Open–closed political spectrum

For example, closed parties usually hold conventionally right-wing views on social issues but may support the left-wing policies of market intervention and redistribution of wealth.

Open groups, leaders and citizens can hold left-wing or progressivist opinions on many issues but be staunchly in favour of the traditionally more right-wing policies of free trade.

[6] In the United States, the rise of the socially-liberal New Left and socially-conservative religious right in the 1970s, and the subsequent "culture wars", marked the beginning of the open-closed cleavage.

[7] Fareed Zakaria, writing in the Washington Post, described the Nordic model of free market social democracy as another early example of open politics.

[9] The terms "open" and "closed" for this divide were first used by then-British prime minister Tony Blair in 2006, with reference to the horseshoe theory that far-left and far-right politics are similar in substance.

[8] Political analyst James Bloodworth criticised Blair's choice of terminology, describing "closed" as pejorative to those threatened by globalism and "open" as overly laudatory of the "Davos Man" type of globalist.

[1] Following the financial crisis and subsequent recession, plus the arrival of large numbers of refugees of the Syrian Civil War, populist political parties made significant gains across the European Union.

[2] Alexander Van der Bellen, an independent formerly of The Greens, defeated the anti-immigrant Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party of Austria in the 2016 Austrian presidential election, while Emmanuel Macron, a former member of the Socialists who described himself as "neither left nor right" and who founded his own party En Marche, defeated the Front National candidate Marine Le Pen in the 2017 French presidential election.

[3][failed verification] Conversely, in the United Kingdom for example the Adam Smith Institute (a neoliberal right-wing organisation) and Vince Cable (a centre-left social democrat and former business secretary) stand together as some of the strongest defenders of immigration.

In the open ideology, free trade and globalism is a net good, strengthening the national economy and providing jobs while cutting prices.

[12][6] Pro-closed politicians opposing free trade and immigration usually describe these as impositions from an existing political elite, either within the country or outside its borders, and campaign on an anti-establishment platform.