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In Search of Left/Right Beliefs in the Canadian Electorate*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Ronald D. Lambert ,
James E. Curtis ,
Steven D. Brown  and
Barry J. Kay
Ronald D. Lambert
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
James E. Curtis
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
Steven D. Brown
Affiliation:
Wilfrid Laurier University
Barry J. Kay
Affiliation:
Wilfrid Laurier University
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Abstract

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We report on findings from alternative ways of assessing the meaning given to “left” and “right” by respondents in the 1984 National Election Study. Approximately 40 per cent of the sample supplied definitions of the concepts; in comparison, about 60 per cent stated their feelings toward left-wingers and right-wingers and described their political orientations using a seven-point left/right rating scale. Left signified socialism or communism for about one-half of those who supplied definitions, and dislike for left-wingers seemed to be associated with these conceptions of left. Right, which was much more highly regarded than left, signified conservatism for one-quarter of those who defined the term. We also factor analyzed respondents' self-ratings on the left/right scale along with their answers to 15 attitude statements. Left was weakly associated with support for labour's use of the strike weapon. In a criterion group of respondents who had completed university and who had ventured definitions of left and right, self-ratings correlated with factors tapping attitudes toward the military and toward economic disparity and social welfare. As expected, respondents' ratings of themselves on the left/right scale were more similar to their ratings of their preferred parties than to their ratings of other parties. The relationship between self-ratings and ratings of preferred parties generally varied directly with the strength of party identification. We conclude with some observations about the political utility of political labels such as left and right.

Résumé

Cet article s'attache à l'interprétation à donner aux images de « gauche » et de « droite » entretenues par l'électorat canadien, telles que révélées par le sondage pan-canadien de 1984. Alors qu'environ 40 pour cent des personnes définissent ces concepts, 60 pour cent expriment leurs attitudes à l'égard des gauchistes et des droitistes et situent leur orientation politique sur une échelle de sept points s'étendant de l'extrême-droite à l'extrême-gauche. Environ la moitié des personnes définissant la gauche l'associent au communisme ou au socialisme, d'où leur aversion pour les gauchistes. La droite, beaucoup plus prisée, évoque le conservatisme chez le quart des gens. Les gauchistes tendent à appuyer le recours à la grève et les diplômés universitaires, selon qu'ils sont de droite ou de gauche, manifestent des attitudes caractéristiques à l'égard du militarisme, des disparités économiques et des mesures sociales. Tel que prévu, il y a un lien net entre, d'une part, l'orientation partisane et son intensité et. d'autre part, l'étiquette de gauchiste ou de droitiste qu'on s'attribue et qu'on attribue aux partis politiques. L'article se termine par une évaluation de l'utilité politique de telles étiquettes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 541 - 564
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1986

References

1 Ogmundson, R. L.“A Note on the Ambiguous Meanings of Survey Research Measures Which Use the Words ‘Left’ and ‘Right,’” this JOURNAL 12 (1979), 800.Google Scholar Similar doubts concerning Canadians' understanding of left/right are expressed in Lambert, Ronald D. and Hunter, Alfred A., “Social Stratification, Voting Behaviour, and the Images of Canadian Federal Political Parties,” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 16(1979). 302.Google Scholar Compare, Lambert, Ronald D., “Question Design. Response Set and the Measurement of Left/Right Thinking in Survey Research,” this JOURNAL 16(1983). 135–44.Google Scholar

