VALUE ORIENTATIONS, POLITICAL CONFLICTS AND LEFT-RIGHT IDENTIFICATION- A COMPARATIVE-STUDY

Have the meanings of 'left' and 'right' changed during the last twenty years? In this article the ten-point left-right self-placement scale is correlated with three central value orientations (religious/secular , economic left-right and materialist/post-materialist values) to exam ine whether associations between these value orientations and the self -placement scale have changed from the early 1970s to 1990. Four theor ies about the changing meaning of the left-right language are presente d. These theories about the irrelevance, persistence, transformation a nd pluralisation of the meaning of left and right are tested by using Eurobarometer data from eight West European countries and the second w ave of the European Value Study from 1990. The data provide strong sup port for pluralisation theory. Left-right semantics have an impressive absorptive power, describing an over-arching spatial dimension capabl e of incorporating many types of conflict. Left-right semantics are si gnificantly correlated with religious/secular values, remain highly co rrelated with the dominant industrial value orientations (economic lef t-right values), and are increasingly associated with materialist/post -materialist value orientations. The new meanings of left and right ar e added to the old meanings.