The purpose of this brief postscript is to offer some comments on the prospects for the new social democracy in the light of its most recent evolution, attending to events that occurred after the main text was written.
A Phase of Identity Consolidation?
There can be no doubt that the period of the last fifteen years marks a major turning-point in the history of postwar social democracy. Using (and abusing) the theory (and especially the terminology) of ‘electoral realignments’, it might be said that we have witnessed a period of social-democratic ‘realignment’.1 This ‘realignment’ was the compound product of several minor ‘dealignments’ and ‘realignments’, affecting the programmatic, ideological, organizational and electoral foundations of the postwar social-democratic edifice. Social-democratic realignment has not proceeded violently; it did not take the form of an earthquake. It was a gradual phenomenon, which does not mean that it was without ruptures and ‘critical moments’. Nevertheless, all things considered, it was not a ‘protracted’ process. The comparative speed with which the new social democracy emerged is indicative of its remarkable ability to respond to new stimuli and electoral challenges: it is testimony to the formidable capacity of political organizations to adapt to new circumstances.2
Begun at different dates in different countries, the change gathered in intensity from the second half of the 1980s. And the temperature – particularly the ideological, programmatic and organizational temperature – rose considerably in the second half of the 1990s. During the latter years, the process became more aggressive. Following the phase of defensive adaptation (the 1980s), a phase of offensive adaptation set in, especially in the second half of the 90s (see above, Chapters 9 and 13).
Today, the new social democracy is installed and the inherited map has been redrawn. It is difficult to tell whether the period of transformation is over. In all likelihood, change will continue for a long time, albeit at a slow and discreet tempo. Possibly it will affect some programmatic or policy areas that have hitherto remained untouched.3 These will not be identical from country to country. Even so, regardless of any subsequent evolution, everything suggests that the new social democracy has achieved a certain degree of stability. Social democracy seems to have discovered a new equilibrium – and a certain inertia – following the fever of the ‘great’ transformation. With the main ideological, programmatic, organizational and sociological characteristics of the new social-democratic profile now in place, short-term factors will henceforth have priority. Social democracy is no longer a force ‘in transition’. What (in realignment theory) is called an ‘ordinary’ period is beginning, or rather has already begun. Thus, after a phase in which social democracy had to construct, assume and proclaim a new identity, after the gradual (and occasionally abrupt) reorganization of ‘old’ equilibria, consolidation of past results will be the successor tendency. The present phase is one of consolidation and ‘minor adjustments’.
An Example of Consolidation: Labour’s Victory in June 2001
Wolfgang Merkel has identified four social-democratic ‘ways’: New Labour’s ‘market-oriented way’; the ‘consensus-oriented way to more market’ pursued by the Dutch government; Sweden’s ‘(reformed) welfare state way’; and the ‘statist way’ of the gauche plurielle in France.4 In June 2001, British voters approved New Labour’s ‘market-oriented way’ by a comfortable margin, returning Tony Blair to power.
According to Pierre Martin, it is invariably the case that ‘when a government succeeds on a consensual issue [e.g. management of the economy], it obtains its best electoral result at the end of its first mandate’.5 Labour’s victory in June 2001 conforms to this logic perfectly.
