Talk:List of left and far-left parties in Europe

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Listing[edit]

I fail to see any purpose of the left/radical left/far-left/extreme left labels in this table. If anything, it just illustrates that there are no consensus amongst political scientists on how to define parties along the left-right axis. Each author uses a personal set of definitions for more or less the same terms, making comparisons useless. Also, the 'populist', 'reform', 'conservative', etc. labels also becoming meaningless, and in essence POV. --Soman (talk) 12:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Also, the "Left" parties of Europe are not normally called "far left". Maybe we should change the title to "List of "Left" parties in Europe". TFD (talk) 15:53, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. Authors make meaningful distinctions between just left-wing parties and the far-left, even if there are dissenting voices as to the exact classification of a party.Estlandia (dialogue) 18:38, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The distinction they make is that what you call "just left-wing parties" are described as socialist, while the parties you call "far left" are described as "Left". Labelling parties you don't like "far left" may be a lot of fun, but does nothing to elucidate readers. It is misleading because in normal parlance, "far left" refers to groups that operate outside democratic and parliamentary institutions. What we are doing is using the ambiguity of language to make assertions about groups that do not appear in the sources, not something an encyclopedia should do, best left to polemical writers. TFD (talk) 18:51, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think you need to refactor your comment, particularly: "What we are doing is using the ambiguity of language to make assertions about groups that do not appear in the sources", is totally and demonstrably unfounded and thus a PA, every group here is mentioned in the cited sources. --Nug (talk) 20:30, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The sources provided make distinction between left and the far-left. All your arguments seem to boil down to the wish to deny this reality, viz. that 'far-left' exists. As an illustration, in Greece, PASOK represents centre-left, DIMAR represents left, SYRIZA represents left to radical left and the KKE represents far left.Estlandia (dialogue) 19:01, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Again that is your terminology and rarely used. No one is interested in how you map the Left. The KKE is normally described as a "Communist Party". TFD (talk) 19:50, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The subdivision of the left into centre-left and the far-left (which in turn is subdivided into the radical-left and extreme-left) has been published in reliable sources. --Nug (talk) 20:30, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You can find the same parties classified in a multitude of ways. The question is what is most common, most accepted? Other than yourself and people who hold similar opinions, this classification is rare. TFD (talk) 20:40, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly disagree. If an author who evidentially has the letters 'F', 'A' and 'R' on his keyboard, and uses the terms 'radical left' or 'far left' in other relations, deliberately uses the term "left" without any attributes, you can assume that this is meaningful. --RJFF (talk) 21:03, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, if you have an article List of reptiles and crocodiles in Australia, you can't just move it to List of crocodiles in Australia, and omit all the other reptiles. We could discuss moving to List of left parties in Europe, omitting the "far left", as it is a subset of "left".--RJFF (talk) 21:06, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You are just speculating, as these particular authors do not explicitly explain in their source why they use the term "left" without any attributes. Well, you split this list from Far-left politics without achieving consensus, then unilaterally broadened the list. --Nug (talk) 21:10, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
1. I am not speculating. Dunphy explains that he uses the term "left parties" for the European party family of communists and post-communists that have assembled in the GUE-NGL group. He uses "radical left" or "far left" for the most radical factions inside these parties or for parties that are even further to the left (Trotskyists, Democrazia Proletaria)
2. I have proposed the split since January and nobody has answered. So what sould I do? Wait until the cows come home? If no one opens their mouth and comments, it is just unfair to accuse me of acting without consensus.
3. I have not unilaterally broadened the list. You could say that it broadened itself. If one author classifies the same party as "left" and another as "far left", what should I do? Ignore some of them, because their findings don't fit your concept? In reality, there is no black and white. The same party may be "far left" according to one scholar's definition and mere "left" according to another. --RJFF (talk) 21:30, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well it certainly does not belong in an article about groups that "seek[] the complete equalization of the distribution of wealth". We could do the same thing for far right, a term that normally refers to racist and neo-fascist groups, then find sources that describe right-wing populist groups as far right. The article would then imply that right-wing populists are racists and neo-fascists. But that would be POV-pushing and damage the reliability of Wikipedia, much as the article far left does. TFD (talk) 22:03, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@RJFF, Dunphy does not explain his use of "far-left", he just mentions it twice in the whole of his monograph in passing reference to a couple of groups, twice! It is your synthesis to interpret this as "left" versus "far-left" as some kind of conflicting categorisation. You state "The same party may be "far left" according to one scholar's definition and mere "left" according to another" is similar saying "The same vehicle may be a "outboard runabout" according to one scholar's definition and mere "watercraft" according to another". You statement "We could discuss moving to List of left parties in Europe, omitting the "far left", as it is a subset of "left"" is in essence a propositional fallacy of the alternative disjunct: left or far-left; left; therefore not far-left. --Nug (talk) 09:51, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Left" is neither explicitly "radical left", nor "non-radical left". Assuming either one or the other is speculation either way. --RJFF (talk) 22:48, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two comments: 1. Splitting the far-left article did obviously not resolve the content dispute, it just moves the dispute from one article talk page to another. 2. This article is a bit like having an article like 'List of most beautiful people'. We all have opinions on what constitutes beauty, at the same time there are definately some common views across the contemporary Western world. However even though we would have no problem ourselves discussing who we consider beautiful and who we don't, we would have great difficulty coming up with a definition of beauty. Then, the solution to such a problem is not to google for an answer, because we simply wouldn't find a common ground between the different references. Instead we would pile up more and more references, with parallel listings, creating an uninformative and tautological article not up to Wikipedia standards. --Soman (talk) 10:09, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This comparison is rather flawed: Political science is an academic subject, "beauty science" isn't. Evidentially, there are academic studies on the phenomenon of left and far-left parties and they do classify parties into these categories. This list is verifiable, everything is extracted from reliable sources. How is this comparable to a list of beautiful people? --RJFF (talk) 20:16, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, the analogy works. There is no consensual definition, or even widely accepted amongst political scientists, of what the left/right axis is really about. The two poles (left and right) roughly corresponds to different sets of values and ideas, but these vary over time and space. There are no absolutes (in terms of positions or opinions) that can be identified with either 'left' or 'right'. Trying to use the left/right axis in categories or listings at wikipedia is a dead end. --Soman (talk) 21:44, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think this pinpoints the issue why this type of listing is impossible to conduct in an npov way (http://books.google.com/books?id=3041K2Zv76AC&pg=PT329 ): "Left-right political ideologies should be discussed on a continuum, even though both are positioned on opposite ends of the spectrum. The ideologies are constantly shifting abstract values that are dependent on the historical, cultural, and social developments of the particular nation-state." --Soman (talk) 22:02, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why don't you nominate the list for AfD? --RJFF (talk) 22:05, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the article could be reworked and possibly useful, but for that to work it needs to be simplifed. Inclusion in the list ought to be based on uncontroversial criteria, for example parties to the left of the social democracy. All attempts to dissect between left/radical left/far left and the various reform/conservative dichotomies ought to be removed. --Soman (talk) 22:14, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Another quote, which is make a good point in this discussion, from http://books.google.com/books?id=PhiBit8h2VcC&pg=PA131 :

