How does the centre left respond? Social justice in the ‘new hard times’

The argument of this book is that centre-left parties need an electoral strategy and a governing strategy if they are to achieve political success. Despite many obstacles and challenges ahead, social democratic parties have the opportunity to fashion a new centre-left era centred on progressive ideas. In recent decades, centre-left parties have performed relatively poorly, and the politics of Europe and the United States are seen to be increasingly dominated by the populism of left and right. There is nothing inevitable about social change, nor do the majority of voters necessarily want to be governed by populist parties: most voters want stable, competent and broadly progressive government. Social democrats should have confidence despite the unpropitious nature of the political environment in which they operate.

The aim of an electoral strategy is to build new coalitions across society, forging cross-class social and political alliances. There is an argument within social democratic parties about whether the left should uniquely represent the working class, but in every country, the left can only achieve power and be in government where it secures the votes of the broader middle and working class. This has been the case for half a century: centre-left parties have to represent and govern for the whole nation. In the early 20th century, revisionist pioneers such as Eduard Bernstein, Jean Jaurès and Keir Hardie insisted that socialism meant a war against a system rather than a class. The only means by which social reforms could be enacted was through class cooperation forging a common purpose, rather than class conflict and the politics of confrontation.

Of course, centre-left parties are operating in an environment where the politics of identity increasingly trump the politics of class. As already discussed in this book, they need an electoral strategy that is able to reconcile the ‘materialist’ concerns of the working class and aspirant middle, who focus on wages and income distribution, with the ‘non-materialist’ values of the middle class who are concerned with the environment, quality of life, and individual rights. They have to reconcile the interests and values of those who fear economic change and openness with those who embrace global economic integration. This means tapping into the potential for new class alliances across society: for example, Anne Wren (2013) has strongly emphasised the need for centre-left parties to embrace high-income working women and parents who favour state intervention and regulation to make the economy fit for working families.

Having won elections, the centre left’s governing strategy should be built on two central pillars: radical policy innovation that rebuilds economic credibility and trust, alongside the new politics of identity. In an era of constrained national budgets and lower economic growth, social democrats will have to deliver services and benefits in new ways, while retaining their core economic competence. At the same time, they need to anchor centre-left politics in a coherent conception of national identity in a Europe where national, regional and local identities are being reasserted. Social democrats must show that citizens do not have to choose between a strong regional identity, a strong national identity, and a strong European identity. Nor is the sovereignty of states ever ‘zero sum’: the capacity of governments and public institutions to regulate the economy, for example, can be strengthened at regional, national and European level. There are some who argue that Europeanisation has denuded centre-left political parties of the capacity to exercise leverage over the economy due to the ‘shackles’ imposed by membership of European Monetary Union (EMU). This perspective fails to appreciate how the capacity of governments to act has been rebuilt at both national and European level.

Policy innovation and economic trust

In an era of relative economic stagnation, it is necessary to identify new routes to social justice where the left cannot rely on continuous rises in public spending: the new realities are lower economic growth; the pressures of demographic change and an ageing society; and the fact that old-style spending and benefits do not always effectively address intractable problems such as worklessness and family instability means that traditional approaches must be re-thought (Taylor-Gooby, 2013). In recent decades it has increasingly been recognised that social policy on its own cannot make society more equal. The left has to identify more sustainable and egalitarian models of capitalism; social justice is easier to achieve in countries where the economic system is likely to achieve greater equality in the distribution of primary incomes.

Predistributive reform strategies

In the light of these challenges, progressives need to advocate bold reforms built around a ‘predistributive’ strategy to promote middle-class families, while tilting the balance of structural advantage towards those from low- and middle-income households. Jacob Hacker has described predistribution as about “making markets work for the middle class”. This deviates from earlier third way thinking since predistribution acknowledges that markets left to their own devices will not deliver socially efficient or just outcomes; the third way failed to provide a positive account of the state’s role in regulating a complex and structurally unstable globalised economy; and the traditional strategy of redistribution puts centre-left parties in an untenable position, since a growing chorus of complaint about ‘freeriding’ and ‘undeserving’ groups dependent on welfare provision erodes support for government redistribution over time.

