Political spectrum
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A political spectrum is a way of comparing or visualizing different political positions, by placing them upon one or more geometric axes.
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Determining political spectra
The key assumption of such a spectrum is that people's view(s) on many issues correlate strongly, or that one essential issue subsumes or dominates all others. For a political spectrum to exist, there must be a range of beliefs. Political systems in which most people fall clearly into one group or another with almost no one in between, such as most nationalist controversies, are not well described by a political spectrum.
In Iran, for instance, a political spectrum might be divided along the issue of the clergy's role in government. Those who believe clerics should have the power to enforce Islamic law are on one end of the spectrum, those who support a secular society are on the other; moderates fall at various points in between. In Taiwan, the political spectrum is defined in terms of Chinese reunification versus Taiwan independence.
Even in issues of nationalism, spectra can exist; for example, in the Basque Country of Spain, Basque nationalists range from the EAJ/PNV, who have engaged in coalition governments with both the socialist PSOE and the conservative Partido Popular, to ETA, which engage in terror tactics and armed struggle against the Spanish national government, which they view as an occupying power.
Political spectra can end when one group wins so thoroughly that there is no longer a divergence of opinions. This occurred in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China in the case between the rightists and the leftists in which the leftists won, or in the late 18th century controversy between the Federalists and the Anti-federalists in the United States. Often in this situation the winners start disagreeing over new issues, and a new political spectrum is created. In some cases, the defeated side can re-appear after several years or several decades, and start the controversy anew.
At other times the political spectrum remains, while the issues which define the spectrum change. The controversy over the selection of William of Orange's successor to the English throne helped to define the British political spectrum which exists to this day, long after the original controversy was resolved.
In some cases, especially in democratic countries without a "first past the post" system, multiple spectra can co-exist. For example, from its founding in 1901 to 1909, the Commonwealth of Australia had two equally strong policial spectra - Free Trade vs. Protectionism and Workers vs. Bosses (Liberals). However, by 1909 the first continuum had become irrelevant, and the two leading parties of each idea (Free Trade Party and Protectionist Party) merged to become the Liberal Party, in order to better compete with the strong workers' party (Australian Labor Party). This second continuum remained dominant in federal Australian politics until the mid-1990's.
Left and Right
See main article Left-Right politics
In modern Western countries, the political spectrum usually is described along left-right lines. This traditional political spectrum is defined along an axis with socialism and communism, ("the Left") on one end, and conservatism and Fascism ("the Right") on the other. Free market liberalism is generally considered to be center-right; new liberalism or social liberalism is generally assigned to the center, center-left or sometimes (when viewed by conservatives) the left. Christian Democracy may be anywhere from center-right to center-left, depending on the country and era.
National and cultural differences in the use of the terms left and right are common. In China, left and right have referred to different positions at different times, although the issues were often very different from those in Western nations.
Multiplicity of interpretation of the left-right axis
There are various different opinions about what is actually being measured along this axis, and lines often blur among parties. For more detail see the main article Left-Right politics:
- Equal outcomes (left) versus consistent processes (right).
- Redistribution of wealth and income (left), or acceptance of inequalities as a result of the free market (right).
- Whether the government's policy on the economy should be interventionist (left) or laissez-faire (right).
- Support for widened lifestyle choices (left), or support for traditional values (right).
- Whether the state should prioritise equality (left) or liberty (right). Both the left and the right tend to speak in favor of both equality and liberty - but they have different interpretations.
- Whether human nature is more malleable (left) or intrinsic (right).
- Whether the government should promote secularism (left) or religious morality (right).
- Collectivism (left) versus individualism (right).
- Support for internationalism (left), or national interest (right).
Historical origin of the terms
The terms Left and Right to refer to political affiliation originated early in the French Revolutionary era, and referred originally to the seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France. The aristocracy sat on the right of the Speaker (traditionally the seat of honor) and the commoners sat on the Left, hence the terms Right-wing politics and Left-wing politics.
Originally, the defining point on the ideological spectrum was the ancien régime ("old order"). "The Right" thus implied support for aristocratic or royal interests, and the church, while "The Left" implied opposition to the same. Because the political franchise at the start of the revolution was relatively narrow, the original "Left" represented mainly the interests of the bourgeoisie, the rising capitalist class. At that time, support for laissez-faire capitalism and Free markets were counted as being on the left; today in most Western countries these views would be characterized as being on the Right.
As the franchise expanded over the next several years, it became clear that there was something to the left of that original "Left": the precursors of socialism and communism, advocating the interests of wage-earners and peasants.
