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The model aims to help understand political dynamics by:

Simplifying Complexity: Categorizing political mindsets into six groups, it provides a framework for analyzing political ideas without getting lost in nuances.

Highlighting Relationships: The circular structure emphasizes that ideologies are interconnected, with adjacent groups sharing common ground and opposing groups representing contrasts, aligning with criticisms of linear models of politics.

Encouraging Reflection: By recognizing that real mindsets often mix ideas between groups, it serves as a starting point for deeper analyses.

But not only that, the diagram, outside the scope of this book, can be used in electoral analyses, political simulations or even interactive digital tools (e.g., an online quiz where readers identify their position in the circle). It can also be used to predict possibilities of political alliances between distinct groups that often have similar agendas and end up joining together circumstantially (and sometimes even for extended periods).

In this sense, the objective of this model is not only to facilitate the understanding of political phenomena or to explain previous events, but also to assist decision-making, whether by the citizen voter or by political groups, when defining their voting strategies or forming political alliances, through simulations of “what if” scenarios.

Limitations and Criticisms

As limitations, we highlight the following:

• Oversimplification: Political ideologies are complex and multifaceted, and reducing them to six groups risks simplifying their diversity.
• Fluid Boundaries: Political beliefs often cross group boundaries, and ideologies can evolve, making classifications challenging.
• Cultural and Historical Context: The model may not fully capture how political ideas manifest themselves differently in cultures or historical periods.
• Exclusion of Other Ideologies: The classification into these six groups may not adequately capture other significant ideologies, such as the feminist movement.
  Despite these limitations, the usefulness of the model lies in providing a starting point for understanding, and it can be supplemented by historical and empirical data to address gaps, as we will do in the following chapters, focusing only on the ideas expressed in political discourses.

Conclusion

The circular diagram is a model that allows us to reflect on political mentalities by highlighting shared characteristics and fundamental oppositions.

Key Points

• The circle diagram is a model that allows us to reflect on political mindsets by highlighting shared characteristics and fundamental oppositions. By defining each group and exploring their relationships, it provides a clear entry point into the history of political ideas, recognizing the complexity and limitations inherent in any model.
• The evidence suggests that this model, like all models, is a simplification, recognizing that most people mix ideas from multiple groups, and that it is a useful tool for many purposes, not a perfect representation.

Questions for reflection

Here are some questions for you to reflect on yourself or for a possible debate in a classroom or for a debate at a bar with friends (I prefer caipinha, with lime and cachaça):

• Where would you place your own political beliefs on the circle diagram?
• How do you think historical figures, such as Martin Luther King Jr. or Winston Churchill, would fit into this circle diagram?
• How do ideas shared between adjacent groups, such as classical liberals and democratic leftists, influence current political debates?
• Why do you think opposing groups, such as radical statists and classical liberals, often come into such intense conflict?
• What limitations do you see in using a pie chart to represent the diversity of political ideologies?
• How can political ideas change over time, and would this challenge the fixed structure of the pie chart?
• How would the pie chart explain political polarization in the 2022 Brazilian presidential election?