Is Lao People's Revolutionary Party left wing or right wing?

On economic organisation Lao People's Revolutionary Party scores +01 on a scale from −10 (common ownership) to +10 (private property and markets). On social and cultural order it scores +05. A single left–right figure combines these and four further measurements that move independently, which is why the atlas reports six.

Is Lao People's Revolutionary Party authoritarian?

On the organisation of power, which measures whether authority is dispersed among institutions that can stop each other or concentrated in a single centre, Lao People's Revolutionary Party scores +09. Single party, no independent press, no legal opposition; the national assembly is elected from vetted candidates.

Atlas / Organisations / Lao People's Revolutionary Party

Lao People's Revolutionary Party

LPRP · 1955– · Laos · Communist · Held state power · coding confidence low

+01ECmarket

+05CUtraditional

+09AUmonist

+08SCcentral

+04IDascriptive

−03CHlawful

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

A one-party communist state that liberalised its economy and never its politics, in the shadow of two much larger neighbours.

Economic model

Hydropower exports, mining, Chinese rail investment and the debt that came with it; private enterprise legalised from 1986.

Organisation of powers

Single party, no independent press, no legal opposition; the national assembly is elected from vetted candidates.

Reading note

The most heavily bombed country per head in history. Coded at low confidence because independent reporting is minimal.

Check a claim about Lao People's Revolutionary Party. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

Open in the atlas

The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored +01

Coded +1: hydropower and mining with private enterprise legalised since 1986.

Documented act or statuteThe New Economic Mechanism of 1986 opened the economy while retaining party control.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored +05

Coded +5: a conservative order with state-supervised Buddhism.

Documented act or statuteReligious organisations operate under state registration.

AU · Organisation of power · scored +09

Coded +9: single party, no legal opposition, vetted candidates.

Documented act or statuteThe constitution names the party the leading nucleus of the political system.

SC · Scale of decision · scored +08

Coded +8: centralised planning with provincial administration.

Documented act or statuteProvincial governors are appointed centrally.

ID · Rule of membership · scored +04

Coded +4: a Lao national identity over dozens of upland minorities.

ScholarshipHmong communities faced sustained reprisals after 1975.

CH · Method and tempo · scored −03

Coded −3: the party is the established order.

Documented act or statutePower was taken in 1975 and has not been contested since.

Where it came from, and what came after

takes its doctrine fromBolsheviks
Founded from the Indochinese Communist Party alongside the Vietnamese party.

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

Laos

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). Lao People's Revolutionary Party. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/lprp/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.