Between Ideology and Social Representations: Four Theses Plus (a New) One on the Relevance and the Meaning of the Political Left and Right
Piergiorgio Corbetta
Dipartimento di Scienze dell’educazione ‘Giovanni Maria Bertin’ Università di Bologna Via Filippo Re 6 I – 40126 Bologna Italia Tel. +39 0512091503 Fax +39 0512091489 Email piergiorgio.corbetta@unibo.it Nicoletta Cavazza
Dipartimento di Scienze sociali, cognitive e quantitative Università di Modena-Reggio Emilia
Viale A. Allegri 9 I - 42100 Reggio Emilia Italia Tel. +39 0522523262 Fax +39 0522523055 Email nicoletta.cavazza@unimore.it Michele Roccato Dipartimento di Psicologia Università di Torino Via Verdi 10 I – 10124 Torino Italia Tel. +39 0116702015 Fax +39 0116702061 Email roccato@psych.unito.it
Between Ideology and Social Representations: Four Theses Plus (a New) One on the Relevance and the Meaning of the Political Left and Right
ABSTRACT
This study analyzes the relevance and the meaning given by Italians to the political labels of ‘left’ and ‘‘right’ between 1975 and 2006. Based on the responses to the open-ended question ‘What do you mean by “left/right” in politics?’ we compare five alternative hypotheses on the meaning of the left-right axis and show that, despite the alleged end of ideologies, the relevance of the axis has increased over time. A core of abstract meanings persists throughout the thirty-year period considered. As the importance of abstract meanings has increased over time, reference to more concrete contents (such as parties and leaders) has decreased. Our findings thus support the hypothesis that the left-right axis has the functional characteristics of social representations.
Between Ideology and Social Representations: Four Theses Plus (a New) One on the Relevance and the Meaning of the Political Left and Right
The left-right distinction has been at the heart of the European political debate for more than two hundred years, since the participants of the Etats Généraux, gathered together as a constituent assembly on August 28th 1789 at Versailles, divided themselves spatially on the issue of the king’s
veto power. Those in favour positioned themselves to the right of the president, and those in opposition to his left. Since then, the left-right distinction has gained considerable meaning, representing over the course of the last two centuries in Western (and especially European) countries the conceptual template which best summarizes political differences (Inglehart & Klingemann 1976).
Nonetheless, much has changed in society and in European politics in recent years, leading many people to ask if and to what extent this distinction is still relevant in contemporary political discourse. These questions implicitly pose two problems, respectively concerning the relevance of the left-right dichotomy and its content. With regard to both issues, many points of view have been advanced. After reviewing them, we will attempt to test them empirically in the Italian context, where many rapid political changes took place in the last decades, depicting a particularly complex judgemental environment for citizens.
The relevance of the left-right dichotomy
The starting point of this debate is represented by the provocative statement on ‘the end of
ideology’ put forth by Bell, who argued that ‘The ideologies... which emerged from the nineteenth century... today are exhausted...’ (1965: 402). Several scholars agreed with this thesis (see Aron 1962; Shils 1968; Kornhauser 1960; Lipset 1960, among others; for a summary of the debate see Waxman 1968). The ‘end of ideology’ should have brought about a substantial attenuation of the harsh conflicts of the earlier period. Such attenuation, in turn, should have produced a sharp decrease in the relevance of the left-right axis for individuals’ political orientation. Nevertheless, attempts to validate this prediction empirically have not been very successful. More than thirty years ago, based on a study on nine European countries, Inglehart and Klingenmann (1976: 243) argued that ‘The end of ideology did not materialize. On the contrary, there are indications that presumably ideological concepts such as left and right are taking new life and new meaning for Western politics.’ Over the last thirty years empirical research has repeatedly confirmed this thesis. Mair (2007), for example, recently claimed that the left-right distinction still ‘appears to offer both sense and shape to an otherwise complex political reality’ (p. 208) at three levels. First, voters: data from the European Social Surveys conducted in recent years show that more than 80 per cent of the voters define themselves as left- or right-wingers. Second, observers and researchers: ‘expert surveys’ systematically identify the left-right conflict as one of the most relevant issues in the competition among political parties. Third, party programs and electoral platforms: content analysis systematically shows that ‘some form of left-right dimension dominates competition at the level of the parties’ (Mair 2007: 209-211). Jost (2006), after reviewing the recent psychological research, reached the same conclusion.
