Leftright politics

The leftright political spectrum is a system of classifying political positions, ideologies and parties. Leftwing politics and right-wing politics are often presented
as opposed, although a particular individual or group may
take a left-wing stance on one matter and a right-wing
stance on another. In France, where the terms originated,
the Left has been called the party of movement and
the Right the party of order.[1][2][3][4] The intermediate
stance is called centrism and a person with such a position
is a moderate.

the assembly was deserted, and any remaining members

who had sat there moved to the centre. However following the Thermidorian Reaction of 1794 the members of
the far left were excluded and the method of seating was
abolished. The new constitution included rules for the assembly that would break up the party groups.[10]

There is also general consensus that the Right includes: capitalists, conservatives, fascists, monarchists,
nationalists, neoconservatives, neoliberals, reactionaries,
right-libertarians, social-authoritarians, theocrats and
traditionalists.[8]

1848, the main opposing camps were the "democratic socialists" and the reactionaries who used red and white
ags to identify their party aliation.[12]

However following the Restoration in 18141815 political clubs were again formed. The majority ultraroyalists
chose to sit on the right. The constitutionals sat in the
centre while independents sat on the left. The terms exThere is general agreement that the Left includes: treme right and extreme left, as well as centre-right and
anarchists, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, autonomists, centre-left, came to be used to describe the nuances of
communists, democratic-socialists, feminists, greens, ideology of dierent sections of the assembly.[11]
left-libertarians, progressives, secularists, socialists, The terms left and right were not used to refer to posocial-democrats and social-liberals.[5][6][7]
litical ideology but only to seating in the legislature. After

With the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871, the

terms were adopted by political parties: the Republican
Left, the Centre Right, and the Centre Left (1871) and
the Extreme Left (1876) and Radical Left (1881). Beginning in the early twentieth century the terms left and
right came to be associated with specic political ideologies and were used to describe citizens political beliefs,
gradually replacing the terms reds and the reaction or
republicans and conservatives. By 1914 the left half
of the legislature was composed of Unied Socialists, Republican Socialists and Socialist Radicals, while the parties that were called left now sat on the right side.[13]

History of the terms

The terms left and right appeared during the French

Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the presidents right and supporters of the revolution to his left.
One deputy, the Baron de Gauville explained, We began
to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion
and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so
as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed
free rein in the opposing camp. However the Right opposed the seating arrangement because they believed that
deputies should support private or general interests but
should not form factions or political parties. The contemporary press occasionally used the terms left and right
to refer to the opposing sides.[9]

There was asymmetry in the use of the terms left and right
by the opposing sides. The right mostly denied that the
leftright spectrum was meaningful because they saw it
as articial and damaging to unity. The left, however,
seeking to change society, promoted the distinction. As
Alain observed in 1931, When people ask me if the division between parties of the right and parties of the left,
men of the right and men of the left, still makes sense, the
rst thing that comes to mind is that the person asking the
When the National Assembly was replaced in 1791 by question is certainly not a man of the left[14]
a Legislative Assembly comprising entirely new memIn British politics the terms 'right' and 'left' came into
bers, the divisions continued. Innovators sat on the left,
common use for the rst time in the late 1930s in debates
moderates gathered in the centre, while the consciover the Spanish Civil War.[15]
entious defenders of the constitution found themselves
sitting on the right, where the defenders of the Ancien The Scottish sociologist Robert M. MacIver noted in The
Rgime had previously gathered. When the succeeding Web of Government (1947):
National Convention met in 1792, the seating arrangeThe right is always the party sector assoment continued, but following the coup d'tat of 2 June
ciated with the interests of the upper or dom1793, and the arrest of the Girondins, the right side of
1

3
inant classes, the left the sector expressive of
the lower economic or social classes, and the
centre that of the middle classes. Historically
this criterion seems acceptable. The conservative right has defended entrenched prerogatives, privileges and powers; the left has attacked them. The right has been more favorable to the aristocratic position, to the hierarchy of birth or of wealth; the left has fought
for the equalization of advantage or of opportunity, for the claims of the less advantaged.
Defense and attack have met, under democratic
conditions, not in the name of class but in the
name of principle; but the opposing principles
have broadly corresponded to the interests of
the dierent classes.[16]

