Despite the importance of the Left-Right dimension in comparative politics, establishing an index that captures this dimension in both a theoretically and empirically sound manner remains an ongoing challenge for political scientists. Having reviewed existing attempts to construct measures for the Left-Right dimension, and having concluded that they are merely inductive and problematic from a methodological perspective, this article proposes a deductive approach based on Norberto Bobbio’s theory of Left and Right and suggests a combination with statistically robust measures drawn from the data provided by the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP). The fundamental features of the proposed index are: first, Left and Right are theoretical concepts which should be accounted for in the empirical analysis. Second, the Left-Right dimension is time- and country-specific. Third, different statements have different meanings on a Left-Right scale. Fourth, the importance of the Left-Right dimension itself varies over time and across countries. Finally, the data have to be analysed adequately.
AdamsJamesClarkMichaelEzrowLawrenceGlasgowGarrett (2004) ‘Understanding Change and Stability in Party Ideologies: Do Parties Respond to Public Opinion or to Past Election Results?’British Journal of Political Science34: 589–610.
2.
AdcockRobertCollierDavid (2001) ‘Measurement Validity: A Shared Standard for Qualitative and Quantitative Research’, American Political Science Review95: 529–46.
3.
BartoliniStefano (2000) The Political Mobilization of the European Left, 1860-1980: The Class Cleavage. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
4.
BartoliniStefanoMairPeter (1990) ‘Policy Competition, Spatial Distance and Electoral Instability’, West European Politics13: 1–16.
5.
BenoitKennethLaverMichael (2006) Party Policy in Modern Democracies. London: Routledge.
6.
BenoitKennethLaverMichael (2007) ‘Estimating Party Policy Positions: Comparing Expert Surveys and Hand-Coded Content Analysis', Electoral Studies26: 90–107.
7.
BiezenIngrid vanSawardMichael (2008) ‘Democratic Theorists and Party Scholars: Why They Don’t Talk to Each Other, and Why They Should’, Perspectives on Politics6: 21–35.
8.
BobbioNorberto (1996) Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction. Cambridge: Polity Press.
9.
BudgeIanRobertsonDavidHearlDerek (eds) (1987) Ideology, Strategy and Party Change: Spatial Analyses of Post-War Election Programmes in 19 Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10.
BudgeIanKlingemannHans-DieterVolkensAndreaBaraJudith L.TanenbaumEric (2001) Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments, 1945-1998. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
11.
CameronA. ColinTrivediPravin K. (1998) Regression Analysis with Count Data. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
12.
CoxTrevor F.CoxMichael A. A. (2001) Multidimensional Scaling, 2nd edn. Boca Raton, FL: Chapman & Hall.
13.
CoxonAnthony P. M. (1982) The User’s Guide to Multidimensional Scaling. London: Heinemann.
14.
DahrendorfRalf (1959) Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
15.
FranzmannSimonKaiserAndré (2006) ‘Locating Political Parties in Policy Space. A Reanalysis of Party Manifesto Data’, Party Politics12: 163–88.
16.
GabelMatthew J.HuberJohn D. (2000) ‘Putting Parties in Their Place: Inferring Party Left-Right Ideological Positions from Party Manifesto Data’, American Journal of Political Science44: 94–103.
17.
GiannettiDanielaBenoitKenneth (eds) (2009) Intra-Party Politics and Coalition Governments. London: Routledge.
18.
HarmelRobertJandaKennethTanAlexander (1995) ‘Substance vs. Packaging: An Empirical Analysis of Parties' Issue Profiles'. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.
19.
HilbeJoseph M. (2007) Negative Binomial Regression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
20.
HinichMelvin J.MungerMichael C. (1997) Analytical Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
21.
HoffmannJohn P. (2004) Generalized Linear Models. An Applied Approach. Boston, MA: Pearson.
22.
JahnDetlef (2010a) Estimating Party Positions from Party Manifestos: Bringing Theory Back In. Research Report. University of Greifswald. Available at: http://pip.uni-greifswald.de/.
23.
JahnDetlef (2010b) Setting the Agenda in Parliamentary Democracies: The Interaction of Governments and Veto Players in Environmental Politics. Working paper, Universityof Greifswald.
24.
JahnDetlef (2010c) ‘The Veto Player Approach in Macro-Comparative Politics', in KönigT.TsebelisG.DebusM. (eds) Reform Processes and Policy Change: Veto Players and Decision-Making in Modern Democracies. Berlin: Springer (forthcoming).
25.
JahnDetlefChristophOberst (2010) Cohesion of Nordic Parties in Comparative Perspective. Manuscript University of Greifswald (under review).
26.
KemanHans (2007) ‘Experts and Manifestos: Different Sources - Same Results for Comparative Research?’Electoral Studies26: 76–89.
27.
KingGary (1986) ‘How Not to Lie with Statistics: Avoiding Common Mistakes in Quantitative Political Science’, American Journal of Political Science30: 666–87.
28.
KitscheltHerbert (1994) The Transformation of European Social Democracy. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
29.
KitscheltHerbertHellemansStaf (1990) ‘The Left-Right Semantics and the New Politics Cleavage’, Comparative Political Studies23: 210–38.
30.
KlingemannHans-DieterHofferbertRichard I.BudgeIan (1994) Parties, Policies, and Democracy. Theoretical Lenses on Public Policy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
31.
KlingemannHans-DieterVolkensAndreaBaraJudith L.BudgeIanMcDonaldMichael D. (2006) Mapping Policy Preferences II: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments, 1990-2003. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
32.
LaverMichael (2001) ‘Position and Salience in the Policies of Political Actors', in LaverM. (ed.) Estimating Policy Positions of Political Actors. London: Routledge.
33.
LaverMichaelBudgeIan (1992) ‘Measuring Policy Distances and Modelling Coalition Formation’, in LaverM.BudgeI. (eds) Party Policy and Government Coalitions. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
34.
LaverMichaelGarryJohn (2000) ‘Estimating Policy Positions from Political Texts', American Journal of Political Science44: 619–34.
35.
LaverMichaelHuntBen W. (1992) Policy and Party Competition. New York: Routledge.
36.
LukesSteven (2005) ‘Epilogue: The Grand Dichotomy of the Twentieth Century’, in BallT.BellamyR. (eds) Twentieth-Century Political Thought. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
37.
MarksGaryHoogheLiesbetWilsonCarole J. (2002) ‘Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions on European Integration?’Comparative Political Studies35: 965–89.
38.
McDonaldMichael D.BudgeIan (2005) Elections, Parties, Democracy: Conferring the Median Mandate. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
39.
McDonaldMichael D.MendesSilvia M.KimMyunghee (2007) ‘Cross-Temporal and Cross-National Comparisons of Party Left-Right Positions', Electoral Studies26: 62–75.
40.
MunckGerardo L.VerkuilenJay (2002) ‘Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy. Evaluating Alternative Indices', Comparative Political Studies35: 5–34.
41.
NietzscheFriedrich (1973) Beyond Good and Evil. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
42.
PelizzoRiccardo (2003) ‘Party Positions or Party Direction? An Analysis of Party Manifesto Data’, West European Politics26: 67–89.
43.
RousseauJean-Jacques (1992) Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Indianapolis: Hackett (first published1755).
44.
SaniGiacomoSartoriGiovanni (1983) ‘Polarization, Fragmentation and Competition in Western Democracies', in DaalderHansMairPeter (eds) Western European Party Systems: Continuity and Change, pp. 307–40. London: Sage.
45.
TsebelisGeorge (2002) Veto Players. How Political Institutions Work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
46.
WarwickPaul V. (2006) Policy Horizon and Parliamentary Government. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
