Left Foot Forward? European Social Democracy in Hard Times (Again)

Abstract

Party political maps across Europe have been characterised by deepening polarisation and fragmentation over the last couple of decades. After a successful revival in the 1990s, inspired by the Third Way movement among other things, European social democratic parties are faced with a difficult task of renewal – once again. While some social democratic parties have been relatively successful in recent elections, their success has been aided more by the rise of the populist radical right and the decline of the moderate centre-right rather than their own position of strength. Even in the countries where social democrats have again won elections, like in the Nordic countries, they have struggled to get to the level of support they were once used to. Furthermore, after struggling with winning against moderate conservative parties some of whom had borrowed themes from the Third Way, they now feel a squeeze from Greens and PRR parties. Moves to adopt climate change or immigration as new key themes to counter these threats have often also backfired. As such, there is a question about how these parties position themselves in relation to their (new) challengers. How do they, for instance, counter the very serious threat from the PRR parties? Plus, there is an internal debate between centrists and the hard Left. This panel contributes to the wider scholarly debate on the future of social democracy and updates the existing debate in light of the more recent events trough a discussion of key case studies and comparisons deploying both quantitative and qualitative data. Furthermore, we also contribute towards a wider theoretical task of discussing what social democracy of the 21st century looks like. How does social democracy posit itself in relation to key controversies, such as nationalism/internationalism, free trade/protectionism, business/labour etc. It is clear that broader transformations, such as the coming of the information age and the realigning of the key societal cleavages have eroded the traditional electoral bases of many of the old mainstream parties but perhaps none so as social democratic parties. What does progressive left of centre politics of the 21st century look like in Europe is a key question addressed by this panel.

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