What is the political spectrum: parties, ideologies, movements

The oldest examples of the political spectrum include the left wing and the right wing, which originally referred to seats in the French parliament after the revolution. Communism and socialism located in the upper left square are usually regarded at the international level as left ideologies, while conservatism and capitalism located in the right square as right.

Liberals - right or left?

Liberalism can mean different things in different contexts, sometimes being in the left spectrum of political forces (social liberalism), and sometimes in the right (classical liberalism). Those with an average view of politics are classified as centrists or moderate. A policy that rejects the traditional division of left and right is known as syncretic.

Issue

Political scientists often point out that one left-right axis is not enough to describe the existing differences in political beliefs and often include other axes. Although descriptive words may differ in polar opposites, often in popular biaxial political spectra there is an axis between sociocultural and economic problems, each of which depends on some form of individualism (or government advocating for individual freedom) on some form of community (or government, advocating for the well-being of the community).

Right and left

The terms “right” and “left” refer to political affiliation that arose at the beginning of the French revolutionary era. Initially, as already mentioned, they belonged to deputy seats in various legislative bodies of France. As can be seen from the speaker’s seat in the foreground of the Assembly, the aristocracy sat on the right (traditional place of honor), and commoners sat on the left, hence the terms “right-wing politics” and “left-wing politics”.

First right

Initially, the defining moment in the ideological spectrum was Ancien Régime (“old order”). Thus, “right-wing views” meant support for aristocratic or royal interests and the church, while “left-wing views” meant support for republicanism, secularism, and civil liberties.

Since the political spectrum at the beginning of the revolution was relatively narrow, the original “leftists” were mainly the interests of the bourgeoisie, the growth of the capitalist class (with noticeable exceptions, such as the proto-communist Grakh Babef). Politicians sitting on the left supported the state’s non-interference in the economy and the free market, since it was beneficial to them - the first capitalists, but disadvantageous to aristocrats, whose views, however, are often characterized as right.

Sankulots

The reason for this obvious contradiction is that those “leftists” who existed outside of the official parliamentary structures (the sansculottes of the French Revolution), as a rule, represented the majority of the working class, the poor peasantry and the unemployed. Their political interests in the French Revolution lay in opposition to the aristocracy, and therefore they found themselves in alliance with the early capitalists. However, this does not mean that their economic interests are connected with the policy of non-interference, which the parliamentary left advocated at that time. However, in the history of the political spectrum and the political movement, the Jacobins and sans-culottes are in the left-hand political square — about the same place as the Russian Bolsheviks, modern social liberals, and social democrats and anarchists.

Capitalists lean to the right

As the capitalist economy developed, the aristocracy became less relevant and was largely replaced by representatives of the capitalist class. The size of the working class increased with the expansion of capitalism and began to be partially expressed through trade union, socialist, anarchist and communist policies.

This evolution often forced parliamentary politicians to abandon non-interference, which led them to become leftist in the modern sense of the word.

Thus, the word “left” in American political language can refer to “liberalism” and be identified with the democratic party, whereas in a country like France, these positions will be considered relatively more right-wing or centrist. The word "left" in this case will refer, rather, to the Communists, Social Democrats, and so on.

Eysenck's research

In his research, Hans J. Eisenck refined the methodology to include more criteria on economic issues. By doing this, he discovered a split in the left and right axis between social and economic policies with the previously undiscovered dimension of socialism-capitalism. Thus, the standard political spectrum with the division into left and right was supplemented. A new scale was added to it - capitalism and socialism.

Most studies in political theory have since confirmed Eysenck's findings.

The modern spectrum of political ideologies

Nowadays, each country has its own version of this spectrum, associated with the civilizational and cultural characteristics of the state, as well as its history. However, there are common features that distinguish the right and left. Right-wingers most often advocate more nationalist positions, defending traditions, “eternal values” and the interests of the national majority. Leftists, in turn, advocate progressive, modernist, anti-national and social positions, upholding the values ​​of the consumer society, national and sexual minorities, the poor and migrants.

The situation in Russia

Depending on the political spectrum, parties may be called left or right. The Russian politicum is no exception in this regard. The right-wing parties in our country include the Liberal Democratic Party and the "Growth Party", the left-wing - "Fair Russia" and the Communist Party. The ruling "United Russia", in turn, is considered a centrist party.