the plague.”^66 In the end, one should recognize that both sides may
engender authoritarian forces. Left-wing authoritarianism is usually
legitimated in the name of equality and of people’s democracy; right-
wing authoritarianism in the name of security, order, and tradition.
The left–right cleavage, then, is a powerful social fact, an ideological
division that has coherence and that holds because people collectively
believe in its significance and act accordingly. This conflict, which
gradually became universal around the beginning of the twentieth
century, opposes two views of human nature and two conceptions of
equality, and it shapes many cultural traits as well as most of the
world’s political debates. In constant evolution, the left–right duality is
constructed by a variety of agents, be they individuals, groups, move-
ments, parties, or states. It also constitutes these agents, contributing to
define their identities and to situate them more or less in opposition or
in alliance with other social actors. The left–right metaphor structures
the primary cleavage through which, together, we debate the world.
Isn’t global politics more complex?
Many readers may object that a single ideological cleavage cannot a
world make, and they would be right. A number of issues unrelated or
weakly related to the left–right division fuel political debates. Our
point is simply that no other question tells us as much as this one
about the conflicts governing our societies. Let us consider, briefly, a
number of plausible counter-arguments.
First, some would reject the very idea of reducing world debates to
two master narratives, arguing that this analytic choice is simplistic,
reductive, and possibly inimical to democratic debates, best premised
on diversity. Against this objection, we can only bring back the classical
response of Rene ́Re ́mond, who agreed that the left–right duality
simplified reality, but noted that this was how social actors under-
stood politics.^67 In general, humans tend to represent the world with
binary classifications and polar opposites, and it is hardly surprising
that politics is also understood in dichotomous terms, with one
(^66) A few months later, Thorez joined in a “Popular Front” with other parties of
the left. Thorez is quoted in Gauchet, “La droite et la gauche,” p. 428 (our
translation).
(^67) Re ́mond,Les droites en France, p. 29.
26 Left and Right in Global Politics