The locus of predistribution is rebuilding support for collective security and public service provision, reducing structural dependency on the state, while tackling the underlying causes of wage and income inequality instead of relying on post hoc redistribution. The predistributive strategy starts from the need to develop countervailing powers to shape the outcomes of markets, rather than leaving markets free to operate without oversight or intervention. Policy reforms include:

• Macroeconomic reform to correct sectoral and distributional balances. Aggressive monetary policy intervention such as quantitative easing helped to prevent the 2008–9 crisis turning from a recession into a depression, but the long-term impact has been a major redistribution in favour of the top five per cent: the ‘asset-earning classes’. Those who depend on wages and interest on savings in retirement have been hardest hit. The strategy of nominal inflation targeting in central banks, including in the European Central Bank, has to be revisited to prioritise full employment and growth, especially in southern Europe (Carlin, 2013).

• Tax reforms to make taxation regimes more progressive. Policymakers must focus their attention on assets such as property, and unearned income such as inheritance, which are more immobile and therefore harder to evade. Taxation systems are more likely to be progressive if a system of tax credits is adopted, rather than raising tax thresholds, which tends to benefit higher-income earners. Tax credits can be used to support the incomes and childcare costs of relatively hard-pressed middle-class families, rather than just the lowest earners in making work pay (Horton & Gregory, 2009).

• A revamped education and skills strategy to address the technology and automation challenge. All governments since the 1990s have paid lip service to the importance of ‘lifetime learning’. Now, more than ever, it is a necessity as workers have to adapt to new technologies throughout their working lives. A personal learning account where individuals can invest in their own human capital as well as further and higher education – with incentives from the state through tax breaks and subsidised loans – would generate a new culture of active education and learning ‘from the cradle to the grave’. Equally vital is to protect investment in early years intervention and education, the best approach to narrowing cognitive gaps between children from low- and high-income households.

• Measures to democratise human capital and asset ownership. The ‘jobs for wages model’ is under pressure as technological change and the global labour force weaken the bargaining position of middle-class as well as low-skilled workers. If more groups are to share in the fruits of rising prosperity, the distribution of assets and the spread of ownership will need to be significantly expanded. Three areas are especially important. First, widening the base of employee share ownership and profit sharing. Second, expanding the pool of home owners, not by encouraging reckless lending to vulnerable households, but through a major extension of ‘part-rent, part-buy’ schemes through which an asset stake can be accumulated gradually over time, combined with major capital investment in housing infrastructure. Finally, fashioning an EU-wide ‘baby bond’: an asset stake to which every child would be entitled through a combination of government contribution and parental saving, addressing the distribution of assets as well as incomes.

• Measures to make the labour market fairer by developing countervailing pressures to economic forces that accentuate polarisation and inequality. Liberal market economies in particular have promoted the goal of employment creation, but at the expense of rising wage inequalities for which the state needs to make increasingly costly compensation. More effective protection not only includes statutory minimum wages and sectoral intervention in low-wage sectors, but encouraging collective agreements through trade unions, employee representative organisations, and social networks to organise workers in low-skilled sectors, strengthening their capacity to negotiate pay bargaining arrangements. The Nordic states have shown how structured approaches to wage negotiation are consistent with open, globalised economies (Callaghan, 2009).

• Expanding service sector jobs in caring sectors to widen employment opportunity. This approach requires de-industrialised countries to rebuild their traded and export-led sectors through policies designed to promote innovation and growth, using the fruits of higher GDP to provide high quality public services while offering opportunities for the less productive majority of workers in the ‘non-traded’ services sector (Carlin, 2013). This is where most jobs for the low to middle skilled in the industrialised economies will be created, assisting middle-class families by ensuring a supply of high quality caring services. Another challenge relates to expanding productivity in these sectors though new technologies and investing in the up-skilling of the workforce (Carlin, 2013).

• Structural reforms to improve the quality of public services. A key pillar of middle-class security is the ability of families to access high quality services such as health and education which the market cannot be relied upon to provide. As real incomes rise over generations, citizens naturally come to have higher expectations of public services, and are willing to invest additional disposable income via taxes or alternatively, through private provision where their aspirations are not being satisfied. Moreover, technological change, demography and ageing are imposing new cost pressures on healthcare and education systems. In an era of constrained resources, it is vital that structural reforms can be implemented to make services more effective and cost efficient. This goes beyond introducing private providers and the outsourcing of provision, the ‘new public management’ obsession of the 1990s. It is about creating ‘whole systems’ of integrated provision which manage and contain demand in public services, preventing problems at the outset rather than treating symptoms, harnessing public, non-state and private actors to upgrade collective services.