Political parties in the political

spectrum

USAGE IN WESTERN EUROPE

There has been a tendency for party ideologies to persist,

and values and views that were present at a partys founding have survived. However they have also adapted for
pragmatic reasons, making them appear more similar.[20]
Lipset and Rokkan observed that modern party systems
are the product of social conicts played out in the last
few centuries.[21] They said that lines of cleavage had become 'frozen'.[22]
The rst modern political parties were liberals, organized
by the middle class in the 19th century to protect them
against the aristocracy. They were major political parties in that century but declined in the twentieth century
as rst the working class came to support socialist parties and economic and social change eroded their middle
class base.[23] Conservative parties arose in opposition to
liberals in order to defend aristocratic privilege. But in
order to attract voters they became less doctrinaire than
liberals. However they were unsuccessful in most countries and generally have only been able to achieve power
through cooperation with other parties.[24]
Socialist parties were organized in order to achieve political rights for workers and were originally allied with
liberals. However they broke with the liberals when they
sought worker control of the means of production.[25]
Christian democratic parties were organized by Catholics
who saw liberalism as a threat to traditional values. Although established in the 19th century, they became a major political force following the Second World War.[26]
Communist parties emerged following a division within
socialism rst on support of the First World War and then
support of the Bolshevik Revolution.[27]
Right-wing extremist parties are harder to dene, other
than being more right-wing than other parties, but include fascists and some extreme conservative and nationalist parties.[28]

Seating in the 2009 European Parliament

European United LeftNordic Green Left (35)
Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (184)
European GreensEuropean Free Alliance (55)
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (84)
European Peoples Party (265)
European Conservatives and Reformists (54)
Europe of Freedom and Democracy (32)
Non-Inscrits (27)

Political scientists have observed that the ideologies of

political parties can be mapped along a single leftright
axis.[17] Klaus von Beyme categorized European parties
into nine families, which described most parties. He
was able to arrange seven of them from left to right:
communist, socialist, green, liberal, christian democratic,
conservative and right-wing extremist. The position of
agrarian and regional/ethnic parties varied.[18] A study
conducted in the late 1980s on two bases, positions on
ownership of the means of production and positions on
social issues, conrmed this arrangement.[19]

Green parties were the most recent of the major party

groups to develop. They have rejected socialism and they
are very liberal on social issues.[29]
These categories can be applied to many parties outside
Europe.[30] Ware (1996) asserted that in the United States
both major parties were liberal, even though there are
leftright policy dierences between them.[31]

3 Usage in Western Europe

In the 2001 book The government and politics of France,
Knapp and Wright say that the main factor dividing the
left and right wings in Western Europe is class. The Left
seeks social justice through redistributive social and economic policies, while the Right defends private property
and capitalism. The nature of the conict depends on existing social and political cleavages and on the level of
economic development.[32] Left-wing values include the
belief in the power of human reason to achieve progress
for the benet of the human race, secularism, sovereignty

3
exercised through the legislature, social justice, and mistrust of strong personal political leadership. To the Right,
this is regularly seen as anti-clericalism, unrealistic social reform, doctrinaire socialism and class hatred. The
Right are skeptical about the capacity for radical reforms
to achieve human well-being while maintaining workplace competition. They believe in the established church
both in itself and as an instrument of social cohesion,
and believe in the need for strong political leadership
to minimize social and political divisions. To the Left,
this is seen as a selsh and reactionary opposition to
social justice, a wish to impose doctrinaire religion on
the population, and a tendency to authoritarianism and
repression.[33][34]
The dierences between left and right have altered over
time. The initial cleavage at the time of the French Revolution was between supporters of absolute monarchy (the
Right) and those who wished to limit the kings authority (the Left). During the 19th century the cleavage was
between monarchists and republicans. Following the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871, the cleavage
was between supporters of a strong executive on the Right
and supporters of the primacy of the legislature on the
Left.[35]

Economic consequences of left

right politics

but also showed that around ten percent fewer respondents understood the terms left and right than understood
the terms liberal and conservative.[37]
The contemporary Left in the United States is usually
understood as a category that, in addition to more radical socialists and anarchists, includes New Deal socialliberals (in contrast to traditions of social democracy
more common to Western Europe), Rawlsian liberals,
and civil libertarians, who are often identied with the
Democratic Party. In general, the term left-wing is understood to imply a commitment to egalitarianism, support for social policies that favor the working class, and
multiculturalism. The contemporary center-left usually
denes itself as promoting government regulation of business, commerce and industry; protection of fundamental
rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion;
and government intervention on behalf of racial, ethnic,
and sexual minorities and the working class.[38]
The contemporary Right in the United States is usually
understood as a category including social conservatives,
Christian conservatives and free market liberals, and is
generally identied with the Republican Party. In general, right-wing implies a commitment to conservative
Christian values, support for a free-market system, and
traditional family values. The contemporary Right usually denes itself as promoting deregulation of banking,
commerce, and industry.[39]

