Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: The Future of Social Democracy

The future of social democracy is unclear. Some parties are lurching to the left whereas others are taking a side in Europe’s culture war.

  • Old-School Leftists Break with Democratic Party in Italy

    The likelihood of elections being called soon is escalating tensions in Italy’s ruling center-left Democratic Party.

    • Senate speaker Pietro Grasso has left the party after criticizing the way it enacted electoral reforms. (By tying them to confidence votes, the government ensured they would pass without amendments.)
    • The Democrats and Progressives — left-wing critics of former prime minister and Democratic Party leader Matteo Renzi — applauded Grasso’s move.
    • Former prime minister Massimo D’Alema, now a member of the Democrats and Progressives, said Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni “has become like Renzi.”
    • Four Renzi loyalists — Transportation Minister Graziano Delrio, Sports Minister Luca Lotti, Agricultural Minister Maurizio Martina and Cabinet Secretary Maria Elena Boschi — did not attend a cabinet meeting this week where Ignazio Visco was confirmed to serve another term as governor of the Bank of Italy. Renzi wanted him out. (more…)

  • Germany’s Social Democrats Should Have Picked Side

    Martin Schulz
    German Social Democratic Party leader Martin Schulz makes a speech in Bavaria, March 1 (Bayern SPD/Joerg Koch)

    Germany’s Social Democrats are going the way of the Dutch Labor Party.

    Both parties tried to appeal to their working- and middle-class constituents in elections this year and both lost precisely because of this indecision.

    Campaigning on liberal immigration laws, social justice and international engagement alienates blue-collar voters.

    Campaigning on border controls and deemphasizing identity politics turns away college graduates.

    Do both at the same time and you end up with with no supporters at all. (more…)

  • Social Democrats in Germany Make Same Mistake as Dutch

    Alexis Tsipras Martin Schulz
    Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras and European Parliament president Martin Schulz answer questions from reporters in Brussels, February 4, 2015 (European Parliament)

    Germany’s Social Democrats are making the same mistake as the Dutch Labor Party, I argue in the Netherlands’ NRC newspaper this week.

    Like Labor, which went down from 25 to 6 percent support in the most recent election, the Social Democrats are trying to appeal to both working- and middle-class supporters. It is that indecision that is turning both groups away from them.

    College-educated voters in the city see the benefits of open borders in Europe and free trade with the rest of the world. Low-skilled workers and small towns feel the downsides. Progressives obsess about gay rights and gender issues that animate few blue-collar voters. (more…)

  • Germany’s Social Democrats Need to Pick Side in Culture War

    Social democrats across Europe are caught in the middle of a culture war: they have middle-class voters, many of them university-educated, whose economic and social views range from liberal to progressive, as well as working-class voters, whose views range from the conservative to the nativist.

    Germany’s are trying to bridge this divide, but a report by the Financial Times from the heart of the Ruhr industrial area does not suggest they are succeeding.

    Guido Reil, a coalminer from Essen and former town councilor for the Social Democrats who switched to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany, says his old party has “lost its connection to real people.”

    They don’t speak their language. They’re people who have never worked, they’re all careerists and professional politicians.

    Blue-collar voters — a shrinking demographic — only make up 17 percent of the Social Democrats’ electorate anymore. (more…)

  • Denmark’s Left Must Find Balance Between Nativists and Progressives

    Danish parliament Copenhagen
    Christiansborg Palace, seat of the Danish parliament, in Copenhagen (Shutterstock)

    Denmark’s Social Democrats are eying cooperation with the nationalist People’s Party which they have shunned for years.

    Under Mette Frederiksen, who took over the party leadership after its 2015 election defeat, the center-left has supported such far-right policies as a ban on prayer rooms in schools and universities.

    The two parties, who are both in opposition to a liberal minority government, have also made common cause against raising the pension age.

    Frederiksen argues she is defending the Danish welfare state from the challenges of globalization.

    Her strategy is not too dissimilar from her Swedish counterpart’s. Stefan Löfven, the ruling Social Democratic Party leader in Stockholm, has taken a hard line on border control, crime and defense in a bid to stem working-class defections to the far right. (more…)

  • Schulz Not the Future of Social Democracy After All

    Martin Schulz
    German Social Democratic Party leader Martin Schulz makes a speech in Bavaria, March 1 (Bayern SPD/Joerg Koch)

    Germany’s Martin Schulz looks less and less like the savior of European social democracy.

    His party performed poorly in North Rhine-Westphalia on Sunday, the third state election this year in which the Social Democrats were bested by Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.

    I argued here earlier in the week that North Rhine-Westphalia’s election was a crucial test for Schulz. It is the heartland of German social democracy: the biggest industrial state with four of Germany’s ten largest cities and a long history of trade unionism. The state has been governed by a coalition of Social Democrats and Greens since 2010 under a popular state prime minister, Hannelore Kraft.

