Optimal Electoral Strategies for Socialist Parties

1984 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK LICHBACH
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Formal Model ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Electoral Strategies ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

A strategic dilemma confronts social democratic parties in postindustrial politics: whether to depend on the working class or on the middle class for electoral support. If a social democratic party becomes more heterogeneous (argue working-class strategists) or more homogeneous (argue the middle-class strategists) in class support, then it will also become more electorally successful. The controversy is addressed in two ways. First, a formal model of vote maximization offers a more complete explication of the strategic tradeoffs confronting party leaders than is offered by either the working-class or the middle-class strategists. Second, the alternative electoral strategies are also probed using aggregated survey data on social class and party fortunes. Data come from 41 elections in the postwar era contested by five social democratic parties. Findings come from regressing the total, working-class, and middle-class votes for each party on (lagged) Rose and Urwin's indexes of social cohesion of party alignments and on (lagged) Alford's indexes of class voting. Analytical results and empirical findings are interpreted in terms of their implications for party leaders.

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.

The decline of Western European social democracy: Exploring the transformed link between welfare state generosity and the electoral strength of social democratic parties, 1975–2014

2019 ◽  
pp. 135406881986133
Author(s):  
Karl Loxbo ◽  
Jonas Hinnfors ◽  
Magnus Hagevi ◽  
Sofie Blombäck ◽  
Marie Demker
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Success Factor ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Western European ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Party Family ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

Social democratic parties are crumbling at the polls. Surprisingly, however, the causes of this demise remain largely unexplored. This article contributes to filling this gap in the research by studying the long-term impact of welfare state generosity on the vote share of social democratic parties in 16 Western European democracies. If the welfare state indeed was a key factor behind social democratic growth in the past, we ask whether the recent plight of these parties is down to a reversal of their previously dominant success factor? The article makes three principal findings. First, we show that social democratic parties primarily benefited electorally from expansive reforms at lower levels of welfare state generosity. Second, we find that this dynamic of diminishing returns also helps explain the demise of the Social Democratic party family in the whole of Western Europe. Lastly, our results reveal that programmatic turns to the right predict electoral losses in the least generous welfare states, whereas such shifts either pass unnoticed or predict vote gains in the most generous ones. We conclude by arguing that the structure of welfare state institutions is one important explanation for variations in the demise of the once powerful Social Democratic party family.

scholarly journals Workers’ Politics, the Communist Challenge, and the Schuman Plan: A Comparative History of the French Socialist and German Social Democratic Parties and the First Treaty for European Integration

2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Shaev
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Steel Workers ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Schuman Plan ◽  
Social Democratic Parties ◽  
Steel Industries

AbstractThe Schuman Plan to “pool” the coal and steel industries of Western Europe has been widely celebrated as the founding document of today’s European Union. An expansive historiography has developed around the plan but labor and workers are largely absent from existing accounts, even though the sectors targeted for integration, coal and steel, are traditionally understood as centers of working-class militancy and union activity in Europe. Existing literature generally considers the role coal and steel industries played as objects of the Schuman Plan negotiations but this article reverses this approach. It examines instead how labor politics in the French Nord and Pas-de-Calais and the German Ruhr, core industrial regions, influenced the positions adopted by two prominent political parties, the French Socialist and German Social Democratic parties, on the integration of European heavy industry. The empirical material combines archival research in party and national archives with findings from regional histories of the Nord/Pas-de-Calais, the Ruhr, and their local socialist party chapters, as well as from historical and sociological research on miners and industrial workers. The article analyses how intense battles between socialists and communists for the allegiance of coal and steel workers shaped the political culture of these regions after the war and culminated during a mass wave of strikes in 1947–1948. The divergent political outcomes of these battles in the Nord/Pas-de-Calais and the Ruhr, this article contends, strongly contributed to the decisions of the French Socialist Party to support and the German Social Democratic Party to oppose the Schuman Plan in 1950.

2. Cuban communism and Swedish social democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 42-73
Author(s):  
Michael Newman
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Economic Success ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Fidel Castro ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties ◽  
Positive Effect

After the split with communism, social democratic parties struggled with self-definition. ‘Cuban communism and Swedish social democracy’ focuses on two case studies, the golden age of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and the communist regime in Cuba under Fidel Castro. Both prioritized sustainable economic success as a markerof progress and demonstrated that greater opportunities for women and people from different ethnic backgrounds would have a positive effect on the economy. Both governments were constructed and supported in markedly different ways. Neither were complete successes but were important examples of how the implementation of socialist ideologies—equality, cooperation, and solidarity—might look in practice.