To understand the reasons behind the persistence of the left-right dimension in Western political culture, we need to explore the functions it performs. At the collective level it serves the purpose of social orientation, functioning as a symbolic frame of reference used by political groups to place themselves and to communicate their positions. As such, this dimension represents a fundamental organizing principle of the political space, used to define conflicts and commonalities among parties and leaders, like the cardinal points on a map allowing one to locate a town as geographically close to or far from another. At the individual level, the dimension simplifies individual decision making and judgements in the political sphere. Indeed, socio-cognitive
decision-making rules, also defined as ‘mental shortcuts’, used to bypass a deeper processing of the information (Tversky & Kahneman 1974). Heuristics are particularly useful when individuals face complex decision tasks (such as making judgements and decisions in the political sphere) while simultaneously lacking the motivation to acquire more accurate information (often the case for many citizens). Given this scenario, the positioning of parties, leaders, and stances along the left-right axis greatly facilitates voters’ selection processes, by reducing the complexity of the political content (Fuchs & Klingemann 1990; Inglehart & Klingemann 1976).
The function of orienting voters is particularly useful in two circumstances. First, when the political system is complex: Sartori (1976; see also Inglehart & Sidjanski 1976), for example, emphasizes the indispensability of the one-dimensional left-right simplification in the case of multiparty systems. Second, when the political system undergoes a radical transformation, the axis may be conceived as an instrument capable of channeling ‘voters from their former party to the nearest equivalent among the new ones’ (Inglehart & Klingemann 1976: 271).
To summarize, despite profound changes in socio-political contexts over time, the two necessities met by the left-right dimension – the ‘individual’ need to understand, simplify, represent, make decisions and the ‘social’ need to communicate, define reciprocal positions, establish trust – have remained intact.
Content of the left-right dichotomy
Any analysis of the relevance and function of the left-right dimension should focus on its content and how this has changed over time. From a review of the scientific literature, four theses emerge concerning the ‘meaning’ voters attribute to this conceptual dichotomy.
The first one assigns an intrinsic and fairly stable meaning to the left-right distinction, independent of space, time and other factors. The most convincing formulation of this thesis has been advanced by Bobbio (1996), according to which the most widely used criterion to distinguish between left and right is their attitudes toward equality: left-wingers tend to consider people more equal than different, while the contrary holds true for right-wingers.
A second thesis similarly assigns an intrinsic and autonomous content to the categories of left and right, although its supporters argue that such content is not set once and for all, but tends to change over time (Fuchs & Klingemann 1990). For example, in European societies the principal conflict is no longer defined in termes of class cleavages, but new lines of conflict have emerged, primarily between materialist and post-materialist values (Inglehart 1977, 1990; with regard to other lines of cleavage see Knutsen 1998). According to Fuchs and Klingemann, however, this change in the structure of the dominant social conflict will not result in the overcoming of the distinction between left and right nor will it deprive the terms of their meaning: while the content of this distinction may change over time, it will continue to carry out its specific function of simplifying political reality and making sense of it.
These first two theses describe the left-right dimension content as operating top-down on voters’ opinions. To the contrary, the third and fourth theses do not attribute an intrinsic meaning to the left-right dichotomy, but rather conceive its meanings to be elaborated by citizens in a bottom-up process. According to the third thesis (put forward by Butler & Stokes 1969), voters consider left and right simply as ‘conventional labels’ derived from the relative position of the political parties along the axis and partisan identification should precede individual self-placement on the left-right scale, often representing its main component (Inglehart & Klingemann 1976).
The fourth thesis, sustained primarily by Sani (1974) and Sartori (1976), is an extreme version of the second. Left and right are stripped of their own autonomous meaning, taking on any meaning depending on the circumstances. In other words, they are considered empty vessels ready to be filled or decanted with any and all contents, located along the one-dimensional left-right spectrum, in response more to the practical needs of order and intelligibility in politics than to any law of internal coherence. They are also in constant change, depending on the society and the time period (for example, during the 1980s issues related to the Cold War were a central concern, while
current topics include attitudes towards immigrants, taxes, crime, reproductive rights, the family, Europe, and economic globalization).
The present study compares the empirical validity of the four theses presented above, along with a fifth one which we propose building upon them. Our underlying idea is that left and right are categories ensuring both the individual and the social functions mentioned above, as well as the flexibility of meaning necessary to adapt to the historical and political context.
Borrowing a well-known concept from social psychology, we argue that the ideas of what left and right represent in politics today have the characteristics of social representations
(Moscovici 1984). As Moscovici (1988) put it, social representations ‘concern the contents of everyday thinking and the stock of ideas that gives coherence to our religious beliefs, political ideas, etc. and the connections we create as spontaneously as we breathe’ (p. 214). They are forms of social knowledge: systems of values, beliefs, opinions, semantic repertoires, and theories of common sense resulting from a process of reconstruction of reality into a symbolic system elaborated in relation to socially relevant objects, through communicative exchanges between people in groups and communities (Doise 1989). Social representations therefore are a sort of map of the semantic field relative to an object (in our case, the ‘left’ or the ‘right’ in politics), used by people to move at ease and in a coordinated way with other individuals. Within this common field of reference individuals and social groups adopt different positions, but they are able to meet on common ground (for example, everybody has an idea of what a ‘left-wing party’ is, regardless of his/her personal positive or negative judgement about it).
