What does compartmentalization mean? The term is at the heart of the Great Seat Belt Debate. It was coined during the 1967 and 1972 Series 1 and Series 2 School Bus Passenger Protection collision tests conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Opponents of the CDU are the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), The Left party and Alliance '90/The Greens. The CDU has however governed in three federal-level and numerous state-level Grand Coalitions with the SPD as well as in state and local-level coalitions with the Alliance '90/The Greens.
In this sense, left wing parties can be seen (in the West) as being more progressive, while right wing parties are seen as more cautious and traditional. In reality though this has nothing to do with what it actually means to be either left wing or right wing, but is instead a matter of those parties trying to appeal to specific portions of the voting population.