Horseshoe Theory: Do the Far Left and Far Right Meet?

What horseshoe theory says

Most people picture politics as a straight line: far left, center left, center, center right, far right. Horseshoe theory bends that line. Picture a horseshoe lying open side up. The center sits at the bottom of the curve. The two tips, the far left and the far right, curve upward and point toward each other.

The claim is not that the extremes want the same things. It is that, past a certain point, they start to resemble each other in method, temperament and attitude toward liberal democracy, more than either resembles the moderate parties in between.

The theory is popular with centrists, who often use it to argue that moderation is the safest place to be. It is also one of the most contested ideas in everyday political talk. For the basics of the straight line itself, see our guide to left vs right.

Where the idea came from

The horseshoe image is most often credited to Jean-Pierre Faye, a French writer and philosopher. In work published in the 1970s, Faye used it to describe the German party system of 1932, from the Communists to the Nazis, and the strange figures who moved between the two camps, such as the "national revolutionary" circle around Otto Strasser. According to historians of the term, the horseshoe metaphor was already being used in Weimar Germany to describe groups that mixed nationalist and socialist language.

Some writers trace a broader version of the idea to American sociologists of the 1950s, such as Seymour Martin Lipset and Daniel Bell, who studied extremism on both sides and the appeal of mass movements. The exact origin is debated, and some critics note that the Faye attribution is often repeated without a precise citation.

A related intellectual tradition is the theory of totalitarianism. In The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Hannah Arendt analyzed Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union side by side as two forms of a new kind of regime built on terror, ideology and mass mobilization. Arendt did not use the horseshoe image, but her work is often cited by people who argue that the extremes share a common logic.

The case for horseshoe theory

Supporters make several arguments, in their own best terms.

Shared methods

At the far ends, both sides have produced movements willing to suspend elections, crush opposition and use political violence. Supporters argue that a one-party state run by communists and a one-party state run by fascists look alike to the dissident in prison, whatever their stated goals.

Historical cooperation

Supporters often cite the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. According to Britannica, the pact, signed on August 23, 1939, committed Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union not to attack each other, and a secret protocol divided eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Germany invaded Poland days later. Critics reply that the pact was a cynical deal between rival powers, not an ideological alliance, and it collapsed when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Both readings are common among historians.

Shared psychology

Some research finds that people at both extremes share certain thinking styles. The strongest evidence concerns conspiracy belief, covered below.

Shared enemies

Far-left and far-right movements often aim at the same targets: global finance, free trade, mainstream media, international institutions and the liberal center itself. Political scientists who study left-populism and right-populism note that both frame politics as a struggle between a virtuous people and a corrupt elite. See left-populism vs right-populism and our guide to populism.

Crossover figures

Supporters point to people and movements that moved from one extreme to the other, and to hybrid ideologies such as national syndicalism, which mixed nationalist and syndicalist ideas. Compare it in national syndicalism vs syndicalism.

The case against horseshoe theory

Critics also make strong arguments, and they come from more than one direction.

Different goals

Critics on the left argue that the far left seeks equality and the abolition of hierarchy, while the far right seeks to defend or restore hierarchy, often based on nation or race. Treating them as twins, they say, confuses surface tactics with core aims. Political theorist Simon Choat, writing in 2017, argued that the far left and far right share little beyond opposition to the liberal democratic status quo, and that they oppose it for very different reasons.

Different voters

In a 2011 study titled "Why extremes don't meet," French political scientist Nonna Mayer compared voters for a far-right and a far-left candidate in the 2007 French presidential election. She found that "divergent social and political logics" explained support for each, with different social backgrounds and values.

Different people inside each camp

A 2012 study in the European Journal of Political Research by psychologist Alain Van Hiel compared moderate activists, communists, anarchists and far-right extremists. It found large differences between extremist groups and substantial variation within them, arguing that "different extreme ideologies attract different people" and that there is no single extremist personality.

A tool for dismissal

Some critics on the left say the theory is used to discredit the left by association. Some critics on the right make the mirror complaint, that it is used to lump ordinary conservatives together with the far right. Both groups argue that the horseshoe lets the center avoid engaging with arguments from either side.

Liberal and libertarian objections

Libertarians and many liberals raise a different point: the real divide is not left versus right but freedom versus control. On that view, the horseshoe is a clumsy way of describing what a second axis shows more clearly. More on that below.

What the research shows

Peer-reviewed research gives horseshoe theory mixed, trait-specific support.

Conspiracy thinking. In four studies in the United States and the Netherlands, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, André Krouwel and Thomas Pollet found a curved relationship: belief in conspiracy theories was higher at both the left and right extremes than in the center. Much of the effect was explained by a belief that complex social problems have simple political solutions. This is the strongest single piece of evidence horseshoe supporters cite.

Prejudice. Eitan Hersh and Laura Royden surveyed about 3,500 US adults and found that agreement with overtly antisemitic statements was 2 to 3 times higher on the far right than the far left. In their words, "contrary to a 'horseshoe' theory, the evidence reveals increasing antisemitism moving from left to right." They also found some shared attitudes linked to discontent with the status quo, and noted that far-left and far-right hostility often take different forms.

The fair summary is that the extremes share some psychological tendencies, especially around distrust and simple answers, but differ deeply in values, voters and goals.

Horseshoe theory and two-axis models

Much of the horseshoe debate dissolves once you add a second dimension. Models such as the Nolan chart and the political compass separate economic views (left and right) from views on authority (authoritarian and libertarian). Our political compass explainer walks through the four quadrants.

On a two-axis map, Stalinist communism sits in the authoritarian left corner and fascism in the authoritarian right corner. They are far apart on economics but close together on the vertical axis. That captures what horseshoe supporters notice, shared authoritarian methods, without claiming the two share economic goals. It also shows something the horseshoe hides: the libertarian ends of the far left and far right, such as anarchism and anarcho-capitalism, are far from both authoritarian corners. Our guide to authoritarian vs libertarian politics explains that axis in detail.

Alternatives to the horseshoe

Several other shapes have been proposed:

• The circle. Some writers suggest the spectrum could be drawn as a full circle where the extremes touch. Critics say it has the same problems as the horseshoe.
• The fish hook. An informal online variant, with no academic standing, argues that the center bends closer to the far right than to the far left. It is mostly used as a rebuttal to horseshoe theory and is just as contested.
• Many axes. Researchers increasingly measure politics on several dimensions at once, such as economics, culture, authority and nationalism, rather than looking for one perfect shape.

Find where you fit

Horseshoe theory is a useful prompt and a weak map. It points to real similarities in style and psychology at the extremes, but it can hide large differences in what people actually want. The best way to see your own position is to measure it on more than one line.

Take the Political Compass Test to see where you land on the economic and authority axes. The Political Values Test breaks your views into economic, diplomatic, civil and societal scores. For a quick check of where you sit on the classic line, try the Political Spectrum Quiz or the Left or Right Quiz. You can also read more about the far left, far right and the center and about fascism as a historical movement.