Members of South Korea's legislative branch, known as the National Assembly, recently took a poll to determine where they land on the ideological spectrum. The group as a whole appears to be getting more liberal, according to an analysis of the results.

The poll, conducted by the Korea JoongAng Daily and the Korean Political Science Association, gave lawmakers a 15-question ideological test. The questions focused on the Korean alliance with the United States, relations with North Korea, corporate reform, welfare and gay marriage, among other topics.

Each lawmaker scored on a scale from 0 (liberal) to 10 (conservative). According to JoongAng Daily:

Scores below 4 are considered liberals. Scores between 4 and 6 are considered moderates while scores higher than 6 are seen as conservatives.

The outcome of the poll shows an average score for the lawmakers of 3.9, 0.7 points lower, or more left-leaning, than the last joint survey conducted in the early days of the 19th National Assembly four years ago....

The outcome showed that the 20th Assembly, though 83 lawmakers weren’t polled, has moved to the left on the ideological spectrum in what some see as a response to growing calls from the public to rein in widening economic inequality.

A sample of the South Korean public also took the poll. The respondents were moderate, scoring 5 on average — more conservative than the average score for lawmakers: 3.9. The public is more liberal than the Saenuri party and more conservative than the Minjoo, the ideologically differing parties that control the assembly.

I remixed the newspaper's graphic a bit, choosing a dot chart over a line chart. The result:

Thoughts?

Photo credit: Wikimedia