The limits of ideological globalization Current patterns of "left and right" in different geographical regions

Political thinking in terms of "left and "right" has successfully expanded from its originating Western European context all over the globe. In all included world regions except the Middle East, at least 60 percent of the total population are ready to place themselves on a respective LR-scale. In all regions, left-right self identifications are particularly widespread among the more educated and politically active strata. However, very significant regional divergences cannot be explained neither by different micro-characteristics on the level of respondents nor with the degree of macroeconomic development. Thus, they are likely to emerge from differences in endogenous political culture. In conformity with previous studies, it was found that issue positions are better in predicting LR values on the left half of the scale, while differences between moderate and extreme rightist positions cannot be grasped well with the indicators at hand. However, this regularity is not valid in East Asia where the right scale section is more highly associated with specific political stances. Highly educated strata show more interregional variance in their degree of ideology than population with less schooling. This result evidently contradicts the widespread theoretical notion that educated strata are more likely to adopt a homogeneous Westernized culture all over the world. __________________________________________________________________________________ Bibliographic Citation: Geser Hans: The limits of ideological globalization.. In: Sociology in Switzerland: World Society and International Relations. Online Publications. Zuerich, September 2008... http://socio.ch/internat/t_hgeser5.pdf __________________________________________________________________________________ Prof. Dr. Hans Geser http://geser.net [email protected] Hans Geser: The limits of ideological globalization http://socio.ch/internat/t_hgeser5.pdf