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OPTIONS POLITIQUES
SEPTEMBRE 2008
84
Left and right in global politics
 Alain Noël and Jean-Philippe Thérien
BOOK EXCERPTPASSAGES
In this excerpt from their book,
Left and Right in Global Politics 
, political scientists AlainNoël and Jean-Philippe Thérien make the case that “global politics is first and foremosta debate between the left and the right,” not one that is static, but one that “changesthrough time and space.”Dans cet extrait de leur ouvrage
Left and Right in Global Politics 
, les politologues AlainNoël et Jean-Philippe Thérien avancent que la politique à l’échelle planétaire est d’abordet avant tout un débat entre la gauche et la droite, un débat qui n’est pas statique maisqui se transforme au fil du temps et dans l’espace.
A
s widespread and as universal-ly understood as they may be,the notions of left and rightare not well thought of in the socialsciences and in intellectual discourse.They seem somehow too simplisticand too binary. They also seem toopolitical, bringing all arguments downto a face-to-face between two sides,and leaving almost no space for moredispassionate, balanced inquiries anddebates. Moreover, internationalaffairs have usually been understood asa distinct realm, shaped by the balanceof power between states rather than byan ideological conflict that, many sug-gest, is restricted to domestic politics.And even there, in national politics,have not the notions of left and rightlost most of their meaning and rele-vance, in an era defined by widelyaccepted neo-liberal policies or encom-passing alternative programs such asthe “Third Way”?This book argues, to the contrary,that global politics is first and foremosta debate between the left and theright. This is so because the left–rightcleavage expresses enduring and pro-found differences about equality, andequality is one of the most fundamen-tal issues of controversy in any politi-cal community. On the right standconservatives and liberals who believeit is not only sufficient but also best tolet individuals work their way forward,in a context guaranteeing them equalrights and fair opportunities. On theleft are those who contend that equal-ity remains an illusion without collec-tive institutions assuring truly equalconditions for all.The debate between the left andthe right changes through time andspace, and it does not incorporateevery possible conflict and event. Thisconflict nevertheless structures most of our disagreements, and it does so in asignificant and coherent way. To alarge extent, it is this universal divi-sion that makes contemporary politicsintelligible within, but also beyond,the boundaries of nation-states.Global politics is thus constructedthrough an ongoing debate between theleft and the right. Indeed, the politics of the world, no matter on what scale, ismost often a politics of left versus right.Whether they take place in globalforums, in international organizations,in national legislatures, or in local asso-ciations, all our political discussions areconnected to the old, universal conflictover the meaning of equality, whichdivides progressives and conserv a t i v e s .This is not to deny that there are civi-lizations, national identities, and othercleavages that shape global politics. Butnone of these differences governs ourdeliberations as thoroughly as thedebate between the left and the right.Understanding the nature of our dis-agreements gives us a key to apprehendthe world, and no key opens as manydoors as the left–right key.
L
ike Hobbes and Locke, those onthe right tend to be pessimisticabout human nature, about the fightfor life, and about the possibilities of progress through collective action orpublic intervention. At best, theythink, such interventions will be inef-fective. At worst, they will create per-verse incentives or be captured byspecial interests seeking privileges. Theideal for them is to let individuals usetheir talents and their drive to succeed,so as to assure economic growth andsocial progress, which in the end willbenefit all of society. The state’s pri-mary role, in this context, is to protectindividuals and their property, in asociety that remains potentially dan-gerous, greed and envy being indeliblefeatures of human nature.For the left, human nature is, onthe contrary, a source of optimism,each person being seen as fundamen-tally good and compassionate.Problems start with the organization of s o c i e t y, which creates inequality and
 
POLICY OPTIONS
SEPTEMBER 2008
85
BOOK EXCERPT
Left and right in global politics
may corrupt character. This impliesthat only collective and public solu-tions can provide adequate responsesto social ills. Insecurity, here, is associ-ated less with threats to individualsand their property than with thealways uncertain fate of vulnerable per-sons, in a society driven by competi-tion. The state must of course preventviolence and theft, prevention beingpreferable to punishment, but it shouldalso create equal opportunities, offerprotection against social risks, andredistribute income, to counter the per-ils associated with a market economy.In a tongue-in-cheek comment in
 Policy Options
, Canadian philosopher Joseph Heath contrasts these oppositeviews of human nature by proposingthat each side endures its peculiar kindof unthinking militants. The left, hewrites, attracts “bleeding hearts,” per-sons “who have never met a claim tovictimhood that does not cry out forredress and compensation,” and seem“temperamentally incapable of sayingno to the underdog.” The right, on theother hand, must deal with “jerks,”who want to cut taxes and social pro-grams “simply because they don’t careabout anybody but themselves,” areunabashedly self-interested, and “mayeven have a mean streak.”The language of left and right doesnot only belong to experts and activists.In public opinion surveys all over theworld, self-placement on a left–rightscale stands out as something of a“superissue,” which “tends to assimilateall important issues” and consistentlyproves to be one of the best predictors of a person’s political attitudes and behav-i o r. In most countries, political life isdefined by this dichotomy.The left and the right have distinctviews on globalization and they havereacted differently to the war in Iraq.The two sides also take different posi-tions on nuclear energy, on the futureof the European Union, and on same-sex marriage. The right now dominatesin American and French politics, whilethe left has come back to power inLatin America and India. Everywhere,newspapers analyze the respectivestands, strengths, and divisions of thetwo camps, to evaluate where a coun-try, or the world, seems to be heading.