2 Butler, David and Stokes, Donald noted the same problem in Political Change in Britain: The Evolution of Electoral Choice (2nd ed.; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1974), 332–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Laponce, Jean A., Left and Right: The Topography of Political Perceptions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), chap. 6;Google Scholar “Note on the Use of the Left-Right Dimension,” Comparative Political Studies 2 (1970), 481–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Barnes, Samuel H. and Kaase, Max (eds.), Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979)Google Scholar. Concerning popular understanding of left/right, see also Laponce, Jean“In Search of the Stable Elements of the Left-Right Landscape,” Comparative Politics 4 (1972), 458;CrossRefGoogle ScholarButler, and Stokes, Social Change in Britain, 328–34;Google Scholar Ronald Inglehart and Hans D. Klingemann “Party Identification, Ideological Preference, and the Left/Right Dimension Among Western Mass Publics, ” in Budge, lan, Crewe, Ivor and Farlie, Dennis (eds.). Party Identification and Beyond (London: John Wiley, 1976), 248.Google Scholar For the cognate concepts of liberal/conservative, see: Conover, Pamela Johnston and Feldman, Stanley, “The Origins and Meaning of Liberal/Conservative Self-Identifications,” American Journal of Political Science 25 (1981). 636–40;CrossRefGoogle ScholarLuttbeg, Norman R. and Gant, Michael M., “The Failure of Liberal/Conservative as a Cognitive Structure,” Public Opinion Quarterly 49 (1985), 82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Klingemann, Hans D., “Measuring Ideological Conceptualizations.” in Barnes, and Kasse, (eds.). Political Action, 229.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., 232.

7 The assumption of greater regard for the right than the left is supported in the following studies: Elkins, David J., “The Perceived Structure of the Canadian Party Systems,” this JOURNAL 7 (1974), 510;Google ScholarCurtis, James E. and Lambert, Ronald D., “Educational Status and Reactions to Social and Political Heterogeneity,” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 13 (1976), 194;Google ScholarKay, Barry J., “An Examination of Class and Left-Right Party Images in Canadian Voting,” this JOURNAL 10 (1977), 132, 138;Google Scholar Lambert, “Question Design,” 140.

8 Ogmundson, Rick, “On the Measurement of Party Class Positions: The Case of Canadian Federal Political Parties,” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 12 (1975), 572.Google Scholar Other researchers have suggested the same two dimensions for liberal/conservative. See, for example, Conover and Feldman, “Liberal/Conservative Self-Identifications,” 635. Laponce, , especially, has documented the religious origins and meanings inherent in left/right (“Dieu—à droite ou à gauche?” this JOURNAL 3 [1970], 257–74).Google Scholar

9 A number of researchers have attempted to determine the meaning of left/right and liberalism/conservatism indirectly through correlations. For example, see the following on left/right: Gibbins, Roger and Nevitte, Neil, “Canadian Political Ideology: A Comparative Analysis,” this JOURNAL 18 (1985), 577–98;Google Scholarlnglehart, Ronald and Sidjanski, Dusan, “The Left, the Right, the Establishment and the Swiss Electorate,” in Budge, Ian, et al. (eds.), Party Identification and Beyond, 235–39.Google Scholar See the following on liberal/conservative: Converse, Philip E., “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics,” in Apter, D. E. (ed.), Ideology and Discontent (New York: Free Press, 1964), 227–29;Google Scholar Conover and Feldman, “Liberal/Conservative Self-Identifications,” 627–28, 634–35; Luttbeg and Gant, “Failure of Liberal/Conservative,” 86–90.

10 See Arian, Asher and Shamir, Michal, “The Primarily Political Functions of the Left-Right Continuum,” Comparative Politics 15 (1983), 139–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Lambert, R. D., Brown, S. D., Curtis, J. E., Kay, B. J. and Wilson, J. M.. 1984 National Election Study Codebook, Preliminary Version (Waterloo, 1985).Google Scholar

12 We asked the following question after the open-ended questions about left and right: “What do you think is the main difference between ‘left’ and ‘right’ or between ‘left-wing’and ‘right-wing’? Anything else?” We have analyzed the answers to the questions asking separately about left and right because the response rates for them were higher than for the question that combined left and right.

13 The introductory statements reads as follows: “For the next few questions I would like you to use this scale which goes from left to right, with 1 being the most to the left and 7 being the most to the right.” A card displaying the scale was shown to the respondent. Respondents were then asked the following: “When you think of your own political opinions, where would you put yourself on this scale?” They were also asked to rate the federal Liberal, Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties, in that order.

