LLM-Ideoplasticity: Measuring Ideological Plasticity in the Political Behavior of LLMs as a Context-Conditioned Distribution — Paper

Abstract

-cross Abstract: We argue, with systematic empirical evidence, that a large language model's political ideology is not a fixed point, but a conditional distribution $\mathbb{P}($position$\mid$context$)$ over a real political space. We evaluate nine current LLMs using a unified measurement framework anchored by VAA-CHES projection models, which map responses onto three validated dimensions (lrgen, lrecon, galtan) across six contextual axes. Our findings reveal high sensitivity to context: persuasive framing and under-represented languages displace coordinates by up to 0.57 and 0.52 units, respectively, while chain-of-thought reasoning often amplifies rather than dampens paraphrase instability. Despite this local plasticity, the model cohort occupies a remarkably narrow Overton envelope overall, occupying roughly one-third the spread of major European parties. Supported by a multi-trait multi-method (MTMM) analysis, we conclude that a single point cannot summarize LLM political behavior; it must be characterized as a shape. Our code and data are publicly available at https://github.com/sakhadib/LLM-Ideoplasticity.

Authors 6

Adib Sakhawat, Syed Rifat Raiyan, Tahsin Islam, Takia Farhin, Hasan Mahmud, Md Kamrul Hasan

Specification

Official page: arxiv.org/abs/2606.28335
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
Arxiv announce type: replace
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
arXiv id: 2606.28335
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
Categories: cs.CY, cs.AI, cs.CL
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
PDF: arxiv.org/pdf/2606.28335
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
Primary category: cs.CY
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
Published: 11 Sept 2026
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh

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Attributed facts

9

Source tiers

T19

Freshest observation

2 h ago

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None

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Authors: Adib Sakhawat, Syed Rifat Raiyan, Tahsin Islam

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Claim history · Abstract

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Abstractabstract1

Claim history for Abstract
Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
-cross Abstract: We argue, with systematic empirical evidence, that a large language model's political ideology is not a fixed point, but a conditional distribution $\mathbb{P}($position$\mid$context$)$ over a real political space. We evaluate nine current LLMs using a unified measurement framework anchored by VAA-CHES projection models, which map responses onto three validated dimensions (lrgen, lrecon, galtan) across six contextual axes. Our findings reveal high sensitivity to context: persuasive framing and under-represented languages displace coordinates by up to 0.57 and 0.52 units, respectively, while chain-of-thought reasoning often amplifies rather than dampens paraphrase instability. Despite this local plasticity, the model cohort occupies a remarkably narrow Overton envelope overall, occupying roughly one-third the spread of major European parties. Supported by a multi-trait multi-method (MTMM) analysis, we conclude that a single point cannot summarize LLM political behavior; it must be characterized as a shape. Our code and data are publicly available at https://github.com/sakhadib/LLM-Ideoplasticity.	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

Claims are temporal and append-only: a new observation closes the previous claim (valid_to) instead of overwriting it. Conflicting claims from different sources are kept side by side and flagged — never averaged. Methodology →

11 Sept 2026
New paperPaperLLM-Ideoplasticity: Measuring Ideological Plasticity in the Political Behavior of LLMs as a Context-Conditioned Distribution
New paper: LLM-Ideoplasticity: Measuring Ideological Plasticity in the Political Behavior of LLMs as a Context-Conditioned Distribution
arxiv
rss.arxiv.org

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Source documents
Source	Document	Type	Tier	Last observed	Snapshots
arXiv (Atom API + RSS)	rss.arxiv.org/rss/cs.CL	feed	T1· Official	48 min ago	1

Tier 1 = official/primary, 2 = quality secondary, 3 = community, 4 = unverified. Every snapshot is archived; see all sources and the methodology.