In 1997, following the long rule of a ‘strong-arm’ Conservatism, the Labour Party adopted a highly centrist position. Ian Budge’s analysis of Labour’s 1997 election manifesto is illuminating here:
Labour moves sharply rightwards from 1992 and for the first time in postwar history shows a preponderance of right-wing positions over left-wing ones.… Labour were far from whole-heartedly endorsing Thatcherite positions. A fair amount of ‘clear blue water’ still separated the Conservative position from their own. Nevertheless, compared with the Liberal Democrats, Labour moved rightwards and ‘leapfrogged’ over them for only the second time in the postwar period. In relative terms, Labour became the most centrist party.6
No doubt New Labour’s occupation of the centre was in fact simply domination ‘in a field of force created by the Conservatives’ (just as the centripetal impulse of the Conservatives after the Second World War occurred ‘in a field of force’ created by the social-democratic agenda).7 It remains the case that this centripetal position proved electorally profitable. In the context of an across-the-board advance, Labour made its greatest breakthrough among the middle classes. This was the index of a marked class realignment (see above, Chapter 7). And as Geoffrey Evans, Anthony Heath and Clive Payne have stressed, ‘the dip in class voting to its lowest level in 1997 is certainly consistent with Labour’s recent move to the centre’.8
In 2001, profiting from the Conservatives’ ‘rightist’ turn and Europhobic profile, Labour consolidated its domination in the centre.9 Such was its occupation of the centre that the Liberal Democrats were once again generally regarded as a centre-left party, positioning themselves (programmatically at least) to the left of New Labour. Moreover, the priority accorded ‘left-wing’ themes (health, education, public transport) in Labour’s election campaign was highly relative: recourse to the private sector (via public-private partnerships) will introduce ‘private companies into the inner sanctum of the public realm, the NHS and state schools’,10 and is even set to activate ‘the second generation of British privatizations’ in decidedly atypical fashion.11 Furthermore, the new Blair government will maintain its course as regards economic policy and taxation, with Labour promising not to increase direct taxation on individuals and companies. Given this, it is not surprising that the June 2001 election confirms, and in part magnifies, the class realignment observed in 1997. Scrutiny of the results by socio-professional category indicates that New Labour advanced moderately among the middle classes and fell back markedly among manual strata, particularly the DE working-class category traditionally ranged solidly behind Labour.12 It should be noted that the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats made their most important gains among the C2 and DE categories, particularly the latter, which used to be the central pillar of Labour’s ‘natural’ electorate.13
Electoral developments in 2001 largely confirm tendencies that were strongly in evidence in 1997. They simultaneously confirm the novel position occupied by Tony Blair’s party in the space of partisan competition and continuity in the new coalition of voters that supports this party. In this respect, the 2001 election was one of consolidation for New Labour. Yet this election of consolidation has created a new political axis that partly redefines the political game in Great Britain. New Labour’s domination of the electoral agenda, spectacular during the campaign itself, certainly consolidates the neoliberal paradigm (hence the support given it by a large part of the British economic establishment). At the same time, however, it seals the ascendancy of a modified version of that paradigm. In future, the Conservatives will in all probability be constrained to submit to it.
More generally, the June 2001 British general election confirms three theses developed at length in this work:
1.Socialist and social-democratic parties are increasingly sustained by a vote from the middle classes, particularly the salaried middle strata. This enables them to compensate for the damage done by a certain working-class disaffection and the reduction in working-class numbers in the population.
2.Since the working class is no longer the privileged sociological marker of social-democratic electorates, the latter are now constructed on the basis of a profoundly inter-classist format, by far the most inter-classist in the whole history of social democracy. As a consequence, the class character and social cohesion of these electorates have been significantly attenuated.
3.The mediation of political factors between class structure and the act of voting is currently of greater importance. Political strategy and governmental performance are central factors in explaining the electoral behaviour of social classes.14
Thus, the question ‘are voters getting the message?’,15 must unequivocally be answered in the affirmative. The catch-all social format of social-democratic electorates is consistent with the catch-all format of social-democratic parties’ ideological and programmatic discourse. Voters today are quite different from those of the 1950s and 60s. They are beginning to take party rhetoric at its word. To a considerable extent, the behaviour of social classes is explained by political factors.
The New Social-Democratic Identity: Towards an ‘Adjusted’ Balance?
In 1999, Ian Budge reckoned it likely that Labour, having demonstrated that the country was safe in its hands, would commence ‘a cautious trek back to [its] ideological home’, reverting to ‘more traditional positions’.16 Can this assessment be generalized? The extreme variety of national situations dictates the utmost caution.
Even so, certain indices point in this direction. In a still very recent past, when socialists had to fulfil the Maastricht criteria or prove their ‘modernity’ and ‘managerial competence’ (and rid themselves of the image of ‘incompetence’), a posture of ‘markets against politics’ was adopted in a very assertive, and frequently aggressive, fashion. European governments (left and right) adopted restrictive budgetary policies and everywhere pledged to cut back the state (these policies proved all the more restrictive in that their effects were compounded by being implemented well-nigh simultaneously, in the framework fixed by the convergence criteria). In particular, social-democratic governments in the EU countries, bound as they were by an extremely powerful set of European juridical instruments (legitimized by the relevant treaties), pursued market-making policies (systematic suppression of national barriers to free competition), as opposed to market-correcting policies.17 However, it would appear that the policy mix of a number of social-democratic governments has gradually become more composite – at once pro-enterprise and anti-exclusion.18 We are thus witnessing a minor and moderate ‘adjustment’, aspects of which (notably in social policy) depart from neoliberal philosophy. This adjustment also involves a certain ‘return of active government’,19 which goes beyond the logic of ‘regulating deregulation’. In addition, it contains signs of a more aggressive approach to European construction – witness the proposals of Gerhard Schroder and Lionel Jospin.
