Unit 15 · Comparing Systems

In the summer of 1789, France’s new National Assembly met to decide how much power the king should keep. Members who wanted to keep a strong king and old privileges tended to sit on the right side of the hall. Members who wanted big changes, and more power for ordinary people, tended to sit on the left.

Over time those seats became labels. The left came to mean people who push for change toward greater equality. The right came to mean people who value order, tradition and gradual change. Placing everyone on a single spectrum, a line from one end to the other, became the most common way to describe politics.

The one-line model is useful because it is simple. A newspaper can say a party is center-left, and readers get a rough picture. The Italian thinker Norberto Bobbio argued that the line still means something real: in his view, the left and right differ mainly in how they feel about equality. Critics answer that one line squeezes many different questions into a single number.

Picture two people. One wants low taxes, few business rules and almost no limits on speech or personal choices. The other wants the government to own factories and also to control newspapers and travel. On a single line, both might be called extreme. But they disagree about nearly everything.

The problem is that politics asks at least two questions. The economic question asks how much the state should own, tax and plan. The social or personal question asks how much the state should direct what people say, believe and do. A libertarian wants little state power on both. An authoritarian wants a strong state that limits personal freedom, whatever its economics.

A one-line model hides these differences. The Soviet Union under Stalin and Chile under Pinochet had opposite economic plans. Stalin’s state owned nearly everything, while Pinochet’s government sold state companies and opened markets. Yet both ruled without free elections and jailed critics. One line cannot show both what they shared and where they differed.

Around 1970 an American activist named David Nolan drew a chart to show that one line was not enough. His chart, later called the Nolan chart, used two measures: economic freedom and personal freedom. Many later quizzes and textbooks built similar grids, often called two-axis models.

A common version puts economics on the horizontal axis. Left means more state planning and sharing of wealth. Right means more private property and free markets. The vertical axis runs from authoritarian at the top to libertarian at the bottom. That makes four quadrants, or boxes, plus a center.

The grid shows things a line hides. A leader who is economically left but authoritarian sits in the upper left. One who is economically right but authoritarian sits in the upper right. Critics note that the grid has limits too. Real positions on foreign policy, religion or nationalism may not fit either axis, and who places whom can reflect the placer’s own views.

Bend a straight line into a U shape, and the two ends come close together. That is the picture behind horseshoe theory. The idea, often linked to the French writer Jean-Pierre Faye, holds that the far left and far right have more in common with each other than with the center.

Supporters point to the twentieth century. Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany both used one-party rule, secret police, camps and a cult of personality, the practice of treating a leader as nearly superhuman. Both crushed independent newspapers. To supporters, how a government rules matters more than the goals it claims.

Critics say the horseshoe goes too far. They note that the far left and far right had opposite goals: one aimed at a classless society, the other at a nation ranked by race or blood. Some political scientists also argue that the model can unfairly lump peaceful critics of the center with violent extremists. The debate remains open, and careful students can test it against real cases.

In the United States, a liberal usually means someone who favors a larger role for government in helping people. In much of Europe, a liberal party often stands for free markets and lower taxes, closer to what Americans call conservative. In Australia, the main center-right party is called the Liberal Party. The same word can point in different directions.

This is the problem of context: the setting that gives words their meaning. In Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party has been the main conservative party since it formed in 1955. In Latin America, Juan Perón’s movement in Argentina, called Peronism, has had left-wing and right-wing branches under the same name.

China shows another puzzle. Its ruling Communist Party uses Marxist language, yet since the reforms that began in 1978 it has allowed private companies and large markets. Some observers call it left because of its name and one-party state. Others stress its markets. Careful readers ask what a party actually does, not only what it is called.

Walk through a Singapore neighborhood and you will see tall apartment blocks built by the government’s Housing and Development Board. Most Singapore residents live in these public housing flats, which many families own on long leases. That sounds like a strong state role in daily life.

Yet Singapore is also known for open trade, low income taxes and welcoming global companies. The People’s Action Party, led for decades by Lee Kuan Yew, has won every national election since 1959. Elections are held regularly, but critics point to strict limits on protest and a press that rarely challenges the government. Many observers describe the system as a dominant-party state.

Supporters credit this mix with turning a small port into one of the richest places in Asia, with low crime and clean government. Critics argue that prosperity came with too little room for dissent. On a two-axis grid, Singapore might sit right of center on economics and above the center on authority. Its own leaders often rejected Western labels altogether.

A Swedish parent can take paid leave for more than a year after a child is born, shared between both parents. University is free for Swedish students, and health care is mostly public. These are features of a welfare state, a system where the government provides a wide safety net paid for by taxes.

Sweden’s Social Democratic Party led the government for most of the twentieth century and built much of this system. Taxes are high by world standards. Yet most Swedish companies are privately owned, and famous firms like Volvo, IKEA and Ericsson began as private businesses. Sweden also trades heavily with the world. Many call this mix social democracy.

People read Sweden in different ways. Some on the left see proof that a large safety net can work with a strong economy. Some on the right note that Sweden cut some taxes and opened schools and services to private providers from the 1990s on, and credit those market reforms. Both sides use Sweden as evidence, which shows how case studies can be argued.