• Championing gender equality remains the key to rebuilding support for inclusive and broad-based social security. Most industrialised countries over the last three decades have witnessed the rapid entry of women into the labour force, but this remains an ‘unfinished revolution’ (Esping-Andersen, 2009). Women appear to have a comparative advantage in high-skilled service sector occupations, while the evidence is that women in employment are significantly more likely to support welfare policies such as universal childcare, adequate elderly care, shared parental leave, public employment and collective provision (Wren, 2013). These policies must be combined with measures to reduce employment and pay discrimination in labour markets, eroding the ‘motherhood pay penalty’ that many working women still face.

• Finally, investing in infrastructure and SME formation as a spur to growth. Social democrats need a strategy for dynamic production and wealth creation, not only fairer distribution. The best way to support middle-class incomes and living standards is to ensure sustainable growth, which leads to rising nominal wages and an expanded tax base that can be reinvested in caring services for families. Boosting growth in Europe requires structural reforms, not the short-term fixes of public and private debt financing. That includes improving access to finance for SMEs and mid-caps, promoting hi-tech manufacturing through investment in research and development, and strengthening the role of the higher education sector in technology and innovation diffusion (Aghion, 2014). An enlarged European Infrastructure Bank will help to modernise and upgrade member states’ long-term productive capabilities.

All of these measures will need to be implemented through effective European institutions which ensure not only recovery and resilience after the financial crisis, but long-term growth, improvements in social wellbeing, and ecological sustainability. A strategy of pursuing inclusive, pro-growth policies ‘in one country’ is untenable: there has to be coordinated international action and cross-national benchmarking led by a strong EU among a diversity of nation states.

Moreover, while structural forces are putting unprecedented pressures and strains on existing socioeconomic models, this is not a simplistic story of societal polarisation. The wealthy few enjoy unprecedented rewards and the most excluded groups continue to suffer adverse life chances; but it is the broad middle class which more than ever feels the spread of insecurity as incomes are squeezed. Social democracy has to stand up for the struggling middle class if it is to help those most in need: to maintain consent for universal social security; to generate the growth needed for investment in public goods; and to ensure a dynamic economy and society. As the Swedish social democratic leader Olof Palme once declared, ‘secure people dare’.

One further opportunity for the left is decentralisation and learning from localised experiments; centre-left parties are often successful at local government and mayoral level; they should use this strength to develop national policy strategies; this can be augmented by benchmarking and policy learning at the EU level. Above all, there is an acute need for rigour about collecting and applying evidence: policy programmes that do not achieve results weaken confidence in active government.

A credible centre-left governing strategy should focus resolutely on boosting the education, skills and human capital of the entire population, especially the most disadvantaged. The key insight for policymakers is that what occurs outside formal institutions through the home environment, with parents, and among peers is as significant as what takes place in schools and learning institutions. The priority should be policies that equalise opportunities in an era where there is a widening gulf between young people born into economic advantage, and those who are not. In that context, the following policy measures have been proposed in the UK at the national and local level:

• Refocus early intervention strategies. Additional interventions in the early years have been a priority for policymakers across the political spectrum, although investment in Sure Start has been cut back since 2010–11. The previous Labour administration invested heavily in nursery provision, but the early years never received the concerted attention given to schools and the NHS. Childcare is more expensive in the UK than most comparable economies; there are growing concerns about the adequacy of coverage, ‘postcode lotteries’, and lower quality. As a consequence, the UK has a relatively low rate of female employment, ranking 15th in the OECD. There are two crucial aspects of policy that should not be allowed to slip off the agenda. The first is to ensure that resources and infrastructure are weighted towards the most disadvantaged groups within a universal model. Second, at its inception Sure Start was strongly orientated towards parental involvement, not only in the settings themselves, but in the management and governance of Sure Start centres. This dimension of parental empowerment has been weakened, and ought to be re-activated.

• Boost parenting support. In a challenging economic environment with a host of pervasive social stress factors, parents need effective support. Mentoring has proven beneficial effects, where more experienced parents support those facing difficulties. Formal parenting programmes can be useful, but often more informal support built around Sure Start, early years provision, and schools and youth centres is necessary. Initiatives such as Nurse-Family Partnerships, where nurses support parents in disadvantaged households from the prenatal stage through to early childhood, are crucial too.

• Improve the quality of parenting. There is an extensive public policy literature on the potential of behavioural change strategies to improve outcomes. How parents interact with their children can have a significant impact on later achievement. For example, parents who regularly read to their children significantly improve their cognitive outcomes; responding appropriately to misbehaviour can also help to prevent later conduct disorders (Dearden et al., 2009). It is important to remember that parenting is not always provided by biological parents, but a range of care-givers, including grandparents and family friends.

