SLOVAK SOCIAL DEMOCRATS IN THE POLITICAL ORDER OF THE FIRST CZECHOSLOVAK REPUBLIC (1918 – 1939)

“We are no longer sure,” wrote the late Giovanni Arrighi in his monumental survey of the long twentieth century, “that the crisis of the 1970s was ever really resolved.”1 Almost two decades on, this observation seems truer than ever. Another economic crisis, larger even than that of the seventies, is upon us, and the European left is stranded without an economic program. Over one hundred years after the first of the parties affiliated to the Second International won a plurality in a parliamentary election (Finland, 1907),2 social democracy—that most protean of political traditions—may finally be running out of rope.Today's stark choices are being posed as the result of a major economic shift within capitalism: the deep disruption of capital accumulation as a consequence of the crisis in global financial markets unleashed in 2008. With the end of the recent long boom—or rather, long bubble—social democrats have been dealt a tremendous double blow. On the one hand, their decade-long strategy of full accommodation to neoliberalism in order to skim off the surplus for ameliorative social spending has collapsed with the end of the growth upon which it depended. On the other, they have fallen victim to a breathtaking act of political jujitsu. Contrary to expectations, the crisis has not thus far unseated neoliberalism as the reigning economic paradigm, and with this “strange non-death”3 financiers and the political right have neatly turned the tables on the center left. The big banks, having caused the crisis in the first place and led governments to borrow vast sums to come to their aid, have successfully redefined the resulting fiscal deficits as a matter of the need to cut back public spending and slash social protection. Sovereign debt crises are painted as cause rather than effect of the downturn.4 Social democrats have thus been cut off from the exits, unable to escape into the soft neo-Keynesianism that is their more progressive reflex.Nature, too, has some nasty surprises in store: “The repo girl is at the door.”5 As a result of global warming that has already occurred, it is now too late to avoid “a cascade of local and regional ‘natural’ disasters in the medium term.”6 Price shocks, supply disruptions, dislocations, the rising costs of urban coastal infrastructure and remediation efforts: Hurricane Sandy—a direct hit on the world's financial and media capital at an estimated cost of $60 billion and counting—is the shape of things to come: price shocks, supply disruptions, dislo- cations, the rising costs of urban coastal infrastructure and remediation efforts. At the same time, a $20 trillion bubble of “unburnable carbon” inside the global financial system7 will require—if the planet is to be saved—deliberate capital destruction on a scale roughly twice that of the end of slavery.8Even when—if—growth resumes, it will not deliver on the promises with which it is being invested. A modeling exercise for the Resolution Foundation by the Institute for Employment Research and the Institute for Fiscal Studies finds that on the basis of annual average UK growth of 2.5 percent from 2015–2020—an optimistic scenario—and no further cuts in public spending, living standards will fall for low and middle income households by as much as 15 percent.9 Only the rich will escape this ravening maw of austerity. We may not quite be facing the “end of growth”10 altogether, but it would be a foolhardy politics that retained any strategy relying upon a return, even in the medium term, to anything approaching the status quo ante.It is in these circumstances that the political battle lines of the coming era are being drawn. In a thousand voices the figures of the established order—politicians, financiers, economists, media commentators, spokespersons of the ‘international community’—all urge the same course: “Given the harsh world that daily confronts us with challenges, we must climb the steep slopes of productivity, budget reduction, technological innovation, the good health of our banks, and job flexibility.”11 For all the difficulties, the crisis has at least smashed the false separation of politics from the market that has been a precondition of neoliberal theory. As governments move to close schools, pare back local authorities, cut public spending and reduce wages, they are conjuring up a series of class struggles that are already playing out in the streets. Continuing through this tunnel of pain, the hope for the left should be to emerge from the other end with a new political economy and a system design truly capable of sustaining democracy, equality and community, while meeting head on the challenges of concentrated ownership and power, and ecological meltdown. The question is whether social democracy will play its part in the development of these solutions or whether it will become an obstacle on the road to systemic change.How have Europe's social democrats responded to this conjuncture? The early signs are not propitious. There are “morbid symptoms” aplenty, of precisely the kind Gramsci ascribed to a crisis interregnum in which “the old is dying and the new cannot be born.”12 There has been a near-total lack of solidarity among the parties of the Socialist International, whether in government or in opposition, as they have fallen in with the needs of their own narrowly defined national capitalisms. The mask of the much vaunted European social model—proclaimed just a few short years ago by Jürgen Habermas to be “a model” for the rest of humanity13—has slipped badly, revealing the true features of northern capital that were behind it all along: Once crisis struck, cohesion in the Eurozone could only come, not from social expenditure, but political dictation—the enforcement by Germany, at the head of a bloc of smaller northern states, of draconian austerity programmes, unthinkable for its own citizens, on the southern periphery, no longer able to recover competitivity by devaluation.14The politics of austerity is proving as disruptive as the economics. To the “zombie households, companies and banks”15 of the post-crisis landscape must now be added “zombie governments.” A horror show of decrepit political formations not seen since the interwar years has been exhumed from the crypt and installed across Europe: national governments, externally-imposed technocrats, even—in Greece—a troika-dictated regimen “reminiscent of Austria in 1922, when a High Commissioner was posted to Vienna by the Entente—under League of Nations colours—to run the economy to its satisfaction.”16 Turnouts at elections are falling, and an anti-incumbency tide has swept over Europe to which governing parties in country after country—Britain, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France—have succumbed. The likelihood of continuing political volatility can be seen in the fact that, for the most part, their successors are prescribing even larger doses of the same awful medicine.Against this backdrop, many social democrats—still desperate to haunt the “house of power”17—have begun to position themselves as the left wing of austerity. Social democrats are propping up conservative-led governments in Ireland and the Netherlands. In France, hopes that Socialist president François Hollande might rally the center left for a challenge to German-led austerity have quickly given way to disappointment as Paris reached its own détente with Berlin. Hollande has seen his poll ratings plunge to the lowest level ever afforded a new French president. In Germany, prospects for change in the bastion of austerity policies seem highly doubtful. The Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) is running Peer Steinbrück, perhaps the most conservative of the leading social democratic contenders, against Angela Merkel in 2013. Merkel is looking increasingly unassailable.One result of this posture is that social democracy is beginning to face significant challenges from the left: from Sinn Féin in Ireland, the Socialist Party in Holland, Die Linke in Germany, the Front de gauche in France.18 Another is the rise of populist anti-politics in keeping with the Argentine slogan of 2001, ¡Que Se Vayan Todos! (“They All Must Go!”), typified by forces such as the Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo in Italy. Thus far, existing party systems have just about contained the fallout. Greece, however, is the counter example, and should serve as a cautionary tale. The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) went into the May 2012 elections on the back of a 43.9 percent showing last time around but carrying heavy baggage as a signatory of the troika memorandum. The retribution it was dealt was impressive. PASOK slumped to 13.2 percent, a fall of some 2.2 million votes since 2009. New Democracy, meanwhile—the main party of the center right—also lost ground: At 32 per cent, the combined total for the two ‘parties of government’ was less than half their aggregate support in the previous elections. PASOK's vote share was even lower than the 13.4 per cent it secured on its first appearance in 1974. Similarly, ND's vote share was the lowest ever received by the main party of the right since the interwar period.19The main beneficiary of this rupture has been SYRIZA, the left coalition, which trebled its vote to 16.8 percent—a close second—and will be waiting in the wings when the current ‘grand coalition’ falls. The response of social democrats elsewhere in Europe has been to heap vitriol on SYRIZA and paint its leader, Alexis Tsipras, in the most lurid of colors. His crime? Opposing austerity and daring to put forward what amounts to a genuine social democratic platform.The difficulties facing social democrats today are deeply embedded in their history. Always more pleased with itself than its record would warrant, social democracy must now make a true reckoning of that history if it is to emerge from the current crisis as a continuing force for progressive change.Social democrats first entered government in the interwar period, “largely as temporary shock-absorbers in the great European turbulence that followed the Armistice.”20 Part of their function was containment and suppression of political unrest. The widespread belief that they were moving with an inevitable historical current seemingly absolved them of the need for any specific economic program of their own, and as a result they did not initially make their mark anywhere. “The conformism which has been part and parcel of Social Democracy from the beginning,” Walter Benjamin observed, “attaches not only to its political tactics but to its economic views as well.”21 In Berlin in 1923, the SPD's Rudolf Hilferding was a model of economic orthodoxy, as was Philip Snowden in London in 1924, chancellor in a minority Labour government that busied itself with nothing much besides RAF bombing of recalcitrant tribes in Iraq.22It was not political victory but total war that first installed social democracy in government with an effective economic program of counter-cyclical demand management and welfare state expenditure. In this, social democrats were borrowing the clothes of two heirs of nineteenth-century liberal progressivism: Keynes and Beveridge.23 With the Second World War and victory over fascism, there was a mass influx of workers into unions and politics across Europe. The stage was set for an extended period of broad-based economic growth that could accommodate both increased profit rates for capital and higher real living standards for labor.24 Thus began les trente glorieuses, the ‘thirty glorious years’ of the postwar boom. Among the principal beneficiaries of this golden age was social democracy, which had now found its raison d' être: Keynesianism suddenly provided working-class political parties with a reason to be in office…. If the economy was producing at a level below its capacity, given the existing stock of capital and labor, a proper government policy could increase output until it approached the economy's full potential.25Underpinning it all was the increased political weight of organized labor. The power of trade unions provided social democracy with ‘a place to stand’ vis-à-vis the economy from which to engage in redistributive politics.The extent of social democratic success during this period should not be overstated. Center