Uses of the term ‘social democrat’, from the strictest to the loosest, implicitly or explicitly refer to political behaviour of a ‘right-wing’ sort, characteristic of certain working-class/popular parties in northern and central Europe.
Adoption of a ‘moderate’ ideological and programmatic profile, and implementation of interclassist strategies, are its two most important expressions. The distinctively social-democratic traits that facilitate – and follow from – this behaviour (which is not always ‘right-wing’), and constitute the specificity of social democracy as an electoral operator, are the focus of this chapter.
Legitimate Parties
If parties of a social-democratic type are to be able to develop their full dynamic in competition, they must not only be masters of the left of the political scene – something we shall see later – and have a privileged link, both electoral and organizational, with the working class; they must also be accepted as legitimate contenders for government. This is all the more important in that historically socialist or communist parties have been outsiders, ‘ideological’ parties positioned outside the dominant pragmatism and the terms of what is ideologically admissible.
If governmental legitimacy is – currently – a constitutive element in the identity of social democracy, in the first phase of social democracy’s career it was neither given, even in the case of electorally powerful parties, nor produced in quasi-mechanical fashion by the ‘natural’ operation of competitive democracy. It was the result of a full-scale confrontation over conflicting images of what is legitimate, it was a product of ideological and political struggle. Parties of a social-democratic type became wholly ‘competitive’ only gradually, by adopting a political profile that was intrinsically close to the status quo.
From the beginning of the twentieth century, while the centre of political life in western countries overall moved to the left (in the sense that certain left-wing ideas became the ‘fund of ideology’ common to the whole of society), left-wing parties, and especially the social-democratic parties, shifted to the right. This shift had as a corollary the deradicalization of the social-democratic parties, a reduction in the distance between the political changes desired and advocated by them and what the British call ‘status quo policies’. John Clayton Thomas has shown that in the period 1911–62, this shift ‘to the right’, common to all left-wing forces, was most pronounced in countries with a classical social democracy, like Sweden, Austria and Germany.1 Indeed, the ideological and political trajectory followed by the Marxist social democrats of the beginning of the century was marked by more ruptures and renunciations than that of the labour parties of the Commonwealth, which were more moderate from the outset; or of the communists, whose anti-capitalism was more consistent and enduring.
Once acquired, this legitimacy separated social democracy from other ‘reformist’ political forces and equipped it, at the level of competition, to present itself as:
(a)the natural force of alternation;
(b)the force capable of neutralizing a possible ‘regime vote’.
The Natural Force of Alternation
Presenting itself as the natural force of governmental alternation allowed social democracy, inter alia, to attract the protest vote against the incumbent government when it found itself in opposition – almost mechanically so in two-party systems. Traditionally non-socialist social categories and political tendencies broadened the electoral bases of the social-democratic parties, associating themselves willy-nilly with the social-democratic electoral coalition by virtue of the latter’s competitive position. This vote – cast for social democracy not only because of its ideological principles or its concrete programme, but also as a function of the ‘pivotal position’ it occupied in the disposition of opposition forces – was directed less to social democracy as such than to ‘the opposition’.
The ability to ‘identify itself’ (to use this term) with ‘the opposition’ was characteristic of every social democracy in the 1960s, but not of every opposition party. ‘Anti-systemic’ parties (Georges Lavau) – or those perceived as such, we should add – devote themselves totally and continuously to the critique of the system, its values and norms, its authorities.2 But as for fitness to ‘take over’ from these authorities, they find themselves in a difficult situation. The cases of ‘reformist’ communist parties like the PCF or the PCI are good examples of oppositions that were incapable, for different reasons, of identifying themselves with ‘the opposition’. The case of the SPD – a party that was not anti-systemic – in the initial postwar period is another instance. Suffering the damaging consequences of the division of Germany, and pursuing the model of ‘oppositional’ socialism after 1949, the SPD soon found itself accused of not looking after the nation’s interests. The remarkable accumulation of successive electoral defeats (1949, 1953, 1957, 1961, 1965), despite its regular electoral progress (from 1953 onwards), furnished proof of the SPD’s inability to establish itself as a ‘natural’ – because legitimate – force of alternation. The symbolic ‘brutality’ of the turn at Bad Godesberg (1959), like the policy of the Grand Coalition (1966–69), made the SPD one of the most ‘right-wing’ social-democratic parties in the European socialist family of the era. The implementation and dramatization of this radically moderate strategy had as its main objective dispelling the hesitations and fears of the electorate, and reassuring the various ‘centres of power and authority’. The SPD undertook, with great success, to ‘divest itself of all the repulsive attributes of the identity it had constructed’,3 in order to establish itself as a legitimate claimant to power. In effect, these attributes prevented it being identified with the German opposition (in the sense defined above), despite the fact that it represented the main opposition in the German party system. Hence the SPD’s excessive moderation directly corresponded – and responded – to the excessive domination of its opponent’s ideas, to the fact that this opponent, and it alone, represented governmental legitimacy.
