Alternative Measures of Political Efficacy: The Quest for Cross-Cultural Invariance With Ordinally Scaled Survey Items

In this paper, we examine the measurement of citizens’ beliefs that politicians and political systems are responsive (external efficacy) citizens see themselves sufficiently skilled to participate in politics (internal efficacy). This paper demonstrates techniques allow researchers establish cross-context validity conceptually important ordinal scales. so doing, show an alternative set efficacy indicators those commonly appearing on cross-national surveys be more promising from a standpoint. Through detailed discussion application multi-group analysis for measures, demonstrate model linking latent internal external factors performs well configural parameter invariance testing when applied representative samples respondents United States Great Britain. With near full achieved, differences variable means meaningful British shown have lower levels both forms than their American counterparts. We argue technique may particularly valuable scholars who wish suitability scales direct comparison across nations or cultures.