Left-right tendency seems to be relational, an empty container into which are poured the issues and dimensions of conflict of the day (Knutsen 1995b). Issues are ordered by the political debate in a manner that may render meaning different from country to country and from time to time. Left- right is a useful device for voters to organize a confusing and complex political space. In electoral terms, it has no enduring substantive political meaning outside of particular political contexts and times. The meaning of left and right changes over time, ...

--Soman (talk) 22:18, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You're contradicting yourself. If you say that there's no consensus on "what the left/right axis is really about", then what is "left of the social democracy"? How many sources will you find explicitly stating that the X-Party is left of social democracy? And how is it uncontroversial which parties are left of social democracy and which aren't? Are Green parties left of social democracy? Maybe some of them? This will never be uncontroversial and satisfying every editor and every reader. --RJFF (talk) 22:20, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm well aware that such a definition would be arbitrary. However, the point is that it would uncontroversial. It wouldn't be based on a scientific definition, but it would be workable. The article would fill some sort of purpose, providing a set of links to other articles for an interested reader, giving a superficial overview of a political phenenom. It would at least be better than the present state, that produces more confusion than clarity. --Soman (talk) 22:28, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
To avoid controversy, we should say goodbye to verifiability and embrace original research? Nice idea. --RJFF (talk) 22:33, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say that it better to be bold. We have three choices: 1) AfD, 2) an uninformative article engulfed in an permanent content dispute, where different sides compete on how many references they can google up or 3) a listing based on a sober common sense approach, that avoids going into details. The latter choice would serve some purpose, not as an encyclopediatic article but as a navigation tool within the encyclopedia as such (albeit somewhat duplicating the function of Categories). In fact, this is the function many (most?) list articles in Wikipedia fills. --Soman (talk) 22:58, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that political scientists can name a group of related parties "far left", "center-right", etc. is independent of whether the spectrum has any value. The terms "far right" and "the Left" are in fact meaningful with generally accepted definitions. Far right refers to extremist racist and neo-fascist groups while the Left refers to socialists and anarchists. What this article lists is a new political family and the problem is that there is no general agreement on terminology. I would suggest that "Left parties" or "post-Communist parties" is more generally accepted. The only reason one would choose the description "far left" is POV-pushing. TFD (talk) 22:19, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So, all the cited authors are POV-pushing? --RJFF (talk) 22:21, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think that labels get taken out of context, in a manner that becomes povish. March's discussion on the reform/orthodox dichotomy has some point in the reference itself, but just labelling the Portuguese Communist Party as 'conservative' in a listing like this just becomes absurd. The different authors use slightly different definitions, so basing lists on these labels becomes a dead end. --Soman (talk) 22:35, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Taken out of context" is a — forgive me — lame argument. The sources are all cited. The subjects of these texts actually are far-left or radical left parties. So please show me how it got taken out of context. And it is not "conservative", but "conservative communism", which is the decisive difference. How is this absurd? You could also say "orthodox" or "traditional communism". --RJFF (talk) 23:55, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
RJFF, you say "all those cited authors", but in fact the only cited author is Luke March, writing for the European Socialists. Dunphy only uses the term for parties further left, and uses the term "left" instead. Writers are allowed to present a viewpoint btw. Neutrality is a requirement of Wikipedia articles not sources. We do not call scholars presenting an opinion or using their personal terminology as "POV-pushing". We use that term to describe editors who choose a particular point of view and insist that it be presented as fact in articles. TFD (talk) 23:21, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And Cas Mudde, and Miroslav Mareš, and Hloušek and Kopeček, and Courteois and Andolfatto, and Gerrit Voerman, and Carlos Cunha, and Abel Polese? They're all just cherry-picked, not representative anyhow, aren't they? You say that others are POV-pushing. I, personally, find it absurd to label Dutch GreenLeft or Danish SF as "far-left". But I have to put my POV aside. It's in a reliable, relevant source. So who am I to ignore or discount it? --RJFF (talk) 23:44, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Cas Muddle (along with March) does not use the term "far left", but "radical left". Mareš writes about "Communist and Post-Communist parties". Hloušek and Kopeček adopt March's terminology, claiming that the existing terminology of Communist and Post-Communist is no longer helpful in the 21st century. Courtois and Andolfatto in "France - The Collapse of the House of Communism" write about Communism and do not use the term "far left". Voerman writes about "Communist and Post-Communist Parties". Cunha uses the term "extreme left" (not "far left") but is referring to the "Left Bloc", which is untypical of the parties listed. Polese uses the term "radical left".
