Journal Articles

The asymmetrical structure of left/right disagreement: Left-wing coherence and right-wing fragmentation in comparative party policy

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The left/right semantic is used widely to describe the patterns of party competition in democratic countries. This article examines the patterns of party policy in Anglo-American and Western European countries on three dimensions of left/right disagreement: wealth redistribution, social morality and immigration. The central questions are whether, and why, parties with left-wing or right-wing positions on the economy systematically adopt left-wing or right-wing positions on immigration and social morality. The central argument is that left/right disagreement is asymmetrical: leftists and rightists derive from different sources, and thus structure in different ways, their opinions about policy. Drawing on evidence from Benoit and Laver’s (2006) survey of experts about the policy positions of political parties, the results of the empirical analysis indicate that party policy on the economic, social and immigration dimensions are bound together by parties on the left, but not by parties on the right. The article concludes with an outline of the potential implications of left/right asymmetry for unified theories of party competition.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Party Politics

Call Number

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Publisher

Thousand Oaks : Sage Publications., 2013

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

1354-0688

Classification

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Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Volume 19, Nomor 1, 2013, p. 104-121

Subject(s)

Policy Goals
Social Issues
economic issues

Specific Detail Info

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