If, in the FRG, it was necessary to pass via Bad Godesberg, and then the Grand Coalition, for ‘sole possible alternative’ and ‘natural alternation’ to coincide, in Italy the Historic Compromise and, considerably later, the PCI’s transformation into the PDS were required. In France – where the SFIO was unable to identify itself with the opposition not because it was not moderate, but because it was too moderate – it was necessary to operate via the Union of the Left (1972–81) and especially, thanks to the Union, a whole process of marginalization of the PCF, historically the most important left-wing party in France. In other words, in France radicalization of the left (through the Common Programme), and then its de-radicalization, as indicated by the marked displacement of the balance of forces in favour of the PS, was the condition for the 1981 victory.
In this perspective, the term ‘natural alternation’ designates a political aptitude, not a particular and specific way of structuring the space of opposition (where the only organized opposition is the left). For to be the sole – or principal – recipient of the protest vote against the incumbent government, and to attract that vote effectively, are not the same thing. Being the sole possible alternative, and constituting oneself as the ‘natural’ alternative, are not the same thing.4 Now, it is clear that the ‘typical’ social democracy of the 1960s – ‘mature’ social democracy – proved capable of constructing itself as a political force that was in a position to compound the effects of the left dynamic and the opposition dynamic. It thus imposed itself as a force capable of establishing its majority/governmental vocation.
The social-democratic parties were moderate forces of a specific type and structure. Precisely because they occupied virtually the whole of the left part of the political scene, and precisely because they enjoyed massive support from the world of labour, they were simultaneously in a position, through a strategy of moderation, to attract ‘centrist’ and ‘barely politicized’ bands of the electorate effectively. For not every strategy of moderation is effective, or effective in an identical manner and to the same degree, simply by virtue of being moderate. The cases of the SFIO, the PSI or, much later, the Portuguese PS – parties that did not control the left part of the political scene to the same extent as the parties of a social-democratic type, or enjoy the unequivocal support of the world of labour – demonstrate that moderation does not necessarily betoken electoral effectiveness. There are different ways of being ‘moderate’, just as there are different ways of being ‘revisionist’, ‘reformist’, or merely ‘modernizing’.
The Force Capable of Neutralizing a Possible ‘Regime Vote’
By ‘regime vote’5 I mean that share of the vote cast for the ‘conservative’ party6 best placed to confront the left-wing adversary, when the latter – as a result of its electoral strength and radical policy – seems capable of challenging the equilibrium of the whole sociopolitical system. This type of vote is not an act of loyalty towards the chosen ‘conservative’ party, but a gesture of support for the system, the beneficiary being merely the appropriate vehicle, the most effective political instrument, to respond to the competitive challenge from the left.
A system really or allegedly at the crossroads between capitalism and socialism is the basic causal factor underlying the emergence of a ‘regime vote’. Its preconditions are the presence of a left-wing party which is, first, an irreconcilable enemy – real or supposed – of the existing system; and, second, sufficiently strong to accede to government. The existence of this type of vote prevents the left-wing party (socialist or other) fully benefiting from the exhaustion of the incumbent government, and thus constituting itself as a rallying point, and hence as a pole of government. The ‘regime vote’ rests on the quasi-opposition – or what is experienced as such – between the left-wing party and the social system. Now, the exhaustion of social democracy’s anti-capitalist spirit, and its renunciation of its anti-systemic objectives, were precisely what contributed to surmounting definitively the obstacle represented by this type of vote. Stripped of its anti-capitalist temptations, social democracy discovered a new competitive vitality – in the 1930s in some instances (Scandinavia), in the 1940s for a majority of parties, and the 1960s for others (FRG). As soon as the barrier of the ‘regime vote’ was breached, it could thus amass the lion’s share of the protest vote against the government, presenting and constructing itself as a majority/governmental force.
The attainment of legitimacy, opening the way to government, was mainly the product of – and, in a way, compensation for – ideological de-radicalization. Whether the compensation was commensurate with the ideological ‘sacrifice’ demanded is a question that does not lend itself to an unequivocal response.
