How to read this, and what it is not. These placements are interpretive editorial judgments about the character of each country's governing coalition and regime, informed by the kinds of assessments found in V-Dem, Polity, and standard political histories. They are not measurements. A single left-right axis compresses realities it cannot hold: China after 1978 is a market economy under one-party control, Venezuela under Maduro is authoritarian in method and leftist in doctrine, and Argentina under Perón fits no band cleanly. Where a regime is authoritarian in practice regardless of its stated doctrine, the placement leans toward the authoritarian band and the note says so. Occupied countries during World War II are placed under their occupying regime. Colonial-era placements (India and Pakistan before 1947) reflect the colonial administration. The scale runs: Communism, Radical Socialism, Social Democracy, Liberalism, Centrist, Conservatism, Authoritarian, Fascism. The two ends of this scale famously bend toward each other in method; the horseshoe is acknowledged, not resolved, by a straight line. Corrections and arguments welcome, the placements are offered to be disputed.