it should be noted that on social issues such as abortion and homo-
sexuality, Latin Americans are very much divided along left–right
lines. In addition, the leftist wave that swept across Latin America at
the beginning of the twenty-first century suggests that the left–right
divide may gradually be taking root in the region. Only time will tell
whether the recent turn to the left will make a difference and meet the
expectations of the Latin American population. What is already clear,
however, is that the left–right semantics has been re-established in the
Latin American public sphere.
Also intriguing are the Eastern European cases, where the transition
to democracy gave rise to populist rhetoric in defense of neolibera-
lism, without emptying the left–right cleavage of its meaning, as can
be seen in Table2.6.^29 In contrast to Latin America, where party
systems and ideological structures remained inchoate, the transition
from communism created a strong polarization between “social pro-
tectionists and market liberalizers.”^30 Generally, this polarization
opposed ex-communists and anti-communists. In some cases, it also
involved new parties of the left that rejected the legacy of com-
munism but sought to define a European-type social-democratic path
to the market economy.^31 In spite of the complexity associated with
such labels in countries with a communist past, the left–right dicho-
tomy was thus defined basically as it is in advanced democracies,
and it helped citizens make sense of politics.^32 Hungary, here, may be
an exception. In this case, the ruling Communist Party was an early
advocate of market capitalism, and this political stance generated a
large consensus, which led politicians and voters to “associate the
meaning of the left–right semantics less with economic policy than
with socio-cultural issues.”^33
Our examination of public views across the world suggests that the
left–right divide is an ideological cleavage that political parties build
(^29) Kurt Weyland, “Neoliberal Populism in Latin America and Eastern Europe,”
30 Comparative Politics, vol. 31, no. 4, July 1999, 379–401.
Kitschelt, Mansfeldova, Markowski, and To ́ka,Post-Communist Party
31 Systems, p. 389.
Timothy Frye, “The Perils of Polarization: Economic Performance in the
Postcommunist World,”World Politics, vol. 54, no. 3, April 2002, 308–37,
pp. 312–13.
(^32) Kitschelt, Mansfeldova, Markowski, and To ́ka,Post-Communist Party
Systems, p. 402.
(^33) Ibid., p. 386.
A worldwide value divide 53