Social Democracy

7 Key excerpts on "Social Democracy"

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  Social Democracy

  A Comparative Account of the Left-Wing Party Family

  • Hans Keman(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  These different views on state and society represent simultaneously the values of the various political actors and the related policy goals pursued by them. In general, the goals of Social Democracy are formulated in terms of humanist values. These values are often more or less derived from liberal ideas and mainly of an individualist nature. For instance, the right to associate or universal suffrage have been important goals for the labour movement and have played an important part in mobilising and organising the emerging working class (Abendroth, 1965; Lorwin, 1967; Therborn, 1977; Lipset, 1983; Spoormans, 1988; Giddens, 1998; Flora et al., 1999). Later on, especially after the Second World War, these basic and vital ‘human rights’ were universally acknowledged throughout the established democracies (recall Chapter 2). Since then these goals, once transformed into constitutional rights, have gradually developed into the direction of gaining more freedom to improve everybody’s quality of life in terms of collective rights enhanced through the use of public powers. The development of Social Democratic ideology, however, did not focus at liberal-political values only. Besides stressing the ‘freedom to ’ (act freely as a citizen) also the freedom from (poverty, scarcity etc.) has always been a centrepiece of the socialist creed. The welfare state as a value-related concept therefore always concerns both types of freedom. The development of the welfare state can then be seen as the growing concern of the community for certain values by which it seeks to promote and to defend freedom and equality. Robert Goodin puts this tendency forward as follows: The relationship between freedom and the welfare state surely is, at best and at worst, a mixed one. In some ways, the welfare state promotes certain kinds of freedom for certain people

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  Social Democracy in Sweden

  The Threat from a Globalized World

  • Dimitris Tsarouhas(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • I.B. Tauris

    (Publisher)

  1 Introduction Social Democracy is in crisis. There is nothing new about this statement, considering how often such a crisis has been diagnosed in the past. 1 It would seem, however, that at the beginning of the twenty-first century the inability of social democrats to cope with a fast-changing economic reality has imprisoned them in a world of limited political ambition. This is paradoxical considering how social democrats responded to earlier challenges. Prophecies of decline had earlier stressed the shrinking of the manual working class – the traditional constituency of the left – as well as the feminization of the workforce, and the heterogeneity of society resulting from migration. 2 Social democrats needed to construct new alliances and overcome their reliance on blue-collar labourers to create viable majoritarian social and electoral coalitions. 3 The old politics centred on distribution and class divisions had to be complemented or even replaced by the new politics of identity whereby parties and individuals would be divided on the basis of their liberal/authoritarian tendencies on issues of identity, lifestyle and personal freedom. New Social Democracy embraced identity politics and sought to loosen its ties with trade unions and the manufacturing class. As the world changed, social democrats had to run to stand still. This meant embracing welfare state reform and adjusting to new indi- vidualism by dropping some collectivist solutions that stifled talent and personal development. 4 In electoral terms, western social democratic parties coped well with those challenges and seemed on the ascendancy ten years ago, so much so that the ‘social demo- 2 Social Democracy IN SWEDEN cratic moment’ reappeared on the political horizon. Alas, it did not last long: with the exception of the UK and Spain the social democrats or their allies are not in power in any major European country.

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  Democratic Socialism

  A Global Survey

  • Donald F. Busky(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  One goal has been the establishment of worldwide, political democracy and socialism. Another goal has been universal disarmament and an end to war. Still another goal is the end of imperialism, both outright colonialism and neocolonial domination of powerful nations over the economies and politics of others. Additionally, democratic socialists seek a new international economic order in which the world will no longer be divided by the north/south split between the wealthy nations mainly in the northern hemisphere and the desperately poor nations of the Third World, found mainly in the southern hemisphere in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The democratic socialists urge greater foreign aid to help end this situation of international inequality. All complex systems of thought carry the possibility that two or more elements might be in contradiction. Political ideologies have such builtin contradictions, which can be clearly seen between democratic socialists’ goals of political democracy and their desire for international democracy. As political democrats, they oppose dictatorial and often aggressive fascist and communist states. This translates into a desire to be armed for the purposes of selfdefense. At the same time, under the goal of international democracy, democratic socialists also declare for universal disarmament. The social democratic parties of Western Europe were split over these conflicting goals when the United States began arming these nations with Page 13 nuclear missiles in response to a Soviet buildup in nuclear and conventional forces in the 1970s and 1980s. The left wings of these social democratic parties joined with communist and Green parties to protest these Western, Sovietmatching buildups, whereas the rightwing social democrats tended to side with the conservatives in their nations in seeing the need for American nuclear arms on their soil in the name of protecting democracy from tyranny.