Alternative spectra
While the right-left spectrum is so common as to be taken for granted, numerous alternatives exist, usually having been developed by people who feel their views are not fairly represented on the traditional right-left spectrum.
The design of a spectrum itself can be politically motivated.
Another alternative spectrum offered by the conservative American Federalist Journal emphasizes the degree of political control, and thus places totalitarianism at one extreme and anarchism (no government at all) at the other extreme.
Another alternative, currently popular among certain environmentalists, uses a single axis to measure what they consider to be the good of the Earth against the good of big business, which is seen as being the force most likely to harm the Earth.
In 1998, political author Virginia Postrel, in her book The Future and Its Enemies, offered a new single axis spectrum that measures one's view of the future. On one extreme are those who allegedly fear the future and wish to control it: stasists. On the other hand are those who want the future to unfold naturally and without attempts to plan and control: dynamists. The distinction corresponds to the utopian versus anti-utopian spectrum used in some theoretical assessments of liberalism, and the book's title is borrowed from the work of the anti-utopian classic-liberal theorist Karl Popper.
The political philosopher Charles Blattberg has argued that the spectrum is best understood as based upon different ways of responding to conflict: conversation (left), negotiation (centre), or force (right). (Blattberg 2001, p.20 et.seq.)
Other axes include:
- Role of the church: Clericalism vs. Anti-clericalism. This axis is not significant in the United States where views of the role of religion tend to get subsumed into the general left-right axis, but in Europe clericalism versus anti-clericalism is much less correlated with the left-right spectrum.
- Urban vs. rural: This axis is also much more significant in European as well as Australian and Canadian politics than American.
- Foreign policy: interventionism (the nation should exert power abroad to implement its policy) vs. isolationism (the nation should keep to its own affairs)
- Political violence: pacifism (political views should not be imposed by violent force) vs. militancy (violence is a legitimate or necessary means of political expression). In North America, holders of these views are often referred to as "doves" and "hawks", respectively.
- Foreign trade: globalization (world economic markets should become integrated and interdependent) vs. autarky (the nation or polity should strive for economic independence). During the early history of the Commonwealth of Australia, this was the major political continuum. At that time it was called Free trade vs. Protectionism.
- Trade Freedom vs. Trade Equity: Free trade (businesses should be able trade across borders without regulations) vs. Fair trade (international trade should be regulated on behalf of social justice).
- Diversity: multiculturalism (the nation should represent a diversity of cultural ideas) vs. assimilationism or nationalism (the nation should primarily represent, or forge, a majority culture)
- Participation: Democracy (rule of the majority) vs. Oligarchy (rule by a limited number of people) vs. Republic (a compromise between the two; this is a specialised use of the term 'republic' based on an interpretation of classical history)
- Freedom: Positive liberty (having rights which impose an obligation on others) vs. Negative liberty (freedom from interference by others)
- Change: radicals (who believe in rapid change) vs. progressives (who believe in measured , incremental change) vs. conservatives (who believe in minimal or cautious change), and sometimes vs. reactionaries (who believe in changing things to the way they were)
- Origin of state authority: popular sovereignty (the state as a creation of the people, with enumerated, delegated powers) vs. various forms of absolutism and organic state philosophy (the state as an original and essential authority)
- International action: Multilateralism (states should cooperate and compromise) versus Unilateralism (states have a strong, even unconditional, right to make their own decisions).
Multi-axis models
A one-axis model is highly over-simplified, and lumps together fairly different political propositions; in particular, as seen before, there are many ways to define the left-right spectrum, which do not yield the same classifications.
Several of the political philosophies that have arisen over the past two centuries do not fit on the one-dimensional left/right line, in particular anarchism and libertarianism. Anarchism is assumed to be "left", while Libertarianism is assumed to be "right". However, on the one-dimensional spectrum, anarchism shares almost the same position as various forms of Marxism, which is obviously inappropriate. Anarchism implies the rejection of government and societal control (as well as private property), while Leninism and other forms of Marxism imply the control by society of many activities. At the other end of the left/right line, Libertarianism finds itself in the same position as fascism, which is equally inappropriate.
In order to address these problems, a number of proposals have been made for a two-axis system, which combines two models of the political spectrum as axes. Sometimes these systems are constructed for the specific purpose of placing one political group in a particular position, and associating it with motherhood values (values with 100% positive connonations). These charts are academic in origin, but are not widely used in political science.
