Rethinking Social Democracy In Western Europe

First published in 1993. This title is the product of a conference designed to throw light on some central questions about the phase of programmatic renewal from the 1950s to the then-present-day. The evidence presented in this volume pursues to demonstrate the existence of a European 'wave' of social democratic programmatic renewal effort during the 1980s, the sweep of which, the author argues, being broader than the previous renewal wave in the 1950s.

With a combined focus on social democrats in Northern and Southern Europe, this book crucially broadens our understanding of the transformation of European social democracy from the mid-1970s to the early-1990s. In doing so, it revisits the transformation of this ideological family at the end of the Cold War, and before the launch of Third Way politics, and examines the dynamics and power relations at play among European social democratic parties in a context of nascent globalisation. The chronological, methodological and geographical approaches adopted allow for a more nuanced narrative of change for European social democracy than the hitherto dominant centric perspective. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of social democracy, the European Centre-left, political parties, ideologies and more broadly to comparative politics and European politics and history.

This book examines the fortunes of social democracy since 1989 in the former GDR, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, setting the analysis in a broader European framework, and relating the current problems of social democracy in western Europe to developments in the east of the continent.

Socialist and Social Democratic parties leave few political observers and citizens indifferent. For several years, a certain number of actors on the political scene have presented it as a political family in crisis, lacking in imagination and dynamism, incapable of renewal and doomed to fade into insignificance. Others, on the contrary, describe it as a grouping with a promising, even brilliant future.This book does not set out to confirm either of those two visions. Its aim is to analyse in-depth the transformations which are affecting, at the current time, the different aspects of Social Democracy: new organisational models, changes in political and electoral performance, changing relations with the trade unions and civil society associations, reactions to the emergence of new political rivais and new values, new ideological trends and political programmes, etc. For the first time, the analysis does not concern exclusively Western Europe, but also deals with the Social Democratic parties of the consolidated democracies and the organisations that claim to be part of democratic socialism in Central and Eastern Europe, and highlights the specific characteristics and points in common. At the dawn of the 21st century, it is therefore the challenges and the different responses to those challenges that are analysed by several of the leading European specialists in Social Democratic parties in Europe.

For years, intellectuals have argued that, with the triumph of capitalist, liberal democracy, the Western World has reached “the end of history.” Recently, however, there has been a rise of authoritarian politics in many countries. Concepts of post-democracy, anti-politics, and the like are gaining currency in theoretical and political debate. Now that capitalist democracies are facing seismic and systemic challenges, it becomes increasingly important to investigate not only the inherent antagonism between liberalism and the democratic process, but also socialism. Is socialism an enemy of democracy? Could socialism develop, expand, even enhance democracy? While this volume seeks a reappraisal of existing liberal democracy today, its main goal is to help lay the foundation for new visions and practices in developing a real socialist democracy. Amid the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism today, the responsibility to sort out the relationship between socialism and democracy has never been greater. No revival of socialist politics in the twenty-first century can occur without founding new democratic institutions and practices.

This title examines the fortunes of social democracy in western and east-central Europe and the policy challenges in economic policy, labour markets, social welfare, public services European integration and decentralisation.

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. The search for social democracy has not been an easy one over the last three decades. The economic crisis of the 1970s, and the consequent rise of neo-liberalism, confronted social democrats with difficult new circumstances: tax-resistant electorates, the globalisation of capital and Western deindustrialisation. In response, a new bout of ideological revisionism consumed social democratic parties. But did this revisionism simply amount to a neo-liberalisation of the Left or did it propose a recognisably social democratic agenda? Were these ideological adaptations the only feasible ones or were there other forms of modernisation that might have yielded greater strategic dividends for the Left? Why did some social democratic parties feel it necessary to take their revisionism much further than others? In search of social democracy brings together prominent scholars of social democracy to address these questions. Focusing on the social democratic heartland of Western Europe (although Australia and the United States also figure in the analysis), it gives the first detailed assessment of how the new social democratic revisionism has fared in government. The book begins by considering the underlying causes of the end of social democracy’s golden age and the magnitude of the challenges faced by social democratic parties after the 1970s. It then proceeds to examine detailed case studies of how particular social democratic parties responded to this changed political terrain. Finally, it contributes to a broader conversation about the future of social democracy by considering ways in which the political thought of ‘third way’ social democracy might be radicalised for the twenty-first century. The contributors offer a variety of perspectives – some are sceptical of social democracy’s prospects, others more sanguine; some supportive of the performance of social democratic parties in government, others bitingly critical. But they are united by the conviction that the themes addressed in this book are crucial to understanding the current politics of the industrialised world and, in particular, to determining the feasibility of more egalitarian and democratic social outcomes than have been possible so far in the era of neo-liberalism.