Christian Democracy
Christian democracy applies Christian social teaching to democratic politics. It supports a social market economy, a strong role for families, churches and civil society, and cooperation between employers and workers, and it has been a driving force of European integration.
- Human dignity and the common good guide policy.
- Subsidiarity: decisions should be made by the smallest competent unit, from family to community to state.
- A social market economy balances free enterprise with social protection and partnership between labour and capital.
It grew out of Catholic social teaching, especially Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891). After 1945, parties such as Germany's CDU under Konrad Adenauer, Italy's Christian Democracy under Alcide De Gasperi and France's MRP under Robert Schuman shaped post-war reconstruction and founded the European Communities.
Secular critics object to religious influence on policy, especially on family and sexuality. Free-market critics see its corporatism as rigid, and social democrats see its welfare model as too dependent on traditional families.
Countries and historical regimes whose 12-axis profile is closer to Christian Democracy than to any other ideology in the test.
Countries today
- Malta86%
- Kenya84%
- Costa Rica81%
Historical regimes
- West Germany83%
Christian Democracy is also the second-closest ideology for: Italy, Cyprus, Peru, Philippines, Nigeria.
Method: each ideology is placed at a typical position on the 12 axes, scored from 0 to 100 toward the first pole. Ranks compare it with the other 45 ideologies; matches are 100 minus the average distance across all axes. The positions are our own calibration, not taken from any third-party source.