In 1970 Chileans elected Salvador Allende, a Marxist who promised a peaceful road to socialism. His government took over copper mines and many large farms and businesses. Supporters saw a fairer country taking shape. Critics pointed to shortages, soaring prices and deep division between Chileans.

On September 11, 1973, the armed forces overthrew Allende in a coup, the seizure of power by force. Allende died during the attack on the presidential palace. General Augusto Pinochet then ruled as a dictator until 1990. Thousands of people were killed or disappeared, and many more were jailed or tortured, as Chile’s own later truth commissions documented.

Pinochet’s government brought in economists trained at the University of Chicago, often called the Chicago Boys. They sold state companies, cut trade barriers and set up private pension accounts. Supporters credit these policies with later growth. Critics say growth came with high inequality and cannot be separated from the repression. Chile shows free-market economics and harsh authoritarian rule in one government.

Since 1955, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, has led the government for nearly all years, with brief breaks such as 1993 to 1994 and 2009 to 2012. Voters choose freely among several parties. Yet the LDP has usually won, which makes Japan a democracy with long one-party leadership.

The LDP is called conservative, yet Japan’s postwar model did not follow a simple free-market script. For decades, government ministries guided industry, and many large firms offered lifetime employment, the promise of a job until retirement. Japan also built universal health insurance in 1961. Supporters said this created stability and shared growth.

After Japan’s economic slowdown in the 1990s, critics argued that close ties between ministries and firms slowed change. Others defended the model’s focus on consensus, meaning decisions reached with broad agreement. Japan shows that a right-of-center party can support public health insurance and a guided economy. Labels must be matched to what a party actually does.

Imagine a student takes an online political quiz and learns she is center-left. The next day a classmate calls her a communist. That jump is the danger of models. A model is a simplification, a picture that leaves out detail so we can see a pattern. It is not the full truth about a person.

Real people hold mixed views. A farmer might support trade protection, which some call left, and also favor strong local churches, which some call right. Surveys by researchers such as the Pew Research Center have found that many Americans hold views that mix positions from both sides. A single dot on a grid cannot show that.

Using a model well means a few habits. Place ideas and policies, not whole people. Say which axis you mean. Admit that placements can be argued. Avoid a stereotype, a fixed belief that everyone in a group thinks the same way. Models are tools for thinking; people deserve to be heard in their own words.

In 1991 the Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington published The Third Wave. He noticed that countries did not become democracies one at a time at random. They moved in groups, like waves rolling onto a beach. Each wave was followed by a reverse wave, when some new democracies fell back into dictatorship.

Huntington’s first long wave ran from the 1820s to the 1920s, as voting rights widened in the United States and Europe. A reverse wave followed with fascism and military rule in the 1920s and 1930s. A second wave came after World War II. The third wave began in Portugal in 1974 and swept through southern Europe, Latin America, East Asia and, after 1989, Eastern Europe.

Huntington offered several causes: economic growth, changes in the Catholic Church, pressure from the United States and Europe, and snowballing, the way one country’s change inspires its neighbors. Critics note that waves are easier to see looking back, and that each country’s story has its own local causes. The model is a starting point, not a law.

On April 25, 1974, army officers in Portugal overthrew a dictatorship that had lasted nearly half a century. Crowds put red carnations in the soldiers’ rifles, and the event became known as the Carnation Revolution. After two unsettled years, Portugal adopted a democratic constitution in 1976.

Spain took a different road. Francisco Franco had ruled as dictator since the Civil War ended in 1939. After his death in 1975, King Juan Carlos and Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez led a transition, a planned move from one system to another. Spain held free elections in 1977 and approved a new constitution in 1978. Leaders of left and right made deals so the change could hold.

The test came on February 23, 1981. Armed members of the Civil Guard stormed the parliament during a vote. The king went on television in uniform and backed the constitution, and the coup attempt failed. Supporters of Spain’s path praise its compromises. Critics argue that a 1977 amnesty law meant crimes of the dictatorship were never tried in court.

After 1961, South Korea was ruled for most years by military-backed leaders. The economy grew fast, turning a poor country into an industrial one. But elections were limited and critics were jailed. In 1980 the government crushed an uprising in the city of Gwangju, killing many civilians.

In 1987, President Chun Doo-hwan’s government refused to change the indirect way presidents were chosen. The June Democracy Movement followed: weeks of protests joined by students, workers and middle-class families. On June 29, the ruling party’s candidate, Roh Tae-woo, announced that the government would accept a direct election, in which citizens vote for the president themselves.

Scholars give several reasons the government gave way. The protests were huge and spread across the country. Seoul was set to host the 1988 Olympics, and the world was watching. A growing middle class had joined students in the streets. South Korea later saw power pass peacefully to former opposition leaders such as Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung.

From 1949 Taiwan was governed by the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, which had retreated there after losing China’s civil war. Taiwan lived under martial law, rule with military powers that limited parties, the press and public protest. Critics of the government could be arrested.

