scholarly journals ‘Bridges Over Troubled Waters’? The Competitive Symbiosis of Social Democracy and Radical Left in Crisis-Ridden Southern Europe

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-81
Author(s):  
Ioannis Balampanidis ◽  
Ioannis Vlastaris ◽  
George Xezonakis ◽  
Magdalini Karagkiozoglou
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Strategic Responses ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Strategic Orientations ◽  
Electoral Cycle ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Radical Left

AbstractDuring the economic crisis, the radical left, especially in countries of the European South, continued its course from marginality to mainstream while social democracy found itself trapped in its previous strategic orientations. This article examines the two political families in a relational and comparative perspective, focusing on the interaction of social democratic and radical left parties that evolved in a series of national cases (Greece, Portugal, Spain and France) and in particular within the political and electoral cycle of 2015–17. The ideological, programmatic and strategic responses of these parties to the critical juncture of the crisis, which mark a convergence or deviation in the paths of the two ‘enemy brothers', shed light on their political and ideological mutations, transformations and/or adaptations.

scholarly journals On political and philosophical identity: From dissident Marxist to revolutionary democrat

2003 ◽  
pp. 137-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetozar Stojanovic
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Post Communism ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
West European

In this paper the author seeks to shed light on the political and philosophical context of the second half of 20th century in which he intellectually came of age. In his intellectual and political development the author distinguishes three main phases. He characterizes the first phase of his development as Praxis, revisionist, dissident Marxism and reformist communism. The second phase was post-Marxism and post-communism, while in the last decade of the 20th century the author defines his theoretical views as non-Marxist. The author defines his latest philosophical-political standpoint as social democratic which, after his own self-understanding, comes closest to West European social democracy. .

The Politics of Banking and Social Democracy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aled Davies
Keyword(s):  
Banking System ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Industrial Economy ◽  
The Social ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Political Demand

This chapter concerns the politics of managing the domestic banking system in post-war Britain. It examines the pressures brought to bear on the post-war settlement in banking during the 1960s and 1970s—in particular, the growth of new credit creating institutions and the political demand for more competition between banks. This undermined the social democratic model for managing credit established since the war. The chapter focuses in particular on how the Labour Party attempted in the 1970s to produce a banking system that was competitive, efficient, and able to channel credit to the struggling industrial economy.

Gerd Callesen, Socialist Internationals: A Bibliography of Publications of the Social-Democratic and Socialist Internationals, 1914–2000. Bonn and Gent: Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2001. 167 pp. Free of charge.

2004 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 173-175
Author(s):  
Reiner Tosstorff
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Association ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

This is a very useful bibliographical tool produced by the efforts of the International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI). This association comprises more than one hundred archives, libraries and research centers all over the world, though the vast majority are located in Europe, and not all of them have the same importance, reflecting the geographical and political unevenness of socialism's history. This particular volume aims to list all the publications of the social-democratic internationals after 1914, i.e. from the time of the political split due to the support for World War I by most social-democratic parties. This means that the left-wing, beginning with the Kienthal-Zimmerwald movement during the war and leading to the “Communist International” from 1919 on, is not represented here. But also left-wing splits from social democracy in later years, as in the 1930s with the “London Bureau” of left-wing socialist parties (and also the Bureau's predecessors) are excluded here, as they openly campaigned against social democracy. Also, a few international workers' institutions (mainly in the cultural field) that had been founded before 1914, but tried to maintain their independence after 1914 faced with the political split, are therefore not listed as well.

Bringing Capital Back In, or Social Democracy Reconsidered: Employer Power, Cross-Class Alliances, and Centralization of Industrial Relations in Denmark and Sweden

1991 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Swenson
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The World ◽  
Industrial Conflict ◽  
The Right

The political domination of Social Democrats in Denmark and Sweden beginning in the 1930s was stabilized by the absence of intense opposition by capital to reformist programs aggressively opposed by business and the Right elsewhere in the world. This quiescence was not a symptom of weakness or dependency; rather, it was a product of a class-intersecting, cross-class alliance behind institutions of centralized industrial relations that served mutual interests of sectoral groupings dominating both union and employer confederations. Well-organized and militant, and backed by Social Democrats, employers in the two countries used offensive multi-industry lockouts to force centralization on reluctant unions. Analysis of these cross-class alliances and their pay-distributional objectives is used to challenge a widely held view that centralization and Social Democratic electoral strength are sources of power against capital. It also occasions a reassessment of conventional understandings of farmer-labor coalitions and the decline of industrial conflict in Scandinavia in the 1930s. According to the alternative view presented here, capital was included rather than excluded from these cross-class alliances, and industrial conflict subsided dramatically in part because employers achieved politically what they had previously tried to achieve with the lockout.

