scholarly journals The ideational foundations of social democratic austerity in the context of the great recession

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 439-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Bremer ◽  
Sean McDaniel
Keyword(s):  
Social Investment ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Social ◽  
Elite Interviews ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Social Democratic Parties ◽  
Apparent Conflict

AbstractThe ‘austerity settlement’ has come to define the post-crisis European political economy. Since 2010, parties from across Europe’s political mainstream have implemented austerity and despite the apparent conflict with the interests of their traditional constituents, even social democratic parties have acquiesced to this settlement. However, within the existing literature ‘social democratic austerity’ is currently under-theorized as it is assumed to involve a rather straightforward adaptation of social democrats to neo- and/or ordoliberal ideas. Utilizing rich and original evidence from over 60 elite interviews with key social democratic stakeholders in France, Germany and the UK, this article contests this view. It demonstrates instead that a distinct set of ideas based on New Keynesianism, supply-side economics, and the social investment paradigm provide the ideational foundations for social democratic austerity post-crisis. Understanding this, it is argued, is critical in order to fully appreciate how and why austerity has become dominant in post-crisis Europe.

scholarly journals Draining the Swamp: Understanding the Crisis in Mainstream Politics as a Crisis of the State

Slavic Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (S1) ◽  
pp. S30-S38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abby Innes
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
Social Polarization ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

This paper examines Poland, Hungary, the UK and the US the most surprising cases of populist reaction. It argues that the social polarization caused by the failures of hyper-liberal reforms to the state, and the association of Social Democratic parties with those reforms, has provoked alienation from liberal democratic politics.

scholarly journals The Demobilization of Class Politics in Denmark: The Social Democratic Party’s Group-Based Appeals 1961–2004

2018 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mads Thau
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
General Level ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
Specific Level ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

Abstract In Denmark, as in other Western European countries, the working class does not vote for social democratic parties to the same extent as before. Yet, what role did the social democratic parties themselves play in the demobilization of class politics? Building on core ideas from public opinion literature, this article differs from the focus on party policy positions in previous work and, instead, focuses on the group-based appeals of the Social Democratic Party in Denmark. Based on a quantitative content analysis of party programs between 1961 and 2004, I find that, at the general level, class-related appeals have been replaced by appeals targeting non-economic groups. At the specific level, the class-related appeals that remain have increasingly been targeting businesses at the expense of traditional left-wing groups such as wage earners, tenants and pensioners. These findings support a widespread hypothesis that party strategy was crucial in the decline of class politics, but also suggests that future work on class mobilization should adopt a group-centered perspective.

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.

Social Democracy in Welfare Capitalism – Structural Erosion, Welfare Backlash and Incorporation?

1978 ◽  
Vol 21 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 97-111
Author(s):  
Walter Korpi
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Welfare Capitalism ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

Sweden is here taken as a ‘test case’ for post-war social science theories predicting that changes inclass, stratification and community structures accompanying industrialization will gradually erode the base for socialist voting and make the mobilization of the electorate by the socialist parties more difficult. The maturation of the welfare state has further been predicted to generate a ‘welfare backlash’ against the social democratic parties. An analysis of long-term changes in social structure and socialist voting in Sweden does not give support to these hypotheses. An alternative interpretation is suggested in which the shape and changes in the power structure in society are taken as the starting point for the analysis of the possibilities and limitations for social democratic policies in advanced capitalist society.

4. Beyond the dominant orthodoxies

2020 ◽  
pp. 104-135
Author(s):  
Michael Newman
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

Following the collapse of the Soviet bloc, countries around the world struggled to implement their versions of social democracy. ‘Beyond the dominant orthodoxies’ looks at recent developments in China (successful, but too business-oriented and inflexible to be the future of socialism), the UK (weakened by the ‘third way’ of the late 1990s and lack of engagement with political parties), and other European countries (threatened by lack of support for social democratic parties and the rise of the far right). None of the new movements in Spain, Greece, Latin America, or the UK was entirely successful, but many succeeded in embedding elements of socialism in their countries’ politics.

Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement in Scandinavia

1989 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils Roll-Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Gene Pool ◽  
Genetic Research ◽  
Political Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Genetic Science ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

Two questions will receive special attention in this account, namely the political location of eugenics and the role of genetic science in its development. I will show that moderate eugenic policies had broad political support. For instance, the Scandinavian sterilization laws which were introduced in the 1930s were supported by the Social Democratic Parties, who were partly in position of government. I will argue that the effect of genetic research was to make eugenics more moderate, mainly because the fears and hopes were shown to be exaggerated. Degeneration was much slower than feared at first, if it took place at all, and the expectation of rapid and large effects of eugenic policies on the gene pool likewise proved to be quite unrealistic.

Will to power? Intra-party conflict in social democratic parties and the choice for neoliberal policies in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain (1980–2010)

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Marx ◽  
Gijs Schumacher
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Will To Power ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Neoliberal Reforms ◽  
Labor Market Policies ◽  
Democratic Ideology ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

Why do social democrats choose neoliberal labor market policies? Since social democrats are typically punished for welfare state retrenchment and because these policies do not equate well with social democratic egalitarian principles, it is difficult to see what they gain from it. We argue that, depending on the intra-party balance of power between activists and leaders, some parties are office-seeking, whereas others are policy-seeking. This behavioral difference explains why some parties are responsive to environmental incentives such as the economy and public opinion (office-seeking parties) and others are responsive to policy-motivated activists (policy-seeking parties). Using three case studies of social democratic parties (Germany, the Netherlands and Spain) in the period 1980–2010, we analyze when and why these parties introduced neoliberal reforms. The study shows that office-seeking parties introduce neoliberal measures if the risk of losing votes due to an underperforming economy becomes larger than the risk of losing votes due to the mobilization of unions and opposition parties. Policy-seeking social democrats retain a social democratic ideology, unless prolonged failure to win office empowers pragmatic leaders to push through office-seeking strategies.

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