Map My Politics

CENTRISM – The Ideology of Balance

As the name suggests, centrism occupies the center of the Map My Politics ideology chart. This was (by definition) true when people spoke only in terms of the traditional Left-Right continuum, and it also holds true with the two-axis chart of economic vs. personal freedom.

In terms of the x-axis of economic liberty, centrists embrace the virtues of the free enterprise system, including respect for private ownership of capital, but temper that acceptance with the belief that corporations and other market participants should not operate unchecked without government participation in, and regulation of, the national economy. Centrists do not advocate for as much taxation and other market regulation as liberals, their ideological grid neighbors to the left, but they are not as willing to pursue the more hands-off, laissez-faire approach of the conservatives who are to their right.

Regarding the y-axis of personal liberty, centrists similarly champion the traditional principles of modern liberalism that call for freedom of speech, press, religion and other civil rights. But centrists argue for modest government intervention when appropriate, unlike the libertarians and social libertarians who inhabit the lower areas of the authoritarian-libertarian y-axis. Centrists, however, true to their classical liberal tradition, do not favor the amount or type of state intrusion into social matters for which their populist neighbors in the upper quadrants advocate.

Some don’t consider centrism as an ideology unto itself, viewing it more as the default setting for an absence of ideology. But so much has been written about the specific tenets of centrism that we accord it due standing as one of the grid’s six core political ideologies. At its most basic, centrism (or “liberalism” in most of the non-American world) stands for a balancing of competing political extremes. Because a striving for moderation or harmony is a philosophical concept going back to the Ancient Greeks, it might in fact be considered one of the oldest of political ideologies.

Overall, centrists tend to be philosophically skeptical of the sort of binary absolutism that defines much political opinion-making. This means centrism is often regarded as a more pragmatic or compromise-based approach to public policy matters, however it need not be viewed strictly in those terms. Centrists believe that principles like freedom or equality might appeal in the abstract but that they typically break down when confronted with the factual complexities of ordinary life, and especially when other, worthwhile values come into conflict with those principles. In other words, centrism advocates for a tempered approach to politics not because the ideals at opposite extremes aren’t appealing but precisely because they are both appealing – and therefore are impossible and undesirable to achieve alone. In general, centrists are the realists of the Map My Politics ideological chart. More specifically, left-leaning centrists tend to favor more taxation and other government involvement in economic matters than right-leaning centrists, with true centrists falling somewhere in between.

Because the United States is a two-party system – for the most part – centrists are typically considered moderates if they inhabit one of the two mainstream parties. In modern times, American politicians in the centrist tradition have included Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nancy Kassebaum and George H.W. Bush in the Republican Party, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in the Democratic Party. Important centrist American writers have included Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Fareed Zakaria, Thomas Friedman, John Avlon and Charles Wheelan.

For further reading about the centrist ideology, click here.

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CENTRISM – The Ideology of Balance

Further Reading