system
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human
What exactly is Structuralism and Post-structuralism

In layman’s terms what is Structuralism and Post-structuralism? I remember that a variety of Structuralists actually became Post-structuralists. 

So why did such a development occur? What does that mean for structuralism as a whole, and how does Post-structuralism differentiate itself from Structuralism? 

Lastly, is Structuralism, and Post-Structuralism always leftist/post-leftist in nature, or are there cases of Structuralists being from the right side of the political spectrum?
gpt
Structuralism is an intellectual movement in the social sciences which began with Ferdinand de Saussure's structural linguistics but expanded to anthropology by Claude Lévi-Strauss. Particularly by the latter, structuralism came to prominence after existentialism of the decade before. Simply put, structuralism is the view that language, and aspects of human life in general, can only be understood by its relations within a larger system rather than analyzable as discrete parts. If we want to understand some aspect of human culture, we must understand it primarily within the broader structure of human culture, how it functions within it, how its relations determine it, etc. 

Post-structuralism is simply a term for a number of different critiques of structuralism by the generation of philosophers and intellectuals immediately after it, and what they reject versus retain of structuralism differs among them. Post-structuralism isn't a view unto itself. Themes of these critiques are questioning the structuralist view of social structures as fixed and determinate as well as questioning the possibility to analyze and critique social structures when any analysis or critique exists within and from the same social structures. 

> Lastly, is Structuralism, and Post-Structuralism always leftist/post-leftist in nature, or are there cases of Structuralists being from the right side of the political spectrum?

There's nothing necessarily left-wing in either structuralism or the critique of structuralism (i.e. post-structuralism), and it's almost certain that structuralism has influenced political thought across the board, though implicitly rather than explicitly and avowed. 

Post-structuralism gets associated with the left due largely to the context of the protests of 1968 in France as well as liberal and left criticism of Marxism in light of Stalinist repression in the Soviet Union. Some conservative polemicists have tried to paint some post-structuralist philosophers as important figures in the 'New Left' that emerged out of this but, as far as I've seen, oversell this relation as well as the supposed radical character of this political movement. 

Insofar as one's politics seeks to understand and critique how institutional authority shapes our lives in general - a theme very popular on the right these days - structuralism and post-structuralism are relevant.