A
t the end of the twentieth centu-ry, a rapprochement took placebetween the left and the right. Innational politics, this movementtoward the center saw the right softenits stance on market competition, indi-vidualism, and a leaner state, while theleft was coming to terms with the legit-imacy of the market, the virtues of competition, and the need for efficien-cy. On the left, the most articulate ren-dition of this ideological adjustmentcame from Third Way advocates suchas Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder, andAnthony Giddens, who proposed amodernized social-democracy, sensibleto the challenges raised by globaliza-tion, neoliberalism, post-industrialism,and new social movements. In globalpolitics, a similar process took shapearound the idea of a new developmentconsensus, able to combine the right’spreference for markets and competi-tion with the left’s concern for socialjustice. For a time, this new compro-mise seemed sufficiently powerful tobridge the long-standing gap betweenthe views defended by the globalfinancial institutions and those of theUnited Nations.The rapprochement, however, soonshowed its limits. In global politics, itnever erased the enduring and numer-ous differences between the left and theright over globalization, growth,i n e q u a l i t y, and the governance of devel-opment. The UN agencies continued tobe critical of a world that remained pro-foundly and increasingly unequal, whilethe IMF, the World Bank,and the WTO remained con-fident that the internationalsystem was heading in theright direction and couldbecome more equitable withgood policies and modestreforms. In domestic poli-tics, Third Way discoursesgradually gave way to more classicalassertions of social-democratic values, asthe right came back to power in most of the Western world in the beginning of the 2000s, and as the left was reaffirm-ing its strength in Latin America and inother countries of the South.In the first round of the Frenchpresidential election, in April 2002,Lionel Jospin’s “plural left” coalitionsplintered into its various componentsand many dissatisfied votersabstained, allowing the head of thefar-right National Front, Jean-Marie LePen, to end up with more votes thanthe socialist leader and to qualify forthe second round against centre-rightcandidate Jacques Chirac. AroundEurope, wrote an Italian newspaper,political circles were “hit by a thun-derbolt.” The event, however, was notwithout precedent. In 2000, the far-right party of Joerg Haider had beenincluded in an Austrian coalition gov-ernment, creating quite a stir in theEuropean Union. A year before, theItalian left had been defeated by thecenter-right coalition of SilvioBerlusconi, which also included far-right elements. A month after theFrench shock, the Dutch far-right,whose leader — Pim Fortuyn — wasassassinated during the electoral cam-paign, obtained spectacular results,and helped bring about the victory of a centre-right coalition. EvenDenmark and Norway had turned tothe right in the previous months.Five years after Blair’s victory, theEuropean social-democratic left was
In public opinion surveys all over the world, self-placement ona left–right scale stands out as something of a “superissue,”which “tends to assimilate all important issues” andconsistently proves to be one of the best predictors of aperson’s political attitudes and behavior. In most countries,political life is defined by this dichotomy.
