The Political Unity Spectrum: A Theory of Left-Right Politics, From Liberalism to Emancipatory Progressivism

Year 2019, Volume: 10 Issue: 1, 91 - 105, 30.06.2019

Amin Sadeghi

Abstract

Abstract: While
political ideologies are often portrayed along a liberal–conservative continuum
in the United States and a left–right continuum in Europe, their universal
applicability is questionable. The switch between left and right, and the
nature of what is being conserved in the US for the former, conflating left and
leftism for the latter, and the differing aspects of the words ‘liberal’ and
‘liberalism’ make it confusing to authors to devise similar continuums for
other countries. The Political Unity Spectrum offers a visual abstraction of
universalistic left-right politics under four types of political unity as well
as suggesting that moving between these confines is possible. Using this
abstraction, the positions of Turkey and Iran are defined, while also answering
the following political questions: (1) how failing to maintain political
cohesion could lead to civil wars; (2) how left and right switched places in
the US; (3) how both left and right in the US and in Europe are left-wing in
Turkey and in Iran; (4) the difference between liberalism and progressivism.

Keywords: Left-right
politics; partisanship; liberalism; public opinion; the Overton Window of
Political Possibilities

Keywords

Left-right politics, partisanship, liberalism

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