Please read the article radical right, which provides sources that that is the most commonly used term and explains objections to the terminology and explains alternative terminology. We need the same thing here.
TFD (talk) 01:53, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
March certainly does use the term "far-left" in his paper Contemporary Far Left Parties in Europe, and situates both the "radical left" and "extreme left" within it, placing them to the left of social democracy. No one has presented any source that contests Dr. March's classification, therefore I don't know how you expect to explain objections to the terminology or explain alternative terminology without such sources unless you are advocating that you will synthesise something based upon Dunphy or what you WP:KNOW. By definition all far-left groups are left-wing, centre-left groups are also left-wing, but there is a distinction between centre-left and far-left according to reliable sources. --Nug (talk) 07:47, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that since each author uses a different set of definitions and attaches different values to these definitions, you're not going to find any specific counter-references. And this logic is exactly what leads to problems in so many infobox content disputes. If one editor finds two references saying that a party is 'far left' and another editor finds three references saying that a party is 'left', then what is the conclusion? 3-2?
Moreover, March's article was published on FES website, not in an academic publication. The likelyhood that another political scientist would write a rebuttal (for example, the bizarre classification of KSCM as 'reform communist') is, well, very slim. --Soman (talk) 08:07, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Having said that, I'd say that the two google books links I posted above (http://books.google.com/books?id=3041K2Zv76AC&pg=PT329 and http://books.google.com/books?id=PhiBit8h2VcC&pg=PA131) contradicts any claim to establish a clear divide between 'left', 'far left' and 'radical left'. There are no absolutes in terms of what is far and less far left, it is a continuum depending on context. Thus there is only further and less far left, but where to draw the line is impossible to establish (since it will always depend on the pov of the beholder, even if the beholder is a scholar).
It is a bit like 'List of fat people'. It is relatively easy to say that a person weighing 120 kg is fatter than one that weighs 70 kg. But when does one become 'fat'? (Regarding overweight, there are different medical criteria for when overweight is a health hazard but the concept of 'fat' is essentially a cultural feature.) In different times and different cultures there will be different ways of judging. The value attached to the label is also different, in some cultures 'fat' has a positive connotation (related to wealth) but others its a slur. --Soman (talk) 08:19, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The talk page is meant for discussing improvements to the article. I don't see that you either propose improvements to the article or deleting it. You are - in my view - just arguing in circles, stating commonplaces without a target. What's your point? What is the objective of your arguments? --RJFF (talk) 13:17, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My proposal for improvement of the list is to simplify it. That would mean deleting what currently constitutes the four columns to the right in the table. --Soman (talk) 14:30, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That would entail the disadvantage that the list could not show that different sources classify these parties in different ways, using different "degrees" or "nuances" of left. --RJFF (talk) 15:00, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Soman, you ask the question "If one editor finds two references saying that a party is 'far left' and another editor finds three references saying that a party is 'left', then what is the conclusion?" The conclusion is that "far-left" is a sub-set of "left", i.e. that all "far-left" groups are left wing as opposed to right wing. As I said before, to contend that a group is either "left" or "far-left" according to some author is an alternative disjunct fallacy. And if it is a slur to identify some group as "far-left" as contended here, why isn't there any published rebuttal of Dr. March's classification? BTW, with regard to FES, it is a reliable main stream think tank unlikely to put out shoddy stuff while Dr. March presents the exact same definition in this paper published by FES as he did in an earlier 2005 paper co-authored with Cas Mudde "What’s Left of the Radical Left? The European Radical Left After 1989: Decline and Mutation" published in the academic journal Comparative European Politics.

