Are concepts of left and right meaningful outside the European context
Are concepts of left and right meaningful outside the European context?’The traditional left-right axis has since the finish of World War One and particularly since the end of World War Two dominated not just European politics but world politics as the political right and the political left came to represent democracy and the side of ‘good’ and anti-democracy and supposed ‘evil’. Despite the apparent contradictions, the socialist left (of varying degrees of extremity) commanded a significant amount of electoral support in most mainland European countries. Since the end of the Cold War era the concepts of left and right in politics has changed somewhat. In considering whether these concepts are meaningful in a non-European context, three key topics need to be examined. Firstly, the political left and the political right and their interrelationship need to be defined as concretely as possible. Secondly, it has to be examined whether these concepts have any meaning in politics today and finally, we need to decide then if the concepts are meaningful outside of the European context. This will be achieved through the broad study of six national political systems within and outside of Europe.The traditional left-right axis refers to the simple attempt by political commentators to classify the mainly economic (but also social) philosophy of individuals and political parties on a one-dimensional scale. It was devised originally while the French Revolutionary Assembly was in session as a method of distinguishing the radicals (democrats), who sat on the left side of the chamber, from the conservatives (monarchists), who took seat on the right hand side. As socialism replaced democracy as the dominant
radical ideology, it came to characterise what would become “leftism”, while conservatism would, with democratisation and liberalisation, come to represent capitalist interests. Today, the left is traditionally defined as broadly socialist, in favour of a sizeable welfare state and supportive of trade unions and workers’ rights, while the right is fiscally conservative, concerned with minimising the size of government and promoting maximal individual economic freedom. Additionally, the left is generally seen as promoting social liberalism, the separation of church and state, (in the past) divorce and the option to terminate a pregnancy. The right, conversely, is broadly morally conservative, often ...
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radical ideology, it came to characterise what would become “leftism”, while conservatism would, with democratisation and liberalisation, come to represent capitalist interests. Today, the left is traditionally defined as broadly socialist, in favour of a sizeable welfare state and supportive of trade unions and workers’ rights, while the right is fiscally conservative, concerned with minimising the size of government and promoting maximal individual economic freedom. Additionally, the left is generally seen as promoting social liberalism, the separation of church and state, (in the past) divorce and the option to terminate a pregnancy. The right, conversely, is broadly morally conservative, often religious and for stricter controls on issues like abortion. Examples of traditionally left-wing parties would be the European Social Democratic model, characterised by the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and the Socialist (formerly Communist) model, almost uniformly weak since the fall of the USSR. Similarly, an example of a typical right wing party in Europe would be the Christian Democratic (CDU) model in Germany.However, there are problems with this model, even within Europe. There exists an inherent contradiction in the attempt to define parties on a one-dimensional axis using two broad variables. The contradiction is all too evident when attempting to place the so-called “Far Right”, the fascists, survived by Front National in France and the Britain’s British National Party. Socially ultra-conservative, economically they are anything but, espousing radical socialist policies. A similar problem is faced when placing Europe’s Green parties (most notably Germany’s powerful Green Party) on the left-right spectrum – should they be characterised as left-wing due to their radical social liberalism or right-wing for their promotion of small business and economic liberalism (in the classical sense)?Similarly, how can we assign the term “far-right” to both neo-fascists and the “other” far-right ideology, the libertarianism of Ireland’s Progressive Democrats and the USA’s Libertarian Party? It borders on ridiculous that we can and do use the same catch-all term to describe the ultra-socialist, authoritarian agenda of the neo-fascists and the extremely liberal, economically and socially, agenda of the libertarians. As such, the left-right axis appears fundamentally useless. The problem can be solved by the introduction of a second axis, the vertical axis or y-axis, to represent degrees of liberalism and authoritarianism. The right-left axis can then, as it was in pre-Cold War times, be used to place broad economic policy. For this purpose alone, it’s quite useful. In Germany the SPD occupy a centre-left position, the Greens and the CDU occupy centre-right, while the FDP sit to the right again. Given that the Greens and the CDU would be unlikely to ever go into government together, given their radically differing social platforms, the functional limitations of the system are easily exposed. Similarly, in France, the left-right divide is clear to see. The centre-left, centred on the French Socialist Party, competes with a centre-right grouping led by the UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire). In both countries, despite stiff electoral competition, a consensus exists for the maintenance of some measure of welfare state and though the Socialists in France are Europe’s most left-wing leading party, the scale in both countries is merely comparative. As we will see when investigating non-European systems, the same objective standards do not apply.Even within a European context, the left-right political cleavage isn’t necessarily a significant factor in party support. In the Republic of Ireland, concepts of right and left have a far lower effect on party identification. The two main parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are mainly populist parties, occupying similar but variable positions on the political spectrum. The Irish political system is characterised by a very weak political left, the weakest in Europe, as the Irish Labour Party rarely commands more than 10% of the vote share. The ruling parties have traditionally been large government parties, exemplified by the substantial number of semi-state companies in the private market. Recently, the parties have taken a shift to the right, while the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats coalition has helped give the larger party a pro-small business, pro-market image. As there exists a strong consensus on base issues, the left-right spectrum is really quite redundant in the Irish context, useful only in distinguishing the major parties from splinter parties.The US has a different story but (broadly) similar results. The nature of the institutional and electoral system in America is that two parties are clearly dominant throughout the country. Nigel Bowles asserts that “the American party system, except for that in Malta, [is] the purest two-party system in the world.” He further states that “both Republicans and Democrats are parties of exceptional ideological breadth compared to European parties.” The reasons for this are plenty, but the most important for the purpose of this essay is the fact two parties are so dominant. Unlike in France, for instance, where a tradition has always existed of extreme politics, the US political system has always maintained a culture of consensus. There’s less scope for polarisation; radical factions are less likely to draw party politics from the centre, as the anti-democratic, anti-capitalist communists and fascists in France have managed to do in the past. Voting behaviour is also more candidate-oriented than party-oriented. All this adds up to quite a conservative (as opposed to radical) political culture, in which parties find more to identify with each other than to differ. Japan, on the other hand, lies somewhere between the Irish case and the American. From 1955 to 1993, Japan was governed by without interruption by the centre-right Liberal Democratic Party, a highly factional but nonetheless popular party. The left had reorganised well after post-World War Two politics resumed, but due to a lack of cohesiveness and the huge economic success of the LDP years, they were never able to mount a serious challenge. That changed in the early 90s as the LDP became unable to form single majority governments and was forced first into coalition-building and then into opposition as the first Socialist prime minister (from the Japanese Socialist Party) came to power in 1994. It seemed then that the country was geared for a transition to a standard bi-polar political system but in 1998 the JSP reformed as the Social Democratic Party and saw a huge fall-off in support. The new liberal party, the Democratic Party, and the Japanese Communist Party made gains at their expense. The new centrist/centre-right axis is the dominant force in Japanese politics today. The right-left spectrum is useful here, however, as there are radical parties (the Communists) that can command significant electoral support meaning a wide ideological range is represented by parties, rather than the pre-1993 system which saw one party encompass wide-ranging ideologies.