14 Respondents were asked the following: (1) The government should see that everyone has adequate housing; (2) Doctors and hospitals should not be allowed to extra bill or charge patients more than what the government health plans pay them; (3) The difference between the rich and the poor is too great in Canada; (4) Government employees should not have the right to strike; (5) During a strike, management should not be allowed to hire workers to take the place of strikers; (6) It is not the responsibility of government to assure jobs for unemployed Canadians; (7) Canada should increase its military contributions to NATO; (8) People with high incomes should pay a greater share of the taxes than they do now; (9) The government should see to it that older and retired people have enough money to live on; (10) The US and its allies should aim for superiority in nuclear weapons; (11) The government should increase the employment opportunities available to women; (12) There should be capital punishment for anyone convicted of murder; (13) Pornographic magazines and movies should be censored; (14) The decision to have an abortion should be the responsibility of the pregnant woman: (15) People who are homosexuals should be permitted to teach school. The response options were: strongly agree; agree somewhat; neither agree nor disagree; disagree somewhat; strongly disagree. “No opinions” were declared missing.

15 In particular, see Evans, Samuel and Hildebrandt, Kai, “Technical Appendix.” in Barnes, and Kaase, (eds.), Political Action. 559–62.Google Scholar

16 A theme was coded for negative instances (for example, opposition to socialism) as well as positive instances (for example, support for socialism).

17 It is also undoubtedly the case that some of the “substantive” answers merely expressed respondents' feelings; unfortunately, we cannot separate out these responses except to code as evaluations answers that were patently evaluative in nature.

18 We also checked the definitions of left and right given by respondents in this criterion group. Comparing their answers with the answers given by less educated respondents, respondents in this criterion group were more likely to define both concepts in terms of orientations toward social change, interest groups and various specific issues. They were less likely to cite themes having to do with parties, leaders and politics and to use judgmental descriptions as definitions. In addition, the highly educated respondents in the criterion group placed less emphasis on communism and more emphasis on socialism in their definitions of left. Conservatism and free enterprise figured more prominently in their definitions of right. The criterion group strategy was also employed by Gibbins and Nevitte, “Canadian Political Ideology,” 580–81.

19 The percentage of respondents who rated themselves to the left of centre (that is, 1, 2 or 3 on the 7-point scale) was 11.6 percent. When asked to recall where they were five years before, in 1979, 15.2 per cent placed themselves on the left. (The actual figure for a different sample of respondents in the 1979 National Election Study was 14.1%). In 1984, 36.8, 17.4 and 5.4 per cent rated the NDP, the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives to the left of centre. Forcomparisons with the earlier National Election Surveys, see Lambert, “Question Design,” 140.

20 Laponce, , Left and Right, 117, 119. 122–23.Google Scholar See also Stevenson, Paul. “Class and Left-Wing Radicalism,” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 14 (1977), 280–82.Google Scholar

21 It is noteworthy that respondents who did not define left and right produced the same order among the parties, with the NDPon the left, the Liberals in the centre and the Conservatives on the right. “Knowledgeable” respondents, however, saw the NDP farther to the left and the Conservatives farther to the right than did respondents who failed to define left and right. While the mean rating for the Liberals was 4.2 in both cases, the spread between the NDP and the Conservatives was 1.4 scale points for people who did not define the concepts, compared to 2.5 scale points for those who did. In short, knowledgeable respondents perceived a more polarized party system. This difference does not appear to be attributable to respondents' own position on the left/right scale, since the self-rating for knowledgeable respondents was 4.4. and for the less knowledgeable respondents, it was 4.3.

22 Ogmundson, “On the Measurement.” 572.

23 Inglehart, Ronald, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977)Google Scholar, chap. 2: “Value Priorities and Socioeconomic Change,” in Barnes, and Kaase, (eds.), Political ActionGoogle Scholar, chap. II. Compare, Savage, James, “Postmaterialism of the Left and Right: Political Conflict in Postindustrial Society,” Comparative Political Studies 17 (1985), 448–49;CrossRefGoogle ScholarInglehart, Ronald, “New Perspectives on Value Change: Response to Lafferty and Knutsen, Savage, and Boltken and Jagodzinski,” Comparative Political Studies 17 (1985), 485–532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Sniderman and his colleagues discuss the contribution of positivity and negativity to the psychological processes of assimilation and contrast. See Sniderman, Paul M., Brody, Robert A., Siegel, Jonathan W. and Tannenbaum, Percy H., “Evaluative Bias and Issue Proximity,” Political Behavior 4 (1982), 118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar