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I examine why contemporary social scientists on the political left are relatively pessimistic about the public arena and its trajectory. To develop an answer, I explore subsidiary questions: What is the evidence of social scientists' left pessimism? Why is left pessimism not the only plausible stance? Why is left pessimism problematic, and surprising? Why does it nonetheless occur? How can social scientists counter left pessimism?My evidence comes mainly from research on American racial and ethnic politics, and on the societal use of genomic science. I explain left pessimism as a result largely of the trajectory of social science research since the 1960s, and of the loss of faith in revolutionary inspiration after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. I call on social scientists to reinvigorate optimistic visions, perhaps especially in a political era fraught with dangers to liberal democracy.

Research recently published in Political Psychology suggested that political intolerance is more strongly predicted by political conservatism than liberalism. Our findings challenge that conclusion. Participants provided intolerance judgments of several targets and the political objective of these targets (left-wing vs. right-wing) was varied between subjects. Across seven judgments, conservatism predicted intolerance of left-wing targets, while liberalism predicted intolerance of right-wing targets. These relationships were fully mediated by perceived threat from targets. Moreover, participants were biased against directly opposing political targets: conservatives were more intolerant of a left-wing target than the opposing right-wing target (e.g., pro-gay vs. anti-gay rights activists), while liberals were more intolerant of a right-wing target than the opposing left-wing target. These findings are discussed within the context of the existing political intolerance and motivated reasoning literatures. Adapted from the source document.

Research recently published in Political Psychology suggested that political intolerance is more strongly predicted by political conservatism than liberalism. Our findings challenge that conclusion. Participants provided intolerance judgments of several targets and the political objective of these targets (left‐wing vs. right‐wing) was varied between subjects. Across seven judgments, conservatism predicted intolerance of left‐wing targets, while liberalism predicted intolerance of right‐wing targets. These relationships were fully mediated by perceived threat from targets. Moreover, participants were biased against directly opposing political targets: conservatives were more intolerant of a left‐wing target than the opposing right‐wing target (e.g., pro‐gay vs. anti‐gay rights activists), while liberals were more intolerant of a right‐wing target than the opposing left‐wing target. These findings are discussed within the context of the existing political intolerance and motivated reasoning literatures.

Foreign policy elites have been shaken by the unexpected rise of powerful social movements in the Arab world, coupled with the Tea Party "insurgency" in the US. It is possible this will be a re-run of the 1950s when domestic McCarthyism drove an aggressive military policy into quagmire in Korea and Vietnam, or a progressive populism may awaken and develop into a powerful force. Adapted from the source document.

Using data from the Comparative Manifestos Project, we compare the policy positions of left and right parties with regard to immigration across 18 West European countries between 1975 and 2005. We test two main hypotheses: First, we expect that mainstream parties will exploit anti-immigrant sentiments in the electorate regardless of extreme right competition. This would indicate that the extreme Right is not the only driving force behind the recent 'anti-immigrant turn' of electoral politics in Western Europe. Second, we expect the mainstream Left to become increasingly critical towards immigration as its mainstream and/or extreme right competitors intensify their populist rhetoric. Being 'tough' on immigration is thus not a prerogative of the Right. We conclude that the impact of the extreme Right on the electoral behaviour of mainstream right parties has been overstated in previous studies. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

A robust empirical literature suggests that the development of one's political ideology is the product of an "elective affinity" between the discursive, socially constructed elements of ideological belief systems and the psychological constraints, motives, and interests of those who are drawn to those belief systems. However, most studies which support this elective affinity theory have been conducted in the West. In the present study, we tested the theory in China to see whether elective affinities between psychological traits and political ideology are more likely to be universal. Across a nationally representative sample (N = 509), we found initial support for the characterization of the left‐right divide in China, albeit in reverse. Namely, the "liberal Right in China mostly evinces traits of the psychological Left in the West (e.g., lower intolerance of ambiguity), while the "conservative Left" mostly evinces traits of the psychological right in the West (e.g., higher system justification). Epistemic motives were most reliably related to political ideology, while existential and relational motives were more mixed; economic and political aspects of ideology were more closely linked to psychological traits than social/cultural aspects. The present findings provide an extension of existing theory and opportunities for further development.