It would therefore be logical for the new phase – the consolidation of the new social-democratic identity – to be marked by an ‘adjusted’ balance, social democracy’s centre of gravity being situated a shade more to the left than in the previous phase, which was marked by centrist (or, as some had it, ‘rightist’) drift.20 It is usually through a minor step ‘backwards’ that the major step ‘forward’ is legitimated and that large political formations, containing very diverse tendencies, are stabilized and strengthened. A certain reactivation of counterbalancing cultures (which does not necessarily betoken the reactivation or emergence of elites to challenge the currently dominant elites), is thus not unlikely. Although weakened, the ‘old’ social democracy remains entrenched within the shell of ‘new’ social democracy.21 As a result of its options and renunciations, social democracy seems, as it were, to have reached a border in identity terms (see above, Chapter 17), which even the leaderships that are most ‘right-wing’ and most attached to the neoliberal ‘rebirth’ of social democracy dare not cross without providing compensation.22 Were they to, they would imperil the very viability of the modernizing project.
A more radical move, an isolated drift (oriented to the left), certainly cannot be excluded in one country or another, particularly after a humiliating electoral defeat. But most probably, moves to the left, if they occur, will be rather limited in scope. Consequently, except in the case of an extreme external or internal shock, they will not be such as to call into question the essential distinguishing characteristics of the new social-democratic identity. Since social democracy is in a sense the party of ‘two parallel universes’,23 it is highly likely that in the near future we shall observe two parallel ‘logics’ operating simultaneously: a logic ‘pushing’ social democracy to integrate itself further into the paradigm of economic liberalism; and another logic adjusting this paradigm by instilling into it elements derived from a largely non- or anti-liberal perspective.
The Paradox of the New Social Democracy
If the lot of political parties is change, the lot of contemporary social-democratic parties is great tactical and strategic flexibility. The new structure of social-democratic organization (characterized by enhancement and reinforcement of the leadership in tandem with its weakening, loss of influence by the party’s traditional bureaucracy, loosening of the trade-union link, a managerial type of intra-organizational culture, a membership that is smaller, less oriented and less ‘orienting’, decline in ‘identity incentives’ and strong integrating links) facilitates flexibility and the policy of adjustments. This strategic and tactical flexibility is a major identity characteristic, on a par with the adoption of a moderate neoliberal philosophy. At the same time, the ideologically and programmatically catch-all format of social-democratic parties leaves open several possibilities, and legitimates a number of minor turns, whether to the left or the right. The decline of the ‘party as a faith’, in favour of the ‘party as a tool’,24 and the decline of the social-democratic ‘way of organizing politics’ (to borrow a formula from Joel Krieger),25 increase the potential for zigzagging between the ‘two parallel universes’ that make up the reality of contemporary social democracy. But by the same token they reduce social democracy’s capacity to choose between them. Contemporary social democracy can position itself further to the left or further to the right, but it seems ill-equipped to advance a hegemonic project (capitalist, anti-capitalist, reformist or whatever), and to influence ideas, values and policies in contemporary societies strategically.26
If the objective of contemporary socialism is to promote solidarity, then the question is: Will it be in a position to promote the logic of solidarity without a policy for growth;27 without weighing on the inegalitarian effects of globalization through co-ordinated, ‘voluntarist’ transnational action; without strengthening its electoral, organizational and ideological links with the popular space and its trade-union or other organizations; and without succeeding in striking a new balance between the two universes that comprise its reality today, a balance that currently clearly favours the market to the obvious detriment of the logic of solidarity?
