Herbert Kitschelt and Silja Häusermann show that structural economic change – rather than parties abandoning traditional left-wing principles – is the root cause of the decline of social democracy.
From the 1970s to the present, the political left in western democracies has irreversibly changed. In the 1970s, almost all countries had a single dominant party of the left, focused on issues of social protection and mild economic redistribution toward the less well-off, typically running under the social democratic, socialist or labour party label.
In many countries today, in contrast, the old social democratic party family is now only one of several partisan brands that professes to counteract the risks and inequalities generated by capitalist market economies.
Within the – overall quite stable – left field of parties receptive to redistributive concerns, social democracy has been supplemented and displaced by green-left ecological and libertarian parties, as well as radical left socialist parties.
In the centre of the political spectrum, a variety of new alternatives have arisen as well, and many established moderately conservative parties have positioned themselves to win over centre-left voters. Finally, a radical right has emerged with the potential to attract a considerable share of left voters with its nationalist and socially traditionalist appeals.
Beyond social democracy
In a new edited volume (available open access) we contend that the electoral decline of social democratic parties is not a reflection of them abandoning their erstwhile loyal working class electoral constituencies. Instead, these constituencies have shrunk in the wake of structural economic changes that have made it difficult to deliver the votes to sustain their parties’ success.
Simultaneously, entirely different occupational groups have emerged and expanded that – like the old working class – vigorously oppose unrestrained capitalism. However, these groups also have a range of novel demands that are alien to those the working-class movement expressed during the heydays of social democracy in the past century. These cross-cutting demands are rooted in four fundamental political-economic and societal challenges.
First, rapid technological change and the emerging knowledge societies, accelerated by globalised production chains, have generated imperatives for unprecedented investments in educational, vocational and professional skills. Second, the demographic transition has imposed tremendous fiscal pressures on established pay-go social security systems.
Third, changing gender relations and family structures have created new social risks. Fourth, the unfolding ecological catastrophe of global warming due to fossil fuel consumption entails a fundamental reorientation of economic production and hard distributive choices.
The social democracy of the 20th century is ill-prepared to tackle any of these four structural challenges. Moreover, the different policy options for coping with them carry the risk of dividing the old and new electorates that agree with the fundamental social democratic principles of equality, opportunity and solidarity, but may define and prioritise them differently in light of the new challenges.
Losing support
There are three implications of this framework. The first implication is that social democracy is losing among several socio-demographic constituencies that are now heading for different partisan alternatives.
Despite claims of massive losses among the working classes to the radical right, we find that the main shifts away from social democratic parties have occurred among higher educated and younger voters, primarily to parties of the political centre and the ecological left. Far fewer voters have shifted to the radical socialist left and even fewer have ended up with the radical populist right.
These developments are empirically documented in the studies in our book, which produce consistent findings despite analysing very different data sources. These include using aggregate regional data to examine the geographic changes of left voting, vote switching data in and out of social democracy, voting propensity data to show massive electoral overlaps with green and centrist parties, long-term panel data on social democratic support across the life course of voters, and evidence of the increasing brittleness of intergenerational continuity of social democratic partisan socialisation.
Realignment
The second implication of the framework is that what we witness in the fragmentation of the left is programmatic realignment – rather than chaotic volatility or short-term candidate or issue-driven voting. Voters that move away from social democracy head toward parties that more precisely and distinctively meet their preferences.
Programmatic voting remains strong, but the left’s electoral potential spreads across several parties. Even with trade unions, social democracy still enjoys a strong bond, but it is losing its dominant position as the partisan ally of unions and other left parties are gaining traction among voters who are unionised.
Among all voters who would consider voting for a social democratic party, radical left and new (green) left strategies resonate the most. Centre-left strategies have less support and left-nationalist-xenophobic appeals – those that would resonate with voters verging on defection to right-wing populists – have the least support among potential voters for the left.
Electoral trade-offs
The third implication is that social democratic parties face different electoral trade-offs depending on how they choose to respond to their challenges and competitors. Each strategy may yield some additional voters, while losing other constituencies antagonised by those same positions. We show that there is no overall winning strategy, but the trade-offs are unequal.
A centrist strategy, for example, may be successful for social democrats in the short run, but could then subsequently alienate more radical supporters who will move to green left or radical left parties. Nevertheless, social democrats may stomach this bitter pill if they think it will increase the total share of support for left parties, even if their own party loses votes. Then again, they may heavily lose support if they pursue centrist economic policies while in government. This applies especially to austerity policies such as cutting back on social services.
The way forward
The evidence in our book underlines that it is the emergence of new challenges – rather than the abandoning of old left strategies – that explains the electoral decline of social democratic parties. Calls for social democratic parties to return to older, more radical left platforms are likely to be in vain. A nostalgic left that looks back to the appeals of the 1950s and 1960s would be condemned to electoral marginalisation. This is why most radical left parties remain small splinter parties.
Social democratic parties in Western Europe are unlikely to ever return to the vote shares of 40 percent or more, as the left is irreversibly fragmented. They are best advised to seek a clear programmatic profile that allows them to remain relevant contenders. Electoral preference data would suggest a green-left profile as the most promising, followed by the role of a centrist “broker” of coalitions. The worst option would be to blur the profile in all directions, or to shift programmatic strategies every few years, as this would leave the field clear for more succinctly positioned left competitor parties.
For more information, see the authors’ edited volume, Beyond Social Democracy: The Transformation of the Left in Emerging Knowledge Societies (Cambridge University Press, 2024) – available open access.
Note: This article gives the views of the authors, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock.com
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