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Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Change the electoral system and you will see much more diverse and

Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Change the electoral system and you will see much more diverse and meaningful party affiliation. >The effect of a system based on plurality voting is that the larger parties, and parties with more geographically concentrated support, gain a disproportionately large share of seats, while smaller parties with more evenly distributed support are left with a disproportionately small share. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

scarmig 7y ago
This is not accurate. Yes, many election systems result in more parties than FPTP. But left and right still have salience within those. In fact, you can look at how each politician votes (without explicitly coding votes as left or right). This itself forms a space equal to the number of votes taken. But that vote space can be projected into a much lower dimensional space that captures most of the information about the vote space. If you go so far as to collapse it into a one dimensional space, that corresponds to the traditional left/right axis, and this holds through both history and internationally. The second issue is a bit more varied, but most of the time the left/right axis dominates whatever that second dimension is. Look up DW-NOMINATE for more info.
- CameronNemo 7y ago
  DW-NOMINATE was developed by US political scientists to study the US House and Senate. Higher dimensionality is present internationally, and I believe that attempting to reduce those dynamics to a left/right spectrum limits our understanding of politics. >Poole and Rosenthal note in Chapter 11 of Ideology and Congress that most of these analyses produce the finding that roll call voting is organized by only few dimensions (usually two): "These findings suggest that the need to form parliamentary majorities limits dimensionality." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOMINATE_%28scaling_method%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOMINATE_%28scaling_method%29 Static parliamentary majorities are not necessary in a presidential system.
- redisman 7y ago
  I think this 2D representation is definitely better. The two axes are Social (Authoritarian -> Libertarian) and Economic (Left -> Right) https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2 https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2
- mntmoss 7y ago
  This can also be predicted in terms of realpolitik. If the power of nations tends to consolidate along predictable lines, then the political question at any moment is reduced to a left-right "rate of reform" along each axis, with the furthest right positions being near-zero rates of change, but all viable positions serving the purpose of ensuring power for the stakeholders. This makes the right tend to automatically converge onto a mythologized moment in the past where their power is greatest - rights of kings, supremacy myths, and so on, while the left goes in a spectrum of directions but must ultimately form a singular coalition in order to gain power. Thus the prevailing tendency of left-right politics is also one of leaps forward from the left and gradual slides back from the right as the coalition breaks down. The new consensus is different from the old, but it's also typically not the most ideologically left one, since it emerges to compromise with the present realities, and the more radical you go, the more it resembles blood-in-the-streets revolution, which is a huge roll of the dice. The developed world as a whole seems to be approaching one of those "great leap" moments today as more and more issues have fallen into partisan extremism, motivating the search for a new consensus.
- robbrown451 7y ago
  Sure there may still be a right left axis, but it wouldn't be condensed into the "main" axis, and people and candidates would form a nice bell curve rather than one with two humps.
robbrown451 7y ago
Very true. In the absence of first past the post voting (and its tendency to force people into parties to avoid losing to people who do [1], and for those parties to coalesce into two dominant, equally balance parties), there is still a polarity of, say, liberal and conservative. At least in the original meanings of the terms, which has to do with whether you go toward new things or prefer traditions. But under FPTP, right vs left encompasses a lot more than that. And more importantly, FPTP doesn't allow for middle ground. If you are in the middle, you can't get elected, because neither party would nominate you. If we had a electoral system that tended to elect the first choice of the median voter, things would be dramatically different. Yes there would be people on the extremes, but most people -- those elected, as well as regular citizens -- would tend be "accidental moderates."
- cs02rm0 7y ago
  And more importantly, FPTP doesn't allow for middle ground. If you are in the middle, you can't get elected, because neither party would nominate you. I'm not sure that's true, at least in the UK, when one of the established two parties moves to the centre ground they tend to win. Moving away from the centre ground is how they lose.
  - CameronNemo 7y ago
    The typical pattern is starting at the edge during the primary then shifting to the center during the general. Making it back to the center is indeed a good path toward success, but makes commitments during the primary much less credible and give the impression that the candidate is just saying what will get them elected. Overall this is terrible for voter trust in elected officials.
- erichocean 7y ago
  > [FPTP voting causes] those parties to coalesce into two dominant, equally balance parties California has FPTP voting and is completely dominated by Democrats who have a super majority in the legislature and the Governorship, and can pass any legislation they want without a single Republican vote or amendment. That's been the case (with a brief stint by Arnold) for multiple decades. Tell me again how FPTP voting necessarily results in two equally balanced parties? I'm not seeing it.
Animats 7y ago
Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Change the electoral system and you will see much more diverse and meaningful party affiliation. Diverse, yes. Meaningful, maybe. Look at Israel right now. 17 parties with seats in the Knesset, none with over 30%, and, after two elections, still no agreement on Prime Minister. Third election coming up.
- black_knight 7y ago
  > after two elections, still no agreement on Prime Minister. Third election coming up. Parlamentary systems without the option to call re-elections is an attractive alternative. The politicians just can't keep asking people's opinion until they get the answer they want. Then there will have to be compromises, and even the smaller parties can get some of their important causes through.
  - raverbashing 7y ago
    I agree, calling for "new elections" is a cop-out Have an elected parliament sit for at least two years, maybe four, will go some way in making them work out their differences.
  - rossdavidh 7y ago
    Smaller parties have gotten plenty in Israel, sometimes to the point that supporters of the larger parties feel they have less voice than whichever small party holds the balance of power at that moment. Or, as in the current situation, there is simply no agreement, and they go months without a government. It's not clear that an inability to call re-elections would improve Israel's situation; they could be stuck for years with no government.
- zjaffee 7y ago
  The situation in Israel only exists because there are multiple layers of opposition at play, the "moderates" are hardly different politically than the conservatives, they just dislike it's leader, where they are unwilling to form a coalition with any of the arab parties in order to form a government.
sampo 7y ago
> Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Most European countries have proportional voting systems, yet can anyway fairly well be characterized by the left-right political axis.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  But not as tightly coupled as in FPTP systems. There's a greater variety of platforms under proportional representation. European countries have Christian democratic parties, which are mildly socially conservative coupled with mildly economically liberal. They have Liberal parties that actually win seats, which would be roughly equivalent to being mildly libertarian in an American sense. They have far right nativist populist parties that are xenophobic yet are pro-social safety net. They have more single issue groups like animal rights parties, and stronger green parties. They also have populist movements that attempt to appeal to the politically apathetic by being post-partisan, such as the 5 Star Movement in Italy. Overall their adherence to the left-right dichotomy is less rigid than in the U.S.