My proposal for improving this article is to remove the "Left" column because its inclusion represents a synthesised notion that happens to be a propositional fallacy that "left" and "far-left" are mutually exclusive. --Nug (talk) 17:25, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Basically you say that anyone who labels a party as "left", but does not explicitly say "non-radical left" actually means "radical left". That is almost as convincing as claiming that if I say "Nug is a Wikipedia editor" but do not explicitly say that "Nug is a non-radical Wikipedia editor", I actually mean "Nug is a radical Wikipedia editor".
Of course "left" and "far left" aren't mutually exclusive, neither are "radical left" or "extreme left". So either we remove all columns, or we keep them all to show that different sources (i.e. scholars) use different nuances of "left". I think it's useful, but if all others think it isn't, of course I have to give in. --RJFF (talk) 17:38, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The conclusion is that there is no agreed or even generally accepted term to categorize these parties. When one does a google search for "far left" one finds very few academic sources and they are mostly refering to the Red Brigades, the Weathermen etc. On the other hand, the term "far right" will hit a goldmine of sources. Note too that the term "center left" has no clear meaning either. TFD (talk) 15:21, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So, you support Soman's proposal or you propose AfD or...? Your intention is not clear to me. --RJFF (talk) 15:26, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, just change the name. BTW March was writing about post-Communist parties and left-wing parties that allied with them in the European Parliament. But there are a whole group of parties and groups that are to their left, for example, terrorist groups, Maoists. We need to decide whether articles should explain the Left to readers or confuse them. TFD (talk) 16:01, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Change to which title, please? --RJFF (talk) 17:45, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What about "Post-Communist and Left Parties in Europe"? TFD (talk) 17:48, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Your proposal would not just mean changing the title but also reworking the list, because changing the title would also mean changing the scope. I would support this, though. "Communist and post-communist" is easier to define and therefore less depending on individual POVs than "far/radical/extreme/whatever... left". It shouldn't be a big problem to verify the parties belonging to the group of communist and post-communist parties, as these labels seem to be very common in literature. Most of the authors that the article currently cites also use these terms. This could be a very good idea to avoid future POV discussions. --RJFF (talk) 17:58, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Your earlier reasoning "Basically you say that anyone who labels a party as "left", but does not explicitly say "non-radical left" actually means "radical left"" does not make sense and it is not what I am saying. You understand Ven diagrams right? Get a big piece of paper and draw a big circle, label that circle "left", inside that big circle draw a smaller circle and label it "far-left". Do you now understand that the two labels are not mutually exclusive and there is no contradiction or conflict if one author labels a group "left" while another labels it "far-left", all that it indicates is the latter author is able to recognise finer distinctions in classifying groups than the former author, that is all, any other conclusion is WP:SYNTHESIS. After all, WP:PRECISION is policy, hence the article should also be renamed List of far left parties in Europe and the column "left" removed. --Nug (talk) 18:10, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let me summarize:

