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Emotions are prevalent in the rhetoric of populist politicians and among their electorate. We argue that partially dissimilar emotional processes may be driving right- and left-wing populism. Existing research has associated populism with fear and insecurities experienced in contemporary societies on the one hand, and with anger, resentment, and hatred on the other. Yet, there are significant differences in the targets of right- and left-wing resentment: a political and economic establishment deemed responsible for austerity politics (left), and political and cultural elites accused of favoring ethnic, religious, and sexual outgroups at the expense of the neglected ingroup (right). Referring to partially different emotional opportunity structures and distinct political strategies at exploiting these structures, we suggest that right-wing populism is characterized by repressed shame that transforms fear and insecurity into anger, resentment, and hatred against perceived "enemies" of the precarious self. Left-wing populism, in turn, associates more with acknowledged shame that allows individuals to self-identify as aggrieved and humiliated by neoliberal policies and their advocates. The latter type of shame holds emancipatory potential as it allows individuals to establish bonds with others who feel the same, whereas repressors remain in their shame or seek bonds from repression-mediated defensive anger and hatred. ; Peer reviewed

The origins and immediate vitality of the left/right divide which emerged in French revolutionary politics from 1789 can only be understood against the background of a much older classification dynamic based on the primacy of the right hand, first described by Robert Hertz in 1909. This dynamic infused political thinking first in Versailles and since 1815 in democracies throughout the world. In the process, the classical left/right polarity acquired a new dimension: the complementary notions of 'accepting' and 'questioning' the existing social order. An essential feature of both the age-old classical polarity and the ensuing political polarity is that they are intimately bound up with local and evolving social contexts: there is no single content-based definition of left and right. As long as the majority of us are predisposed to use our right hand when acting in the world, 'left versus right' will remain the most important political antithesis in western-type democracies.

The origins and immediate vitality of the left/right divide which emerged in French revolutionary politics from 1789 can only be understood against the background of a much older classification dynamic based on the primacy of the right hand, first described by Robert Hertz in 1909. This dynamic infused political thinking first in Versailles and since 1815 in democracies throughout the world. In the process, the classical left/right polarity acquired a new dimension: the complementary notions of 'accepting' and 'questioning' the existing social order. An essential feature of both the age-old classical polarity and the ensuing political polarity is that they are intimately bound up with local and evolving social contexts: there is no single content-based definition of left and right. As long as the majority of us are predisposed to use our right hand when acting in the world, 'left versus right' will remain the most important political antithesis in western-type democracies. ; peerReviewed ; publishedVersion

The left-right concept is considered to facilitate communication and orientation in the political world. It has a long tradition in European politics due to its capacity to absorb different associations over time. However, this dynamic nature of the concept requires periodical reassessments in order to assure that a common conceptualisation endures. This dissertation focuses on reassign what individual left-right orientation means. Usually, this is measured by asking people to place themselves on a scale labelled 'left' and 'right' at its endpoints. The first empirical analysis of this dissertation shows that this measure is comparable across groups and countries. Thereafter, the relationship between an individual's issue preference and left-right orientation is considered. The second empirical analysis shows that this relationship is conditioned by the importance people assign to the respective issues. The final analysis demonstrates that what explains left-right orientation is contingent on individual and contextual factors. This implies that in order to understand left-right orientation, it is not enough to identify what has an impact on a person's position but also account for all those factors that predict variation between individuals. Given this complexity, my conclusion is that the left-right concept runs the risk of becoming too complicated to serve as an analytical tool to shed light on political attitudes and behaviour. ; El concepte esquerra-dreta és considerat com un factor facilitador de la comunicació en el món polític. Té una llarga tradició' en la política europea degut a la seva capacitat d'absorbir diferents associacions a través del temps. Tanmateix, aquesta natura dinàmica del concepte requereix revisions periòdiques per assegurar que persisteix una conceptualització comuna. La present tesi es centra en resignar el que significa l'orientació esquerra-dreta. Normalment, es mesura tot demanant als enquestats posicionar-se a ells mateixos en una escala que va de l'esquerra a la dreta. El primer ...