Whether something is considered to be Left or Right depends on ones point of view. According to liberal comAccording to Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy, mentator David Sirota, writing in Salon.com, On ecoHighly aggregated data on unemployment and ination nomic issues, we are often told that right is center, center
[40]
outcome in relation to the political orientation of govern- is left, and left is fringe.
ments in 12 West European and North American nations
are analyzed revealing a low unemployment-high ination
conguration in nations governed by the Left and a high
unemployment-low ination pattern in political systems 6 Relevance of the terms today
dominated by center and rightist parties.[36]
Main article: Political spectrum

Contemporary
United States

usage

in

the

Some political scientists have suggested that the classications of left and right are no longer meaningful in
the modern complex world. Although these terms conThe terms left-wing and right-wing are widely used in the tinue to be used, they advocate a more complex spectrum
to combine political, economic and social
United States but, as on the global level, there is no rm that attempts
[41]
dimensions.
consensus about their meaning. The only aspect that is
generally agreed upon is that they are the dening op- However, a survey conducted between 1983 and 1994 by
posites of the United States political spectrum. Left and Bob Altemeyer of Canadian legislative caucuses showed
right in the U.S. are generally associated with liberal and an 82% correlation between party aliation and score on
conservative respectively, although the meanings of the a scale for right-wing authoritarianism when comparing
two sets of terms do not entirely coincide. Depending right-wing and social democratic caucuses. There was a
on the political aliation of the individual using them, wide gap between the scores of the two groups, which
these terms can be spoken with varying implications. A was lled by liberal caucuses. His survey of American
2005 poll of 2,209 American adults showed that respon- legislative caucuses showed scores by American Repubdents generally viewed the paired concepts liberals and licans and Democrats were similar to the Canadian Right
left-wingers and conservatives and right-wingers as pos- and liberals, with a 44% correlation between party alisessing, respectively, generally similar political beliefs, tation and score.[42]

8 NOTES

Norberto Bobbio saw the polarization of the Italian

Chamber of Deputies in the 1990s as evidence that the
linear left/right axis remained valid. He thought that the
argument that the spectrum had disappeared occurred
when either the Left or Right were weak. The dominant side would claim that its ideology was the only possible one, while the weaker side would minimize its dierences. He saw the Left and Right not in absolute terms,
but as relative concepts that would vary over time. The
key distinction was one of equality. The Right was committed to inequality while the further left one went the
more committed to equality one was. In his view, the
left/right axis could be applied to any time period.[43]

[7] Brooks, Frank H. (1994). The Individualist Anarchists:

An Anthology of Liberty (18811908). Transaction Publishers. p. xi. Usually considered to be an extreme leftwing ideology, anarchism has always included a signicant strain of radical individualism...
[8] The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, Columbia University Press, ISBN 0-231-05678-8 "Fascism, philosophy of
government that glories nationalism at the expense of
the individual. ... The term was rst used by the party
started by MUSSOLINI, ... and has also been applied
to other right-wing movements such as NATIONAL SOCIALISM, in Germany, and the FRANCO regime, in
Spain.

The political philosopher Charles Blattberg has proposed [9] Gauchet, p. 242-245
response to conict as the basis of a reinterpreted political
spectrum. According to Blattberg, those who would re- [10] Gauchet, p. 245-247
spond to conict with conversation should be considered
as on the left, with negotiation as in the centre, and with [11] Gauchet, p. 247-249
force as on the right. See his essay Political Philosophies
[12] Gauchet, p. 253
and Political Ideologies.[44]
Libertarian writer David Boaz argued that terms left and
right are used to spin a particular point of view rather
than as simple descriptors, with those on the left typically emphasizing their support for working people and
accusing the right of supporting the interests of the upper
class, and those on the right usually emphasizing their
support for individualism and accusing the Left of supporting collectivism. Boaz asserts that arguments about
the way the words should be used often displaces arguments about policy by raising emotional prejudice against
a preconceived notion of what the terms mean.[45]

[13] Gauchet, p. 255-259

[14] Gauchet, p. 266
[15] Charles Loch Mowat, Britain Between the Wars: 1918
1940 (1955) p 577
[16] Lipset, p. 222
[17] Ware, pp. 1820
[18] Ware, p. 22
[19] Ware, pp. 2729

See also

[20] Ware, p. 47

Sinistrisme

[21] Ware, p. 186

Nolan chart

[22] Ware, p. 202

[23] Ware, p. 29-31

Notes

[24] Ware, pp. 3133

[1] Knapp & Wright, p. 10

[25] Ware, pp. 3335

[2] Adam Garnkle, Telltale Hearts: The Origins and Impact of the Vietnam Antiwar Movement (1997). Palgrave
Macmillan: p. 303.