Social representations are both stable and flexible. Stability is guaranteed by a central core of essential meanings, while flexibility is due to their peripheral system (Flament 1987). The central core represents the point of reference for all members of a certain culture. It includes the elements that determine the overall meaning of the representation. Surrounding the core, we find the peripheral elements, which are substantially context-dependent and subject to variation in relation to the social groups expressing the representation. Indeed, groups occupy different social positions and define the perspective from which individuals perceive and think about an object. For example, it is quite obvious that old activists of a political party with a long history develop a representation of left and right which is somewhat different to that of young students voting for the first time. Thus, the peripheral components guarantee the evolution of the representation, since they may change in relation to the context and to transformations of the object, leaving the core mostly untouched.
In the case under analysis, we can therefore hypothesize that some intrinsic meanings compose the central core of the social representations of left and right. In particular, the most
abstract symbolic references are likely to be part of it – mainly equality, as proposed by Bobbio
(1996), but also other distinctive values. On the contrary, the more concrete and contingent elements (for example, references to specific topics, political parties, and political actors) will be continuously re-examined in relation with the context, the historical phase, and the social groups which express them.
During specific historical phases, people and social groups may experience difficulties in incorporating concrete references to the social representations of left and right. This occurs, for example, when political parties traditionally emblematic of the left and right disappear or experience severe crisis; when renowned or charismatic leaders leave politics; when traditional international points of reference (such as the USA-USSR opposition at the end of the last century) or national institutions (for example, the direct involvement of the Church in the Italian political debate, following the collapse of the Christian Democratic party) weaken; and, finally we should also consider – with particular regard to self-identification with the left – the loss of political identity and political agency on the part of the working classes in Western society.
In these situations, social representations of left and right tend to be deprived of concrete references and limited to more abstract content. For example, when asked ‘What does the left mean to you?’ the working class individual of the 1970s likely answered ‘the USSR’ or ‘the Communist Party’. In the 21st century, after the fall of the Berlin wall and the disappearance of the Communist
Party, individuals from the same group have plausibly shifted their response from the concrete to the abstract, answering ‘less inequality among people’ or ‘social solidarity’.
The present study focuses on the situation in Italy during the approximately thirty-year span between 1975 and 2006. This time frame is of particular interest since Italian politics throughout the post-war period, and up until the 1980s, was always extremely ideological. Italy was the European country with the largest Communist Party and the largest Catholic Party, and featured strong party identification, especially among Communist and Christian-Democratic voters. At the beginning of the 1990s, however, the Italian party system quite suddenly experienced a process of complete disintegration. In fact, almost all of the traditional parties which had given stability to the political system for half a century disappeared from the political scene (they either simply dissolved or took on new names). The process was triggered by the legal proceedings of ‘Tangentopoli’ (‘Bribetown’), which led to the indictment and prosecution for corruption of a significant portion of the two main governing parties (Christian Democrats and Socialist Party). The system’s
disintegration was greatly accelerated by the fall of the Berlin wall, which neutralized the ideological foundation of the communism/anti-communism opposition. Moreover, Christian Democrats, who had governed the country without interruption for the entire post-war period, experienced a fatal crisis. The party system finally came to a formal end in 1993 when the electoral law transformed the electoral system from proportional to majoritarian, generating new political formations and eliminating old ones. All these events taken together allow us to consider Italy as a sort of ‘exemplary case’ ideally suited to study the ways in which the left-right axis changes in relevance and content when a) party identification weakens and traditional political objects disappear, and b) politics suddenly becomes more complicated.
Research design and hypotheses
Among the reasons that empirical research has not yet been able to provide conclusive evidence about the meanings ascribed by voters to the concepts of left and right, we should include: a) the difficulty of fruitfully exploring the ‘meaning’ attached by individuals to such a complex concept using closed-ended questions; b) the fact that empirical studies of change must be carried out over a long period of time.
To circumvent these problems we tried to answer the questions outlined above by comparing the results from two surveys conducted thirty years apart, both of which include the same open-ended questions about the meaning of left and right. We have formulated the following hypotheses concerning the two aspects of the left-right dimension highlighted above: relevance and content. 1. Relevance. We hypothesized that in Italy the relevance of the left-right dimension has risen over time due to the increasing need for simplification of the political scene where traditional referential anchors have disappeared (HP1.1). If this is the case, we should observe a significant increase in the relevance of the left-right dimension among the elderly, the less-educated individuals, and the working-class, that is, the least culturally equipped social groups, those who have lost concrete points of reference (such as political parties) through which they used to define left and right (HP1.2).
2. Content. With regard to the five theses presented above, we have formulated five alternative hypotheses differentiated in terms of: autonomy/non-autonomy of meaning; one-dimensionality/ multidimensionality; invariability/variability over time.
HP2.1 The left-right dimension has autonomous content, basically one-dimensional and invariant over time (primarily organized along the equality/inequality axis)
HP2.2 The left-right dimension has autonomous content, basically one-dimensional, derived from the society’s principal concerns; it therefore varies over time, dependent on the characteristics of society.