This report puts President Biden's proposed infrastructure bill in the context of other Democratic proposals for industrial policy coming from Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and others and of Republican proposals for industrial policy emanating from Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, and others. For the left, we defined eight categories of opinion leaders. Four involved political leaders: the Biden campaign and administration; Sen. Bernie Sanders; Sen. Elizabeth Warren; and other Democratic Congress members submitting legislative bills and resolutions that advocated one or another form of industrial policy. These other members included Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Edward Markey, Sen. Charles Schumer, Sen. Chris Coons, Sen. Jeff Merkley, Rep. Ro Khanna, Rep. Tim Ryan, and others. We also defined four categories of thinktanks or policy organizations that have advanced left-oriented industrial policy: the Brookings Institution; the Century Foundation; labor-oriented thinktanks (Economic Policy Institute and Alliance for American Manufacturing); and the Roosevelt Institute. For the right, we defined seven categories of opinion leaders. Four involved political leaders: . Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Josh Hawley, and Sen. Tom Cotton, and other Republican Congress members leaders (including Sen. Todd Young, Sen. John Cornyn, and others) espousing industrial policy beliefs in the form of legislation and resolutions sponsored. We also had three categories of think tanks and policy organizations that have come out in favor of a conservative version of industrial policy: American Compass; American Affairs; and the Niskanen Center. The report compares and contrasts the Democratic and Republican proposals on three heads: the problems they say call for industrial policy; the nature of the policy solutions offered; and the main targets they envision for such policy solutions. On all three, we find considerable convergences but also sizable divergences between the Democratic vision for industrial policy on the one hand and the Republican vision on the other. The report argues that the Democratic vision for industrial policy – with its emphasis on creating good jobs in the process of addressing climate change -- may be crucial to Democratic chances in 2022 and 2024 by allowing Democrats to successfully appeal to two key constituencies: voters concerned with climate change and working-class voters concerned about good jobs both for themselves and their children. However, Democratic chances could be enhanced if their industrial policy proposals can effectively counter and even coopt distinctive and popular elements of the Republican proposals, particularly their attention to the challenge posed by China and to popular concern about loss of community and meaningful work.

In political science the economic left–right dimension plays a central role. A growing body of evidence shows that the economic policy preferences of a large segment of citizens do not scale sufficiently. Using Mokken scale analysis, this study determines the causes of this phenomenon. Differences in the extent to which the economic policy preferences of citizens fit the left–right dimension can be explained in terms of the interaction between individual level and political system-level variables: citizens who spend more attention to politicians with views that conform to the left–right dimension, have views that conform to the left–right dimension. There is also a role for the legacy of communist dictatorship: citizens who were socialised in democratic countries have views that fit the left–right dimension better than those socialised during communism.

The Left-Right Self-Placement scale measures political attitudes on a left-right dimension. The scale is frequently used in political and social surveys such as the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS).

Part 1: Appreciation of Social Media ; International audience ; This article investigates the usage of blogs in electoral campaigns in Sweden, a country characterized by strong political parties and a party centered form of representative democracy. The central argument is that blogs are utilized in different ways by different parties. The empirical analysis based on a survey among over 600 blogging politicians indicates a vast difference in uptake and usage of blogs between the right- and left wing politicians. The results indicate that ideological positions towards individualism and collectivism matters for the practice of blogging.

Sectarianism is a consistent hallmark of the Left. In particular, many debates revolve around the question of how to make a successful revolution. This essay seeks to build a stronger, more united idea of the Left by engaging the concepts of revolution and utopia. I have categorised two prominent and seemingly dualistic perspectives within the Left, ones which are also revolutionary. I label these the "strategic" and "prefigurative" camps. Both camps have harboured conceptions of utopia which have served as roadmaps for their respective theories on revolutionary transition, and by charting these conceptual developments in utopian thinking I offer a different roadmap which leads to an open utopia. Open utopia offers the possibility of a methodological synthesis which can bridge the strategic and prefigurative pulses of the Left, where the hard analysis and focus on end goals emphasised by strategic proponents is woven together with the importance of process and alternative institutions (recognized as vital by prefigurative proponents). I name this methodology the radical imagination, and by employing this methodological frame onto Leftist social movement activity I conclude that we can bridge a fractious Left by embracing a revolutionary project aimed at an open utopia. ; peer-reviewed

There are three purposes of this paper. The first is to see whether parliamentary speech can be used to classify Australian federal parliamentarians from the main two political groups (the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal National Party Coalition) into their respective groupings. I use machine learning and text analysis to create a classifier which is able to do this with 76% accuracy. The second aim is to use the probability scores generated by the classifier to place ALP and LNPC parliamentarians on an ideological spectrum. This rankingprocedure enables us to see who the moderates and extremes are within the ALP and the LNPC. The third purposes is to demonstrate how scoring parliamentarians according to their ideological orientation can be used to provide insight into several political phenomena. I discuss several general applications of ideological scores. I also provide specific examples of how such quantitative scores can shed light on qualitative discussions of the ideology of parliamentarians and show how such scores can be used to explain party leader selection processes.

