Rethinking European Social Democracy and Socialism

The History of the Centre-Left in Northern and Southern Europe in the Late 20th Century

Alan Granadino, Stefan Nygård, Peter Stadius, Alan Granadino, Stefan Nygård, Peter Stadius

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781000518733
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica europea

With a combined focus on social democrats in Northern and Southern Europe, this book crucially broadens our understanding of the transformation of European social democracy from the mid-1970s to the early-1990s.

In doing so, it revisits the transformation of this ideological family at the end of the Cold War, and before the launch of Third Way politics, and examines the dynamics and power relations at play among European social democratic parties in a context of nascent globalisation. The chronological, methodological and geographical approaches adopted allow for a more nuanced narrative of change for European social democracy than the hitherto dominant centric perspective.

This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of social democracy, the European Centre-left, political parties, ideologies and more broadly to comparative politics and European politics and history.

The Introduction chapter of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

1 The Socialist International as a transnational political actor, 1950–1970

DOI: 10.4324/9781003181439-2

Kristian Steinnes

This is a study of the Socialist International (SI) in the 1950s and 1960s and its role as a political actor. In his mammoth volume on west European socialism, Donald Sassoon laconically claims the SI was a “Cold War organization which did little else besides formulate compromise resolutions which never had the slightest importance”.¹ To what extent is this a sensible assessment? By highlighting an underestimated aspect of the SIs role in the post-war era, this chapter focuses on the power of transnational networks and socialisation. It explores how the SI was structured and operated, and it examines its potential and ability to influence individuals and policymaking and bring about policy change. Based on this analysis, the argument put forward is that the role of the Socialist International went far beyond that suggested by Sassoon.

Coinciding with the golden age of western capitalism, European social democracy was at its height in the post-1945 era. With an ambitious programme of managing the economy and building the welfare state, social democracy was a political and societal force that shaped Western Europe perhaps more than any political movement. After some challenging interwar years with tension between socialism in the form of communism and reformism, the latter gained the upper hand in post-war Western European politics, although at different speeds, strength and form. Not only did democratic socialism dominate national politics and government formation, social democratic and socialist parties and individuals also devoted ample time and resources to trans- and inter-national cooperation, eventually gaining momentum as a trans-European political force.

In transnational contexts, social democrats met in order to discuss and develop politics, which, in turn, is believed to have had repercussions for policy formation in national parties and polities. Yet despite acquiring a vital position in European politics, deficiencies exist in our knowledge about processes taking place in the transnational social democratic community. While a comprehensive body of literature deals with social democratic history, ideology and cooperation, analyses of the Socialist International’s role at European level during the post-war period are scarce, although with a few exceptions.² Being a pivotal actor, the role and functions of the SI were defined by a range of factors: its history and post-war reconstruction, its structure and members, its stated aims and tasks, the context and arena in which it acted, the choices made, the knowledge and experience it possessed, the contacts and cooperation it facilitated and its financial strength. In short, many factors have to be taken into account when analysing the Socialist International as a political actor.

A political actor is in this study defined as an individual, political party or organisation whose ultimate goal is to coordinate and bring about policy change according to their ideology or stated objectives. In the post-war era, the Socialist International established itself as an active and well-organised political actor in Europe fostering and facilitating social democratic cooperation. Because it consisted of national social democratic and socialist parties, it is best explained as an institutionalised transnational network whose aims, tasks and organisational structure were clearly defined.³ A transnational network is in this context understood as regular cross-border interactions when at least one actor is a non-state agent or does not operate on behalf of a national government or an intergovernmental organisation. Not only did the SI act as a liaison between national political parties but it also cooperated and was in close contact with other transnational social democratic networks in Europe. As such the SI was a key body for organised transnational centre-left political cooperation and policy formation in post-war Europe.

In order to analyse and assess the functions of a transnational network and its ability to bring about policy change, constructivism, which focuses on intersubjective and social aspects of political systems, is taken into account. The constructivist take on interest formation in organisations is that they are flexible and changing. Broadly speaking, constructivism argues that discourse shapes how political actors define interests, and thus modify their behaviour.⁴ Of course, no single theoretical approach can capture the complexity of socialisation, interest formation and politics, yet my proposition is that the Socialist International as a political actor during the 1950s and 1960s is better understood by bringing in constructivism and the concept of socialisation.

