8 The core currency of political

exchange

Theleft–rightdistinction,observepoliticalscientistsMichaelMcDonald,
Silvia Mendes, and Myunghee Kim, is the “core currency of political
exchange.” Like price and quantity in economic exchange, these
notions provide a simple and universal language that helps citizens,
politicians, and experts make sense of politics. Without them, col-
lective decisions and popular control over elected politicians would
be very difficult, and indeed almost impossible.^1 Intercultural and
international debates would also lose much coherence and become
hard to comprehend. But is the left–right distinction powerful enough
to extend beyond the politics of equality and distribution it usually
captures, and help us understand other global issues? And what does
this language mean for the study of global politics?
The first question concerns the heuristic value of the left–right
dichotomy. Even among those who would agree that the cleavage
between the left and the right is an enduring and encompassing one,
many would contend that, in the end, it remains too simplistic to
account for the complex universe of contemporary world politics.
Many issues, they would argue, simply reflect other divisions, outside
left–right dynamics. There is no denying that global politics does not
begin and end with the left and the right. Religious differences, for
instance, have been and remain a major source of conflict in the world.
Still, as the core currency of political exchange, the left–right cleavage
covers and shapes most questions. This chapter’s first section considers
three dominant issues of our time that have often been presented as
beyond the left–right opposition – the politics of identity, the war on
terrorism, and the global environmental debate – to illustrate the
remarkable reach of this global symbolic currency.

(^1) Michael D. McDonald, Silvia M. Mendes, and Myunghee Kim, “Cross-
Temporal and Cross-National Comparisons of Party Left–Right Positions,”
Electoral Studies, vol. 26, no. 1, March 2007, 62–75, p. 63.
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