HP2.3 The left-right dimension has no autonomous meaning; its content can be rather inferred from the political parties with which it is associated; it is thus multi-dimensional and relatively stable in so far as the party system is also stable.
HP2.4 The left-right dimension has no autonomous content; it is an ‘empty vessel’ taking on multi-dimensional and variable meanings depending on the time period.
HP2.5 The left-right dimension has a central core of autonomous and abstract contents that do not change over time, and a set of concrete contents which tend to vary over time according to contextual characteristics and historical circumstances (peripheral elements). The crisis of the Italian political system in the 1990s should have brought about a greater need to refer to abstract and stable contents. This should be especially true among social groups for whom concrete elements in the social representations of right and left were particularly salient. Examples of such social groups include the working-class with regard to other social classes (due to the disappearance of the Communist Party), less educated people with regard to more educated groups (less equipped to manage a crisis in traditional points of reference), elderly people with regard to younger people (due to the reduced efficacy of concrete points of reference in the context of a rapid transformation of political parties and historic political blocs).
Method
The core of our study was based on the comparison of two Italian surveys, conducted thirty years apart, in which the same open-ended questions about the meaning of ‘left’ and ‘right’ in politics were asked. The first (N = 1,657) was carried out in 1975 as part of the comparative project Eight
nations - Political action.1 The second (N = 1,377) was conducted by the Itanes2 research group in
2006. In order to explore the changes of the ‘relevance’ of the left-right dimension, besides the 1975 and 2006 surveys we also used the following surveys: ‘Italian Mass Election Survey’ (1968); ‘Italian Mass Election Survey’ (1972); and ‘Itanes’ (2001). The phrasing of the questions used was always identical.
The operationalization of the concepts of left-right relevance and content was based on the following criteria.
Relevance of the left-right dimension. We used the same conceptual framework and, in part, the
same measurement instruments employed for the Eight-nations Political Action research project in both the first (Barnes and Kaase 1979, in particular Klingemann, chapter 8) and second publication (Jennings at al. 1990, in particular chapter 7 by Fuchs & Klingemann). More specifically, we operationalized the relevance of the left-right dimension through the a) recognition and the b)
understanding of the two terms. In order to measure these two components, we used a combination
of closed-ended and open-ended questions.3
With reference to ‘recognition’, we considered the respondents to be able to recognize the terms left and right if they agreed to place both themselves and the political parties on the left-right scale. On the one hand, we recoded our variable expressing respondents’ self-placement on the left-right axis into a dummy variable, assigning 1 to the respondents who actually placed themselves on the axis and 0 to those who did not. On the other hand, we computed a new dummy variable, expressing whether our respondents placed at least five of the main political parties existing at the time of the interview along the left-right axis. Thus, we derived the following indicators of recognition: a. Percentage of people placing themselves on the left-right scale;
b. Percentage of people placing along the same scale at least five of the seven main political parties existing at the time of the interview. As this question was not asked in the survey performed in 1975, we used the 1968 and the 1972 surveys.
Hence, when analyzing recognition we were not interested in how interviewees placed themselves and the parties, but rather in understanding if respondents recognized the left-right axis (any answer is acceptable) or not (answering ‘I don’t know’ or refusing to answer).
With reference to ‘understanding’, following Baldassarri’s procedure (2003), we considered two types of understanding:
1. ‘Inter-subjective’ understanding (corresponding to correct knowledge of parties’ positioning on the left-right axis, consistent with the average4 evaluation given by interviewees), operationalized as
the number of correct placements on the left-right sequence according to the average sequence given by the total sample of respondents (overall 21 pair-wise comparisons among seven main parties). As this question was not asked in the survey performed in 1975, we used the 1968 and the 1972 surveys.5
2. ‘Subjective’ understanding (corresponding to the ability to provide any answer to the open-ended question on the meaning of left and right, regardless of the answer’s actual content), operationalized as the percentage of people who answer both questions: ‘What do you mean by right in politics?’ and ‘What do you mean by left in politics?’.
Content of the left-right dimension. In order to analyze the meanings voters attribute to the
categories of ‘left’ and ‘right’ we recoded the answers given by respondents in 1976 and in 2006 to the open-ended question ‘What do you mean by left/right in politics?’ The recoding process was carried out in two steps: First, we built a coding grid including all the semantic areas needed to classify the answers into homogeneous macro-categories (see Table 1 for the coding grid and examples of the most commonly used expressions). Then a person blind in respect to our hypotheses proceeded to the content analysis, coding all the answers following the grid. 6
TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE
In order to compare variations in abstract and concrete content, we reclassified the semantic areas shown in Table 1 into a condensed grid based on the level of abstraction used to distinguish between left and right. These levels can be described as follows:
a. At the first level (maximum concreteness) left and right are recognized on the basis of which actors are currently involved in politics and what they do. We placed here responses that mention concrete political actors, such as a party or a leader, as well as contingent political arrangements such as government/opposition, majority/minority, etc.
b. At the second level left and right are recognized for their support of the interests of particular social groups, interests that represent guiding principles for their political action. We placed here concepts that refer to class divisions or religious dimensions.
c. At the third level left and right are recognized in terms of their position with regard to the organization of the state as a guiding principle of political action. We placed here concepts that evoke an economic dimension, social change, democracy, and/or the constitution.
d. At the fourth level (maximum abstractness) left and right are recognized by the fundamental goals guiding political action. We placed here references to general principles such as values (equality, for example) or ideological principles.
