The political spectrum explained: what is left and what is right in politics?

Left and right are common classifications of the political spectrum, but nowadays, there is confusion around these terms. Here we’re going to address the origins of this classification and its present.

Today, I’m going to speak about the classification of the political spectrum between left and right-wing. Much confusion surrounds these terms, mainly due to the evolution of political leaders and parties in the last six decades.

I admit this is a daunting task, especially if we take into account the remarkable differences between countries and their respective political cultures. So, any attempt to define these categories needs a specific approach. That means to examine this subject by taking a look at history. Otherwise, it would be impossible to understand anything.

So, we’ll start with the origins of these terms and what they meant. Later, we’ll study their evolution. That will help assess its suitability to analyze current politics. And also, to examine how much different politics is, compared to those days when this distinction was adopted.

It’s widely accepted the origin of this political distinction is the French Revolution. However, its antecedents are in Great Britain, because there already was a party system since the seventeenth century. That entailed political debates that reflected the ideological differences. On the one hand, the conservative faction, the Tories, close to the Crown and the Church of England. And on the other hand, the Whig faction, advocate for a constitutional monarchy. Anyways, at that time, there was no categorization of the political spectrum in terms of left and right-wing. And the political differences between these parties became more evident at the end of the eighteenth century, and especially during the nineteenth century. By that time Edmund Burke’s ideas became a benchmark for conservatives, while Thomas Paine’s ideas were the same thing for liberals.

The terms left and right-wing have their origins in the French Revolution.

In 1789, the members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king, who sat to the president’s right, and the supporters of the revolution, who sat to his left. From then on, this division was associated with different ideas. While the right-wing ideology was associated with order and hierarchy, the left-wing ideology was related to social change.

When the National Assembly was replaced in 1791 by a Legislative Assembly, this political division continued with slight changes. The left-wing was considered the faction of innovators, and the right-wing with the defenders of the constitution. Nevertheless, this categorization evolved during the revolution. In general, it vas a vague classification because political factions were known by their names. That is to say, the Jacobins, Girondins, Hébertists, and so on. They were also identified by the name of the place they occupied in the National Convention, such as the mountain, the marsh, and other similar names.

The Thermidorian Reaction of 1794 imposed a new constitution that broke up the party groups. After the Restoration in 1815, political clubs reappeared, and the distinction between left and right-wing became important. At that time, royalists sat on the right side of the parliament, while independents representatives sat on the left side. The terms center-right and center-left were common to describe political differences and nuances of ideology.

Aside from slight details, the big picture shows how the political stage had changed. Politics became a permanent conflict between different factions to seize the government. And this distinction was the way to classify each group at that time, and not to refer to political ideologies per se. After 1848, the main political groups, such as socialists and reactionaries, used red and white flags to identify their party affiliation. They used to call themselves by their respective party names.

After 1871, with the third Republic, French political parties started to adopt the terms left and right as labels to assert their political identity. The classification of left and right-wing evolved in the nineteenth century insofar as it did the French politics. So, we notice that these terms, left and right, are deeply rooted in French political history. Yet, their meaning kept ambiguous until the beginning of the twentieth century.

The usage of this categorization spread from France to other countries. So, this expansion made it possible to apply this distinction to a large number of political parties worldwide, despite their discordant political ideas. And here is when we notice how different this classification works in each country, chiefly because of the specific political context and trajectory in which it is used.

The first half of the twentieth century was crucial for the generalization of this classification. It left behind its initial ambiguity, and rapidly became the frame to understand political rivalries. And it proved to be successful because it helped explain the political struggle coherently. For this reason, it took root in the public debate, and especially in the political language. Since then on, every political actor identified themselves according to the logic of left and right-wing.

We’ve seen the birth and evolution of this categorization, and how it spread all around the world. Now, you may ask yourself what it means. That’s what we’re going to address now.

There are several interpretations of this classification, and it is still debatable. The reason is the characterization of each political party, and the criterion applied. But it also depends on the political culture of each country, and therefore, on its history. It doesn’t make sense to compare the American political culture with its equivalent in western European countries.

