over time, to reach voters and present meaningful competitive stances
in the public sphere. To a large extent, the left–right terminology is
thus a product of democratic governance. Yet, even in less competi-
tive, authoritarian systems, notions of left and right have a place in
public debates. In Iran, for instance, the ruling elites divide into a
reformist and a conservative camp, and fight over the possibilities of
democratization, cultural opening, and economic liberalization. To
be sure, many of the reformists are not “Jeffersonian democrats,” and
they still believe in the unity of mosque and state.^34 Likewise, the
country’s conservatives do not have the commitment to freedom that
one usually finds among right-wing politicians in liberal democracies.
Still, this protracted conflict highlights a clear and familiar ideological
cleavage, which the Iranian daily press readily interprets as one where
right is opposed to left.^35 Our data on Iran indicates that this conflict
does not structure public opinion as powerfully as it would in old,
well-established democracies, where political debates are open and
well publicized. Just a few years of electoral democracy, however,
could make a difference, as can be seen in the former Soviet sphere of
influence, where the left–right semantics rapidly demonstrated its
“formidable power.”^36
Conclusion
Studies of the cultural divides that shape the world tend to draw lines
between countries and civilizations. Divergences between the West
and the Islamic world, in particular, are seen as profound and
significant. These divergences, argue Ronald Inglehart and Pippa
Norris, are not located so much in distinctive levels of support for
democracy, as in markedly different views about gender equality,
divorce, abortion, and homosexuality.^37 It is not our intention to deny
such differences. In this book, however, we wish to emphasize, as do
(^34) Jahangir Amuzegar, “Iran’s Crumbling Revolution,”Foreign Affairs, vol. 82,
35 no. 1, January/February 2003, 44–58.
Afshin Matin-asgari, “From Social Democracy to Social Democracy: The
Twentieth-Century Odyssey of the Iranian Left,” in Stephanie Cronin (ed.),
Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the
Iranian Left, London, Routledge, 2004, p. 50.
(^36) Ibid., p. 283.
(^37) Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris, “The True Clash of Civilizations,”Foreign
Policy, no. 135, March/April 2003, 67–74.
54 Left and Right in Global Politics