 50% is the exact middle. Neither end is the right answer.

Every axis also gets a label from a nine-step ladder. A score of 90 or more reads Fanatic, 80 to 89 Extreme, 70 to 79 the plain value name, 60 to 69 Moderate and 41 to 59 Neutral, and the same steps mirror toward the second value, so 15 on Federal vs Unitary reads Extreme Unitary.

Below the bars, the 9Axes test names your closest ideology out of the 52 used by 8values, from anarcho-communism to anarcho-capitalism. Only four scores enter this match: Equality, Democratic, Globalist and Progressive, which stand in for the four 8values axes. The other five axes play no part, so two people with the same ideology can have very different results.

The ideology chosen is the one at the smallest weighted distance from those four scores. Gaps on the economic and democratic axes are squared, while gaps on the globalist and progressive axes use a slightly lower power, so large economic or governmental differences count for more.

12 Axes, the main test on this site, is an open-source rework of 9Axes, which was itself built on 8values. It keeps the nine 9Axes axes, gives each a one-word name such as Structure or Power, and sorts them into four groups: government, diplomacy, economy and society. Four axes also had their poles renamed: Democratic vs Authoritarian became Democratic vs Autocratic, Globalist vs Isolationist became Internationalist vs Nationalist, Equality vs Markets became Collectivize vs Privatize and Secular vs Religious became Irreligious vs Religious.

12 Axes then adds three axes that the 9Axes test lacks: Control (planned vs laissez-faire), Trade (protectionist vs globalist) and Technology (acceleration vs bioconservative). Its bank grows from 216 to 288 statements, still 24 per axis in groups of three, and about 175 of the 216 statements in the 9Axes test carry over almost word for word. Ten statements that 9Axes scores under Progressive vs Traditional, on topics such as AI, genetic modification, space travel and the internet, moved to the new Technology axis.

The answer scale changes too. The 9Axes test offers five answers worth −2 to +2, while 12 Axes offers seven, adding partially agree and partially disagree at ±0.5. The 45-statement 9Axes quiz takes three statements from one side of each axis and two from the other, and the standard 60-statement 12 Axes test uses the same rule.

The results differ as well. The 9Axes test gives nine percentages, nine labels and the closest of 52 8values ideologies, while 12 Axes on this site gives twelve percentages, a political compass position and the closest of 38 ideologies, a country and a historical figure. Pick 9Axes for a shorter classic profile, and 12 Axes if you want economics and technology split out.

The 9Axes test is a tool for reflection, not a validated research instrument. Its statements were written for a hobby project, nobody has tested the scales for reliability, and the ideology positions are rough estimates inherited from 8values.

Some statements in the 9Axes test sit on axes you might not expect. Legal abortion and marijuana are scored on Security vs Freedom, gay marriage on Secular vs Religious, and climate change and animal testing on Progressive vs Traditional. Several statements also assume an American setting, for example state laws competing with national ones.

Length matters too. In the 45-statement 9Axes test each answer moves an axis by 5 or 10 points, and because every axis takes three statements from one side and two from the other, agreeing with everything lands on 40 or 60 rather than 50. Retaking the short version draws new statements, so scores can shift by several points; the 216-statement version is steadier.

This is an independent, unofficial version of the 9Axes test, based on the open-source 9Axes project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the authors of 9Axes or 8values.

9Axes is released under the MIT licence it inherited from 8values, which allows the code and text to be used, changed and shared as long as the copyright and licence notice are kept. The statements, axis names, ideology positions and scoring rules here come from the original 9Axes repository, while the page design, ideology descriptions, Portuguese and Spanish translations and this guide were written for this site.

Seven small typing and grammar errors in the English statements were corrected without changing what any statement says. The answer weights, the two lengths of the 9Axes test and the nine-step labels follow the original code.