• Encourage parental responsibilities. Parents have the right to support and to be able to access state-funded services, but parents also have reciprocal obligations including ensuring good school attendance and behaviour. Where responsibilities are breached, mechanisms such as ‘home-school contracts’ and ‘parenting orders’ might be necessary to ensure that the underlying causes of negative behaviour are addressed.

• Extend the ‘pupil premium’ and reform the system of school choice. The pupil premium in England has provided schools who accept pupils from disadvantaged households with an additional £950 per child in 2015–16. Nonetheless, the evidence is that children from low-income households continue to access the most poorly performing schools (Allen & Burgess, 2011). This needs to be addressed by boosting the premium available for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, while opening up the school selection process to avoid residential segregation. At the same time, highly performing schools need additional incentives to expand.

• Promote multi-agency working across public services. Improving the situation facing the most disadvantaged children and young people requires not only input from schools and Sure Start centres, but all public services locally and nationally. The impact of health inequalities on human capital acquisition and relative social mobility, for example, is now well documented. In New York, a hub ‘children’s zone’ model has been used to provide intensive support to disadvantaged families in low-income neighbourhoods.

Indeed, expanding social investment to focus on pupils from low income households will reap long-term rewards. For example, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) estimates that universal, affordable childcare will boost the female employment rate and government tax revenues: an initial, up-front investment achieves average returns of £20,050 over four years. Future governments will, nevertheless, have to demonstrate how this is to be paid for. IPPR propose to rationalise tax credits and childcare subsidies into increased supply-side funding for early years’ provision. Alternative options include rationalising benefits to relatively well-off pensioners such as free travel and the winter fuel allowance, as well as taxing capital, property, wealth and inheritance more efficiently: for example, a lifetime gifts tax could raise £1bn; abolishing higher-rate tax relief on pensions would generate a further £7bn; a property-based ‘mansion tax’ could raise a further £3bn for the UK exchequer (Taylor-Gooby, 2013).

Raising the burden of taxation is never popular, but two principles ought to be enunciated in the debate. First, additional ‘wealth’ taxes ought to be ‘hypothecated’: pooled into a specific fund designed to offset adverse ‘social inheritance’, boosting opportunities for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Second, the better-off older generations acknowledge that younger people and families increasingly need support: modest tax rises and benefit rationalisation is necessary to ensure intergenerational reciprocity. Early intervention, family support and education are not a solution to every social and economic problem. Nonetheless, it is difficult to imagine that rising inequality and lower earnings mobility can be countered without more effective intervention that boosts the relative position of children and young people from low-income households. Until recently, this dimension has been missing from much of the literature on ‘predistribution’; it is essential to integrate the social investment approach into future strategies designed to improve predistributive outcomes in the UK and beyond.

Economic Policy after the Crisis: Towards a new politics of production

The foundation of any viable policy agenda will be sustained and continuous economic growth. The left in Europe has to identify a new politics of production and growth in the wake of the crisis. The growth situation in the eurozone underlines the catastrophic damage and continuing aftershocks inflicted by the financial meltdown in 2008–9, exacerbated by the neverending euro crisis. Despite its disastrous track record of macroeconomic management, epitomised by the Lawson boom in the late 1980s and George Osborne’s ill-timed retrenchment after 2010, the Conservatives in Britain like other Christian democratic parties in western Europe have positioned themselves as the parties of fiscal discipline and economic competence, as well as the parties of entrepreneurship and material affluence. By contrast, for decades the left was seen as interested in fair distribution, while oblivious to expanding the frontiers of production. Harold Wilson’s ‘White Heat of Technology’ in 1964 and Tony Blair’s ‘New Britain’ in 1997 were exceptions to the rule. British Labour strove to secure a fairer share of the cake on behalf of the organised working class, whereas the Conservatives claimed to be able to grow the cake and spread the benefits among all classes and interests in society.

The principal task for parties of the left is to secure the mantle of fiscal credibility recognising that much of the credibility so painstakingly established after 1992 has been lost. This need not entail simply mimicking the right’s programme of cuts. What is required is discipline in managing the public finances, with a root and branch review of all current expenditure. The UK economy was among the most indebted in the OECD, second only to Japan in total levels of public sector, financial, and household debt (Gamble, 2012). Nonetheless, the challenge for the left is more profound than merely rebuilding confidence in its economic management credentials; the key is framing a credible, post-crisis growth strategy, a new politics of production for our economies.