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  Social Democratic Parties in the European Union

  History, Organization, Policies

  • R. Ladrech, P. Marlière, R. Ladrech, P. Marlière(Authors)
  • 1999(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  In the wake of the Second World War, when the influence of Social Democracy was at its most prominent - notably due to the implementation of the Welfare State right across Europe - the terminology was used to refer to a regime or a political system. The popularized expression 'social democratic compromise' or 'consensus' served to highlight the fact that the achievements of social democratic governments in office in most European countries at the time, or at least influential in opposition, were recognized and accepted by their political opponents on the other side of the left-right political axis. Viewed from this perspective, Social Democracy embodies a generally accepted way of tackling mainstream social and economic issues and policies which are taken for granted by the political class as a whole. 1 R. Ladrech et al., Social Democratic Parties in the European Union © Robert Ladrech and Philippe Marliere 1945 2 Introduction While Social Democracy can be studied both as a coherent political force and as a specific way of dealing with socio-economic issues, a closer look at the social democratic parties in the European Union shows that in terms of historical background, organization and policies, it is in fact remarkably diverse. A consecutive reading of the sixteen chapters which form the core of this book will reveal the extent of this political diversity: each chapter highlights the way in which it has been shaped both by external factors and by party features arising from a specific national political climate. The purpose of this introductory chapter is to emphasize the common elements of all European social democratic parties with a view to proposing an accessible political paradigm. In other words, it aims to assess the extent to which it is possible to speak of a typical social democratic mode of organiza- tion as well as a set of public policies.

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  Politics against Markets

  The Social Democratic Road to Power

  • Gøsta Esping-Andersen(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  P A R T I I The Political Bases of Social Democracy F I V E The Social Citizenship State TODAY, Social Democracy is virtually synonymous with the welfare state. This is understandable when we consider that social-democratic- dominated countries, particularly in Scandinavia, also boast the most developed social security systems. At the same time it is false to imply a direct causal link. A host of nations, Holland being the most illus- trious, display levels of social expenditure that easily match the Scan- dinavian, yet without experiencing a comparable level of working- class political power. Generally speaking, it is erroneous simply to equate the two without regard for the content and characteristics of the welfare state. Equal levels of social expenditure may blind us to critical differences in the institutional makeup of welfare systems. High rates of social expend- iture do not necessarily imply generosity or commitment to effective social citizenship rights—they may simply mirror a nation's incapacity to deal effectively with such social problems as large-scale unemploy- ment and persistent poverty. No a priori reason exists for assuming that socialists greedily desire heavy social expenditures for their own sake. There is, as most authorities on the question have pointed out (Briggs 1961; Rimlinger 1971; Flora 1981), nothing especially socialist about the origins of social amelioration and reform. Traditional conserva- tives, like Disraeli and Bismarck, were eager to promote social legis- lation as a means of ensuring order and securing working-class loy- alties. Liberals were of course more reluctant, but even they gave in when it was politically unavoidable—and when it was eventually understood that social insurance might be beneficial for economic efficiency. In either case, welfare measures frequently evolved without, or actually against, socialist wishes.

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  The Future of European Social Democracy

  Building the Good Society

  • H. Meyer, J. Rutherford, H. Meyer, J. Rutherford(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  They built formidable organizations, which amounted to more than mere electoral machines but frequently described a way of life. Before 1914 the German SPD was an organizational and ideological model for many other Social Democratic Parties in Europe. In the interwar period European social democrats were amongst the staunchest defenders of democracy against both communism and fas- cism. They sought to redefine liberal democracy by adding a social and welfare dimension to it and by introducing the concept of economic democracy, which was to transform the unfettered version of capitalism in the interest of the many. Swedish Social Democracy came to stand for this new reformist path to socialism, and it went furthest in transform- ing Swedish society in this image. The commitment to internationalism from the second half of the nineteenth century right through to the present day indicates that social democrats in Europe (and, later on, well beyond the European borders) were seeing themselves very much as members of one political family. After the Second World War, most European social democracies aban- doned their self-styled nineteenth-century commitment to the eman- cipation of the working classes. Instead, their attempts to maximize their electoral returns have led them to develop profiles as ‘people’s parties’ or ‘catch-all parties’ that sought to gain support from an increas- ingly diffuse middle class. As people increasingly defined themselves through their purchasing power, as consumers, rather than through their workplaces, the rhetoric of class gave way to the language of equal opportunities and fairness. But this was a language that was by no means exclusive to Social Democratic Parties. Christian democrats and popular conservatives as well as various Liberal Parties came to share the same linguistic terrain, as political parties increasingly crowded together at the centre of politics, where elections were won.

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  Towards More Democracy in Social Services

  Models of Culture and Welfare

  • Gaby Flösser, Hans-Uwe Otto, Gaby Flösser, Hans-Uwe Otto(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  A comprehensive societal democratization is thus renounced in favor of a liberal conception of representation or even a reinforcement of democratic elites (see Bachrach 1970). The conception of democracy defined narrowly as a specifically formed political order aims at excluding the many-sided social realms as non-political realms of society. 4 However, the rejection of the utility of the democratic principles outside the state sphere, which has reappeared with renewed vigor in today's public debates and thus assisted the depoliticization of the concept of democratization, denies both the complexity of a highly differentiated society as well as the politi-cal penetration of various realms of life and the necessary increase in society's reflexive influence upon itself. 5 Neither the economy, or technology, nor cultural forms, the world of goods and social/cultural situations lie outside political mediation. In essence the question which goes beyond formal democracy, of the accessibility and transformation of democracy brings the different societal sub-systems into view: the chances for material, social and cultural participation, the possibilities of individual as well as collective influence, which are connected not least with self-determination, autonomy and concrete power relations, thus consti-tute a central gateway in the context of comprehensive considerations of demo-cratic theory. In this context, 'democracy' cannot be separated from the welfare state.

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