[26] Ware, p. 36-37

[3] "Left (adjective)" and "Left (noun)" (2011), MerriamWebster Dictionary.

[27] Ware, p. 34
[28] Ware, pp. 4142

[4] Roger Broad, Labours European Dilemmas: From Bevin

to Blair (2001). Palgrave Macmillan: p. xxvi.

[29] Ware, p. 43

[5] JoAnne C. Reuss, American Folk Music and Left-Wing

Politics, The Scarecrow Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-81083684-6

[30] Ware, pp. 4447

[6] Van Gosse, The Movements of the New Left, 1950

1975: A Brief History with Documents, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, ISBN 978-1-4039-6804-3

[32] Knapp & Wright, p. 7

[31] Ware, p. 60

[33] Knapp & Wright, p. 9

[34] Anthony Giddens, Beyond Left and Right, the Future of

Radical Politics, In many continental European countries,
for example, 'conservatism' suggests the political inuence of Catholicism. p. 22. American conservatism,
in some of its major forms at least, has almost from its
beginnings been aggressively procapitalist in ways that its
European counterparts have not. p. 23. "(However) the
basic delemmas now faced by conservative and socialist
thought are everywhere similar. p. 23. Conservatism, it
is often said, opposes rationalism. p. 24., Stanford University Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0-8047-2451-7.
[35] Knapp & Wright, pp. 25
[36] Douglas A. Hibbs, Jr., Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy, The American Political Science Review,
Vol. 71 No. 4, Dec 1977, p. 1467
[37] Right Wing, Left Wing, Chicken Wing | MediaCulture |
AlterNet
[38] Michael Kazin, American Dreamers: How the Left
Changed a Nation, Knopf, 2011, ISBN 978-0-30726628-6
[39] Every facet of daily life, from what cars we drive to what
food we eat is subject to governments regulatory reach.
The costs are inevitably borne by consumers in the form
of higher prices, restricted product choices and limited
freedom. Policymakers should scrutinize new and existing rules to ensure that each is necessary and to minimize
costs. http://www.heritage.org/issues/regulation
[40] http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/5420/right_is_not_
center_but_2010_resembles_1984/
[41] Ruypers, p. 56
[42] The authoritarian specter, Bob Altemeyer (1996),
pp.(258298)
[43] Left and right: the signicance of a political distinction
(1996) Norberto Bobbio, Allan Cameron, pp. vi xiv
[44] http://ssrn.com/abstract=1755117
[45] David Boaz, The Politics of Freedom: Taking on The Left,
the Right, and Threats to our Liberties, Cato Institute,
2008, ISBN 978-1-933995-14-4

References
Gauchet, Marcel. Right and Left. In Pierre Nora,
Lawrence D. Kritzman (Eds.), Realms of memory:
conicts and divisions. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997 ISBN 0-231-10634-3
Lipset, Seymour Martin. Political man: the social
bases of politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
1960. ISBN 0-8018-2522-9
Knapp, Andrew. Wright, Vincent. The government
and politics of France. New York: Routledge, 2001
ISBN 0-415-21526-9

Ruypers, John. Canadian and world politics.

Canada: Emond Montgomery Publications Limited,
2005. ISBN 1-55239-097-7
Ware, Alan. Political Parties and Party Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-19878076-1

10 External links
Political Philosophies and Political Ideologies
(PDF); by Charles Blattberg, originally published
in Public Aairs Quarterly 15, No. 3 (July 2001)
193217.
leftright, an online tool attempting to illustrate left
right political bias in American media through sideby-side web site searches

11

11
11.1

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Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

Leftright politics Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right%20politics?oldid=647515870 Contributors: AxelBoldt,

The Anome, Mark, Ed Poor, Fubar Obfusco, Edward, Michael Hardy, Sam Francis, Ixfd64, Julesd, Sir Paul, Vzbs34, Nikai, John K,
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