the left–right division, understood as the core currency of political
exchange, suggests instead that debates are unavoidable, inherent in
political life, and foundational for democracy.
Adding to the usual constructivist accounts, a focus on the left–right
distinction also helps to see that there is a definite order to political
debates. As explained in thefirst chapter, this order, which entails
distinct conceptions of equality, emerged with democratic politics and
gradually gained currency, to spread all over the world and encompass
a wide range of questions and issues. Thesecond chapterdocuments
this ubiquity of the left and the right, and shows that people almost
everywhere understand the distinction, and can locate themselves on a
left–right continuum, in a manner that is consistent with their views
about equality, the role of the state, and a host of related social values
and attitudes. Only in authoritarian or newly democratic countries are
these perceptions of left and right less focused, but the situation may
be changing rapidly, as is suggested by the politics of Latin America in
the 2000s. In international discourse, as Chapter3 indicates, the same
dichotomy can be found, and it organizes clearly opposed views of
globalization, each side choosing to highlight certain facts and figures.
Rarely used to analyze international relations, the left–right distinc-
tion undoubtedly captures important differences that are at stake in
the contemporary debates about world politics.
The next chapters follow the evolution of this global ideological rift
from the American Revolution in 1776 to the International Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2006. Our survey is necessarily
sketchy, because the objective was not to write a history of the left–
right debate, but rather to explore the main dimensions of this uni-
versal cleavage. Chapter4 starts with the foundations, and explains
how democracy, war and peace, capitalism and socialism, and the
colonial enterprise were all interpreted and debated through the lens
of left–right politics. Chapter5 then takes a closer look at the postwar
era of embedded liberalism. This era was indeed a good one for the
left, which was largely able to impose its views of macro-economic
management for full employment, of organized industrial relations,
and of universal and generous welfare policies. Internationally, though,
History: Political Science in the United States, Ann Arbor, University of
Michigan Press, 1993, p. 391; John S. Dryzek,Discursive Democracy: Politics,
Policy, and Political Science, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 4–7.232 Left and Right in Global Politics