Does every Western democracy split along a liberal vs. conservative line?

Politics & Elections
1

Is it the case that with every Western democracy, you broadly see two camps, one of which is generally regarded as the more liberal side and the other as the more conservative side?

(the exact definition of liberal and conservative will always be subject to nitpickery, but one knows it when one sees it)

2

They may not always be two-party systems, but yes, of course there are deep differences between politicians who are low-tax, low-regulation, small state politicians and those who are the opposite, likewise nationalist/nativist/sovereigntists on the one hand and globalist/internationalists on the other.

And at times in the not so distant past equivalent differences have been deep and extreme - Germany being the most extreme example, but Spain, France and Italy found at times that democracy - as then designed and organised - couldn’t contain and resolve or diffuse the problems peacefully.

3

Does every Western democracy split along a liberal vs. conservative line?

Not necessarily. Regional differences can be a big part. When the Bloc québécois formed the Official Opposition in Canada in 1993, it wasn’t because of a liberal - conservative political split, but rather sovereignty v federalism (and even more so in the Quebec National Assembly [note name], between the Parti québécois and the Liberals) And the fight between the Conservatives and the Liberals federally currently has a strong element of western alienation, primarily related to oil, which is more of an environmental issue, as well as a dispute between regionalism v centralism, rather than a dispute about economic policy.

4

I understand that Trinidad, a modern, western democracy, has two main parties, the People’s National Movement and the United National Congress.

Trinidad has a large black and a large Indian (South Asian) population, of roughly equal size. Both parties are center-left. The PNM is generally viewed as a “black” party and the UNC is generally viewed as an “Indian” party. I don’t know who right wing Trinidadians vote for. (The third party is a Tobago independence party and founded in 2016.)

5

There are a great many people in the U.S. who have “liberal” positions in some areas and “conservative” positions in other areas. There are tens of millions of people who on one hand believe in “low taxes, less regulation” and on the other hand are pro-choice, pro the legalization of same-sex marriage and favor the legalization of marijuana. Likewise there are tens of millions who favor tax the rich, strong regulation, good safety net yet are pro-life, hostile to same-sex marriage and believe marijuana should be illegal.

Thus I don’t find talking about liberals vs conservatives useful: the only useful approach is to talk about specific policy areas.

6

Sure, but my point/question is - you have a Democratic Party and a Republican Party. Nobody would dispute that one is, broadly speaking, regarded as the liberal side and the other as the conservative side, despite the multitudes of voters who may favor marijuana while opposing abortion or vice versa.

7

Another example is Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in Ieland. Their policies on economic matters aren’t that dissimilar, and they’ve been the two main parties since the Republic was founding. Support for one of the other party normally goes back in history to the positions taken during the Civil War.

8

Leaving Quebec aside, Canada has three parties. The Conservative Party lives up to its name. The Liberal Party is, at most, center-left. The New Democratic Party is “Bernie Sanders”-left. Although the NDP has never formed a national government, they have run provinces and have contributed enormously to whatever social democracy exists in Canada. For example medicare started in Saskatchewan under an NDP government and then was imposed on the remaining provinces by the Liberals under Pierre Elliott Trudeau. The doctors in Quebec went on strike against it, but eventually settled. I don’t think many doctors, looking at the US clusterfuck, would want to go back.

Incidentally, the current Canadian Government is a Liberal minority with NDP support. If that support were to collapse, so would the government and we would have an election.

9

In the current federal Parliament there are five parties:

Liberals - 155
Conservatives - 121
Bloc québécois - 32
NDP - 24
Green - 3

Medicare in Canada was the result of several different stages:

  • Provincially funded hospital services, implemented in 1947 in Saskatchewan by the Douglas CCF government, and in 1950 in Alberta by the Manning Social Credit Government;
  • Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act, a federal statute brought in by the government of Louis St. Laurent in 1957, to proivde federal funding for provincial hospital services, such as in Alberta and Saskatchewan;
  • Medicare at the provincial level in Saskatchewan, brought in by the Douglas governmnet, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation;
  • The Hall Report, commissioned by the Progressive Conservative government of John Diefenbaker, and presided over by Emmett Hall, another Progressive Conservative, to study health care funding and which recommended federal funding of medicare;
  • Passage of the federal Medical Care Act by the Pearson government (Liberal), which provided federal funding for medicare on the Saskatchewan model to any province which implemented it.