The seismic impact of the crisis has underlined the need for fresh thinking and ideas. Previous crises have been accompanied by radical questioning of existing political and economic orthodoxies. Since 2008–9, however, most political debate has focused on restoring the economy to ‘business as usual’: although the power of government was used to stabilise the financial system through bailouts and nationalisations, in stark contrast to the 1930s New Deal era there is no obvious enthusiasm for entrusting the state with new powers and responsibilities (Gamble, 2012). What is clear is that a radical programme for British and continental European social democracy is unlikely to emerge from ‘ivory tower’ blueprints. It is more likely to be forged through a process of ‘bold, persistent experimentation’, in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s memorable phrase.

Whatever reforms are undertaken to avert catastrophe in the eurozone, it is clear that sustainable, long-term growth will only be possible if there is a systemic shift of wealth and power within the global system (Strange, 1997). This requires some form of global polity rather than the fragmented structure of nation states. Despite the deep disconnect between European elites and citizens, the EU is an association of constitutional, democratic states that has numerous advantages (Gamble, 2012). Recognising that all countries remain part of an interdependent European and global economy, able to influence and shape the international system, will be essential for future prosperity and growth. Parties of the left succeed when they embrace the future instead of rehashing the debates and achievements of the past. Elections are not about seeking the gratitude of the voters; they are about vision and change. The left has to demonstrate it understands the forces and trends that are remaking our societies from globalisation to individualisation, demography and ageing.

A new politics of national identity

Nonetheless, social democracy cannot rely on economic credibility and policy innovation alone; voters do not just want better political management: they want politicians who recognise their need for identity and a sense of belonging. Historically, social democracy as a political movement was firmly attached to the nation state (Berman, 2006); in the first world war, social democratic parties divided along national lines with the exception of individual leaders like Keir Hardie and Eduard Bernstein. This set the frame for the next century: in an era where national identities have solidified and the nation state has been re-asserted, social democrats have to embrace national identity but argue it is by no means inconsistent with political action at the European level.

Rather than merely devising a new policy programme, it is necessary to address a deeper question about the relationship between social democracy, national identity, and the nation state. Social democracy historically sought to move beyond the predominantly national sphere (Sassoon, 1996). Indeed, the roots of social democracy were internationalist: early social democratic parties and movements saw themselves as acting outside existing forms of the state, which were associated with the privileged order of the ancien regime; a fundamental tenet of early conceptions of socialism and social democracy inherited from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was that “the working class had no country” (Gamble, 2009). The new world order that socialism wished to bring about had the potential to transcend national divisions.

After the first world war, social democracy became largely national in character; the impact of the war was to reinforce national identity alongside feelings of belonging and chauvinism, both among both the working class and the ruling class of western Europe (Sassoon, 1996). The collapse of the liberal economic order that culminated in the great depression of the 1930s reinforced the tendency to look towards the nation state as the engine of economic and political reform; after 1945, national social democracy was in the ascendancy (Gamble, 2009). The macroeconomic regime of planning, national regulation and public ownership underpinned by the Keynesian welfare state offset the pressures in a capitalist economy towards greater inequality and instability; social democratic regimes throughout western Europe were able to shape markets in the public interest using the levers of the nation state to redistribute and regulate the economy, as Andrew Gamble has attested.

Of course, the notion that there has ever been a pure form of social democracy in one country is questionable; historically, states have long been interdependent and intertwined (Sorenson, 2004). No state throughout history has ever been entirely free of international pressures and obligations, as evidenced by debates stretching back to the 15th and 16th centuries about the role of national currencies and the relative merits of free trade, mercantilism and national protectionism (Gamble, 2009). Since the 1970s, the impact of global forces has appeared to grow as the result of the globalisation of production, the creation of a global labour market, and the increase in migration that erodes the standards and citizenship benefits achieved in particular national economies (Albrow, 1996).

The contemporary dilemma facing all centre-left parties is that for most of the last century social democracy was national in its formation and preoccupations (Strange, 1996). The strategies developed by social democrats for pursuing economic growth, social justice and the public good were focused on the nation state and national governments (Gamble, 2009). This reached its height between the 1940s and the 1970s when it was believed that the economy, society and culture would be modernised through state intervention. Sovereignty was judged to reside within the boundaries of the nation state, overseen by national political elites accountable to citizens through periodic democratic elections (Sassoon, 1996).