Without an adequate response to these difficult questions, contemporary social democracy will remain trapped in the great historical paradox of partisan competition in Europe today: the old class parties – the very ‘old’ social democracy – successfully furthered policies of class compromise, whereas the current, profoundly inter-classist parties (oriented towards the centre and the middle ground) are incapable of conjugating the interests of the upper classes with those of the lower classes. Capitalism actually benefited considerably from the trente glorieuses. But even so,
capitalist interests accepted more and more constraints: nationalisation, progressive taxation, the regulation of labour standards, the dynamic growth of a welfare state which virtually excluded such major potential consumption areas as health, education and social insurance from the reach of profit-making.28
Today, in contrast, the ‘new’ social-democratic parties are even incapable of organizing their programmatic inter-classism into a coherent experiment. In particular, they are incapable of imposing a compromise that genuinely has something in it for the lower classes. ‘Old’ social democracy, so belittled today, in large part implemented policies ‘beyond Left and Right’ (precisely because it was a force of the Left). Current social democracy, on the other hand, voluntarily located as it is in this ill-defined space ‘beyond Left and Right’, would not appear to be in a position to invent (other than in anaemic form) a genuine ‘third way’ (beyond Left and Right), or a ‘middle way’ (between Left and Right). This is indeed the great paradox of the various Third Ways, practical or theoretical. In this respect, the formulation of René Cuperus, a perspicuous analyst of social democracy, appears to be too optimistic: ‘The same way as the old social democracy acted as the civilising and taming power of industrial capitalism, the new paradigm of the Third Way must be designed to be the civilising and taming power of the global info-capitalism’.29
Let us end this text as we began it. To stick with the terminology of electoral realignments, the cycle of a realignment begins with one realignment and ends with another.30 As of now, the new social-democratic identity can be regarded as solid, stable and durable – that is, until a new realignment occurs. Following its great transformation (which was ‘great’ because it was not exclusively ideological-programmatic), contemporary social democracy is no longer a political force ‘in transition’. It is here and it is here to stay – which does not preclude adjustments to the left or the right. Anthony Giddens would say, ‘third way politics … isn’t an ephemeral set of ideas’.31 What will certainly prove to be less ephemeral is the new ‘minimalist’ model of social democracy.
Gerassimos Moschonas
14 June 2001
Notes
1.On the theory of electoral realignments, see Pierre Martin’s recent book Comprendre les evolutions électorales: la théorie des réalignements revisitée, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris 2000. Some of what follows draws on this work.
2.See Thomas Rochon, ‘Adaptation in the Dutch Party System: Social Change and Party Response’, in Birol Yesilada, ed., Comparative Political Parties and Party Elites, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1999, p. 120.
3.See, by way of example, New Labour’s policy for the modernization of public services, which allots an important role to the private sector.
4.Wolfgang Merkel, ‘The Third Ways of Social Democracy’, in René Cuperus, Karl Duffek and Johannes Kandel, eds, Multiple Third Ways: European Social Democracy Facing the Twin Revolution of Globalisation and the Knowledge Society, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Amsterdam 2001, pp. 38–56; reprinted in Anthony Giddens, The Global Third Way Debate, Polity Press, Cambridge 2001, pp. 50–73.
5.Martin, Comprendre les evolutions électorales, p. 110.
6.Ian Budge, ‘Party Policy and Ideology: Reversing the 1950s?’, in Geoffrey Evans and Pippa Norris, eds, Critical Elections: British Parties and Voters in Long-Term Perspective, Sage, London 1999, p. 6.
7.Richard Heffernan, New Labour and Thatcherism: Political Change in Britain, Macmillan, London 2000, pp. 159, 169.
8.Geoffrey Evans, Anthony Heath and Clive Payne, ‘Class: Labour as a Catch-All Party?’, in Evans and Norris, eds, Critical Elections, p. 100.
9.‘[F]or the first time in my life’, Tony Benn has written, ‘the public was on the left of Labour’ (Observer, 10 June 2001).
10.Jonathan Freedland, Guardian, 23 May 2001.
11.Philippe Marlière, ‘Tony Blair, le “seul conservateur crédible”’, Mouvements, no. 17, September 2001.
12.According to the ICM/Observer statistics (which are not wholly comparable with those used in this book), New Labour progressed within the middle classes to the tune of 2 per cent (categories AB and C1), whereas it fell back within the C2 category by 3 per cent (especially among skilled manual workers) and even further within the DE category (minus 7 per cent). See the Observer, 10 June 2001.
13.The Conservative vote increased 6 per cent, and the Liberal Democrat vote 5 per cent, in the DE category (Observer, 10 June 2001).
