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Social Democracy (social + democracy)
Selected AbstractsSocial Democracy and Globalization: The Cases of France and the UKGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 4 2002Ben Clift First page of article [source] Obfuscation through Integration: Legitimating ,New' Social Democracy in the European Union,JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 1 2005DAVID J. BAILEY Social democratic parties are increasingly supportive of European integration. Existing explanations view this as either a reassertion of social democracy at the supranational level, an adaptation to contemporary political institutions, or part of a general ideological moderation. This article argues that support for the EU enables social democratic parties to proclaim the possibility of social democracy at the supranational level, despite the absence of a substantive social democratic agenda. Thus, European integration enables social democratic parties to achieve legitimation by obfuscation through integration. This is illustrated in the cases of Sweden, the UK and France. [source] The Transition to ,New' Social Democracy: The Role of Capitalism, Representation and (Hampered) ContestationBRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 4 2009David J. Bailey This article argues that existing accounts of the transformation from ,traditional' to ,new' social democracy has thus far only identified the contextual changes that have prompted this move. In doing so, they have failed to account for the motives of social democratic party actors in undertaking the transition to ,new' social democracy in response to those changes. The article draws upon a critical realist method, and Marxist and anti-representational theories, to conceptualise ,traditional' social democratic party relations as suffering from tensions between constituents' demands for decommodification, the attempt by party elites to contain (and thereby ,represent') those demands and the (in)compatibility of this process of containment with the need to recommodify social relations in the light of periodic crises in contemporary capitalism. It argues that these tensions explain the attempt by party elites to promote the move towards ,new' social democracy, the (eventual) acquiescence of party constituents to those attempts and the subsequent exit from social democratic constituencies which has resulted. The argument is made with reference to the British Labour Party and Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). [source] British Social Democracy beyond New Labour: Entrenching a Progressive ConsensusBRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2007Will Leggett Social democrats are seeking a project beyond New Labour's dwindling Third Way. In particular, they have seized on the idea of a ,progressive consensus' as a means of entrenching a deeper, cultural shift in British society on centre-left terms. This article assesses the potential of social democratic responses to New Labour for fulfilling this task. ,Traditional' and ,modernising' perspectives are identified, each of which have a positive and critical variant. The critical-modernising approach emerges with the greatest potential for moving beyond the New Labour project. Critical-modernisers operate on the Third Way's analytical terrain,recognising the still-changing operating environment of the centre-left. However, they seek simultaneously to develop a political narrative that is distinct from the Third Way. In order to achieve this latter objective, the normative heritage of more traditional approaches remains a key resource for critical-modernisers, as they seek to show how more recognisably social democratic themes can resonate with a rapidly changing social context. [source] Social democracy and globalisation: the limits of social democracy in historical perspectiveBRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2002John Callaghan This article argues that social democratic governments throughout the 20th century faced internal and international constraints arising from the operation of capitalist economies and that the evidence for a qualitative deepening of such constraints since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system is far from unequivocal. Financial markets were already big enough and fast enough to deter such governments from the pursuit of egalitarian policies in the interwar years or to destabilise them if they ignored the warning signs. This article also shows that the efficacy of Keynesian macroeconomic policy in the Golden Age has been exaggerated and that the problem of short,term movements of speculative capital persisted throughout this era in a country such as Britain. Keynesianism never worked in the face of mass unemployment and it is misleading to suggest that its breakdown in the 1970s somehow robbed social democracy of the policy tools that had maintained full employment in the 1950s and 1960s. A host of additional problems have indeed beset social democratic governments since 1973, but the analysis of such problems is hindered rather than helped by much of the literature which invokes economic globalisation. Globalisation theory is in need of further specification before it can be useful and arguments about the economic consequences of globalisation since 1973 need to distinguish its effects from those of the many conjunctural problems of the period as well as the policies that important agencies have pursued in search of solutions to them. [source] Christian democracy, social democracy and the paradoxes of earnings-related social securityINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 1 2002Johan Jeroen De Deken This article compares the retirement policies of Belgium and Sweden in order to reveal the different incentive structures built into the pensions systems prevailing in countries that are taken to represent different approaches to welfare capitalism. It addresses the question of why in a Christian Democratic welfare state that is said to grant pensions rights on the basis of merit and past work performance one can find extremely low labour-force participation rates among elderly workers, while in a Social Democratic welfare state that is supposed to grant pension rights relatively independent of past labour-market performance, one can find quite high participation rates amongst that section of the labour force. This apparent paradox is explained in terms of the different purposes of the early-retirement schemes in