One telling criticism made of centre-left parties in the 1980s and 1990s is that they were pursuing a strategy of ‘social democracy in one country’, namely ‘the national road to socialism’ (Callaghan, 2009). This approach was pursued initially by François Mitterrand’s Socialist government in France, but it had resonance across western Europe, including in Britain. Over time, social democrats shifted their position, marked by growing acceptance of the case for European integration. In the UK, the vision of a more ‘social Europe’ contrasted starkly with the structural reforms of the economy and labour markets being enacted by the Thatcher governments. In the late 1980s social democrats embraced the European project, drawing on an internationalist tradition within social democratic parties.

The centre left has to come to terms with the limits of ‘social democracy in one country’ given the context of globalisation and liberalisation in the world economy. More recently, ‘Europeanisation’ and ‘nationalism’ have been counter posed as competing alternatives. However, there are critics on both sides who argue that the erosion of nation state capacity has been exaggerated (Sorenson, 2004). There are other commentators who suggest that reconstituting the nation state remains a core challenge for social democratic politics.

In considering the future of liberal democracy and the fate of contemporary politics, social democrats must address the internationalisation of society and the economy without conceding the retreat of the nation state. As Gamble has argued, national social democracy is the platform on which a European and global social democracy will be built. This should not imply that transnational social democracy ought merely to replicate national social democracy: many institutions and ideas at the international level will have to be different. (Gamble, 2009)

For global governance and international social democracy to be viable, national politics and the nation state have to be strengthened. The weakness of much of the academic literature on globalisation is the implication that increasing the capacity of the global polity has to mean weakening the role of the nation state. It is mistaken to abandon national political action in favour of global political action, as theorists such as Martin Albrow (1996) and Susan Strange (1996) have acknowledged. The vibrancy of the global polity is dependent on embedding norms of democratic participation and accountability at the national level (Gamble, 2009). However, these democratic norms are under growing challenge in much of the industrialised world.

Social democrats have to strengthen the interventionist and developmental capacities of national governments, while encouraging the growth of global political institutions that can help to steer and reshape globalisation (Sorenson, 2004). These are two sides of the same coin: a global polity will not be created if national politics remains weak and fragmented (Gamble, 2009). At the same time, national governments will struggle to produce meaningful solutions without the capacity to act on a European and international scale: it is highly unlikely that key social democratic principles such as social justice can be advanced and entrenched unless collective action is possible both at the national and international level (Sapir, 2014).

The development of the global polity requires the embedding of the norms of constitutional government: unfettered, unaccountable political and economic power has to be constrained through effective regulation at the national and global level (Gamble, 2012). Many actors, particularly multinational and global corporations, have been able to exercise power without substantive accountability or scrutiny. In particular, they have been able to negotiate preferential arrangements with national governments on tax and regulation so as to undermine citizens’ confidence in the tax state with negative implications for social democracy (Streek, 2014). At the same time, national democracies are under increasing strain, and are less able than ever to meet the challenges of being representative, responsible, and participative (Gamble, 2009). Citizen disengagement is widespread and is growing with many different manifestations and consequences; one particular irony is that power imbalances and lack of accountability at the global level are projected on to dissatisfaction with national democracies and national governments (Albrow, 1996). The key political challenges that need to be addressed in relation to representative democracy and the national polity according to Gamble are as follows:

• First, citizen disengagement from the political system and falling electoral turnouts is creating a crisis of representation in western industrialised societies;

• Second, the apparent weakening of accountability and general disillusionment with the public sector is leading to diminishing faith in what governments can deliver for citizens;

• Third, the growth of expertise, technocratic management and the ‘depoliticisation’ of sensitive policy issues may threaten participative democracy and undermine political debate (Gamble, 2009: 67).

This points towards the need for more effective systems of global governance, not only national political reform. But social democrats cannot think in more transnational and cosmopolitan terms in the global polity without engaging with problems that currently afflict national social democracy, in particular citizen disengagement, loss of accountability, and the rise of complexity and depoliticisation (Gamble, 2009). The crisis of trust, legitimacy and accountability cannot be solved by turning away from domestic politics; however, national politics will not be strengthened merely by undermining European or global institutions (Stoker, 2006). The interdependent nature of the domestic and international arenas has to be understood. The following section addresses each of the key challenges in turn.