However, there is a conceptualization of this classification that fits pretty well into the common understanding. I refer to the definition provided by the Scottish political scientist Robert MacIver. And it results to be interesting because it reflects the class cleavage that characterized politics in modern times since the French Revolution.

When I say class cleavage, I refer to the cleavage theory, nothing to do with women.

In political science, the cleavage theory is the idea of a division of voters into voting blocs, and it was developed in the 1960s by Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan. They defined four basic cleavages for western civilization after the Industrial Revolution. If you want to know more about this subject, I left the reference in the bibliography used for this video. You can find it below.

When MacIver defined right-wing, he associated it with the conservative sectors of the political spectrum, and more specifically, with the interests of the upper or dominant classes. However, he associated the left-wing with the political expression of the lower economic or social classes. In the middle, there is the center of the middle classes.

MacIver took this conceptualization as the base for his ensuing explanation. He claimed the conservative right has historically defended entrenched prerogatives, privileges, and powers. However, the left has fought for equality of opportunity, and also for the claims of the less advantaged. Therefore, for this author, left and right-wing have defended different and contradictory principles that have broadly corresponded to the interests of the different classes.

MacIver’s explanation is useful, but in spite of it, we can’t deny it is, at the same time, biased because of his apparent leftist sympathies. Remember, this classification has European origins, and it fits well into that context. In any case, why we can’t consider the right-wing an advocate for family (a specific model of the family), national identity, and religion?. In the same way, why we shouldn’t associate the left-wing with authoritarianism, misery, and oppression?. All of this is more complex than binary oppositions. And that leads us to analyze if this distinction is still valid for the current politics.

I want to start the analysis of the current situation of this classification with a sentence stated in 1931 by the French philosopher and journalist Émile-Auguste Chartier, also known as Alain.

“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 first thing that comes to mind is that the person asking the question is certainly not a man of the Left.”

Aside from Alain’s ideological prejudices, this statement shows that by the 1930s, this classification was already under question.

Why this? And especially why so soon? The reality is that the evolution of politics in modern developed countries entailed significant changes at all levels. Universal suffrage, the alphabetization of population, and the expansion of the press brought in mass politics. And with this process of social change, political parties also evolved and adapted to the new stage. These circumstances forced them to increase their voters base, and by doing so, they also had to alter their discourse to appeal to more people. As a result, they transformed themselves into catch-all parties.

Yes, you read well, catch-all parties. We’re talking about a type of party which incorporates many different interests by covering a broad spectrum of views among its potential voters. The goal is to build a widely inclusive party able to encompass people of differing backgrounds, opinions, and interests, and in the meantime, attract a wide range of supporters.

You can imagine the consequences of all of this in ideological terms. We see how parties leave behind their old political beliefs and identity, and adopt a new message far away from the former ideological orthodoxy. In this process, they start to speak about issues they had dismissed before. And they also show concern about matters they had disregarded. Political marketing considerations boosted this trend, and it entails a critical shift in terms of discourse. In short, former ideological limitations are overcome in the pursuit of a broader base of voters.

What happens in the end? It’s easy to explain. The classification between left and right-wing becomes blurry, and parties expand their political message as much as they can to make forays into the field of their traditional rivals.

Then, we find Trump preaching against globalization.

And leftists blubbering safety.

And you end up thinking this world turned crazy. But no, it has changed, and the old frame to understand politics became useless. It’s unable to explain politics, and there isn’t anything to replace it yet. That’s why we still use this old-fashion classification.

Question of the day

Question of the day! What is left and right-wing for you? Leave your opinion in the comments section below, and I’ll check it out.

Bibliography used:

Bobbio, Norberto, Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction

MacIver, Robert M., The Web of Government

Gauchet, Marcel, “Right and Left” in Nora, Pierre and Lawrence D. Kritzman (Eds.), Realms of memory: conflicts and divisions

Lipset, Seymour Martin and Stein Rokkan, Party systems and voter alignments: cross-national perspectives

Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics

Bryson, Maurice C. and William R. McDill, “The Political Spectrum: A Bi-Dimensional Approach” in The Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought 4(2), 1968, pp. 19-26

Nolan, David, “Classifying and Analyzing Politico-Economic Systems” in The Individualist, January 1971, pp. 5-11

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