The concepts of Left and Right are very salient in the political discourse. They are probably the labels most frequently applied to describe parties’ political views. They are often used by political scientists, politicians, or simple citizens. The pervasiveness of the Left vs. Right opposition reflects the idea that political conflicts are structured by a single dimension. Debates on a range of issues, including the welfare state, immigration policy and national defence, can be expressed in terms of a Left-Right contrast. Political competition, thus, seems to take place along a single overarching ideological dimension.
At the same time, much research in political science shows that two dimensions are necessary to adequately describe the configuration of political positions: an economic dimension and a socio-cultural dimension. The first one relates to issues such as the welfare state, taxation, or economic regulation, while the socio-cultural dimension corresponds to issues such as immigration, traditional moral and values, or law and order. This two-dimensional conception is reflected in the use of “political maps” to present the positions of parties or candidates. This type of representation has become particularly popular following the development of Voting Advice Applications, such as Smartvote in Switzerland or the EU Profiler for European Parliament Elections. The following figure is a recent example of this type of political map. It represents the positions of the candidates in the upcoming election of the executive of the city of Zurich.
The predominance of the Left-Right dimension in describing the nature of political competition is thus something of a puzzle. If political competition takes place along a single dimension, relying on two-dimensional representations is an unnecessary complication. In contrast, if two dimensions are necessary to describe the possible configurations of party positions, the concepts of Left and Right may be misleading. How can citizens and political actors orient themselves in a two-dimensional political world by referring to a single Left-Right dimension?
In a recent CIS working paper, I try to solve this puzzle by investigating the relations between citizens’ preferences on various political issues and their Left-Right orientations, in five different countries. I suggest that the Left-Right dimension corresponds to a curve on the two-dimensional political map, rather than a straight line as this is usually assumed. The above figure illustrates this in a telling way. The three largest parties in the local parliament are the left-wing Social Democrats (SP, red), the centre-right Liberals (FDP, blue), and the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP, dark green). SP and FDP candidates differ strongly from one another on the horizontal axis, i.e., on the economic dimension; but they share quite similar preferences on the socio-cultural dimension. Moving from the centre-right (FDP) to the right (SVP), in contrast, means moving along the vertical or socio-cultural dimension. The data I have analyzed reveal a similar pattern in a large majority of the 19 elections considered. This suggests that movements along the Left-Right dimension do not always mean the same in terms of issue preferences. They sometimes imply changes in economic issue preferences, sometimes in socio-cultural preferences, sometimes in both.