Results
Relevance of the left-right dimension
Table 2 presents the results of the analysis of trends in the relevance indicators between the early 1970s and the first years of the 21st century.7 All four indicators show that over this thirty-year
period the relevance of the left-right dimension increased. With regard to recognition, the percentage of respondents who placed themselves on the left-right axis rose from around 70 per cent to about 80 per cent, while the percentage of individuals who could place the majority of the parties increased from 60-70 per cent to 80-90 per cent. With regard to understanding, the average number of correct responses about the placement of the parties on the left-right scale
(inter-subjective understanding) roughly increased from 11 to 15 (out of 21), while the ability to provide an answer to both questions on the meaning of left and right (subjective understanding) rose from about 50 per cent in 1975 to about 60 per cent in 2006.
TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE
In terms of both recognition and understanding, in Italy during the period under
consideration the relevance of the left-right dimension increased, thus supporting HP1.1. It remains to be explained if this increase was due to the disappearance of traditional political points of
reference (HP1.2). We therefore investigated whether the relevance of the left-right dimension has particularly increased among the social categories we have hypothesized as being more exposed to political disorientation. To perform this analysis on the basis of sufficiently reliable trends, we analyzed the four key indicators of relevance in two historical periods (the first constituted by the 1968, 1972, and 1975 databases, and the second by the 2001 and 2006 databases). We measured change between the two periods by examining the index number of the second period (normalizing the average value of indexes for the first period to 100). Table 3 shows the increases in each indicator by social category. For the overall sample, the four indicators were greater than 100; this finding is in line with the general increase in the relevance of the concepts of left and right
discussed above. However, relevance does not increase in the same way for all social categories. The percentage of people that are able to place themselves on the left-right axis (Recognition 1) does not increase in a significantly different way for respondents of different ages, levels of
education, or social class. The remaining three indicators, however, move in the predicted direction. The percentage of people who are able to place all or the majority of political parties (Recognition 2) increased during the period under study especially among the elderly, people with lower levels of education, and working-class respondents. Among these three groups the capacity of accurately placing political parties along the left-right axis (inter-subjective understanding) also increased. Finally, relative to the other social categories, we observe a greater increase among these three groups in the percentage of people who believe they understand what is meant by left and right and therefore answer the open-ended question (subjective understanding).8
TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE
Content of the left-right dimension
The content analysis of the meanings attributed to left and right allowed us to compare the five hypotheses presented above (HP2.1 – HP2.5). In order to confirm the first hypothesis, we should have observed a clear prevalence of references to equality-inequality over other kinds of references both in 1975 and 2006. To confirm the second hypothesis, we should have observed a prevalence of contents related to class cleavage and economic and religious dimensions in 1975, and a prevalence of references to values in 2006. The third hypothesis would have implied the prevalence of
references to political objects (leaders and parties) both in 1975 and 2006. The fourth hypothesis would have entailed the absence of prevalent references both in 1975 and 2006. To confirm the fifth hypothesis, we should have observed a generalized increase in references to more abstract elements relative to more concrete ones between 1975 and 2006, as well as a lack of dominant references in both periods. Moreover, the increase in the abstraction of the responses should have been greater for more disoriented social categories, which lose concrete political reference points.
Table 4 shows the meanings respondents attributed to ‘left’ and ‘right’ in 1975 and in 2006. We compared the frequency of references to the various semantic areas, regardless of the specific target label (left vs. right); the percentages were thus calculated on the basis of the actual responses, rather than on the number of respondents.
TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE
In 1975 there was a clear prevalence of direct references to political parties. Almost one-third of the respondents traced the meaning of left and right to political parties competing for voter support during that period. Thirty years later, the dominance of parties was no longer noticeable:
Italians explained meanings of left and right by drawing in a more balanced way from all semantic areas.
Moreover, between 1975 and 2006 an increase in references to values (in large part concentrated in ‘equality’: +13 percentage points; but ‘other values’ increased as well: +4.6) took place. Although the conceptual pair equality/inequality was mentioned as an aspect of the left-right distinction by almost 19 per cent of responses in 2006, it was not possible to claim that this was a dominant area of meaning. This pair (in the same year) represented 30 per cent of the meanings attributed to the left, but remained extremely weak among the meanings attributed to the right (8 per cent).9 Again, in the diachronic comparison we observed an increase in references to economic
dimensions (+10.3 percentage points) and to social change (+5.9).
