Question: Civilize, 2015 states that

> 
> Specifically, these studies examine the effect of political cycles on
> stock returns or the differences in stock returns under **left- or
> right-wing governments**
> 
> 
> 

I did search and see that
Generally, the left-wing is characterized by an emphasis on "ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism" while the right-wing is characterized by an emphasis on "notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism"

**So, I am asking: whether left-wing government is democracy and right-wing government is autocracy?**

Answer: 
* 'Left-wing' and 'right-wing' refer to styles of *politics*.
* Democracies, autocracies etc are types of *government*.

The difference is important. Although politics and government are closely linked, they are not synonyms.

Wikipedia gives this broad explanation of the difference between left and right wing politics:

> 
> Generally, the left-wing is characterized by an emphasis on "ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism" while the right-wing is characterized by an emphasis on "notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism"
> 
> 
> 

Most people recognise that politics of individuals or parties do not strictly fall to the left or right, but exist on a *spectrum*. For example, in the UK, the two main parties are broadly on the left and right respectively, but share some common ground. Extreme authoritarian parties such as the Nazis tend to be called "far right" because of how extreme they are in their authoritarian policies and how far away they are from any left-wing policies. As far as I know, the term "far left" isn't widely used. In the UK, the pejorative term "loony left" has been used to mock politics which are so focused on pleasing individuals that they are considered unworkable for the majority.

In countries that are a democracy, this means that the people can vote for a political party to rule, and those parties may be 'left' leaning or 'right' leaning, politically. But even where there is no democracy, both styles of politics can exist. For example, communism is one 'extreme' form of left-wing politics, yet some communist governments like Russia and North Korea arguably also display qualities of authoritarian, extreme right politics.
No. This is a language site and not a political site, so I don't want to get into discussions of politics.

But briefly, in 21st century political debate, "left-wing" is basically synonymous with "liberal" and "right-wing" with "conservative".

People often say that liberals accept or favor change while conservatives want to preserve the status quo or tradition. This is a very difficult definition to apply in practice. Suppose that a liberal group wins the election and changes all the laws to what they prefer. Then it would be liberals who want to preserve the status quo and conservatives who want to change things. You could say, "Well, but the conservatives just want to change them back to what they were, so they are against the (recent) change." But then how long does it have to be before the change that the conservatives want is "real" change? If liberal policies are in effect for 5 years, now can we fairly say that the conservatives want change? What if it's 10 years? 20 years? 100 years? Etc. Indeed, if the definition of "liberal" is "wanting change", then it would be a paradox to say "this society is presently liberal". How could any society or government be liberal, if by definition liberals don't like the current state?

The definitions people really use in practice, and which I think are more coherent, are to link these terms to specific categories of policies. Like, liberals want a generous welfare state while conservatives want private charity. Liberals want strict regulation of business while conservatives want business to be mostly free to operate as they wish. In the US, liberals want gun control while conservatives want the right to bear arms. On social matters, liberals want acceptance of homosexuality and transgenderism while conservatives say these things are morally wrong. Etc. One could list many other issues.