Defeat at Home? Issue-Ownership and Social Democratic Support in Scandinavia

2004 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-613 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Blomqvist ◽  
Christoffer Green-Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Relative Success ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Democratic Support ◽  
Social Democratic Parties ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe aim of this article is to account for the differences in electoral support for social democratic parties in Scandinavia in recent years. The main argument put forward is that the relative success of the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) in preserving voter support compared to the major decline for both the Danish and Norwegian social democrats should be understood by focusing on two factors, both related to the phenomenon of issue-voting. We argue that the relative success of the SAP must been seen in light of the way in which traditional political issues, like employment and social welfare, have continued to dominate Swedish political debates, whereas in Norway and Denmark, new political issues, particularly immigration, have sailed up the political agenda and paved the way for new right-wing parties which attract social democratic voters. Secondly, we believe that one issue in particular, that of the future of the welfare state, is important for preserving social democratic support. Therefore, it is also relevant that the Swedish Social Democratic Party appears to have been more successful than social democratic parties in the neighbouring countries in convincing voters that it is the party best suited to preserve the existing welfare system.

scholarly journals Social Democratic Party Exceptionalism and Transnational Policy Linkages

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Petra Schleiter ◽  
Tobias Böhmelt ◽  
Lawrence Ezrow ◽  
Roni Lehrer
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Policy Learning ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Party Family ◽  
Social Democratic Parties ◽  
Cross National

ABSTRACT Political parties learn from foreign incumbents, that is, parties abroad that won office. But does the scope of this cross-national policy diffusion vary with the party family that generates those incumbents? The authors argue that party family conditions transnational policy learning when it makes information on the positions of sister parties more readily available and relevant. Both conditions apply to social democratic parties. Unlike other party families, social democrats have faced major competitive challenges since the 1970s and they exhibit exceptionally strong transnational organizations—factors, the authors contend, that uniquely facilitate cross-national policy learning from successful parties within the family. The authors analyze parties’ policy positions using spatial methods and find that social democratic parties are indeed exceptional because they emulate one another across borders more than do Christian democratic and conservative parties. These findings have important implications for our understanding of political representation and of social democratic parties’ election strategies over the past forty years.

Debating the Quality of Life: Social Democracy during the 1980s

1994 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jos de Beus ◽  
Thomas Koelble
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Adjustment Problems ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Social Democratic Parties ◽  
The Welfare State

Social Democratic Parties Across Europe Face adjustment problems. Given the electoral decline of almost every social democratic party, it is tempting for social scientists to pronounce such political parties as either in decay or even a thing of the past. There is little doubt that social democratic parties are searching for new concepts, ideas and policies. At the heart of the attempt to regain the political initiative is the debate over how to react not only to the challenges from the new social movements but also to the re-invigorated attack by liberals and conservatives on central social democratic policies: the welfare state and socioeconomicequality.

scholarly journals Trajectories of social democracy in the Baltic countries: choices and constraints

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-230
Author(s):  
Liutauras Gudžinskas
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Baltic Countries ◽  
External Causes ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

AbstractThis article focuses on social democratic parties in the Baltic states. The evolution of the democratic left in these countries deviates from more researched cases of social democratic parties in the Visegrád countries. Although the Lithuanian Social Democratic party (LSDP) had been developing in a similar way to its counterparts in Hungary, Poland and Czechia, its efforts to rebound after a crushing defeat in the 2016 parliamentary elections have proved to be far more successful. Meanwhile, Estonian and Latvian Social Democrats from the outset had to compete under the prevalence of right-wing parties in highly heterogenous societies. However, despite similar initial conditions, their eventual trajectories crucially diverged. Hence, a research puzzle is double: how to explain LSDP’s deviation from similar Visegrád cases, and what are the main factors that led to the differentiation of Estonian and Latvian social democratic parties? While the current research literature tends to emphasise structural and external causes, this paper applies an organisational approach to explain the different fortunes of the democratic left in the Baltic countries as well as other East-Central European states.

November Revolution (German History)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Kotte
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
German History ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
German Empire ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
The Military ◽  
Social Democratic Parties

Over the course of November 1918, Germany’s political system changed from a constitutional monarchy to a parliamentary republic. The November Revolution was a consequence of the military defeat of the German Empire in World War I and was triggered by the naval mutiny carried out on October 29, 1918. Soldiers and workers throughout the Empire joined the movement, which turned into an open revolution and was headed by the two social democratic parties, the Majority Social Democrats Party (Mehrheitssozialdemokratische Partei) or MSPD (later the Social Democratic Party of Germany [Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands] or SPD) and the more socialist-leaning Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) or USPD.

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