 
OPTIONS POLITIQUES
SEPTEMBRE 2008
86
PASSAGES
 Alain Noël and Jean-Philippe Thérien
losing ground to center-right partiesthat capitalized on economic insecurityand on fears about globalization,national identity, and immigration.These parties maintained their neolib-eral orientations, but blended themwith more populist and nationalistarguments, borrowed from far-rightparties they had roundly denounceduntil then. When necessary, main-stream conservatives even accepted for-mal alliances with the far-right, to formbroad government-winning coalitions.In the United States, the Republicansalso regained control of both the presi-dency and Congress, and they moveddeterminedly to the right, to imple-ment tax cuts that undermined the fed-eral government’s capacity tofund Medicare, social security,education, and debt reduction,and disproportionately benefit-ed the richest one percent of A m e r i c a n s .Social-democrats, admittedGiddens, faced a critical junc-ture. Their situation was notuniformly bad. For one thing,they were still in power inmany countries of We s t e r nEurope, and making progress inEastern Europe and LatinAmerica. Moreover, the come-back of the right appearedsomewhat superficial because itwas more opportunistic thananchored in a strong and appealingvision of the future. Often, center-rightparties simply “normalized” thethemes of the far-right to take advan-tage of popular anxieties about immi-gration, multiculturalism, and crime.Still, the left had “a good deal of rethinking to do” to adjust to a new,more competitive political reality.For Giddens, it no longer seemedn e c e s s a ryto speak of a Third Wa y. Thislabel, he explained, had proven usefulto specify what the new center-left wasnot, and to differentiate it from unre-formed social-democracy. This position-ing, however, was now accomplished,and the left could assume power andgovern on the basis of its core historicalvalues. With a populist right back inp o w e r, it became in fact more importantto stress again the opposition betweenthe left and the right, or between social-democracy and neoliberalism, ratherthan insisting once more on the distinc-tive character of the contemporary cen-ter-left. The Third Way was no longern e c e s s a ry and the social-democraticidentity could come back.This reaffirmation of the tradition-al left–right division implied as well areturn to the core concern of left–rightpolitics: equality. In a book publishedin 2005, Giddens and his co-authorsmade “the case for a new egalitarian-ism,” and deplored the growinginequalities brought by decades of neoliberalism. By contrast, during his2007 electoral campaign, rightistFrench president Nicolas Sarkozyargued unabashedly against egalitarian-ism and in favor of order, authority,work, and merit, a discourse that hadbeen shunned by the country ’s center-right until then.In recent years,American politics also displayed astrong left–right polarization over cul-tural values and redistribution.
M
ore spectacularly, the turn of thetwenty-first century gave rise toa strong resurgence of the democraticleft in Latin America, with the electionof Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (1998),Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva in Brazil(2002), Néstor Kirchner in Argentina(2003), Tabaré Vásquez in Uruguay(2005), Evo Morales in Bolivia (2006),Michelle Bachelet in Chile (2006),Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2006), andDaniel Ortega in Nicaragua (2006).The new Latin American left some-times proved populist and controver-sial, as in Venezuela and Bolivia, butoften it chose a prudently reformistcourse, close to the spirit of the ThirdWa y, as in Chile and Uruguay. Ineither case, the left benefited from awidespread desire for more social jus-tice, in countries where democratiza-tion and market reforms had failed toreduce profound inequalities andenduring poverty. Populist leadersdeployed an anti-American, anti-glob-alization discourse and experimentedwith nationalization andstrong-armed interv e n t i o n s ,but they also invested in socialprograms and in redistributivemeasures, in a more or lessclientelistic manner. Moreorthodox with respect to themarket, public administration,and the world order, reformistgovernments also undertook toimprove social programs andincome distribution. Across thecontinent, the politics of leftand right became alive, andwas very clearly defined aroundthe question of equality.In Taiwan and Korea, sim-ilar debates on democratiza-tion and neoliberalism took placebut, in these cases, it was leftist socialmovements that moved non-pro-grammatic political parties to adoptredistributive and welfare statereforms. In South Africa, achievingeffective redistribution proved diffi-cult and the African NationalCongress may even have failed in thisrespect, but political debates werealso consumed by equality and by thepossibilities of social justice in aneoliberal world. In the Kerala stateof India, the social-democratic LeftDemocratic Front defeated theneoliberal right by a landslide in2006, building on its previous successin alleviating poverty, in a regionwith a very low aggregate income. In
The new Latin American leftsometimes proved populist andcontroversial, as in Venezuela andBolivia, but often it chose aprudently reformist course, close tothe spirit of the Third Way, as inChile and Uruguay. In either case,the left benefited from a widespreaddesire for more social justice, incountries where democratizationand market reforms had failed toreduce profound inequalities andenduring poverty.
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