Substantial research on the status of the radical and communist Left parties was undertaken during the first years after the collapse of the Soviet bloc; however, interest in these parties soon faded, likely because of their minimal impact on national political systems. This earlier researchâas well as even quite recent researchâtended to focus on the Leftâs issues such as ideological identity, forms of organization, relationship to their past, and the organizational and ideological adaptation and/or transformation required to cope with the new environment, and so on (e.g., see March 2011; March and Mudde 2005; Dunphy 2004; Botella and Ramiro 2003; Bosco 2001; Boggs 1995; Bull and Heywood 1994; Bell 1993). There has been relatively little investigation into Left strategies targeting governance and how these might affect its radical identity (e.g., Dunphy and Bale 2011; Olsen et al. 2010; Dunphy 2007).
There are obvious reasons for the lack of research in this area: the radical/communist Left parties are most often very small and usually relatively insignificant, and most of them are unable, unwilling, or not sought after to form part of governing coalitions. That there is renewed interest, however, is not surprising given that the radical Left is increasingly a stabilized, consolidated, and permanent actor on the European political scene; as such it has become a principal challenger to mainstream social democratic parties (March 2012: 314) that seem to have run out of ideas (Moschonas 2010).
Nevertheless, the attitude of radical Left parties (hereafter RLPs) towards government participation is acknowledged as the biggest change in the radical Leftâs strategy since the Cold War (March 2008: 13). Between 1947 and 1989, in no country other than Finland, was the Communist party a regular participant in government; since 1989 there have been a number of coalition governments with Left party representation. By mid-2016 most RLPs (although not extreme Left parties) in fact no longer viewed bourgeois parliaments and social democratic parties as designed to deceive the working class. Radical Left parties have increasingly become open to forming coalition governments with social democrats and Greens, or at least willing to offer ad hoc cooperation in parliaments and support for social democrat minority governments (Daiber and Kulke 2010). This signals their transition from outsider to insider parties (Olsen et al. 2010: 2).
The previous debate over whether communist parties should pursue power in the national or the pan-European context is once again resurfacing, especially because of the convergence and interdependence of globalization and Europeanization and, most importantly, the recent economic crisis. Although many RLPsâ goal is for government participation on a national level, they do so as part of a European Left strategy that aims for leftist parties to take the reins of their own governments so that they can effect or facilitate changes in the European Union (EU). However, todayâs radical Left milieu is complex and diverse, thus necessitating a minimum operationalization of this party family.
Defining the Radical Left
Although the concept of party families has been a useful tool for the comparison and analysis of party systems in European democracies (Mair and Mudde 1998), it is not without problems, especially in the so-called post-ideological era (Elff 2013). This applies to all manner of party families, and the radical Left is no exception.
Historical legacies and diverse ideological outlooks add to the problems and particularly within the Left. In this regard, the Russian Revolution marked not only the longest lasting division among the Left (Gomez et al. 2016: 352) but also within the Communist party family (von Beyme 1985). The communist movement formerly were differentiated as âreformistâ and ârevolutionaryâ parties (Eley 2010: 229â318; Foster 1990: 307â576). Reformism was seen to be both supportive of liberal democracy and reconciled to the capitalist system, whereas revolutionary implied a party committed to the overthrow (possibly violent) of both multiparty democracy and capitalism. Still, Bale and Dunphy (2011) argued that this distinction is less helpful at the present time because most western European RLPs and communist parties are thoroughly committed to liberal democracy, even if they criticize it.
In the post-World War II (WWII) period, New Left and Left Socialist parties were created in the western part of Europe around the revolts during the 1960s. They departed ideologically from the more orthodox versions of both social democrat reformism and communist socialism, proposing an alternative democratic socialism and assuming the ânew politicsâ agenda (Gallagher et al. 1995; Lane and Ersson 1987). Even if they were not the only divisions experienced by the western Left (as the Trotskyite and Maoist ruptures attest), the communist and new Left/Left socialist waves of party formation generated RLPs that have been present in many West Europe polities for a long time.
Moreover, the Eurocommunist strategies proposed during the 1970s by a number of western communist parties also blurred the distinction between socialist and communist families (Bale and Dunphy 2011: 271). The ideological evolution of the communist and radical Left post-communist parties further complicated the boundaries between the old communist and Left socialist families and led to the formation of a new and distinct RLP family (Gomez et al. 2016: 352). Overall, says March (2012: 317), the radical Left now is markedly less ideological and more pragmatic than during the Soviet era. Compared with the international communist movement of 30 years ago, radical Left groups have undergone profound de-radicalization.
Petras (2015a) goes a step farther, identifying some in those on the Left as Non-Leftist Left (NLL). This NLL group has emerged because of the specific conditions generated by the current social and economic crisis. Spontaneous, amorphous, âanarchic,â extrainstitutional, and âstreet-centered,â the NLL adopted an irreverent style. Essentially an outgrowth of the Indignant Movement, and aimed at the downwardly mobile middle class, the NLL groups (e.g., Podemos and SYRIZA) have appealed to all those disconnected from power by promising to âend austerityâ and restore âdignity and respect.â Petras further finds that the NLLs use social polarization to build an electoral base, and then claim that their participation in small-scale local struggles is âproofâ that they speak to authentic popular aspirations.
The foregoing discussion highlights the complexity of the contemporary radical Left milieu, which Balabanidis (2015a: 47) has aptly described as the âheir of multiple and often conflicting legacies.â In addition, he says their historical trajectory leads to the intrinsic heterogeneity of contemporary RLPs and to the distinction between various subsets of parties within this party family. Clearly, the radical Left often seems to be inherently in conflictâhaving a plan that is constantly in the making. This also is reflected in the various adjectives used to describe this party family: âfar,â âextreme,â âradical,â âanti-capitalist,â âsocialist,â ânew,â âpopulist,â and so on.
Evidently, there are many well-known problems in defining both the term radical and Left (March and Mudde 2005: 24). Obviously, they are very broad and ambiguous terms, the meanings of which have shifted over time. For example, in contemporary political debate, the Left is used as an umbrella term to encompass socialist politics in all its guises (Holmes and Roder 2012a: 2), and as such, there is plenty of room for disagreement. Nevertheless, despite the preceding, there is in fact relative consensus as to what constitutes the radical Left (March 2012: 315â20). The present study draws on various authorsâthat is, March and Mudde (2005: 25), March (2011, 2012), and Bale and Dunphy (2011)âto arrive at the following definition of the radical Left:
A party to the left of social democracy that rejects the underlying socioeconomic structure of contemporary capitalism and its values and practices while advocating for alternative economic and power structures that involve a major redistribution of resources from the existing social and political elites.
This definition,...