Horseshoe theory in politics

The radical left and the radical right want the same things. According to the horseshoe theory attributed to the French writer Jean-pierre Faye,

The political continuum from left to right is not a straight line, but takes the shape of a horseshoe. Both the radical left and the radical right have often been associated with nationalism, populism and Euroscepticism. Moreover, voters for these parties have been claimed to be the ‘losers of modernization’ – people with lower socioeconomic positions in terms of education, class and income, that feel threatened by the processes of modernization and globalization. Because parties from both the radical left and the radical right claim to represent their interestes, these voters are expected to be vulnerable to political mobilization in radical directions.

Source: Rallying the Radicals: What do the Radical Left and the Radical Right have in Common?

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