Transnational networks, socialisation and political behaviour

Approaches appropriate for the study of an institutional transnational network include concepts exploring mutual influence and socialisation. Socialisation and learning are embedded in concepts of institutionalism which is important because institutional configurations may impact political outcomes. Definitions of institutionalism differ substantially and do not constitute a single research programme.⁵ Because institutions also may be defined as systems of norms and symbols, it gives the institutionalist approach a fairly wide remit.⁶ An important point is the mutual constitutiveness of social structures and agents.⁷ It is obvious that agents make structures, but actors are also subject to the behavioural modifications by those structures. From this point of view, interests and identities do not exist externally to a context of interaction between structures and agents.⁸

These observations encourage the application of constructivist and interpretative approaches, because an underlying theoretical foundation of transnational networks relies on the roles of ideas and culture in policy-formulating processes. The links between being part of a network and adaptation and internalisation of new or changed perceptions are the subject of socialisation theories.⁹ Schimmelfennig defines international socialisation as “the process of inducting actors into adopting the constitutive schemata and rules of an international community”.¹⁰ In line with this, Johnston suggests that “socialization aims at creating membership in a society where the intersubjective understandings of the society become taken for granted”. When perception, values and ideas become internalised and take on “taken-for-grantedness”, they are not only hard to change, but “the benefits of behaviour are calculated in abstract social terms rather than concrete consequential terms”.¹¹ The degrees of internalisation also have to be taken into account because all actors are not always exposed to the same configuration of socialisation, nor do they enter into social interactions with similar prior identifications.¹² Hence, pro-social behaviour because of its “appropriateness” may be the norm, yet at the opposite end of the spectrum, one might find pro-social behaviour because of its material (dis)incentives.

Under which circumstances and to what extent are perceptions and policies transferred and internalised? Axelrod and Checkel have set out conditions or critical mechanisms for strengthening pro-norm behaviour, and listed preconditions as to why agents comply with norms embedded in regional and international institutions. The former lists identification (the degree of identification with the group), authority (the degree to which the norm is seen as legitimate), social proof (which applies to what people decide is correct behaviour) and voluntary membership in a group working together for a common end (defection from group norms carries costs in self-esteem).¹³ The latter puts emphasis on five conditions under which agents should be especially inclined to comply by preference change: when an actor, first, is in a new and uncertain environment (generated by the newness of the issue, a crisis or serious policy failure); second, has few prior ingrained beliefs that are inconsistent with the group norm; third, acknowledges the authority of in-group members; fourth, interacts with group members who act out “principles of serious deliberative argument” instead of lecturing or demanding; finally, when interaction occurs in less politicised and more insulated, private settings.¹⁴

The speed, uniformity and effectiveness of socialisation and the transfer of values, ideas and norms in transnational networks thus largely depend on the kind of institutional and social environment to which actors are exposed. Generally, socialisation and compliance appear to be more likely to occur if an actor strongly identifies with the group or network norms, has common policy goals and subscribes to the authority of the institutional settings. Even though network concepts by and large are accepted as providing useful insights, they have also been criticised for their failing to specify the conditions under which specific ideas are selected, their limited ability to explain social and political change, and their metaphorical nature.

Social democracy – national priorities and international solidarity

Social democracy or democratic socialism is a composite and ill-defined concept, comprising a range of parties, ideas and individuals. Anthony Crosland once defined social democracy as a political ideology based on political liberalism, a mixed economy, the welfare state, Keynesian economic policy and commitment to equality.¹⁵ This definition does not distinguish between political parties and different strands of electoral socialism and may be considered generic. Although dominant ideas of social democracy have evolved and changed and are put together by different strands, it is safe to suggest that they were made up of a particular famiglia spirituale with common yet not identical traits.