scarmig 7y ago

This is not accurate. Yes, many election systems result in more parties than FPTP. But left and right still have salience within those. In fact, you can look at how each politician votes (without explicitly coding votes as left or right). This itself forms a space equal to the number of votes taken. But that vote space can be projected into a much lower dimensional space that captures most of the information about the vote space. If you go so far as to collapse it into a one dimensional space, that corresponds to the traditional left/right axis, and this holds through both history and internationally. The second issue is a bit more varied, but most of the time the left/right axis dominates whatever that second dimension is. Look up DW-NOMINATE for more info.

CameronNemo 7y ago
DW-NOMINATE was developed by US political scientists to study the US House and Senate. Higher dimensionality is present internationally, and I believe that attempting to reduce those dynamics to a left/right spectrum limits our understanding of politics. >Poole and Rosenthal note in Chapter 11 of Ideology and Congress that most of these analyses produce the finding that roll call voting is organized by only few dimensions (usually two): "These findings suggest that the need to form parliamentary majorities limits dimensionality." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOMINATE_%28scaling_method%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOMINATE_%28scaling_method%29 Static parliamentary majorities are not necessary in a presidential system.
redisman 7y ago
I think this 2D representation is definitely better. The two axes are Social (Authoritarian -> Libertarian) and Economic (Left -> Right) https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2 https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2
mntmoss 7y ago
This can also be predicted in terms of realpolitik. If the power of nations tends to consolidate along predictable lines, then the political question at any moment is reduced to a left-right "rate of reform" along each axis, with the furthest right positions being near-zero rates of change, but all viable positions serving the purpose of ensuring power for the stakeholders. This makes the right tend to automatically converge onto a mythologized moment in the past where their power is greatest - rights of kings, supremacy myths, and so on, while the left goes in a spectrum of directions but must ultimately form a singular coalition in order to gain power. Thus the prevailing tendency of left-right politics is also one of leaps forward from the left and gradual slides back from the right as the coalition breaks down. The new consensus is different from the old, but it's also typically not the most ideologically left one, since it emerges to compromise with the present realities, and the more radical you go, the more it resembles blood-in-the-streets revolution, which is a huge roll of the dice. The developed world as a whole seems to be approaching one of those "great leap" moments today as more and more issues have fallen into partisan extremism, motivating the search for a new consensus.
robbrown451 7y ago
Sure there may still be a right left axis, but it wouldn't be condensed into the "main" axis, and people and candidates would form a nice bell curve rather than one with two humps.

