Left-right ideology: Its meaning and effects on party preferences in Serbia

Abstract

Summary: Left-right ideology is regarded as an expression of socio-economic divisions. More recently, it has expanded to incorporate orientations such as nationalism or postmaterialism, and relaxed its association with social structure. Furthermore, the meaning of the political left and right varies across political contexts. As a result it is questionable to what extent left-right labels can successfully function as heuristic devices for political orientation. In order to understand the meaning of the left-right ideological dimension in a specific IntroductionConcepts of political left and right are some of the most central political notions, especially in the European context. Political journalism, common political discourse, and academic literature could hardly be conceived without these labels. They appear necessary to describe political ideologies and movements, events, political parties and actors, and other political phenomena. Political left and right are labels used for self-description as well. Individuals and groups often describe their views and preferences in terms of left and right (Fuchs & Klingemann, 1990;Inglehart & Klingemann, 1976). These concepts serve a number of functions -political communication, orientation, and self-description. Leftright dimension also serves as a 'cognitive short-cut', that can help the public to articulate their preferences, including selecting a party to vote for at elections, with minimal cognitive effort.In order to perform these functions, an ideological dimension, or a set of ideological labels, needs to satisfy certain basic conditions (Todosijević, 2004). First, the public should be willing and able to use this dimension for self-description. Second, this self-labeling should be systematically related to important social and political variables. In case of the left-right dimension, this should include socio-demographic characteristics, for instance (Freire, 2008). Finally, ideological labels are useful in political orientation if they are related to political party preferences. These issues are addressed in the present paper, focusing on one particular case -Serbia. First, I examine the distribution of the left-right self placement among Serbian respondents. Next, I look into the relationships between the left-right self-placement and some of the basic socio-demographic variables. Finally, the relationships between the left-right ideology and party preferences are analyzed.Although the intellectual traditions that gave birth to the left-right ideological discourse are located in Western Europe, the terminology gained a more global significance. Yet, the use of the left-right terminology varies both in the extent and content (e.g., Zechmeister, 2006). Apparently, the more a polity is distant from the West-European tradition, the less these concepts appear politically meaningful. The content of the dimension also varies, not only geographically but also in time. 2 Given its extensiveness and variability, the meaning and function of the left-right ideological la...

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