AbstractThe deepening distrust in democracy has grown out of a decade of low growth and cuts to public spending, which in turn has consolidated wage decline while also fuelling a wider sense of economic insecurity. As poverty and inequality intensify, social mobility is in reverse and the social contract is under growing strain. Support for populists has recently receded, but the inability of democratic systems to address deep-seated problems sows the seeds for future populist revolts. Both left- and right-wing governments have responded to increasing anger and alienation with policies that exacerbate existing inequalities of income and wealth, combined with disparities of decision-making power and social status. These are ethical as much as economic questions and they demand a much more robust response than technocratic administration. Otherwise, ethical social democracy and communitarian conservatism will fail to defeat the authoritarianism of both radical-right national populists and the tech-utopianism of far-left populists.

Using data from the Comparative Manifestos Project, we compare the policy positions of left and right parties with regard to immigration across 18 West European countries between 1975 and 2005. We test two main hypotheses: First, we expect that mainstream parties will exploit anti-immigrant sentiments in the electorate regardless of extreme right competition. This would indicate that the extreme Right is not the only driving force behind the recent 'anti-immigrant turn' of electoral politics in Western Europe. Second, we expect the mainstream Left to become increasingly critical towards immigration as its mainstream and/or extreme right competitors intensify their populist rhetoric. Being 'tough' on immigration is thus not a prerogative of the Right. We conclude that the impact of the extreme Right on the electoral behaviour of mainstream right parties has been overstated in previous studies.

Abstract.This article examines the influence of ideology in Canadian politics. The core theory is that political opinions are bound together into ideological clusters by underlying influences that affect simultaneously the opinions of individuals about more than one issue. The central hypothesis is that ideological disagreement between the left and the right is asymmetrical, that is, that leftists and rightists bundle in different ways their opinions about issues. The analysis draws on evidence from Benoit and Laver's survey of experts (2006) about the policy positions of political parties, the Comparative Manifesto Research Project (Budge et al., 2001; Klingemann et al., 2006), and Cross and Young's survey of Canadian political party members (2002). The results of the analysis indicate, first, that Canada's left/right ideological divide is wide by cross-national standards, and, second, that leftists and rightists organize their opinions about the world in different ways.Résumé.Cet article examine l'influence des idéologies dans l'environnement politique canadien. La théorie centrale stipule que les opinions politiques sur diverses questions sont structurées en groupes idéologiques consolidés par des influences sous-jacentes qui affectent simultanément les opinions des individus. L'hypothèse principale découlant de cette théorie est que la structure du désaccord idéologique entre la gauche et la droite est asymétrique; plus précisément, que les individus situés à la gauche et à la droite du spectre politique canadien organisent de manière différente leurs opinions politiques. L'analyse s'appuie tout d'abord sur les données d'un sondage auprès d'experts politiques réalisé par Benoit et Laver (2006) et portant sur les positions politiques des partis. Elle utilise également les données duComparative Manifesto Research Project(Budge et al. 2001; Klingemann et al., 2006) et celles d'un sondage d'opinion de Cross et Young (2002) effectué auprès des membres de partis politiques canadiens. Les résultats de cette étude démontrent, en premier lieu, qu'il existe un clivage important entre la droite et la gauche au Canada même lorsqu'il est observé dans une perspective comparative, et en second lieu, que les individus se situant à la gauche et à la droite du spectre politique ont tendance à organiser de manière différente leurs opinions sur le monde.

AbstractThe simplification of the political landscape in terms of 'left' and 'right' is common across most democracies, if not most of the world. This would suggest that the terminology has a shared core meaning in different political contexts. While no such stable element has been established in the political science literature, various potential dividing lines that may form the core meaning have been proposed. This paper is the most extensive comparative study to our knowledge that evaluates these proposals by studying responses to open‐ended survey questions on what voters associate with the terms 'left' and 'right'. Data from eight different democratic political contexts are analysed using quantitative text analysis methods. The results demonstrate varied support for the different explanations. Evidence is found in all contexts for the hypothesis that acceptance of inequality divides left‐ from right‐wing politics. That the left‐right dimension is a divide between those for and against government intervention in the economy, or between those for change and against change, is mostly congruent with our findings. We find less evidence that either secular/religious divisions, or different conceptions of equality, consistently differentiate left from right. Our findings point towards the existence of a context‐independent underlying dimension of left‐right competition.