robbrown451 7y ago

Very true. In the absence of first past the post voting (and its tendency to force people into parties to avoid losing to people who do [1], and for those parties to coalesce into two dominant, equally balance parties), there is still a polarity of, say, liberal and conservative. At least in the original meanings of the terms, which has to do with whether you go toward new things or prefer traditions. But under FPTP, right vs left encompasses a lot more than that. And more importantly, FPTP doesn't allow for middle ground. If you are in the middle, you can't get elected, because neither party would nominate you. If we had a electoral system that tended to elect the first choice of the median voter, things would be dramatically different. Yes there would be people on the extremes, but most people -- those elected, as well as regular citizens -- would tend be "accidental moderates."

cs02rm0 7y ago
And more importantly, FPTP doesn't allow for middle ground. If you are in the middle, you can't get elected, because neither party would nominate you. I'm not sure that's true, at least in the UK, when one of the established two parties moves to the centre ground they tend to win. Moving away from the centre ground is how they lose.
- CameronNemo 7y ago
  The typical pattern is starting at the edge during the primary then shifting to the center during the general. Making it back to the center is indeed a good path toward success, but makes commitments during the primary much less credible and give the impression that the candidate is just saying what will get them elected. Overall this is terrible for voter trust in elected officials.
erichocean 7y ago
> [FPTP voting causes] those parties to coalesce into two dominant, equally balance parties California has FPTP voting and is completely dominated by Democrats who have a super majority in the legislature and the Governorship, and can pass any legislation they want without a single Republican vote or amendment. That's been the case (with a brief stint by Arnold) for multiple decades. Tell me again how FPTP voting necessarily results in two equally balanced parties? I'm not seeing it.

Animats 7y ago

Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Change the electoral system and you will see much more diverse and meaningful party affiliation. Diverse, yes. Meaningful, maybe. Look at Israel right now. 17 parties with seats in the Knesset, none with over 30%, and, after two elections, still no agreement on Prime Minister. Third election coming up.

black_knight 7y ago
> after two elections, still no agreement on Prime Minister. Third election coming up. Parlamentary systems without the option to call re-elections is an attractive alternative. The politicians just can't keep asking people's opinion until they get the answer they want. Then there will have to be compromises, and even the smaller parties can get some of their important causes through.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  I agree, calling for "new elections" is a cop-out Have an elected parliament sit for at least two years, maybe four, will go some way in making them work out their differences.
- rossdavidh 7y ago
  Smaller parties have gotten plenty in Israel, sometimes to the point that supporters of the larger parties feel they have less voice than whichever small party holds the balance of power at that moment. Or, as in the current situation, there is simply no agreement, and they go months without a government. It's not clear that an inability to call re-elections would improve Israel's situation; they could be stuck for years with no government.
zjaffee 7y ago
The situation in Israel only exists because there are multiple layers of opposition at play, the "moderates" are hardly different politically than the conservatives, they just dislike it's leader, where they are unwilling to form a coalition with any of the arab parties in order to form a government.

sampo 7y ago

> Right and left are arbitrary constructs necessitated by a first past the post voting system. Most European countries have proportional voting systems, yet can anyway fairly well be characterized by the left-right political axis.

Apocryphon 7y ago
But not as tightly coupled as in FPTP systems. There's a greater variety of platforms under proportional representation. European countries have Christian democratic parties, which are mildly socially conservative coupled with mildly economically liberal. They have Liberal parties that actually win seats, which would be roughly equivalent to being mildly libertarian in an American sense. They have far right nativist populist parties that are xenophobic yet are pro-social safety net. They have more single issue groups like animal rights parties, and stronger green parties. They also have populist movements that attempt to appeal to the politically apathetic by being post-partisan, such as the 5 Star Movement in Italy. Overall their adherence to the left-right dichotomy is less rigid than in the U.S.