14.This was dramatically demonstrated in another recent election, in Greece in April 2000. PASOK’s modernization policy, constructed around Greek membership of the European Union and programmatic and political priorities inspired by the neoliberal paradigm, strengthened PASOK’s influence among higher social strata and an important section of capital, as well as intellectuals traditionally distrustful of Andreas Papandreou’s ‘nationalist’ and ‘demagogic’ discourse. Thus, the PASOK of Costas Simitis has gradually become the party of the ‘contentment society’, while retaining a significant influence among disadvantaged sections of the population, even if it is significantly reduced today. At the same time, the turn of the conservatives of New Democracy to a more ‘social’ policy has enabled them to strengthen their penetration of popular strata traditionally close to PASOK. Thus, the marked ideological and programmatic convergence of PASOK and New Democracy has yielded an equally marked sociological convergence of their respective electorates. As in Great Britain, only more so, politics has significantly influenced class voting. Greece in the twentieth century is an exemplary case: the behaviour of social classes closely correlates with the evolution of political rhetoric. Thus, the peculiar class dealignment that occurred there should be explained mainly on political and not sociological grounds (see Gerassimos Moschonas, ‘The Path of Modernization: PASOK and European Integration’, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, vol. 3, no. 1, 2001, pp. 16–22).
15.Evans, Heath and Payne, ‘Class: Labour as a Catch-All Party?’, p. 96.
16.Budge, ‘Party Policy and Ideology: Reversing the 1950s?’, p. 7.
17.Fritz Scharpf, Gouverner l’Europe, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris 2000, pp. 193, 197.
18.René Cuperus, ‘The New World and the Social-Democratic Response’, in Cuperus et al., eds, Multiple Third Ways, p. 163.
19.On the various ‘third ways’, see Merkel, ‘The Third Ways of Social Democracy’.
20.The gauche plurielle in France must be reckoned a minor ‘semi-exception’ in the universe of neo-liberalized socialism. The discourse and, in part, policy of the government should not readily be classified as ‘neoliberal’, contrary to our analysis above (see Chapter 10), which was based on partial data. This analysis must therefore be qualified somewhat. Certainly, Lionel Jospin has not made the rupture with neoliberalism that he promised prior to coming to power. And it is also certainly the case that his policy in large part obeys the same fundamentally restrictive macroeconomic principles as the rest of Europe. Nevertheless, the policy of the ‘plural Left’ has yielded an important raft of social measures, strengthening (especially on the issues of working hours, youth unemployment, and extreme poverty) state intervention (while pursuing a policy of state withdrawal from the more ‘classical’ spheres where it traditionally intervened, as demonstrated by privatization policy). At the same time, the Jospin government has preserved the welfare state overall, and finds itself in the European and international vanguard with its proposals for regulating globalization (e.g. political steering of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the proposal for European economic government). Unquestionably, there is no alternative social democracy in France. There is, however, an alternative ideological atmosphere, a different set of expectations both within the Jospin government and the trade-union movement, as well as what in France is called ‘the left of the left’ obviously. This alternative atmosphere is clearly visible in the discourse of the French government and in certain aspects of its activity. There is a search for mechanisms which, within the same economic paradigm, aim to reduce the fluctuations in economic activity and mass unemployment, enhance the role of unions, and limit the social depredations of liberal policy (by means of an active social policy). To employ a technical term, the French left attributes roles of greater significance, real and symbolic, to ‘secondary figures’. By comparison with the pervasive neoliberalism, every now and then it comes up with an innovatory move (35-hour week, youth employment scheme, measures for the ‘excluded’). Is this so important? Possibly not. And yet this alternative current should not simply be attributed to the round of political and institutional idioms, of which each country has its own. Gropingly, the French left is searching for a different interpretative order within the European socialist and social-democratic family.
21.‘“Old” Labour remains entrenched within the shell of “New” Labour’, according to Richard Heffernan, from whom we have borrowed the phrase (New Labour and Thatcherism, p. 172). What has been observed with respect to the British Labour Party as ‘some return to the language of redistribution and fairness’ (Leo Panitch, Colin Leys and David Coates, ‘Epilogue’, in L. Panitch and C. Leys, The End of Parliamentary Socialism, second edition, Verso, London 2001, p. 285) is also valid for the majority of social democratic parties.