    If Schulz couldn’t win here, then where can he? (more…)

  • Social Democracy Isn’t Dead, But It Needs to Adapt

    Social democrats might despair after the collapse of the French Socialist Party on Sunday. Their candidate, Benoît Hamon, received only 6.4 percent of the votes, almost an historic low.

    Hamon’s defeat comes mere weeks after the Dutch Labor Party sunk to its lowest level of support ever in parliamentary elections.

    And it comes weeks before the British Labour Party is expected to suffer yet another defeat under the feckless leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

    There is some good news. Emmanuel Macron, the closest thing to a proper social democrat in France, is on track to win the presidency. Germany’s Social Democrats are riding high in the polls. Italy’s center-left Democrats are in power and will probably remain so after the elections this year.

    Look closely and you see it’s not social democracy that is dead but rather a particular form of social democracy. (more…)

  • Sweden’s Social Democrats Take Risk with Hardline Policies

    Swedish parliament Stockholm
    Parliament House in Stockholm, Sweden at night (iStock/Blue Jay Photo)

    Sweden’s Stefan Löfven is taking the fight to the far right. Politico reports that the prime minister and Social Democratic Party leader is implementing a hard line on border control, crime and defense.

    With his tough stance, Löfven hopes to avoid the fate of sister parties elsewhere in Europe who have failed to convince voters that they are still relevant now that the welfare states they helped build are well-established.

    Polls show the Swedish left down a few points. The nationalist Sweden Democrats have moved up.

    Löfven’s party would still get nearly 30 percent support on its own and 40 percent in combination with its left-wing allies; a far cry from the dismal performance of center-left parties in France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

    But like social democrats elsewhere, Sweden’s are losing their traditional, working-class supporters to the far right. (more…)

  • Dilemma for Dutch Social Democrats After Historic Defeat

    Open Europe’s Vincenzo Scarpetta‏ has called it the PASOK-ization of the Dutch Labor Party. In an historic defeat on Wednesday, the social democrats went down from 25 to 6 percent support, reducing them from the second to the seventh largest party in parliament.

    The Greens and far-left Socialists, long Labor’s smaller siblings on the left, did better, winning 9 percent support each.

    The result was not unexpected. Labor’s popularity fell when it formed a coalition government with the right in 2012 and never recovered.

    The choice it now faces is the same for social democrats elsewhere: either attempt to lure back traditional working-class and migrant voters with an economically more populist program or double down on center-left politics that appeal to the socially progressive middle class. (more…)

  • Renzi Picks Side in Italy’s Blue-Red Culture War

    David Cameron Matteo Renzi Justin Trudeau
    Prime Ministers David Cameron of the United Kingdom and Justin Trudeau of Canada listen to Italy’s Matteo Renzi at the G7 in Shima, Japan, May 26, 2016 (Palazzo Chigi)

    Italy’s Democratic Party leader, Matteo Renzi, launched his candidacy for reelection this week by presenting himself as the alternative to nationalist leaders in his own country as well as America and France.

    “Some people wanted a party congress to find an alternative to Renzi-ism. It needs to be done as an alternative to Trumpism, Le Penism and even Grilloism,” the former prime minister said, referring to the new president of the United States, the leader of France’s National Front and the founder of Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement. (more…)

  • European Social Democrats Warm to Coalitions with Far Left

    António Costa
    Prime Minister António Costa of Portugal attends a meeting with other European socialist leaders in Brussels, June 28 (PES)

    The formation of an all-left city government in Berlin that includes the once-communist Die Linke follows a pattern: center-left parties across Europe are increasingly willing to team up with their rivals on the far left.

    Germany’s Social Democrats shunned Die Linke for decades. The two parties disagree on EU and industrial policy, NATO membership, relations with Russia and welfare.

    The alliance in Berlin is only the second time in German history the two have shared power. (more…)

  • Schröder’s Legacy Still Relevant to German Left

    The German Social Democrats’ draft election manifesto released last week revealed two things: they are at once haunted by their past and have learned from it.

    Ten years ago, Germany’s Social Democrat chancellor Gerhard Schröder initiated far-reaching economic and social reforms. While there is ongoing academic debate about whether these reforms are solely responsible for the resilient German economy (PDF) and labor market (PDF), there is widespread agreement that they are at least part of the nation’s current success.

    This puts the party’s contender for the chancellorship, Peer Steinbrück, in a delicate position, not least since he was one of the strongest supporters of Schröder’s agenda. Incumbent chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is in the comfortable position of continuing to run with a program that was originally designed by the left yet showed in many parts an ideological affinity with the economic right.

    Steinbrück and the chairman of his party, Sigmar Gabriel, are trying to find the middle ground between maintaining the inheritance of their successful reforms and the necessity of presenting themselves as an alternative to Merkel’s conservatives. (more…)