Of late, centrist and centre-left political parties have been facing setbacks while centre-right parties have been in ascendency the world over. Comment.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Route 1 spectrum set by ownership → left/state–proletariat, right/private–capital, centre/liberal + social democracy → name the trend
Route 2 setbacks are real → but signal exhaustion of the post-war centrist consensus, not a settled right victory
centre-left rested on welfare-socialist consensus (SPD / Scandinavia, Keynes + welfare) → 1980s New Right (Thatcher / Reagan) broke it → state rolled back, economic ground lost → deeper cause = lost distinctiveness → Kirchheimer’s catch-all + “end of ideology” → mainstream convergence, class anchor weakens → vacuum filled → New Right returns (W. Europe, Canada, Australia, NZ) → right-wing populism = ethno-nationalism + anti-elitism → drivers: economic insecurity + cultural backlash → Trump / Le Pen / Salvini
the right is not monolithic → Burke’s moderate right (gradual change, rule of law, some welfare) vs far right (absolutist, ethnically exclusionary) → costs: strain on democratic norms, polarisation, far-right violence
Route 1 the shift is a representation gap left by a converged centre, not a durable realignment
Route 2 plural parties remain vital for minority voice and healthy competition
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
