Moving Beyond the Left-Right Paradigm: Understanding this Political Moment through the Lens of Authoritarian Populism
Original illustration by Ella Mežule for Fine Acts
The terms “left” and ”right” to describe political orientations first appeared during the French Revolution. When the French National Assembly convened in 1789 to draft a new constitution, delegates who believed that, following tradition, the king should have veto power sat on the right of the president of the assembly. Those who thought the king should not have absolute veto power—the more radical view—sat on the left. As this seating pattern continued over the years, this jargon spread and “left” and “right” became categories of political identity across the world.
Since then, “left” and “right,” “progressive” and “conservative,” have become signifiers that serve as heuristics, mental shortcuts that allow us to associate an ideology with each of the words and inform our vote, our will to bridge with those who are different from ourselves, and our ability to quickly identify foes and allies. Although the meanings of “left” and “right” have changed and evolved since their first usage, these terms continue to have a tenacious hold over our political imagination.
But what happens when these terms no longer seem so clear, or even accurate? What happens when they are applied to leaders and movements who actually display an amalgam of ideologically diverse ideas, or when our identity becomes so attached to these words that we fail to condemn those in our group who threaten democracy and fundamental rights and freedoms, or when their continued use impedes necessary cooperation as a result of polarization?
Nativist + Exclusionary + Populist = Right?
To be clear, terms like “left” and “right” (or progressive and conservative), will continue to be relevant and at least somewhat useful to describe and debate diverging political philosophies. Yet their utility in understanding rising nativist and exclusionary movements may be limited. These movements are not simply rightwing, populist, or far right and calling them such may in fact be to their advantage, contributing to normalizing them and impeding the big tent organizing that may be necessary.
What Trump and the MAGA movement, Fratelli d’Italia, Greek Solution, Rassemblement National, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, but also the new Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany (which is far-left in origin), have in common is not that they are far-right or populist, nor that their views coalesce into a neat right or left framework. Rather, they all engage a mode of politics that combines populist anti-establishment appeals in the name of democracy with exclusionary authoritarian practices that limit political contestation and accountability, without eliminating democratic institutions entirely.
At the Democracy & Belonging Forum, we call this form of politics “authoritarian populism,” and those of us committed to belonging and democracy need to make it clear that preventing authoritarian populist actors from consolidating power and building an alternative to their worldview is not a left- or right-wing project. Authoritarian populists are oriented by nativist and exclusionary goals, not by ideological coherence, and use tactics like scapegoating perceived out-groups for social or economic challenges while fostering a sense of existential threat to justify their extreme rhetoric and policies.
As stated, many of these political actors propose policies that taken together do not cohere around a left-right or progressive-conservative ideology. We see this in the support for heterodox economic policies, including redistributive policies such as public healthcare or an increase in the minimum wage by parties described as far-right in France or Slovakia or Hungary or by American vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance (with some calling them welfare chauvinism), or in the rhetorical appeal to women’s rights by so-called far-right parties in Sweden or the Netherlands (in reality deployed to build anti-Muslim hatred).
Despite the extremity of these actors (lest we forget, Donald Trump’s migrant deportation proposals would likely bring about concentration camps and militias that target people of color, with race used as a proxy for being foreign, while Hungary’s Viktor Orbán had no qualms in taking advantage of the Covid pandemic to give himself emergency powers, to name a few examples), authoritarian populists are trying—and succeeding—in their mission to convince the public that they are not fringe or extremist. Calling these actors “far-right” (or rightwing populists) may unintentionally help advance this mission as these terms normalize them as one of several possibilities in a varied ideological menu. Indeed, labeling them “rightwing” neglects to fully capture their threat to democracy and human rights, nor capture that their rhetoric and othering speech promotes political violence.
This normalization is especially evident in places like Germany and Austria. Leaders of the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) have continuously displayed ethno-nationalist beliefs (the idea that anyone with a migrant background–in their worldview that means anyone non-white–is not truly German) and courts have found that there’s reason to believe that they are indeed extremist. Regardless, in Germany’s most recent regional elections, the AfD has found significant and unprecedented success. Meanwhile, in Austria, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ)’s), founded decades ago by members of the SS and other Nazi veterans, has won the general elections. This extremist party is not new to the political landscape or power, but 25 years ago, when the FPÖ was set to enter the Austrian government, the EU imposed diplomatic sanctions on Austria. Such measures are now unthinkable.
How the Left-Right Paradigm Impairs Coalition Building
Further, dividing actors into simple “left” and “right” categories at a time when affective polarization, negative partisanship, and mistrust are driving political behavior can inhibit the possibility of alliances between actors that may hold different views on how societal challenges should be addressed, but share a commitment to pluralism and democracy. A focus on left and right may underscore competing identities, evoke too powerful antagonisms.
Affective polarization describes political identities (be it left-right or party affiliation) becoming one of the primary ways that we perceive ourselves and our group association, coupled with a strong dislike for members of the other “group”. Negative partisanship describes voting based on hostility toward the opposing party and its leaders, rather than centrally for liking the party or candidate one supports.