left parties were not hegemonic. Nor did the class struggle simply disappear, instead being partially displaced onto public budgets through struggles over welfare provisions, subsidies to business, military and social spending, conflicts over taxation and the like.26 “Revisionist in ideology, reformist in project, and technocratic in practice,”27 from the Erfurt Program of the German SPD in 1891 to the crisis of the 1970s, the deep conservatism of the Western social democratic parties became apparent in their defense of a generalized status quo: They defended the growth model of Western capitalism … many traditional socialist commitments were in practice abandoned or relegated to an ever-receding long term: the end of capitalism, universal peace, the reform of the state, the abolition of all forms of political and economic inequality between the sexes. Attention was entirely concentrated on the main short-term aims: full employment for all male workers and the provision of welfare services to meet needs not provided through the market.28Attempts to push in another direction by radicals hostile to the wholesale adoption of reformist statism, from Rosa Luxemburg to G.D.H. Cole, were rebuffed. In Britain, the Labour Party rejected out of hand plans for social credit, guild socialism, and other such solutions in favor of the dismal managerialism of nationalization, and then only for industries—such as electricity, coal, gas, civil aviation, telecommunications, and railways—which were not particularly profitable at the time, and for which their owners were richly compensated.29In America, it did not even prove necessary to have a social democratic party to create a welfare state (albeit a severely truncated one—the US was always a “welfare state laggard,” in Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward's phrase).30 What in Europe had taken the might of the organized parties of the left—socialist, social democratic, and labor—was in the United States largely the work of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “a pseudo-aristocratic politician whose avowed ambition was ‘the salvation of American capitalism’.”31 In The Great Evasion, William Appleman Williams that the New became “a state in the and that, as was the with the welfare state, it was by the the and other received on their in than the or the The from the during was The government a total of billion on all its public its public health its to and all other welfare is not to that the social systems in the United States and Western Europe were or that they were without a They were to years of and to the power of in a period that the of national struggles and and in the United States in the and of the welfare state was only and through the of war and War and the resulting of and increased military spending, which time and to the economy out of of the social democratic posture became In redistributive social spending was to the postwar boom. the of the 1970s, the of this were being into as and facing rates of new to mass trade in the 1970s social democrats had no at As social democratic and policies of the era to the mass of in the of a new of political of facing welfare programmes, left the of the accumulation of social democratic redistributive taxation that, in the long it was an and particularly when set against the of for in the social there were to what could be the of social democracy in that the social democratic was The change in … the public of … rates were many and into the services the of the … Thus the of economic was a of social and political the of social democratic it is not that there are not a of good for the taxation of is the of any capital increasingly to over time, both to conservative political and to economic the late seventies, the social democratic was in crisis, with a by wages, in social and global and an to the democrats found themselves face to face with a new The victory of social democracy in its was to have successfully its conservative of the of its now the set In the some were to a most with the in which would have to the of accumulation through a share and the of it was social democrats themselves were the first to Keynesianism for beginning with the government in With of the of the no less a social democratic than to if the it make such a if Labour be few years the was New governments were installed across the social democratic of northern Europe. In reduction, and became the main of a to a economic The had been set for the and are all with the end of this The of a long period in for social democratic such as Labour in and the SPD in Germany, with continuing and led the parties of the Socialist International into a accommodation with one in social market The long years in the social democracy was “the great at the with center left governments in in out of of the of the European social democratic policies were to be economic these governments largely to and in some to In political they further their own Part of the price for into government had been the total of parties that were on into In Britain, of the of “a party with a its job being to the parliamentary into there is a election … fall into the the is The was a of the of the Great social democratic parties to have been in when the crisis are to their and a to austerity. The itself now in the as a and in a of or the for social democrats that in the of will be in the of economic management already into social democrats may that an for solutions will only further their As long defense of policies with the to the for the good while social democracy may be at an history is on the to and from to the of change is in the and as a of a of has out across southern in in and and in Greece, and A crisis is in the social from the continuing economic crisis has it the first time in about capitalism in a this new for a major public about political challenges to the system thus far have been contained by the continuing of a lack of the same time, the of has an of of the fact that for much of the the US has largely been elsewhere has as the of this innovation, with new in and in perhaps lack of many of the social democratic features of European a of has been place in the United of