Practical Social Democracy

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

Abstract

The core theme of the essay is that literature on the erosion of socials democracy focuses too much on programmatic trade-off and the inability to find a “winning formula.” What Social Democrats actually do also matters. The essay will focus on ties with the working class, not just blue-collar but also white-collar, against a backdrop of rising working-class populism.
The paper asks why the effect of Left government on social spending and redistribution has been less pronounced after 1990 than pre-1990 (Kwon and Pontusson 2010), and why social democratic governments used to be equally responsive to the preferences of low-income and high-income citizens in the domain of economic and social policy, but have become more “pro-affluent” since the 1990s (Mathisen et al 2023). It examines major policy shifts by the Swedish Social Democrats from 1990-2006 and the failure to reverse bourgeois reforms in 2014-2022, with implications for (a) income inequality, (b) dualization/precarity and (c) de-unionization. It then examines the third way in comparative perspective, and emphasizes the historic role of trade unions. Not only were they allies of social democracy by mobilizing workers to vote, but they also focused attention on distributive issues. Drawing on comparative data on the decline of former trade-union officials as ministers in social democratic governments, the paper then examines how middle-class professionals have become more important as policy and PR advisors as well as candidates.

Author

• Jonas Pontusson, University of Geneva