The Electoral Roots of the Third Way

• In Event: Political Parties and American Democracy Mini-Conference I: Left Parties in Advanced Capitalism

Abstract

This paper examines the politics of the third way—the social democratic rightward turn in the 1990s. Left parties in Britain, the United States, and Germany lost elections to conservative parties through the 1980s. The strategy of triangulating—combining policies of the right with social democratic commitments—was therefore seen as driven by electoral exigencies. While this economic program helped left parties capture majorities, this paper uses survey data to examine whether the third way was an elite program (i.e. driven by party leaders) or whether it was instead responsive to at least one faction of the left’s base (and therefore driven by public opinion). The paper pays particular attention to the composition of pro-third way factions, and the strategies left parties used to campaign on third way policies that were otherwise unpopular.

Authors

• Didi Kuo, Stanford University

• Noam Lupu, Vanderbilt University