Eysenck model
The first person to devise such a two-axis system was Hans Eysenck in his 1964 book "Sense and Nonsense in Psychology." Starting with the traditional "left-right" spectrum Eysenck added a vertical axis that considered "tough-mindedness" (authoritarian tendencies) and "tender-mindedness" (democratic tendencies). The effect of this new axis is that those who have very different views with regard to authority, but have the same "left-right" view (people like Stalin and Noam Chomsky), can be distinguished.
Nolan chart
Main article: Nolan chart
A second chart is the Nolan chart, created by libertarian David Nolan. This chart shows what he considers as "economic freedom" (issues like taxation, free trade and free enterprise) on the x axis and what he considers as "personal freedom" (issues like drug legalization, abortion and the draft) on the y-axis. This puts left-wingers in the left quadrant, libertarians in the top, right-wingers in the right, and authoritarianism and communitarians (whom Nolan originally named populists) in the bottom.
The traditional left-right spectrum forms a diagonal across the Nolan chart, with communism and fascism both in the ultra-populist corner, an assignment hotly disputed by more liberal-minded communists who do not advocate state control over matters of "personal freedom".
The Nolan chart has been reoriented and visually represented in many forms since David Nolan first created it, and has been the inspiration for an endless array of political self-quizzes, perhaps the most famous of these being the World's Smallest Political Quiz, which places one on the Nolan Chart.
Political compass
Largely following the Eysenck method, the model used by the political compass Organization has economic issues on the horizontal axis and issues of freedom on the vertical axis. Possibly the most popular and well-known online political quiz, it asks a wide-range of questions before placing you on a chart.
Pournelle chart
Main article: Pournelle chart
A third, very different, two axis model was created by Jerry Pournelle. The Pournelle chart has liberty (a dimension similar to the diagonal of the Nolan chart, with those on the left seeking liberty and those on the right focusing control, farthest right being state worship, farthest left being the idea of a state as the "ultimate evil") perpendicular to Rationalism, defined here as the belief in planned social progress, with those higher up believing that there are problems with society that can be rationally solved, and those lower down skeptical of such approaches.
Other models
In its January 4, 2003 issue, The Economist discussed a chart, proposed by Dr. Ronald Inglehart and supported by the World Values Survey (associated with the University of Michigan), to plot cultural ideology onto two dimensions. On the y-axis it covered issues of tradition and religion, like patriotism, abortion, euthanasia and the importance of obeying the law and authority figures. At the bottom of the chart is the traditionalist position on issues like these (with loyalty to country and family and respect for life considered important), while at the top is the secular position. The x-axis deals with self-expression, issues like everyday conduct and dress, acceptance of diversity (including foreigners) and innovation, and attitudes towards people with specific controversial lifestyles such as homosexuality and vegetarianism, as well as willingness to partake in political activism. At the right of the chart is the open self-expressionist position, while at the left is its opposite position, which Dr. Inglehart calls survivalist. This chart not only has the power to map the values of individuals, but also to compare the values of people in different countries. Placed on this chart, EU countries in continental Europe come out on the top right, Anglophone countries on the middle right, Latin American countries on the bottom right, African, Middle Eastern and South Asian countries on the bottom left, and ex-Communist countries on the top left.
In addition to the distinctions between different types of "control" on many of these spectra, there is no clear way to locate philosophies such as feminism or environmentalism, even using a two-axis spectrum. Additional dimensions would be required to accommodate them, and that would make the model far too complex to be of any use.
As an example, there are even some three axis models, both based on the Nolan Chart. The Friesian Institute has suggested a model that combines the economic liberty and personal liberty axes with positive liberty, creating a cube. The Vosem Chart splits the economic axis of the Nolan chart into two axes, corporate economics (z-axis) and individual economics (y-axis), which combine with the civil liberty axis (x-axis) to form a cube.
Ab-initio derived models
While multiple axes on the political spectrum had been postulated for a while, statistical analysis of survey data using principal component analysis to verify the theory and establish their existence, number and meaning was not done until recently. A 2003 study in the UK yielded two significant eigenvectors (that is, groups of questions that tend to be answered consistently), one less well-constrained than the other. If one examines the survey questions and tries to assign a meaning to the axes it turns out that one is like the familiar "left-right" axis that mixes economic and social issues, and the other indicates a degree of political pragmatism. The outcome of that study is that the UK political spectrum is most sensibly described with two axes. [1] [2]
References
- Charles Blattberg Political Philosophies and Political Ideologies (PDF); online, previous version published in Public Affairs Quarterly 15, No. 3 (July 2001) 193–217.
See also
- List of politics-related topics
- Nolan chart
- Political compass
- Spectrum (disambiguation)
- Left-right politics
- Syncretic politics