This combination of affective polarization and negative partisanship is extremely powerful as it brings about a tendency to overlook the faults of one’s own group and an unwillingness to denounce them if they transgress democratic norms, which creates fertile soil for less principled actors to advance without internal opposition (this helps explain support for Trump from ideological conservatives who personally deplore him or the failure to condemn brutal regimes when they are perceived to belong to our own ideological alliance—think some progressives and Russia or Venezuela).
The straitjacket of partisanship or left-right ideological identification can blind us to the transgressions of our in-group and cloud our judgment, whether by helping us justify support for someone who is actually extreme or convincing us that building certain alliances is unpalatable.
At the same time, not all of society feels a left-right or party identity very strongly. Poll after poll in Europe and North America exposes a widespread lack of trust in institutions, parties, and politics, across ideological lines. Most would say they are exhausted and frustrated and don’t care as much for left-right labels.
Authoritarian populist actors can capitalize on both the polarization and the exhaustion. For those tired of a system that they feel—often rightly so—doesn’t serve them, authoritarian populists present themselves as anti-system and anti-establishment, often claiming to not represent either the left or the right but “the people.” For those with strong ideological or party attachments, these actors can reinforce a belief that they are, mostly, the option that best represents their right/left-wing ideology, even if from a substantive perspective that is far from being the truth. In that way, and through emphasizing the existential threat that the opposition represents (lately in the form of “wokism”), they can also attract strong partisans.
Transcending attachment to labels and polarization
Authoritarian populists are succeeding democratically at unprecedented rates–mustering significant levels of popular support. To build democracies of belonging—pluralist, multi-identity, and diverse societies sustained by the cooperation of many with diverging views—we will need to transcend our attachment to labels and the biases inherent to polarization and partisanship.
Preventing and building an alternative to authoritarian populism is (or should be) a goal that unites citizens across ideologies. This does not preclude a strong ideological commitment to widely diverging political philosophies. Yet the triumph and consolidation of authoritarian populists does little to advance left- or right-wing ideas consistent with a commitment to democracy and belonging, and does a lot to entrench exclusionary politics, nativism, and the contraction of the field of political competition.
Using “left” and ”right” as descriptors can make these competing political identities more prominent in a way that prevents the coalition-building that is necessary to combat authoritarian populism. This is not to say that the antidote to partisan or ideological polarization is to meet in the middle and compromise on one’s values or beliefs, but to recognize a common cause of protecting democracy and shared humanity across ideological divides, and identify when our leaders (or journalists, pundits, influencers) are driven by authoritarian populist goals and strategies, not simply whether they fit into a predefined ideology (even if the fit is in name only).
Through the lens of the framework of authoritarian populism, the framing of left vs right is deemphasized, focusing instead on the interplay of the populist and authoritarian playbooks—a dance between rhetorical claims to speak in the name of the people against the elites with anti-democratic practices—deployed in pursuit of nativist and exclusionary goals (economics, foreign policy, and other policy-areas become subordinate to these two orienting objectives). This shift in focus can also help us make sense of the global structures of cooperation or imitation of authoritarian populists, which deploy similar narratives and policies across countries and share financial and other resources despite historical, socioeconomic, and even ideological differences.
At the Democracy & Belonging Forum we have been working hard to make sense of the strategic choices and political style of nativist, exclusionary, and populist movements. We have taken a deep dive into the literature on populism, authoritarianism, and other related concepts and developed our own framework on authoritarian populism. We will be releasing these resources in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!
In other news…
To no one’s surprise… “Auditors have found that the EU’s flagship fund to tackle irregular migration from Africa has failed to achieve its goal, and that Brussels has ignored allegations of human rights breaches in the process.”
German far right winning over the young, one dance track and video game at a time.
While much emphasis is placed on left behind support for authoritarian populist leaders, or the urban vs rural divide or politically engaged or disengaged or the tired but continued debate of whether it’s the economy or culture that explains support for extremist movements (which are worthy lines of inquiry), as real is the fact that authoritarian populists are equally deriving their support from constituencies with disproportionate political power; enjoying the backing of billionaires and powerful men, as well as intellectuals and highly educated networks that aim to be the bulwark not of a conservative milieu, but of a nativist, exclusionary, and anti-democratic project.
Speaking of ideology, apparently, according to Merriam-Webster, “Ideology has been in use in English since the end of the 18th century and is one of the few words whose coiner we can identify. The French writer A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy proposed it as a term to designate the “science of ideas,” and in that sense the word was quickly borrowed into English.”
And for the soul…
I have been captivated by this painting by Firelei Báez at the Metropolitan since I saw it in September. Such beauty.
An old poem of belonging, by Rumi:
Come, come, whoever you are.
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come.
Connecting the Dots: Musings on Bridging and Belonging is a monthly column by Míriam Juan-Torres. In it, Míriam reflects on current events, connecting the trends and considering the specificities across countries, applying a bridging and belonging lens and translating concepts from academia for a wider audience. Join our mailing list to stay up to date on the latest of the Democracy & Belonging Forum's curated analysis from Miriam and more.
Editor's note: The ideas expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of the Othering & Belonging Institute or UC Berkeley, but belong to the authors.