Parties Largely Dominant on the Left
In the countries that are most advanced on the social-democratic path (Scandinavia, Austria, the FRG and, in variant forms, Great Britain and the Benelux countries), the most striking thing about the structuration of the left in the period 1945 to 1973 was the domination of virtually the whole of the left of the politico-ideological continuum by the social-democratic-type party. The absence of a significant left competitor is not only a constant of the successful social-democratic experiences, but seems to condition the success itself. For the competitive status and role of the party in the party and political system are heavily subject to the presence or absence of a competitor of some arithmetical significance, whether communist or other. This is so for four reasons. (1) With no significant rival on its left, the party of a social-democratic type can, at no great risk, initiate a political strategy orientated towards the centre with a view to attracting more moderate segments of the population. (2) This positioning more to ‘the centre’, and the moderation that accompanies it, lead (as we shall see) to the success of the tripartite ‘social pact’, one of whose essential bases is precisely a culture based on conciliation and pragmatism. (3) Having consolidated its electoral entrenchment in the working class, the social-democratic party can, in the absence of a significant left-wing competitor, pursue a strategy of attracting the middle classes, without courting the danger of being destabilized. (4) With no electorally influential opponent on the left, the social-democratic-type party can legitimately take advantage of its representativeness, sociological and political, to establish itself as a natural party of government.
It is certainly no accident if the social-democratic parties with the most pronounced governmental character were those that were both most working-class in the social composition of their electorate, and faced with no important rival on the left. Measuring the ‘governmental power’ of the socialist/social-democratic parties for the period 1945 to 1979, Anton Pelinka has ranked the parties of the following countries in the top five: (1) Sweden, (2) Norway, (3) Denmark, (4) Austria, and (5) United Kingdom.7 It should be noted that the five parties concerned are socially the most working-class, and have no important competitor on the left – with the exception of the Danish social democrats since 1960 (SF: 6.1 per cent) and especially 1966 (SF: 10.9 per cent). It is perhaps not irrelevant to signal that in the same study Pelinka ranks lowest the socialist parties of France (SFIO, PS) and Italy (PSDI and PSI), which are highly interclassist and flanked on their left by powerful communist formations.
Thus, if the social-democratic parties proved able to solicit the centrist vote successfully, it is because they were able to consolidate their traditional electorate, the electorate situated most to the left on the left-right continuum. Anchorage and domination on the left were invariably the first step in an ambitious centripetal strategy. In fact, largely dominating the left of the political scene represented a condition of any successful strategy orientated towards the centre. Parties of a social-democratic type established themselves as central parties in European political systems only because they were able to penetrate the centre effectively; and they were able to penetrate the centre effectively only because they were not centrist. In a seeming paradox, a quasi-monopoly on the left was the precondition of moderation. But this quasi-monopoly made the social-democratic parties, for all their moderation, popular left-wing parties, not intermediate political formations equidistant from the extremes.
The existence or emergence of an important competitor on the left is a factor of structural destablilization, for the competitor tends to test the way in which the whole social-democratic political edifice is constructed, and operates. In effect, the ‘opening’ to the middle classes, or the pursuit of a politics inflected to the centre, truly succeeded only once social democracy had established its unequivocal preponderance over the whole of the left. The presence, alongside the socialist or social-democratic party, of a strong communist party represented either a major obstacle to such ‘sociological openness’, or the central factor in the failure of such initiatives. The examples of the SPD before 1933, or the SFIO after the war, are evidence enough.8
The consolidation and blossoming of such left-wing rivals, and the constant pressure exerted by them on social democracy, weaken it sociologically, politically and ideologically, rendering it incapable of fulfilling its ‘role’ in the party and political system. Implicitly at stake in the existence of significant left-wing competitors is the destabilization – or frustration – of the dominant socialist party’s strategy.
The ‘mechanical’, but often effective, response to this left-wing challenge is the displacement of the social-democratic party’s ideological centre of gravity to the left. It is well known in the political literature that the existence of comparatively strong communist parties has often led the social-democratic/socialist parties to adopt a more radical profile. More recently, the appearance of the Greens in the FRG and the strong rise of the popular socialists in Denmark have prompted the social-democratic parties in those countries to position themselves markedly more to the left than before. The more radical profile of PASOK in Greece, and of PSOE (during the immediate post-Franco era) in Spain, attest equally, in their fashion, to the impact of an electorally and politically significant left-wing pole on the mechanism of competition.
Thus, the number – and especially the level of influence – of parties to the left of social democracy had a far from negligible impact on its ideological and political evolution, and on its capacity to implement the tripartite ‘social pact’. This was not without its consequences for the future.
Degree of Domination on the Left, Structuration of the Trade-Union Movement and the Effectiveness of Interclassist Strategies
The strategy of opening up to the middle classes, a constant of social-democratic politics after 1945, was furthered and refined in line with the increasing arithmetical weight and internal differentiation of this highly heterogeneous social group.