In reality, social democracy has varied according to national characteristics and history, as well as social, demographic and economic conditions. As such, the concept of socialism has been incessantly modified and adjusted to fit actual needs and challenges.¹⁶ Consequently, an understanding of social democracy has to take account of social cleavages, including class, religion, language, territory and the urban-rural divides. Social democracy’s expression in the form of political parties is diverse, and the balance among various elements differs from one place to another. Party composition may enlarge or reduce the political space for social democratic parties, given the presence of communist, socialist, agrarian, religious, communitarian, territorial, environmental and also populist parties. Based on these observations, it is obvious that social democracy had a strong national dimension.

Yet from the outset socialism contained an equally strong element of internationalism, which has been evident in its ideological tenets and manifested i.e., by the formation of internationals (the first 1864–1876, and the second 1889–1916). The former was set up even before the creation of most national political parties. However, with the consolidation of the nation-state and the advent of political parties and universal suffrage, the constituent bases of the emerging socialist parties increasingly were confined to and contingent upon the nation-state. This fortified a tension between a rhetorical, ideological and theoretical affinity to internationalism and international solidarity, and the political reality and pragmatism of being embedded to national constituencies and to a certain extent also gratifying nationalism and the nation-state.

Thus, rhetorically socialist and social democratic parties professed to a loose set of principles stressing internationalism, class consciousness and anti-militarism, while increasingly pursuing and applying a political strategy of bringing about societal objectives in a national context. This tension was evident in the second International during the late 19th century, for instance, in debates over imperialism, and later when many socialist and social democratic parties vigorously voted in favour of war credits at the outbreak of the First World War.

During the interwar years, tensions between a national and an international outlook continued, accentuated over time by deteriorating economic, societal and political conditions. At an organisational level, tensions were manifested by the intensified and widening gulf between socialist reformism and communism.¹⁷ The reformist and democratic faction established the Labour and Socialist International as opposed to the Communist International (Comintern). However, with the economic depression, the emergence of fascism and Nazism, the rise of nationalism and isolationism, and the growing threat of war, cooperation among democratic socialist parties eventually was undermined during the 1930s, and large swathes of the parties directed focus towards national and domestic challenges.

Although the 1930s were difficult years for international socialism, it underwent a striking revival during the wartime and post-war years, paving the way for the golden age of social democracy, and the 1951 (re)creation of the Socialist International.¹⁸ The setting up of the Socialist International created a structure in which transnational cooperation could come to its own as a transnational political actor. Yet the tension between a national outlook, represented by national parties and priorities, and the party organisations’ stated internationalism, lingered in the re-established organisation.

The re-establishment of the SI did not only coincide with the golden age of social democracy. It also corresponded with a period of exceptional and stable economic growth and the building of the welfare state. At the time, whether they previously had been in power or not, many social democratic parties had matured into political and organisational bodies ready to take up governmental responsibilities. In a radicalised political era with an electorate generally leaning leftward, encouraged by the coming to power of the British Labour Party with its Beveridge report and welfare programme, social democratic parties represented a timely and powerful political alternative.

In parallel with the reestablishment of the SI, core Western European states ventured into closer cooperation by sign...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: North and South in European and global social democracy
• 1 The Socialist International as a transnational political actor, 1950–1970
• 2 From democratic socialism to neoliberalisation: Political and ideological evolution of Nordic Social Democrats and Portuguese Socialists after the economic crisis of the 1970s
• 3 Put (Southern) Europe to workThe Nordic Turn of European Socialists in the early 1990s
• 4 Social democracy, globalisation and the ambiguities of “Europeanisation”: Revisiting the Southern European crises of the 1970s
• 5 Logics of influence: European Social Democrats and the Iberian transitions to democracy
• 6 Radicalism and reformism in Post-war Italian socialism: A comparative view
• 7 Cultural affinity and small-state solidarity: Sweden and Global North–South relations in the 1970s
• 8 Looking South: The role of Portuguese democratisation in the Socialist International’s initiatives towards Latin America in the 1970s
• 9 Contribution to the critique of “Social Democracy in One Country”: The case of Sweden
• 10 Defining progress in post-war Mediterranean: Communist Movements and their influence in Algeria and Egypt after 1945
• Epilogue: North-South and Social Democratic transformations in Europe and beyond
• Index