Citizen disengagement

The declining participation of citizens in electoral politics is a long-term development evidenced by decreasing turnout in local, national and European elections. The trends in the UK, continental Europe and the United States are reviewed in Gerry Stoker’s survey of modern democracy, Why Politics Matters? (2006). The claim is that despite the increasing availability of information and knowledge in western societies alongside rising levels of education, fewer voters seem engaged in formal political institutions centred on traditional parties and electoral competition. The ideological nature of politics in the aftermath of the second world war has been displaced by a form of political deliberation that is increasingly about brand, style and personality, further exacerbated by the trivialised media reporting of politics. The media now acts as the major intermediary between voters, politicians and national governments, but often appears to encourage apathy and disillusionment (Stoker, 2006).

The arguments for the decline of democratic institutions and democratic politics are wide-ranging and ought not to be over-stated. There are trends and counter-trends in the data; it is wrong to imply that national politics has become denuded of serious debate and ideological choice. Nonetheless, it seems undeniable that the class basis of social democracy as a struggle for social justice within the nation state on behalf of the manual working class is much weaker than it was. There is evidence that centre-left parties no longer play such an important role in mobilising low income and economically marginalised households to participate in the electoral process (Curtice, Heath & Jowell, 2005).

Accountability and sovereignty

The second claim is that the capacity of national governments to deliver positive outcomes for citizens has been curtailed since the 1970s: the fragmentation of the public sector and the traditional state appears to make governments less able to influence society (Sorenson, 2004). Power has passed ‘upwards’ towards the European Union and global political institutions, ‘sideways’ to global corporations and the private sector, and ‘downwards’ to the multiple actors within civil society from NGOs to the voluntary sector (Guy-Peters, 2004). What has apparently emerged is the era of “the stateless state” (Bevir & Rhodes, 2005).

Moreover, national political elites can barely resist the temptation to put the blame for unpopular decisions onto other tiers of the state, which fuels cynicism about representative democracy and the system of government. The European Union has often been the target; but national politicians have failed to register that undermining the European project merely amplifies disillusionment with all forms of collective politics, including national politics and national governments (Gamble, 2009).

At the same time, in a multilateral world where policy is increasingly negotiated in a transnational political space, it can be difficult for citizens to understand where decisions are made and in whose interests (Guy-Peters, 2004). Institutions such as the European commission, the European Court of Justice, and the World Trade Organisation seemingly constrain what national politicians can do. There are unrealistic expectations about the capacity and competence of governments to deliver outcomes favoured by citizens, which politicians have often done little to constrain and have even encouraged (White, 1999). On entering government, elected ministers too often find that they do not have the levers to achieve what they promised during the campaign, fuelling the resentment and mistrust of voters.

It is mistaken to argue that governments have lost the capacity to intervene and regulate the economy, or to ‘modernise’ state and society (Mulgan, 2005). What they need is to reconstitute their capabilities in the light of economic fragmentation, the globalisation of the world economy, and deep social change (Guy-Peters, 2004). At the same time, it is clear that markets, civil society and public institutions cannot be easily controlled and steered by national governments, nor should they be. Social democracy should abandon its long-held obsession with to top-down ‘mechanical’ control.

Complexity and knowledge

The final challenge relates to complexity and depoliticisation, where key policy decisions are allegedly taken out of the process of democratic deliberation. This has encouraged the development of managerial and technocratic politics both nationally and globally, over which citizens often appear to have little influence. National governments have struggled to manage the consequences of technological change and scientific development, which requires increasing dependence on specialist expertise (Gamble, 2009). On issues such as climate change, energy, GM foods, genetic selection, and the invention of pharmaceuticals and drugs, governments rely on the insight of experts; but scientists themselves often disagree about the causes and consequences of problems (Sorenson, 2004). Evaluation evidence in public policy is rarely straightforward. The implications for political decision-making are not necessarily clearcut: this ambiguity and uncertainty leaves anxious voters even more concerned and confused.

The response of many governments has been to ‘depoliticise’ key decisions, setting up ‘arms-length’ boards of experts to take decisions on their behalf, removing ministers from the decision-making process and making political elites less accountable for errors that occur (Stoker, 2006). Yet inevitably politicians get the blame when things go wrong, as it is often difficult to distinguish between political accountability and operational responsibility. The effect of depoliticisation has been to pull citizens and politicians even further apart, creating the impression that there are few ideological choices left, and that many outcomes are inevitable (Gamble, 2009). Rather than complex trade-offs, there are apparently inevitable forces which cannot be resisted, hence the language of ‘no alternative’ at the core of neoliberalism. Nothing could do more to alienate citizens from the arenas of democratic politics and deliberation.

