Wikipedia is not a legitimate source for commentary on political science. It is artificially polarized into left/right dichotomy by it's large number of American contributors.
Believe it or not, the rest of the world does not see such an overwhelming polarization of left/right political movements.
The Swedes disagree with that, and I must remind you that in these cases the article itself is most probably written by Swedes or at least Nordic people. Castor's link does not seem odd at all.
I must question your assumption of global polarization (and I also want to know where you're from) - go tell the Nepalese that they are not polarized in left-right axis. The two-party system of America seems weird, but as soon as you start to observe the rhetorics and national dialogue in almost any parliamentary democracy you will notice that the socialist-capitalist dichotomy does exist, and is often even stronger than in USA. The idea of partisanship or nonpartisanship is not American but historical, and complex dynamics and even violence between two parties is the norm in all the world! It is not uncommon that these things cause civil wars even today; if that is not polarization I do not know what is. The rhetorics differ around the world - sometimes the ideologue or parties are more important than individuals. But rest assured: the American model is actually less fanatic about ideology (partly by design) than many other nations.
I'm from Canada (as my profile indicates, IIRC).
Any student of political science should be able to tell you that political ideology falls on a sphere. At the extreme North, we have Authoritarianism. At the south, Libertarianism. West, Communism. East, Fascism. Any political ideology can be plotted as measures of degrees between the four "poles." Go far enough into Communism and you circle right back to Facism. Ditto for the North-South Axis.
Most democratic countries have political parties that fall to varying degrees in all four quadrants and their citizenry typically votes along those lines. This is most evident in European democracies that function largely based upon coalition governments. Britain, Canada, and the States differ slightly in that their voter bases pay much more attention to the E-W axis than the N-S. Authoritarian versus libertarian policies are connotatively understood rather than outright expressed. Major parties also tend to focus on the E-W orientation as opposed to N-S, which, to choose an example that everyone should be familiar with, is why Ron Paul and John McCain ended up in the same party.
Political polarization along two axes is an artificial viewpoint which is common to countries like the US, Canada, and Britain, but it doesn't reflect the actual state of politics. While socialist/capitalist ideology is the most commonly examined altercation point, it isn't the only one, and it isn't even necessarily the most relevant in some countries. Americans, for example, think that the difference between Bush and Obama is primarily socialist/capitalist. It isn't. There is a much bigger delineation between the two in terms of authoritarian versus libertarian ideals. In terms of world socialism versus capitalism, Obama and Bush are barely discernible on the scale.
Take even Liberator's thread about unwed mothers. That isn't a left/right debate, it's an authoritarian/libertarian. But, because Republican ideals are typically associated with the political right rather than the political North (Authoritarian), people talk about the left wing when it really is irrelevant.
Thus my objection to Wikipedia sourcing. It fails to account for half the political spectrum of ideologies and greatly oversimplifies the actual state of political alignment.