Consistent with H2.5, these changes translated into an overall reversal in the concreteness-abstraction proportions in the responses between 1975 and 2006 (see Table 5).
TABLE 5 ABOUT HERE
The strong increase in references to abstract elements could not be attributed entirely to the development of more sophisticated cognitive abilities due to mass education, rather than to the evolution of social representations of left and right in politics. Indeed, a linear regression analysis using the abstraction level of the meaning given to left and right as the dependent variable and the year of data collection (1975=0; 2006=1) and respondents’ educational level (elementary, middle, or high) as independent variables, entered in steps 1 and 2 respectively, shows that the regression coefficient for the year of data collection was highly significant even when controlling for
education.
TABLE 6 ABOUT HERE
The fifth hypothesis was further confirmed by the differences we observed among social groups in the level of abstraction and by their change over time. As shown in Table 7, in 1975 the most disoriented groups (made up by older and less educated respondents and by people belonging to the working class) expressed the most concrete level of content; yet these same groups also displayed the greatest increase in abstraction in 2006.
TABLE 7 ABOUT HERE Conclusions
Our findings consistently show that the left-right axis is alive and well. Over the course of the past thirty years, citizens have ascribed increasing relevance to the left-right dimension, as testified by the growing proportion of individuals who recognized and were capable of using this guideline to orient themselves in a complex political environment. Although distinct from one another, our four indicators of recognition and understanding of the left-right dimension show a coherent trend over time. Furthermore, three out of four comparisons provide compelling evidence of the trend for more than two points in time. One could argue that the improved performance of Italians in locating parties on the left-right axis cannot entirely be attributed to an increased relevance of the left-right dimension, but rather might be due to the increasing salience of the left-right opposition, resulting from the change in the electoral system from proportional to majoritarian. Nevertheless, this
alternative interpretation is ruled out by the evidence showing that such change is most pronounced among most disoriented and less sophisticated social categories.
As far as content is concerned, the results obtained from the analysis of Italians’ responses to open-ended questions are consistent only with our fifth hypothesis. The evidence can be
summarized as follows:
HP2.1. We find no support for the first hypothesis, which anchors the left-right meanings to the concept of equality and predicted no change over time. First, as in Klingemann (1979; Fuchs & Klingemann 1990), the multiplicity of the interpretations given by respondents renders implausible the idea that, in the eyes of voters, the left-right axis is characterized by a single meaning. Second, the frequency with which Italians refer to the value of equality is too weak to justify Bobbio’s (1996) view that the notion of equality is the main basis of opposition between left and right.
HP2.2. Our results do not confirm the second hypothesis, asserting that there has been a shift from a materialist, economic axis, largely based on class divisions, to a ‘post-materialist’ axis centered on values. Indeed, class divisions, which should have been the principal focus of left-right meanings during the 1970s, received only 17 per cent of the responses in 1975. Their decline between 1975 and 2006 is modest and compensated for by an increase in the relevance of economic issues (state intervention in the economy, private propriety, welfare state, taxes, etc.). When the two areas of largely ‘materialist’ concerns are combined, we observe an overall rise in these meanings - contrary to the ‘post-materialist’ thesis. Moreover, the increase of the importance of values between 1975 and 2006 we found is not sufficient to confirm the dominance of values in the meanings attributed to left and right.
HP2.3. Based on our previous analyses on relevance, we refute the hypothesis that the left-right axis is a proxy for party identification, having confirmed the persistence of the left-left-right axis even in a situation characterized by a substantial decline of political parties as points of reference. The results of the content analysis are also consistent with this interpretation. In 1975, the most common meaning assigned to the left-right dimension referred to political parties (e.g., ‘left = Communist Party’). In those years, the hypothesis that the left-right opposition was a proxy for party identification was to a large extent valid. However, things have changed over time: today very few Italians, when asked about the meaning of left-right, mention political parties. Yet, despite the general tendency toward a more personalized political context, leaders have not replaced parties; in fact leaders are mentioned only in 4.9 per cent of the responses.
HP2.4. The fourth hypothesis, conceptualizing a decline in the area of abstract principles in favour of more concrete references over time, finds no support. On the contrary, we observe a dramatic decrease of concrete references (primarily those related to parties) and an increase of abstract core values (primarily equality), plausibly due to the complex and transitory character of the political situation in 2006, as compared to that of 1975.
HP.2.5 Our fifth hypothesis anticipated that the complexity and transitory nature of the thirty years under examination would have resulted in changes in the more peripheral system of
representations of left and right, that containing the most concrete references. In addition, we hypothesized that these changes would have pushed voters particularly disoriented by changes in the political scene to adopt even more abstract and fundamental criteria to distinguish between left and right. Our results show an increasing recourse to abstract guiding principles, even by those segments of population that in the past tended to express concrete contents; this tendency is valid despite the weakening of ideology as an orienting framework. In addition, we show that this effect was not simply due to a general improvement in the cognitive abilities of Italians resulting from a rise in the level of education. Hence, more than in the past, the criteria according to which
individuals ascribe meanings to left and right are to be found in a solid core, assuring the intelligibility of politics above and beyond its contingent changes.