This strategy brought with it, however, the risk of disharmony between the party’s natural base and the middle classes, since greater influence among the latter had the potential to weaken working-class support. Were that to have transpired, it would have been as if the social-democratic parties, ensnared by their own strategy, had sacrificed any possibility of a majoritarian politics, since any policy of ‘openness’ risked becoming very costly, and hence intolerable.
Przeworski and Sprague have shown that a ‘trade-off’ between votes of working-class origin and votes of ‘middle-class’ provenance did exist, and that in at least some instances it weighed heavily in the frustration of interclassist politics.
In countries with an influential communist party, a fragmented trade-unionism, and/or a significant religious divide, an interclassist strategy risked proving very costly.9 The reason was that in political systems with a divided left, workers had the alternative, as workers, of shifting to the communist parties, which naturally pursued a specifically working-class counter-strategy.
By contrast, in countries without a significant religious divide, with a weak communist party, and a dense, unified and relatively centralized trade-unionism, the costs of the interclassist strategy were significantly reduced. There, it proved effective in winning votes from the middle classes. The contrast between these two scenarios enables us to appreciate the practical importance of the social-democratic actor occupying virtually the whole of the left part of the left-right continuum. The identity of social democracy (ideological, programmatic, sociological) was profoundly marked by the presence or absence of this competitive attribute.
To some extent, the adoption of an interclassist appeal indicates abandonment by the social-democratic party of its role as explicit political organizer of the working class. The absence in the second group of countries of an influential left-wing party, able to substitute itself for social democracy and address the working class as a class, allows social democracy to remain, faute de mieux, the representative of the working class without undue cost. Moreover, very strong unions operate as ‘the effective mechanism of class organization’, establishing the salience of class in political conflict and public debate through their activity and power. We might even say that if this salience is called into question by interclassist electoral strategies, it is continually re-established – albeit only in part – by trade-union action and, even more, by the existence of the system of corporatist representation (see below). Thus, given the absence of politically competing class interpellation and the role of class organizer assumed by ‘friendly’ unions, the weakening of working-class politics at the level of electoral strategies in countries with a strong social democracy does not lead to the creation of a wide gulf between the social-democratic elites and working-class strata. Were that to change, everything might change.
Notes
1.John Clayton Thomas, The Decline of Ideology in Western Political Parties: A Study of Changing Policy Orientations, Sage, London 1975, pp. 21–2, 41–3.
2.Georges Lavau, ‘Partis et systèmes: interactions et functions’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, II, vol. 1, March 1969, p. 40.
3.Georges Lavau’s words, referring to the PCF, in A quoi sert le Parti communiste français?, Fayard, Paris 1981, p. 423.
4.An interesting illustration is the British Labour Party in the 1980s.
5.See Marcello Fedele, Classi e partiti negli anni 70, Editori Riuniti, Rome 1979, p. 120 for ‘voto di regime’.
6.It need not be a conservative party in the traditional sense of the term, but simply the party that is best placed, regardless of its ideological profile, to guarantee continuity, to preserve the system. The vote for the DC in Italy in 1976 and the PS in Portugal in April 1975 (in both instances to thwart the ‘communist threat’) are good examples of a ‘regime vote’.
7.Anton Pelinka, Social Democratic Parties in Europe, Praeger, New York 1983, p. 80.
8.See Adam Przeworski and John Sprague, Paper Stones: A History of Electoral Socialism, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1986, pp. 71–2. Studying the electoral results of the left in fifteen countries (1917–43, 1944–78), Stefano Bartolini has shown that there was a correlation between the communist vote and the socialist vote, an increase in the one very often entailing a decline in the other. In countries with a strong communist party (Italy, France, Finland, Iceland), a rise in the communist vote was accompanied in 58.3% of cases (in 1944–78) by a decline in the socialist vote, whereas the converse (increase in the socialist vote, decline in the communist vote) was true in only 37.5% of cases. It is important to signal that in the group of ‘other countries’ the corresponding statistics were 57.5% and 62.2% (‘The European Left since the Second World War: Size, Composition and Patterns of Electoral Development’, in Hans Daalder and Peter Mair, eds, Western European Party Systems, Sage, London 1985, p. 154, Table 6.4).
9.Indeed, Przeworski and Sprague have found that the SPD (before 1933), the SFIO (before 1968), and the Finnish party (before 1972) paid very dearly for their interclassist strategies. For each voter from the middle classes, the SPD lost on average – for the whole period examined – 16.7 workers, the French socialists 9.3, and the Finnish 1.41. The respective figures for Sweden are 0.77, for Norway 0.02, and for Denmark 0.13. See Paper Stones, p. 70, Table 3.3.