Historically, the Liberal Script is one of several competing scripts on how to organize a society. It describes a socially contextualized combination of ideas and social practices around the values of liberalism. With PALS, we aim to measure attitudes towards the Liberal Script in its contemporary global manifestation(s) at the beginning of the 21st century. meaning we allow for variation between and within societies but do not focus on a historical perspective.

To capture attitudes towards the Liberal Script in this way, we have opted for a descriptive reconstruction of what is defined as liberal by those who are regarded by others as liberals. Our point here is to analyse the claims and practices of liberals regarding the organization of society. PALS has translated this conception for the purposes of a survey and developed items to measure the different elements of the Liberal Script. In addition to the core principles of liberalism (freedom, self-determination, and equality of moral worth), we distinguish three second-order spheres: a political, economic, and socio-cultural sphere.

In the questionnaire, for example, respondents’ attitudes towards individual self-determination are measured as the trade-off they make between individual freedom and societal constraints. Additionally, the survey measures what respondents themselves value for leading a self-determined life. In the political sphere, the principles of the Liberal Script aim to ensure that individuals have a say in political decision-making (popular sovereignty) and that rules are applied to everyone equally in a society (rule of law). Derived from the rights of individuals to self-determination and to associate, individuals form collectives that have the right to collective self-determination, provided that every individual of the collective has a voice when making binding decisions through free and equal consent. In the economic sphere, the Liberal Script enacts individual self-determination through the principles of market economy and the principle of merit. In the socio-cultural sphere, the Liberal Script proposes to organize society according to the principles of tolerance, rationality, and progress. Potential users of PALS can decide for themselves which elements are necessary components of the Liberal Script or whether all spheres should be of equal weight.

Going beyond the mere and rather abstract acceptance of the specific elements of the Liberal Script, in line with SCRIPTS, we focus on four issues that highlight inherent tensions between different elements of the Liberal Script and point to common critiques. The first is the issue of national borders as a focal point of societal challenges in the age of globalization. The second issue is that of the international order and the formation of international institutions and global governance structures, which pose questions about the adequate level for political decision-making and whether the sovereignty of states can be infringed upon by international authorities. The third issue is the (re-)allocation of resources and life chances, which is one of the central targets of critiques of the Liberal Script. The fourth issue is that of the temporality of society, i.e., societal perceptions of time and the future, which, for example, play an important role in how societies approach the challenge of climate change.

Measuring the acceptance of the Liberal Script in a more abstract as well as in a more situational way can help us to better evaluate how much it is supported and rejected on a global scale. In addition to differences between countries and contextual factors, we expect the level of acceptance of the Liberal Script to differ substantially between individuals and between social groups. For this purpose, we focus on concepts used in survey research that speak to different contestations of the Liberal Script. These are, namely, political values and attitudes, such as postmaterialism or right-wing authoritarianism, voting behaviour, and sociodemographic factors, such as education, economic resources, or religiosity.

Finally, the second wave also includes questions concerning the Russian war in Ukraine, which constitutes a major contestation of the Liberal International Order (LIO).