The Political Logic of Economic Crisis in South Korea

Asian Survey ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jung Kim
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Design ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Electoral Cycle ◽  
Incentive Structures ◽  
Political Logic

This article identifies the causal mechanisms for the 1997 economic crisis in South Korea. Focusing on constitutional design and electoral cycle, the analysis specifies institutional incentive structures that induced contradictory political behavior by the president and legislators. The economic crisis is thus explained by political dynamics.

scholarly journals Insider–Outsider Politics in Industrialized Democracies: The Challenge to Social Democratic Parties

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID RUEDA
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Main Thrust ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Industrialized Democracies ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

In much of the political economy literature, social democratic governments are assumed to defend the interests of labor. The main thrust of this article is that labor is divided into those with secure employment (insiders) and those without (outsiders). I argue that the goals of social democratic parties are often best served by pursuing policies that benefit insiders while ignoring the interests of outsiders. I analyze Eurobarometer data and annual macrodata from 16 OECD countries from 1973 to 1995. I explore the question of whether strategies prevalent in the golden age of social democracy have been neglected and Left parties have abandoned the goal of providing equality and security to the most vulnerable sectors of the labor market. By combining research on political economy, institutions, and political behavior, my analysis demonstrates that insider–outsider politics are fundamental to a fuller explanation of government partisanship, policy-making, and social democracy since the 1970s.

Social Democracy

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Second World

Social democracy has often been seen as a pragmatic compromise between capitalism and socialism. This chapter shows that social democracy is in fact a distinctive body of political thought: an ideology which prescribes the use of democratic collective action to extend the principles of freedom and equality valued by democrats in the political sphere to the organization of the economy and society, chiefly by opposing the inequality and oppression created by laissez-faire capitalism. The chapter makes this case by examining three distinct eras in the development of social democratic ideas: the emergence of social democracy in the decades before the Second World War; the so-called ‘golden age’ of social democracy between 1945 and 1970; and the period of social democratic retreat from 1970 until the present.

scholarly journals Hope Beats Fear? : The Assent of the Saskatchewan Party to Power and the Fall of the NDP

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Chris Fulmer
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Great Success ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Political Branding ◽  
Political Left

The purpose of this paper is to trace the assent of the Saskatchewan Party and examine their current success in the province that has been historically hostile to conservative parties of any iteration. Saskatchewan’s “Natural Governing Party” has long been considered the NDP, and the province’s political culture has been long entrenched with a social democratic lean. This paper builds on and applies the work of Dr Jared Wesley and Michael Moyes in “Selling Social Democracy: Branding the Political Left in Canada” to the context of Saskatchewan and the Sask Party. This paper looks at the tactics and success of political branding and shows how the Sask Party used many of the same branding techniques traditionally used by left wing parties all across the country to great success.

Inter-regional underemployment and the industrial reserve army: Precarity as a contemporary Greek drama

2021 ◽  
pp. 096977642110124
Author(s):  
Andrew Herod ◽  
Kostas Gourzis ◽  
Stelios Gialis
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Regional Patterns ◽  
Metropolitan Regions ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
Bounce Back ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Deep Recession ◽  
Productive Output

We explore the 2008/2009 economic crisis in Greece and its impact upon employment precarity. Specifically, we focus upon changing regional patterns of waged part-timerism during three periods: the 2005–2008 pre-crisis period; the 2009–12 deep recession; and the 2013–2016 period of mild stabilization. Our analysis reveals important geographical and sectoral variations in the growth of this type of underemployment. In particular, we find that metropolitan regions have experienced the heaviest losses in full-time waged employment and a significant expansion of underemployment. Moreover, they have struggled to bounce back effectively during the period of stabilization. By way of contrast, island regions orientated towards tourism weathered the crisis to a much better degree, with many avoiding the acute flexibilization felt in more urbanized regions. Our study observes a “downwards convergence” of regional employment figures that is caused by Attica’s disproportionate crisis. This contrasts popular accounts that focus upon productive output. Moreover, by documenting distinct sectoral trajectories, such as the substantial flexibilization of tourism-related activities, we shed light upon the specifics of an industry often praised for its adaptiveness. Ultimately, through exploring the changing spatialities and sectoral specificities of growing flexibility during a period of recession and recovery, our study provides a geographically sensitive perspective on the emerging dynamics of the Greek reserve army of labour. In so doing, we further historical geographical materialist understandings of the capitalist crisis in Southern Europe.

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