  1. Soman's proposal: Get rid of the four columns. Keep the title?
  2. Nug's proposal: Get rid of the "Left" column. Keep the other three columns? Move to List of far-left parties in Europe
  3. TFD's proposal: Move to List of post-communist and left parties in Europe (or List of communist and post-communist parties in Europe?) Get rid of the four columns (correct?) Probably combinable with Soman's proposal. Would have my support as well (I'd like the 2nd title better, as it corresponds with the usage in literature).

I, personally, would favour keeping at least the last column ("ideology", could be "current", "tendency" or something similar instead), as there are significant differences between the different groups or currents of communist and post-communist parties as described in the academic sources. --RJFF (talk) 18:24, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since no one has refuted the argument that inclusion of "left" with "far-left" represents a propositional fallacy of the alternative disjunct: left or far-left; left; therefore not far-left, I have removed the "left" column. --Nug (talk) 23:06, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There were three different proposals, summarized by me above (Soman, Nug, TFD). As the discussion has stopped after I summarized the proposals, I can't see consensus for either of them. I would most agree with TFD's proposal. But as long as consensus for change hasn't developed, we should keep the status quo ante. --RJFF (talk) 06:27, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The status quo ante was a list of far-left parties in the article Far-left politics before you split it without consensus. Now the scope of the list as implied by the title has been expanded to include the superset of left parties, which would be everything left of centre. You appear to be unable to address the issue of the title being a propositional fallacy. --Nug (talk) 23:45, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This should be deleted, plain and simple; calling the Socialist Left Party (Norway) far-left is total bullshit.... No normal Norwegian would have called the Socialist Left a far-left party; in the Norwegian spectrum , that party is centre-left left-wing.. Just saying its far-left because an American bullshit scholar says so doesn't make it so.... This article should be deleted, pure and simple. --TIAYN (talk) 14:25, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why don't you nominate it for deletion, citing WP:TIAYN says it's total bullshit, I'm sure people will listen to this solid argument. --Nug (talk) 23:30, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of communist and post-communist parties?[edit]

How do you think about restructuring the list and renaming it into List of communist and post-communist parties in Europe? While there is no generally accepted definition of what's far left and the classification of parties as far-/radical/extreme left often seems to be subjective or inconsistent, there is consensus about what communist or post-communist parties are, and it is much easier to identify and much less debatable which parties are communist or post-communist. The literature on which this list is based seems to use the terms communist and post-communist parties more often than far-left, radical left or extreme left parties (especially Backes/Moreau, but also Dunphy, and even March). I think that this move could also remedy the ongoing disputes and editing conflicts on this list. Do you agree? — Preceding unsigned comment added by RJFF (talk • contribs) 09:37, 22 May 2012

How about you first address the propositional fallacy the current title represents, which I pointed out above? March has published that radical and extreme left are a subset of far-left, unless you provide an author who directly disputes March, I'm not sure you can justify rejecting his classification. Unless you provide a RS that states "there is no generally accepted definition of what's far left", then your contention is OR. --Nug (talk) 09:11, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As explained above, we need to use the most widely used terminology. The source for March's terminology is a partisan political document, few scholars have adopted his terminology, March himself changed his terminology (see "What’s Left of the Radical Left?" and the term "far left" usually has a different meaning. TFD (talk) 19:46, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You have a source that states March's terminology is politically partisan or that his definition is not mainstream? I have JSTOR access, so feel free to cite any paper that reviews his work. --Nug (talk) 21:19, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Incomplete[edit]

This list only includes some of the communist and post communist parties. It entirely omits the newer far left parties - Syriza and Podemos etc.Royalcourtier (talk) 01:56, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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