What left and right mean

Volume one found that party identification and the liberal-conservative label came to line up closely in American surveys, and that party now divides Americans on abortion, on perceptions of the economy, in feeling toward the other party and in confidence in institutions. Volume two asks what the label contains. It adds economic and cultural attitudes, basic values and religion, and surveys from other countries. The apparent contradiction it examines is that a label this closely tied to party in the United States is not a fixed bundle of positions. Economic and cultural attitudes are bundled less tightly among people who share a party than among all adults, and the label follows different attitudes in different countries.

This part asks what the left-right label contains and whether it means the same thing everywhere. Economic and cultural dimensions asks whether economic and cultural conservatism form one dimension or two in the United States, and Left and right across countries asks which attitudes left-right self-placement tracks in each country but does not follow that pattern over time. The planned chapters ask who calls themselves conservative and whether they want more government spending, how income, education and church attendance sort the two dimensions, who declines to place themselves on the scale, and whether ideology connects to political action more among the educated.