Although left-right items are a standard tool of public opinion research, there is little agreement about the optimal response format. Two disputes can be identified in the literature: (1) whether to provide respondents with a small or large number of answer categories, and (2) whether or not to administer the response scale including a midpoint. This study evaluates the performance of the 101, 11, and 10-point left-right scales, which directly speak to the two disputed aspects of measuring the left-right dimension. Drawing on data from a split ballot multitrait multimethod experiment carried out in a methodological pretest to the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), the analysis shows that the choice of a response format makes a difference in terms of data quality: the 11-point left-right scale produces the highest validity of left-right data closely followed by the 10-point scale. Moreover, an application from electoral research illustrates that the choice of response formats affects substantive interpretations about the nature of the left-right dimension. Since all three scales perform about equally well in terms of reliability and the ease of administration, the findings suggest that the 11-point left-right scale should be used in survey research. ; This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Public Opinion Quarterly following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version "Measuring Left-Right Political Orientation / Martin Kroh. In: Public Opinion Quarterly 71 (2007), 2, pp. 204-220" is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfm009

In a post-Trump world, the right is still very much in power. Significantly more than half the world's population currently lives under some form of right-wing populist or authoritarian rule. Today's autocrats are, at first glance, a diverse band of brothers. But religious, economic, social and environmental differences aside, there is one thing that unites them - their hatred of the liberal, globalised world. This unity is their strength, and through control of government, civil society and the digital world they are working together across borders to stamp out the left. In comparison, the liberal left commands only a few disconnected islands - Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain and Uruguay. So far they have been on the defensive, campaigning on local issues in their own countries. This narrow focus underestimates the resilience and global connectivity of the right. In this book, John Feffer speaks to world's leading activists to show how international leftist campaigns must come together if they are to combat the rising tide of the right. A global Green New Deal, progressive trans-European movements, grassroots campaigning on international issues with new and improved language and storytelling are all needed if we are to pull the planet back from the edge of catastrophe. This book is both a warning and an inspiration to activists terrified by the strengthening wall of far-right power.

[EN] This paper studies the left-right division between political parties in Latin America. In order to do so, first of all the axes of ideological polarisation that coincide with this division are identified. Then, the elements that form these axes are analysed, together with whether or not they change over time. This is done by employing a technique of statistical analysis not often used in Political Science that allows us to represent and identify these components and the specific position of the parties with graphs

This paper examines the nature of dimensional complexity in voter perceptions of party left-right locations. Most theoretical and empirical research on electoral politics treats these locations as based on a one-dimensional ideological spectrum. We measure variation in the complexity of voters' perceptions of left-right party locations and demonstrate that this quantity varies widely. First, we generate a measurement of the complexity of perceived left-right party placements positions applied to the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). This complexity measure, based on the fits of scaled dimensions of party placements, allows us to compare this concept across countries and regions. We then examine several possible correlates to the cross-national variation. We conclude with a comparison of this concept to issue dimensionality using data from the European Election Study (EES)

International audience ; A prominent model suggests that individuals to the right of the political spectrum are more cognitively rigid and less tolerant of ambiguity than individuals to the left. On the basis of this model, we predicted that a psychological mechanism linked to the resolution of visual ambiguity – perceptual bias – would be linked to political attitude. Perceptual bias causes western individuals to favour a global interpretation when scrutinizing ambiguous hierarchical displays (e.g., alignment of trees) that can be perceived either in terms of their local elements (e.g., several trees) or in terms of their global structure (e.g., a forest). Using three tasks (based on Navon-like hierarchical figures or on the Ebbinghaus illusion), we demonstrate (1) that right-oriented Westerners present a stronger bias towards global perception than left-oriented Westerners and (2) that this stronger bias is linked to higher cognitive rigidity. This study establishes for the first time that political ideology, a high-level construct, is directly reflected in low-level perception. Right- and left-oriented individuals actually see the world differently.