the two countries: in Belgium they were primarily part of a strategy to combat (youth) unemployment, in Sweden they had more to do with reforms that sought to accomplish a ,humanisation of work' by softening the abrupt transition from work into retirement. [source] Obfuscation through Integration: Legitimating ,New' Social Democracy in the European Union,JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 1 2005DAVID J. BAILEY Social democratic parties are increasingly supportive of European integration. Existing explanations view this as either a reassertion of social democracy at the supranational level, an adaptation to contemporary political institutions, or part of a general ideological moderation. This article argues that support for the EU enables social democratic parties to proclaim the possibility of social democracy at the supranational level, despite the absence of a substantive social democratic agenda. Thus, European integration enables social democratic parties to achieve legitimation by obfuscation through integration. This is illustrated in the cases of Sweden, the UK and France. [source] Whatever Happened to Stakeholding?PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 3 2004Rajiv Prabhakar In 1996 Tony Blair declared in a speech in Singapore that stakeholding would define New Labour's programme in office. This speech provoked much interest in the UK among a centre-left keen to forge a ,third way' alternative to state-centred social democracy and free markets. Conservative politicians, however, subjected New Labour to a barrage of criticisms. Startled by the scale of the negative reaction, Blair stopped referring to stakeholding. A common judgement is that stakeholding got no further than the starting block. This paper challenges this, contending that the progress of stakeholding has not in fact been halted under New Labour. Policies such as Network Rail, foundation hospitals and the Child Trust Fund indicate that stakeholding remains a part of New Labour's approach. Recognizing the stakeholder dimension to policy is important because it opens up a new front in the reform of public services in Britain. [source] Is this the death of social democracy in Europe?PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH, Issue 3 2008Roger Liddle Roger Liddle argues that structural changes, which have weakened the centre left across Europe, may also explain New Labour's apparent decline. [source] Tightening the net: children, community, and controlTHE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 2 2001Adrian L. James ABSTRACT The recent move to revitalize social democracy in the UK under the New Labour government, explored by Giddens as ,the Third Way', embraces many of Etzioni's ideas on communitarianism. The principles that emerge from these political philosophies, such as the involvement of local communities in policy consultations and implementation, have largely been welcomed as a reflection of the aim of revitalizing civic society in the context of a range of social policies. It is argued, however, that for children, contrary to this general trend, many of these policies represent attempts to increase the social control of children. Their effect has been to restrict children's agency and their rights, rather than to increase their participation as citizens, and thus, in spite of the requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children continue to be marginalized. [source] Filling hollowed out spaces with localised meanings, practices and hope: Progressive neoliberal spaces in Te RarawaASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 2 2009Nick Lewis Abstract The contracting out to private providers of services previously delivered within the state has been framed critically as ,hollowing out' and read for its erosion of social democracy, social justice and welfare, as well as its inefficiencies in practice. It is commonly dismissed as neoliberalism. In this paper, we highlight the gains made through this new contractualism by Te Oranga, the Family, Health and Education division of Te Runanga o Te Rarawa located in the Far North of New Zealand. Our aim is not to narrate the exceptional, but to point to the inherent resistances to totalising projects residing in agency and place. Placed at the service of a deep sense of community being and community good rather than self-interest, delivery contracts have enabled Te Oranga to pursue an alternative form of local development and craft a set of progressive spaces. Although highly contingent upon powerful Maori political projects, we argue that the case suggests that gains may be sought in other settings, albeit partial, temporary, and politically contingent. We thus offer a more nuanced account of neoliberalism by highlighting its agency, fractures, politics, and contradictions, and by demonstrating that actualised neoliberalisms are co-constituted with other political projects. [source] The Transition to ,New' Social Democracy: The Role of Capitalism, Representation and (Hampered) ContestationBRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 4 2009David J. Bailey This article argues that existing accounts of the transformation from ,traditional' to ,new' social democracy has thus far only identified the contextual changes that have prompted this move. In doing so, they have failed to account for the motives of social democratic party actors in undertaking the transition to ,new' social democracy in response to those changes. The article draws upon a critical realist method, and Marxist and anti-representational theories, to conceptualise ,traditional' social democratic party relations as suffering from tensions between constituents' demands for decommodification, the attempt by party elites to contain (and thereby ,represent') those demands and the (in)compatibility of this process of containment with the need to recommodify social relations in the light of periodic crises in contemporary capitalism. It argues that these tensions explain the attempt by party elites to promote the move towards ,new' social democracy, the (eventual) acquiescence of party constituents to those attempts and the subsequent exit from social democratic constituencies which has resulted. The argument is made with reference to the British Labour Party and Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). [source] Social democracy and globalisation: the limits of social democracy in historical perspectiveBRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2002John