Right wing populists have become the working mans party, a title social demcrats used to hold, which begs the question: why have social democrats struggled in Europe lately?
Following up on last weeks post on GAL-TAN politics and why greens have underperformed their TAN counterparts I have a new theory. Perhaps the reason why right wing populist parties have done well is they’ve become the new party for the working class, a title which was previously held by social democrats. Social democrats have had it tough in Europe lately, being practically wiped out in France, being slowly bled out by the Große Koalition in Germany, and being absent in the UK for the five years Jeremy Corbyn pushed his party out towards the far left. Since the end of the cold war social democrats have struggled for a few reasons; the fates of individual parties belonging to a movement are often determined by the local politics but given that social democrats seem to have struggled across large parts of Europe simultaneously I believe this is larger than domestic politics.
Social democrats have in my view historically been successful in Europe due to being effective at advancing the industrial working class’ economic interests. The welfare state was born in Europe out of a social democratic movement and social innovations such as tax funded healthcare, pensions, schools and the right to vacations for middle and working class people are significant reforms which have made life better for the working woman and man. Note that the listed reforms are fairly old at this point, social democrats are no longer innovating, instead they are iterating. I’m not sure why the centre left on the eastern side of the Atlantic have lost their visions but I’m inclined to blame the professionalisation of politics and politicians. If politics becomes a career rather than a passionate desire to improve society then it makes sense to me that the innovative ideas dry up.
Another explanation is that the social democratic movement started to atrophy just as the industrial workforce started to shrink. If the social democratic movement is a representative for the industrial workers and unions then the shift from industry to services and from analogue to digital makes social democrats less relevant than before. While this model is interesting, it can’t explain why there is no champion for the gig workers and service workers.
In the end the true answer is certainly both more nuanced than the explanatory models I’ve offered here, and local domestic factors were most likely important as well.
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Written by Karl Johansson
Cover Photo by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels