14 min read — Elections | Populism | Governance | Democracy
Moving Beyond the Traditional Left-Right Spectrum: Rethinking Political Coalitions In a New Era
In the words of novelist Doris Lessing, ‘Things are not quite so simple always as black and white.’, so as we enter a new era of ideologies, should we really reduce politics to the simplistic left-right paradigm?
Ever since its origins in the French Revolution, for the past five centuries, our society has largely implemented a simple and rectilinear approach when analysing the political spectrum. By doing so, we have reduced politics to a simple dichotomy of left and right which has done much to polarize ideological debate, excluding alternative voices and largely overlooking crucial aspects such as methods and political values.
What does a libertarian and a national conservative have in common besides being on the ‘right’? Quite little. And conversely, what similarities do you find in a far-right illiberal and a far-left populist? Quite a lot actually, especially in their methods.
Having stuck to this left-right approach, although useful in media and popular culture to simplify the political understanding and the classification of political parties and opinions, has arguably led to a reductive vision of democracy. Indeed, by keeping true to this framing, we have hid crucial aspects among ideological parties that have ultimately damaged our society’s public sphere and that, hence, deserve attention.
In a world of continuous ideological evolution, politics cannot be confined to a straight line from far-left to far-right, especially in today’s politically fragmented environment. Real democracy lives in the diversity of methods used to lead, govern or command a society that go beyond policy agendas. Demoting politics to this rectilinear spectrum means ignoring the public sphere’s complexity and its richness, and limiting, by infusing this approach within public opinion, the potential for collaboration between politicians.
The traditional approach has classified at its opposite ends political movements that actually share much the same methods, objectives and strategies: often underpinned by populism, rigid ideologies, and intolerance. It would explain how far-left and far-right movements often agree through different vocabulary on both internal and foreign policies such as wars, economic interventions, protectionism, and statism.
In describing this tendency, many would therefore support the ‘horseshoe’ political spectrum developed by Jean-Piere Faye, or appeal to the 2-axis model of left-right and libertarian-authoritarian. However, both these approaches make it hard to classify other parties that do not fit in neither the left nor right spectrum, or have widely differing methodologies and rhetoric.
With the unclear and obsolete criteria, one could hardly classify on this spectrum various ideologies or parties. How would you classify ideologies such as catho-communism, liberalism and libertarianism, some members of the European Parliament group Greens/EFA or specific parties in Spain like Podemos, in Italy like Movimento 5 Stelle or Lega? By following the over-use of this left-right approach by the public and media, these ideologies and parties would easily be classified on one side. Political academia however would use a more rigorous approach that would result in a completely different classification. To achieve this result, we first need to define new and modern criteria.
By moving off this linear spectrum, we can group political parties based on alternative criteria that reflect a clear political diversity, including, importantly, the differences in methods and underlying values that go beyond simple policy manifestos.
For instance, the contemporary criteria to position political parties and opinions could be classified as:
Following the Left-Right Paradigm, we could often group together, even if typically opposed, political parties preferring the strategies like populism, immediate remedy, aggressivity, intolerance and/or coercive persuasion. We could also group or associate political parties that are classified according to a coalition they choose in a specific and, often, temporary moment.
In fact, we can group many political parties in Europe like AFD, Die Linke, Lega, Fratelli d’Italia, Movimento 5 Stelle, Rassemblement National, La France Insoumise, Syriza, Vlaams Belang, PTB, PVV, among others,.We can also see this within certain spheres of influence within political parties around the world as for Trumpism in the USA Republicans or the Woke in the USA Democrats and the Italian Partito Democratico.
Maybe, classifying by criteria, we would discover that the real differences are not where we always imagined finding them.
Freedom lives in democracy, and democracy exists in the clear political and societal awareness of people. This freedom, however, requires an informed and engaged citizenry, fostering a clear political and societal awareness. Indeed, only a socially-aware democracy can bring back Europe to be a global actor capable of promoting its aims and values around the world and providing a flourishing place to live for its citizens. A genuine democracy thrives on the informed and engaged participation of its citizens and this understanding of the political landscape is crucial for a functioning democracy. Indeed, the extent to which citizens can effectively engage with political governance depends on the effectiveness of the methods and framings they can use.
Sadly, today’s most influential political parties are neither interested, nor desire, to move away from these dynamics condemning Europe to regress, polarising society in two extreme identities that often classify and generalise each other, in a very simplistic way, as communists or fascists, thus neglecting the nuances of the majority.
This simplistic extreme generalisation has been expanding in the past few years in Western societies. Evidence can be seen in the media through the increased accusations and numerous appeals to terms like fascist, anti-fascist, communist, etc… since the election of PM Giorgia Meloni in Italy in 2022 and the disown of the median voter theorem that is changing political bipolarism. The median voter theorem as developed by Anthony Downs in 1957, argued that bipolarism competes for the median voter within the left-right spectrum, therefore promoting policies appealing to the ‘center’. Although valid for years, for example in the USA or in Italy in the early 2000s, this theorem is blatantly not valid anymore. Today, democracies with two coalitions tend to compete for the extreme voter rather than the median one therefore promoting policies (and methods) far from what the majority of people want. Not to mention the fact that parties often influence public opinion top-down by highlighting specific issues while minimising others, putting to doubt the traditional presumptions of bottom-up democracy.
For the sake of Europe, it is essential to change the classification criteria and move away from the simplification of the traditional political spectrum. An alternative approach could revolutionise the world of political coalitions, discouraging ideological affiliations and promoting the collaboration and sharing of common and concrete objectives and best practices for the progress of Europe. With these new criteria and bypassing the simplistic left-centre-right spectrum, a coalition in contrast to the rise of populism, intolerance, aggressivity and illiberalism can be formed around a real antagonist found in the liberal-democratic parties.
Disclaimer: While Euro Prospects encourages open and free discourse, the opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or views of Euro Prospects or its editorial board.
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