It ought to be remembered that political systems are highly resilient and ever changing. The issues referred to in this book offer a multitude of opportunities to strengthen national and global politics, rather than threatening the ‘end of western democracy’. There are many trends and counter-trends; it is mistaken to extrapolate from a relatively brief period of historical change. The doomsayers who predict the erosion and atrophy of civil society have overstated their case (Stoker, 2006).

Nonetheless, there are serious issues and problems to be confronted. Social democrats in particular have much to lose if the corrosive loss of faith in politics is not addressed: collective solutions to society’s problems are only possible through effective and accountable democratic institutions. National social democracy is the institutional platform on which a vibrant and accountable European and global polity will be built (Runciman, 2013). Above all, social democrats must fight to retain the sense of politics as an open process in which there are real choices to be made that are not foreordained (Gamble, 2009). Citizens can shape the destiny of their societies, rather than being the victims of circumstances beyond their collective control.

Social democracy and the nation state

In the light of these developments, social democrats have to recast their view of the state. After the financial crisis, active government intervention regained legitimacy in order to stabilise the banking system, support the wider economy, and protect citizens from global economic storms. It was far from clear, however, that the state was back as a major actor in the context of an internationalised economy. In part, citizens were still concerned about the encroachment of centralised bureaucracy, and its damaging effect on innovation and growth. Relatively high levels of public sector debt and greater scepticism about higher taxes given the tight squeeze on the wages and incomes of the struggling middle class further depleted support for the extended state. At the same time, globalisation continued to erode the ‘steering capacities’ of the nation state. As a result, the role of the state is still politically contested on left and right.

The assumption that the goal of social democracy is to win power over the central state, using the state to reshape society and the economy, still influences many conceptions of centre-left politics; nevertheless, it has never been tenable even in the era of mass industrialisation. In contemporary society, it implies a relationship between citizen and state in which expectations are encouraged that cannot realistically be met, leading to often violent swings, “between unrealistic hope and unfounded disillusionment” (Gamble, 2009: 74).

Achieving formal political power, of course, remains an important objective for all social democratic parties. What is needed is a vision of politics that is able to face up to intractable dilemmas and trade-offs, acknowledging the complexity of problems in a way that engages citizens (Gamble, 2012).

In the future, parties that are both electorally and politically successful will be capable of seizing the agenda, promoting institutional innovation and renewal. This will occur against the backdrop of unprecedented shocks to the global economy, changes in the nature of social citizenship, and threats to the survival of the planet. It will demand a new relationship between state and citizen, neither the laissez-faire ethos of the 1980s nor the paternalism of the 1940s. It will mean ceasing to conflate collective action with state power, finding alternative approaches to promoting the public interest and delivering public goods. Social democrats will need to rediscover a set of governing principles that seek to do things with people, not to them: that recognises citizens want to be the agents of political change for themselves.

The politics of democratic engagement and solidarity building is vital to the future centre left. Deepening democracy through an extension of proportional representation in electoral systems to ensure that the vote of every citizen counts equally is fundamental. Protecting citizens from arbitrary abuse by either the state or the private and corporate sector is an imperative. Governments have to be responsive and accountable, rather than encouraging a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ culture. There is a vibrant inheritance of ideologies, institutions and ideas on which the centre left can draw (Gamble, 2010). This lineage includes the civic republican tradition which emphasises the autonomy of citizens, and the imperative of devolving and diffusing power as widely as possible.

Conclusion

Giving citizens and communities the control and responsibility to govern their own lives, as well as breaking with the commitment to centralised government, ought to be a key test of the social democratic ‘good society’. The centre left has for decades focused on top-down reforms of the market and the state, paying too little attention to how mobilising civil society can achieve social democratic goals. Traditionally the debate on the left was between revisionists who favoured the ‘parliamentary road’ to social democracy, and socialists who believed this strategy would inevitably fail: the left needed to devise an ‘extra-parliamentary’ model of political change embracing social activism and movement politics. In truth, this was always a false choice: many social and economic reforms can only be achieved through the democratic process, but the likelihood of doing so depends on the political energy unleashed by civil society. Many centre-left aims can be realised through social networks and civic activism outside the formal arena of legislation and regulation. Nevertheless, bottom-up action will have greater efficacy if there is a model of political economy which recognises the importance of social inclusion and environmental sustainability. The aim of social democracy is still the long-term transformation of society as it was in the era of Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky at the dawn of the 20th century.