Comments on the left-right ideological map
Is Noboa a leftist? How should we classify politicians who align with China? Does left-right mean anything useful?
Last week, I published a map of upcoming elections. It received a fair number of comments and critiques that provide nuance to the map, enough to fill another newsletter. So here we go.
The key point of the map remains accurate. Lula, Boric, Arce, Petro, and Castro all clearly define themselves as leftists and are seen by the political universe as leftists. All of their governments face tough elections in the coming 18 months. Right now, I think the ruling party is in deep trouble in Chile, Bolivia, and Colombia (upsets in any of them are possible, but better than even odds that those countries go 0 for 3). It’s probably even odds in Brazil, depending heavily on who Lula’s main opponent ends up being (assuming the president runs). Ruling party candidate Rixi Moncada is currently a narrow favorite in Honduras (a topic for tomorrow’s newsletter), though that election is also far from certain.
All of that means that I think the key point of the map remains accurate. A group of left-leaning leaders are going into election years and most are unlikely to win.
So what did I get wrong?
Daniel Noboa calls himself a leftist. I knew this, had written about it before, and conveniently forgot about it when I made this map. If I’m labeling this map based on how presidents self-identify, then it’s wrong to label Ecuador as being led by a rightwing president.
The take that Noboa is a rightwinger comes from the fact that he appears to be pro-business, the son of a wealthy right-wing political patriarch, sought the support of Donald Trump, engaged in a very militaristic buildup, and is clearly to the right in terms of economic policy of Rafael Correa and Luisa Gonzalez, both of whom define themselves as leftist. For all those reasons, if you were to ask the average Ecuadorian voter or LatAm pundit, me included, they’d score him on the right side of the political spectrum.
But Noboa also has supported some center-left, social democratic economic policies. If he didn’t have Correa off to his far left and had faced a politician like Guillermo Lasso or Jan Topic instead in this last election, it would be easier to imagine him being labeled as a center-left candidate. And the fact remains, Noboa calls himself a leftist and likes to compare himself to Lula, not Bukele or Trump or Bolsonaro or Milei.
One final issue in this is that Noboa is a very savvy political communicator who likely sees some benefit in self-defining as a center-left figure over the long term.
Bukele came from the left and now portrays himself as neither left nor right. In fact, he has regularly attacked the main left and right parties of the country. Once again, I think Bukele’s current international alliances, including his closeness to Trump’s team, have analysts classifying him as a rightwing politician. His austerity measures as president represent more of a rightwing economic ideology than a leftist or statist view.
Peru has a mostly (but not completely) right-wing coalition running the government. Further, that coalition is likely to remain in power following the next election in terms of controlling the uber-powerful legislature, no matter what happens to the presidency. That rightwing narrative isn’t totally clear-cut, however, with the leftwing Vladimir Cerron also playing an influential role, while the right itself faces internal divisions that could spike during the election. Despite Boluarte being elected as Pedro Castillo’s running mate, that complicated story out of Peru makes it hard to throw simply into the group of leftwing leaders, something I knew when I colored in the map.
All of this leads to a broader question about defining left and right, as well as the problems associated with each potential definition.
How the presidents/politicians define themselves - of course, politicians can be deceptive about this to position themselves
How the average analyst, political scientist, or voter identifies them - this requires some sort of survey and doing that survey still gets us back to all these other questions
What are their economic policies? - Left = more government support for social welfare; right = less government. This is the old Cold War framing that largely stands to this day, but probably needs major updating. This also starts to break down as self-described rightwing politicians become more populist in their economic policies and leftwing politicians sometimes find benefits in economic orthodoxy or austerity.
What are their security policies? - Some of this is also a Cold War framing, but there is a perception that rightwing politicians want bigger and meaner militaries and leftwing politicians are softer. That doesn’t hold up for a lot of reasons (for example, Cuba being the most repressive police state in the hemisphere, even tougher than El Salvador), but continues to be the perception. The whole question of military and security issues ultimately muddles any discussion of left-right that tries to take place on a solely economic spectrum.
Who are their international allies? - If we’re looking to classify politicians into groups across a region or the world, then we can base it around who they ally with internationally. Even then, there are major differences among classifying leaders as being allies of Trump or Biden or Xi or Maduro or Lula or Milei or the US or China or Russia or Merz or Macron or Meloni, etc. There isn’t a clear left vs right classification internationally either where the groups are crystal clear.
Know it when we see it - We all classify politicians this way in our heads, but it’s analytically weak and doesn’t provide a consistent methodology.
I’ve been struggling with this right vs left issue for decades. There was a time when I was ready to throw it all out and say none of it matters; we should discard the terms completely. However, many politicians and voters use those frames in ways that have some relevance to how they view policies, alliances, and antagonists. So there is some use in trying to map it out, even as all maps are ultimately flawed and missing nuance. I’ll try to use my thoughts above to make more maps. Keep sending the comments, questions, and criticisms.