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

Öz

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

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Left-right politics,partisanship,liberalism

Kaynakça

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