In conclusion, our results show that the left-right dimension continues to be very meaningful for citizens and to perform decisive functions of political orientation. In the current context, the social representations of left and right mainly perform two functions previously fulfilled by
ideologies: social and individual orientation. The core/periphery structure of social representations enables voters to activate both top-down processes (for example, to determine what can be
categorized as left-wing or right-wing based on some fundamental value criteria) and bottom-up processes (for example, attach additional meanings to right and left in relation to new objects that appear on the political space).
What then is the difference between ideologies and social representations? Why are
ideologies no longer able to render political conflict intelligible, whereas social representations can? The principal reason concerns the mode of elaboration of these two systems of ideas. Ideologies are a product of intellectual and political elites, who defend orthodoxy, thereby making ideologies inflexible. They thus resemble what Moscovici (1984: 44) has called ‘reified universes’ or ‘a map of forces, objects, and events that are independent of our desires and outside of our awareness, and to which we can react impartially and submissively’. On the contrary, social representations draw
on consensual universes, that is, those that ‘reestablish collective awareness and shape it, explaining objects and events in a way that makes them accessible to everybody and makes them coincide with our most immediate interests’. Empirical evidence supporting this genetic process is to be found precisely in the different dynamics that we have identified for distinct social categories. During the thirty years under examination, regardless of their level of education, Italians have developed the ability of using symbolic tools to link what is new to what is already familiar.
We believe that our results could be extended beyond Italy. Indeed we speculate that in other contexts, under conditions of political uncertainty, change in traditional points of reference, and structural transformations, citizens collectively endeavor to restructure meanings. The starting point of this process would be the most solid and reliable core of past experience, ensuring continuity, maintaining an identity-sustaining function (telling us who we are and who we have been), and facilitating the incorporation of novelty into familiar schema. Future research might directly test this hypothesis within the framework of a comparative research project.
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Table 1. Classification of the responses to the open-ended questions on the meaning of ‘left’ and ‘right’
Semantic areas Terms referred to in the responses
1. General ideologies Communism, fascism, socialism, marxism, capitalism, liberalism, etc.
2. Equality / inequality Democratic participation, elimination of the social hierarchy, conservation of differences, social discrimination, solidarity, ordinary people, etc.
3. Other values Tolerance, common good, freedom, justice, family, meritocracy, etc.
4. Economic dimension Welfare state, state intervention, entrepreneurship, economic freedom, private property, etc.
5. Social change / maintenance
of status-quo Conservatives, progressives, innovation, reform, revolution, moderates, extremists, law and order, social disarray, etc. 6. Democracy / anti-democracy Democracy, constitution, dictatorship, suppression of individual
freedom, anti-liberal system, authoritarianism, etc.
7. Class cleavages The rich, the well-to-do, the poor, the blue-collar workers, the bosses, etc.
8. Religion Clericalism, religious hypocrisy, fundamentalists, anticlericals, secular people, etc.
9. Political parties Names of parties and coalitions 10. Political leaders Names of leaders
11. General assessments ‘I like it/I don’t like it’: friends/enemies, honest/dishonest, reliable/unreliable, competent/incompetent, etc.