Callaghan This article argues that social democratic governments throughout the 20th century faced internal and international constraints arising from the operation of capitalist economies and that the evidence for a qualitative deepening of such constraints since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system is far from unequivocal. Financial markets were already big enough and fast enough to deter such governments from the pursuit of egalitarian policies in the interwar years or to destabilise them if they ignored the warning signs. This article also shows that the efficacy of Keynesian macroeconomic policy in the Golden Age has been exaggerated and that the problem of short,term movements of speculative capital persisted throughout this era in a country such as Britain. Keynesianism never worked in the face of mass unemployment and it is misleading to suggest that its breakdown in the 1970s somehow robbed social democracy of the policy tools that had maintained full employment in the 1950s and 1960s. A host of additional problems have indeed beset social democratic governments since 1973, but the analysis of such problems is hindered rather than helped by much of the literature which invokes economic globalisation. Globalisation theory is in need of further specification before it can be useful and arguments about the economic consequences of globalisation since 1973 need to distinguish its effects from those of the many conjunctural problems of the period as well as the policies that important agencies have pursued in search of solutions to them. [source] Capitalist models and social democracy: the case of New LabourBRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2001David Coates Some of the more critical readings of the adequacy and effectiveness of New Labour in power have been developed by scholars willing to link arguments about the trajectory of Labour politics to wider arguments about the character of the contemporary global economy and the space within it for the construction and development of distinctive capitalist models. Mark Wickham-Jones and Colin Hay in particular have made that linkage in a series of important writings on the contemporary Labour party. Their arguments are here subjected to critical review, and set against a third position on New Labour and global capitalism: one informed by the writings of Ralph Miliband on British Labour and by the arguments of Leo Panitch and Greg Albo on the limits of the ,progressive competitiveness' strategies associated with ,Third Way' social democratic governments. [source] Democratic and Revolutionary Traditions in Latin AmericaBULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 2 2001Alan Knight This article seeks to identify and explain the historical links between democracy and revolution in Latin America. It first defines and analyses ,democratic' and ,revolutionary' traditions in the continent. It notes the precocity of nineteenth-century Latin American liberalism which, stimulated by the independence struggles, carried implications for the subsequent onset of democracy in the twentieth century. It then presents a typology of five twentieth-century political permutations (social democracy, revolutionary populism, statist populism, socialist revolution, and authoritarian reaction), seeking to tease out the corresponding relationships between the two ,traditions'. It concludes (inter alia) that the current triumph of liberal democracy in Latin America, while in part attributable to historical precedent, is also significantly contingent, and dependent on the apparent exhaustion of the revolutionary tradition. [source] The NDP Regime in British Columbia, 1991,2001: A Post-Mortem*CANADIAN REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY/REVUE CANADIENNE DE SOCIOLOGIE, Issue 2 2005WILLIAM K. CARROLL Cette étude porte sur les relations entre la social-démocratie, les mouvements sociaux et l'État au cours d'une période de dix ans dans la province de Colombie-Britannique, au Canada. À l'aide d'une analyse de textes d'interviews en profondeur de représentants de l'État de six ministères importants et de membres du Nouveau Parti démocratique de l'Assemblée législative, les auteurs examinent de façon approfondie les difficultés rencontrées par le régime social-démocrate. Celui-ci tente de remplir un mandat de réforme sociale en partie inspirée par les programmes de militants de mouvements sociaux, mais il est également limité par les contraintes imposées par la mondialisation économique et par les politiques budgétaires néolibérales. En étudiant les dilemmes et les obstacles structurels, les auteurs tentent de clarifier les profonds défis auxquels sont confrontés les mouvements sociaux à l'époque actuelle. This study focuses on the relationship between social democracy, social movements and the state over a ten-year period in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Through textual analysis of in-depth interviews with state officials from six key ministries and New Democratic Party members of the Legislative Assembly, we probe the difficulties faced by a social democratic regime attempting to carry out a mandate for social reform partly driven by the agendas of social movements supporters but also bounded by the constraints imposed by economic globalization and neo-liberal fiscal policies. In examining the dilemmas and structural obstacles, our study clarifies the profound challenges confronting social movements in the current era. [source] New Labour's Third Way: pragmatism and governanceBRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2000Michael Temple The article critically examines New Labour's development of the concept of the Third Way. Despite the apparent centrality of ,social democracy' to the Third Way, it is proposed that a more pragmatic approach dominates, in that outputs and not ideology are driving the new agenda of governance under New Labour. This is seen to have its roots in the new ways of working the party has embraced in local governance, where public?,private partnerships have become the norm and a new ethos of public service has emerged. In contrast with the top-down approach to setting output targets favoured by Tony Blair, the Third Way offers the possibility of a more experimental, pragmatic and decentralised decision-making process,and the local governance network (with elected local councils as pivotal and legitimising actors) is presented as the ideal agent to deliver this. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||