The asymmetrical structure of left/right disagreement

Abstract

The left/right semantic is used widely to describe the patterns of party competition in democratic countries. This article examines the patterns of party policy in Anglo-American and Western European countries on three dimensions of left/right disagreement: wealth redistribution, social morality and immigration. The central questions are whether, and why, parties with left-wing or right-wing positions on the economy systematically adopt left-wing or right-wing positions on immigration and social morality. The central argument is that left/right disagreement is asymmetrical: leftists and rightists derive from different sources, and thus structure in different ways, their opinions about policy. Drawing on evidence from Benoit and Laver’s (2006) survey of experts about the policy positions of political parties, the results of the empirical analysis indicate that party policy on the economic, social and immigration dimensions are bound together by parties on the left, but not by parties on the right. The article concludes with an outline of the potential implications of left/right asymmetry for unified theories of party competition.

Electoral competition in Europe's new tripolar political space: Class voting for the left, centre‐right and radical right

“…In contrast, the rise of the radical right has led to a split within the right between the economically liberal and culturally moderate centre-right and the culturally authoritarian radical right (Cochrane 2013;Kriesi et al 2015: 3). We follow the argument that the rise of the new left has resulted in a rapprochement on cultural issues within the left between the social democrats and green parties.…”

“…We follow the argument that the rise of the new left has resulted in a rapprochement on cultural issues within the left between the social democrats and green parties. In contrast, the rise of the radical right has led to a split within the right between the economically liberal and culturally moderate centre-right and the culturally authoritarian radical right (Cochrane 2013;Kriesi et al 2015: 3).…”

Center-Right Political Parties in Advanced Democracies

“…Radical right parties are strongly conservative on multiculturalism, as expected, but are also rather centrist on state intervention in the economy. Thus, an ideological asymmetry emerges across the left-right divide: progressive positions on different issues are strongly bundled among party families on the left-but conservative positions are not always bundled among party families on the right (Cochrane 2013).…”

Worldviews and Values as Bases for Political Orientations

“…Both dimensions have been shown to robustly correlate in Western democracies in such a way that higher social conservatism tends to coincide with higher economic rightism, and social liberalism with economic leftism (Prosser, 2016). However, crosscultural comparisons have revealed that the relationship between the two dimensions is not consistent in different societies, showing positive, negative, and non-existent correlations in Eastern European countries and other non-Western cultures characterized by lower socioeconomic development and lower ideological constraints (Choma et al, 2012;Cochrane, 2010Cochrane, , 2011Malka et al, 2014). The concept of ideological constraint relates to the extent to which various political beliefs and attitudes tend to be structured along the ideological spectrum (left vs. right or liberal vs. conservative) and reflects the contents of political discourse within a society or its subgroup(s) (Converse, 1964).…”