Table 2. Relevance of the left-right dimension. Variations over time 1968 1972 1975 2001 2006 Recognition 1. Self-placement: % of respondents who placed themselves on the left-right scale
75.8 61.4 69.6 82.3 79.3
2. Placement of the parties: % of respondents who placed 4-7 parties on the left-right axis
73.0 62.1 --- 85.4 89.9 Understanding 1. Inter-subjective understanding: average number of correct responses in the placement of the parties (range 1-21)
11.9 9.4 --- 15.6 15.2
2. Subjective
understanding: % of the respondents who gave a definition of left and right
Table 3. Increase in relevance of the left-right axis between 1968-75 and 2001-06 by social category (index No. in 2001-2006 when 1968-75 = 100)
Recognition 1 Recognition 2 Inter-subjective understanding Subjective Understanding Age up to 24 104 117 123 121 25-34 120 (+) 127 138 94 35-44 101 127 144 123 45-54 121 (+) 131 (+) 145 (+) 133 (+) 55-64 121 (+) 134 (+) 149 (+) 145 (+) 65+ 120 (+) 146 (+) 164 (+) 130 (+) Education High 113 103 104 104 Middle 103 106 108 111 Low 113 125 (+) 139 (+) 117 (+) Social class Bourgeoisie 116 108 110 104 White-collar workers 107 115 118 107 Self-employed 111 116 128 114 Blue-collar workers 117 (+) 130 (+) 146 (+) 123 (+)
(+) increase in relevance greater than the average increase of all categories Recognition 1: people who placed themselves on the left-right axis;
Recognition 2: people who placed at least 4 out of 7 parties on the left-right axis;
Inter-subjective understanding: rate of accuracy in placing the 21 pairs of parties on the left-right axis;
Table 4. Distribution of the semantic areas used in 1975 and 2006 to describe left and right (for left and right together)
1975 2006 2006-1975
1. General ideology 15.4 13.9 -1.5
2. Equality /inequality 5.9 18.9 +13.0
3. Other values 1.8 6.4 +4.6
4. Economic dimension 1.2 11.5 +10.3
5.Social change /maintenance of
status-quo 9.3 15.2 +5.9 6. Democracy /anti-democracy 7.3 3.9 -3.3 7. Class cleavages 17.1 13.5 -3.5 8. Religion 0.6 0.2 -0.4 9. Political parties 31.0 4.1 -26.9 10.Political leaders 1.4 3.7 +2.3 11.General assessments 7.6 7.8 +0.2
12.Contingent political roles 1.4 0.8 -0.6
Total 100 100
Table 5. Distribution of the level of abstraction of the meanings attributed to left and right in 1975 and 2006 1975 2006 2006-1975 1.00 Max concreteness 28.5 9.3 -19.2 1.5 8.2 2.0 -6.2 2 13.7 11.6 -2.1 2.5 14.9 12.9 -2.0 3 16.6 23.5 +6.9 3.5 8.2 17.6 +9.4 4.00 Max abstraction 9.8 23.0 +13.2 Total 100 100 (N) (958) (931) Mean 2.234 2.920
Table 6 Regression coefficients between year (1975/2006) and abstraction
Independent variables B Beta sig. Adj. R2
Model 1: year .686 .334 .000 .111
Model 2: year, level of education
Table 7 Average levels of abstraction in the meaning of left and right by social category (range 1-4); variations between 1975 and 2006
1975 2006 Index No. in 2006 (1975=100) Age 21(18)-24 2.19 2.87 131 25-34 2.28 2.79 122 35-44 2.37 3.01 127 45-54 2.15 2.93 136 (+) 55-64 2.17 2.88 133 (+) 65+ 2.20 2.99 136 (+) Education High 2.84 3.03 107 Middle 2.52 2.97 118 Low 2.14 2.81 131 (+) Social class Bourgeoisie 2.54 3.20 126 White-collar workers 2.33 2.96 127 Self-employed 2.24 2.88 129 Blue-collar workers 2.10 2.85 136 (+)
Footnotes
The results from five of these nations, not including Italy, were reported in Barnes and Kaase (1979).
2 Itanes stands for ITAlian National Election Studies. Readers interested in this research program
should visit the website www.itanes.org.
3 We used the following questions. Closed-ended questions: (a) ‘In political matters people talk of
‘the left’ and ‘the right’. In this card there is a row of cells going from the left to the right. Thinking about your political opinions, where would you place yourself?’ (card with 10 cells); and (b)
‘Where would you place the following parties on the same scale? If you don’t know the party or the answer, please tell me you don’t know.’ As usual in this kind of questions, the scale consisted of ten horizontally ordered boxes, without an explicit midpoint and without any number or label in the boxes, except for the words ‘left’ and ‘right’ at the end points. Open-ended questions: (a) ‘What do you mean by ‘left’ in politics?’ (probe fully); and (b) ‘What do you mean by ‘right’ in politics?’ (probe fully).
4 The ordering of political parties along the left-right axis, on the basis of an average score obtained
on a 1-10 scale, corresponds to the shared representation of the Italian political system in all elections (Ricolfi 1999).
5 All of the possible 21 pairings of the 7 parties were examined. If in the standard sequence of
comparisons based on the average placement of parties by respondents, party A was further to the left of party B, the voter who placed it further to the right or gave it the same score on a ten-point scale made a mistake. We did not count as erroneous cases in which an equal score was given to parties separated by less than one point in the average score. Since there were 21 possible comparisons, the range of the variable was 0-21.
6 The question was posed only to those who responded to the question of self-placement on the
left-right axis.
7 The bulk of our analysis consisted of a comparison between 1975 and 2006, the years for which
open-ended questions on the meaning of left and right were available. When using other indicators (when available) we have been able to extend this comparison to other elections, with a better understanding of the trends under analysis. The question about the party placement on the left-right axis was not available in 1975.
8 These results may not be attributed to a general increase in the willingness or readiness of the
Italians to answer survey questions. Indeed, a linear regression analysis performed on a database merging the 1975 and the 2006 data showed that, net of respondents’ education, the number of non-responses on the common items was not significantly influenced by the year of data collection. Readers interested in examining the results of the analysis may contact the first author.
9Data not reported in the table for the sake of economizing space. Readers interested in examining