22.Let us not forget that the conflict over redistribution remains central in political debate. On this question, see, among others, John Callaghan, The Retreat of Social Democracy, Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York 2000, p. 212.
23.Jonathan Freedland, Guardian, 23 May 2001.
24.On these terms, see Rosa Mulé, Political Parties, Games and Redistribution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001, p. 47.
25.‘New Labour has left behind more than politics and ideology: it has rejected a way of organizing politics’, according to Joel Krieger in British Politics in the Global Age: Can Social Democracy Survive?, Polity Press, Cambridge 1999, p. 37.
26.As was the case with the Swedish SAP and the ‘social-democratic image of society’ it created; and as was the case with Thatcherite Conservatism and the ‘conservative image’ of society it generated.
27.For an excellent analysis of social-democratic economic policy and the conditions for growth, see Ton Notermans, Money, Markets and the State: Social Democratic Politics since 1918, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000. Ton Noterman’s perspective according to which ‘… the success or failure of the social democratic program depends crucially on the institutional and political ability to combine growth with a fair degree of price stability’ (ibid., p. 3, emphasis added) reinforces many of the conclusions reached in our study.
28.Colin Crouch, ‘The Parabola of Working Class Politics’, in Andrew Gamble and Tony Wright, eds, The New Social Democracy, Blackwell, Oxford 1999, p. 75.
29.René Cuperus, ‘The New World and the Social-Democratic Response’, p. 168.
30.Martin, Comprendre les évolutions électorales, p. 61.
31.Anthony Giddens, The Third Way and its Critics, Polity Press, Cambridge 2000, p. vii.
Budge, Ian, ‘Party Policy and Ideology: Reversing the 1950s?’, in Geoffrey Evans and Pippa Norris, eds., Critical Elections, British Parties and Voters in Long-Term Perspective, Sage, London 1999.
Callaghan, John, The Retreat of Social Democracy, Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York 2000.
Crouch, Colin, ‘The Parabola of Working Class Politics’, in Andrew Gamble and Tony Wright, eds., The New Social Democracy, Blackwell, Oxford 1999.
Cuperus, René, ‘The New World and the Social-Democratic Response’, in René Cuperus, Karl Duffek and Johannes Kandel, eds., Multiple Third Ways, European Social Democracy facing the Twin Revolution of Globalisation and the Knowledge Society, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Amsterdam 2001.
Evans, Geoffrey, Heath, Anthony, Payne, Clive, ‘Class: Labour as a Catch-All Party?’, in Geoffrey Evans and Pippa Norris, eds., Critical Elections, British Parties and Voters in Long-Term Perspective, Sage, London 1999.
Giddens, Anthony, The Third Way and its Critics, Polity Press, Cambridge 2000.
Heffernan, Richard, New Labour and Thatcherism, Political Change in Britain, Macmillan, London 2000.
Krieger, Joel, British Politics in the Global Age: Can Social Democracy Survive?, Polity Press, Cambridge 1999.
Marlière, Philippe, ‘Tony Blair, le “seul conservateur crédible”’, in Mouvements, no. 17, September 2001.
Martin, Pierre, Comprendre les évolutions électorales, La théorie des réalignements revisitée, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris 2000.
Merkel, Wolfgang, ‘The Third Ways of Social Democracy’, in René Cuperus, Karl Duffek and Johannes Kandel, eds., Multiple Third Ways, European Social Democracy facing the Twin Revolution of Globalisation and the Knowledge Society, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Amsterdam 2001.
Moschonas, Gerassimos, ‘The Path of Modernization: PASOK and European Integration’, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, vol. 3, no. 1, 2001.
Mulé, Rosa, Political Parties, Games and Redistribution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001.
Notermans, Ton, Money, Markets and the State: Social Democratic Politics since 1918, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000.
Panitch, Leo, Leys, Colin and Coates, David ‘Epilogue: The Dénouement’, in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, The End of Parliamentary Socialism, From New Left to New Labour, second edition, Verso, London 2001.
Rochon, Thomas, ‘Adaptation in the Dutch Party System: Social Change and Party Response’, in Birol Yesilada, ed., Comparative Political Parties and Party Elites, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1999.
Scharpf, Fritz, Gouverner l’Europe, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris, 2000.