North-wing politics

In politics, north-wing, the political north, or simply northwing, are terms that refer to the segment of the political spectrum whose political attitudes occupy the north of a 360° Political Compass, rather than the traditional left-right scale. The northern segment commonly represents collective authority, and social normality.

In this multi-axis model the west-to-east line represents economic attitude. It retains some of its traditional left-to-right political meaning in terms of state versus private ownership. The north-to-south line represents social attitude and is respectively collective authority in the north, and personal liberty in the south.

In the new model, the classical inference of the left being progressive versus the right being reactionary is now redundant, as the Political Compass implies neither stance.

In ideological terms, where the compass is used to describe in the South-wing a political viewpoint that is relativist, or post-modernist, the north-wing of the compass is generally deemed to represent modernism, neo-modernism or re-modernism in approach.

A north-wing, or northwing position is the opposite of south-wing, which represents degrees of liberal individualism, including at the extreme, anarchy.

The history of the Political Compass

Hans Eysenck was first to create a multi-axis political model in his 1964 book "Sense and Nonsense in Psychology", though other multi-axis models have been developed including that by American David Nolan in 1970.

The definition used here is based on the Political Compass created by Pace News Limited, which expands on the Eysenck model and is widely accepted. There is also a New Political Compass TM created by Paul Ray, and whilst he usefully labels the North "the New Progressives", the model is less internationally recognised outside of the US.

Additional references

Northwing.org, a British website describes the north-wing viewpoint thus:

"Liberal progressives who hold the centre ground of the compass, may have social attitudes that are in the 'North-wing' because they firmly believe in the concept of functional consensus and collective authority. When society becomes dysfunctional this more authoritative position is adopted to establish order, rather than being anti-liberal. Going with the flow of social change can mean the opposite of being progressive. There is nothing more reactionary than accepting the breakdown of communities or uncivilised behaviour as inevitable. Many north-wingers now perceive a 'reactionary left' who populate the south-wing of the political compass. North-wing can also therefore be seen as a reaction to South-wing, without being itself inherently reactionary."

See also

• Political compass