Change came in steps. In 1986 activists formed the Democratic Progressive Party, even though new parties were not yet legal. President Chiang Ching-kuo did not crush it, and in 1987 his government lifted martial law. His successor, Lee Teng-hui, the first Taiwan-born president, continued reforms. In 1996 Taiwan held its first direct presidential election, and Lee won.

In 2000 the opposition candidate Chen Shui-bian won the presidency, and the Nationalists handed over power peacefully. Political scientists call this a peaceful transfer of power, and many see a first one as a key test. Taiwan’s path shows reform can come partly from inside a ruling party, pushed by pressure from outside it.

Under apartheid, South Africa’s system of racial separation from 1948, Black South Africans could not vote in national elections and were forced into separate areas, schools and jobs. People resisted for decades, through strikes, boycotts, church leaders and movements like the African National Congress (ANC). Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison.

By the late 1980s, protests at home, economic sanctions from abroad and a costly economy pressed the government. In 1990 President F. W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and released Mandela. Years of hard negotiation followed, with violence threatening to derail the talks. Mandela and de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

On April 27, 1994, millions of South Africans lined up, many voting for the first time in their lives. The ANC won, and Mandela became president. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission later heard testimony about abuses. Some praised it for helping the country heal. Others felt it gave too little justice to victims.

In Poland, the independent trade union Solidarity, led by electrician Lech Wałęsa, grew from shipyard strikes in 1980 into a movement of millions. The government banned it, but by 1989 it had to negotiate. In partly free elections in June 1989, Solidarity candidates won nearly every seat they were allowed to contest.

Change raced across the region. Hungary opened its border with Austria. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall opened, and crowds crossed freely. In Czechoslovakia, peaceful mass protests brought the Velvet Revolution, and the writer Václav Havel became president. In Romania, by contrast, the change was violent, and the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu was executed.

Many of these countries later joined the European Union and NATO. Their paths since have differed. Some built lasting courts and free press. Others have faced disputes over whether governments have weakened checks on power. Scholars still debate why 1989 happened so fast; many point to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s decision not to send troops.

Pinochet’s 1980 constitution called for a plebiscite, a yes-or-no vote, on whether he would stay in power for eight more years. It was held on October 5, 1988. Many feared the vote would be rigged, but opposition parties, from the center to the left, joined forces behind the No campaign.

The No campaign used television spots full of music, humor and a rainbow logo, promising that joy was coming. Volunteers trained poll watchers to guard the count. The No side won about 56 percent of the vote. Pinochet accepted the result, partly because some members of his own government and the armed forces refused to overturn it.

In 1989 Chileans elected Patricio Aylwin, a Christian Democrat, and he took office in 1990. The transition kept limits that Pinochet had built in: he stayed head of the army until 1998, and some seats in the Senate were appointed. Chileans debated these limits for decades. The case shows a negotiated transition, where old rulers keep some power as they leave.

In the past, democracies often ended with tanks in the streets. Political scientists today describe a quieter path they call democratic backsliding: an elected government slowly weakens the rules that let voters remove it. Each step may look legal. Together they tilt the field.

Harvard scholars Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt describe this in How Democracies Die (2018). They argue that democracies depend on written rules and also on norms, unwritten habits such as accepting defeat and treating rivals as legitimate. When leaders break those habits, the written rules alone may not protect democracy.

The result can be what some scholars call competitive authoritarianism: elections still happen, but the ruling side controls courts, media and election rules so tightly that the opposition can rarely win. Scholars debate where to draw the line, and governments accused of backsliding usually reject the label. Careful students weigh the evidence case by case.

Think of a car’s dashboard. A single warning light does not mean the engine has failed, but it tells the driver to look closer. Political scientists watch several lights in a democracy. The first is the rule of law: the idea that everyone, including leaders, must obey the same laws.

A second light is independent courts. Judges must be free to rule against the government. Warning signs include packing courts with loyal judges, ignoring rulings or removing judges early. A third light is a free press. Signs of trouble include jailing reporters, forcing critical outlets to close or letting allies buy up media.

Other lights include fair election rules and the right to protest. Groups such as Freedom House and V-Dem, a research project based in Sweden, rate countries on measures like these every year. Their ratings are widely used but also debated, since experts must make judgment calls. No single light proves a democracy is failing; patterns across many lights matter most.

In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez won the presidency in 1998 promising to use oil wealth to help the poor, and many Venezuelans credit him with new social programs. Over time his government and that of his successor, Nicolás Maduro, gained control of the courts and the election authority, and critical TV stations lost their licenses. Many political scientists describe Venezuela as having moved from democracy to authoritarian rule.

In Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s right-leaning Fidesz party won a two-thirds majority in 2010 and wrote a new constitution. Supporters say he defended national sovereignty and traditional values. Critics, including European Union bodies, have said his government weakened courts, reshaped media ownership and redrew election rules in its favor. Hungary still holds competitive elections.

The lesson is that backsliding is not owned by one side. Scholars watch checks and balances, the ways branches of government limit each other, no matter who is in power. Leaders accused of backsliding usually say they are carrying out the voters’ will against elites. Careful citizens ask the same questions of governments they like and governments they do not.