have been They new and can work in What is more capital to up the over an and to all this and show in it forms the of a system capable of economic and ecological this about a is perhaps more in and the United Europe is no to the many of them have their in the political and economic struggles of the and European The of the can be back to the and now a billion In and on the lines of austerity are that show the power of these when taken to scale in the of Spain, the is now the has been an economic the The is much lower in the country than in as a when was to off workers in and they were by other companies within the in has given rise to the The economy now over half of the and has from one of the in in to one of the in Europe social democrats have not already given themselves over to the new politics of austerity have not the to the that would their political to these and to the new unleashed by the Social democrats are of and the as a of from which they turned long or as but They should one to the of organized that has social democratic we to up other power that can to stand’ in the democracy today is of an economic program. will be in in the of demand At the same time, the left has not an to an and state The of their two major political in any the that they are no longer the way for the European left to to its and the that are a part of its is time to new and forms of ownership of this the American left is already a has the question as to from a global the too a to a on its own, if the social now way are to their this may the and of democratic an for the and of the left in Europe and the United States as through the of a new set of economic and political power this will a to change and a to of the false choices and of crisis this, the behind austerity must be into is a deep that the Great is among some of the the world has ever the of the forces of have been new As and have elsewhere in this the US economy in per of In in the same the was in Germany, it was in Greece, through the of reached over per is given the by change and other to The challenge is not technological but and is a matter of systemic is already to out the of what a system on forms of democratic capital ownership might there is political to be in this is increasingly For social democracy, there are for such to Among the most is the The Rudolf at the the trade his in the 1970s as a response to the two facing the at the time, to increase the level of but not inequality of and to that an increase in would into the kind of that would full and the of a and on the that in part from public the that a significant of their to workers as To capital would not have the right to their they would be to regional public or would for a time to the as capital within the and direct the to meet social would not only have provided an income from capital for public spending some of the on but would have it for the and to welfare system by running their in and off to as has to the abolition of ownership and by the estimated that it would have taken years to percent of the of a at an annual of profit of the real of the was that the higher the the the that, a such as that percent of its the would percent of the stock after for In years it would have over percent and would be in fact the as as the at which reform over into systemic The was in but the lost the election that and the was a much finally being by the the support of the in a of the with share could have the of the economy within is as against with spending more the than the out by all the parties in the given we the against a of economic As the in would no longer be to over of the further seems to have reached its The would increase the of over their … the of … would then more and more the question of and the without in other in its the however, the that were set up the position that they would not simply had and that, as one put capital can work just as as other capital In we are for the of Social Democracy, this is the place to In the face of the current crisis, the are any left strategy the after capital been dealt out of the for the left suddenly has to play for As and new there is the of a new world in the For Europe's social these will some of the from long in the of If they are to play their part it will the first time in their political force to be as as

This study addresses the attitude of Slovak political parties toward Czechoslovakism during the First Republic. The authors focus on so-called centralist parties—primarily the Agrarians (officially the Republican Party of Farmers and Peasants) and the Social Democrats—and the autonomist block—the Slovak People’s Party (colloquially referred to as Ludaks) and the Slovak National Party. The chapter deals with the political and generational dynamics in relation to the official state doctrine of a united Czechoslovak nation discussing closely the Slovak Youth Convention in Trenčianske Teplice in June 1932, where all major political parties were represented and a stark opinion shift took place, with essentially the entire Slovak youth generation adopting an autonomist stance. This chapter then explores how individual parties reacted to this situation throughout the 1930s and how this fostered differences between the previously like-minded, centralist and pro-Czechoslovak Agrarians and Social Democrats.

Introduction The roots of the Lithuanian party system can be traced back to the Lithuanian ‘Singing revolution’ of 1988-1991. The longstanding monopoly of the Lithuanian Communist Party was broken in 1988 when the Lithuanian liberation movement Sąjūdis was formed. It was a broad umbrella-type organization which played a crucial role in the process of democratic transformation in Lithuania and which later gave birth to several influential Lithuanian parties. The main ideological adversary of Sąjūdis was the Lithuanian Communist Party (later transformed into the Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party), even though the positions of the two forces were quite similar regarding some issues. During the first free elections in 1990 both Sąjūdis and the Lithuanian Communist Party were in favour of more political and economic sovereignty for Lithuania. The position of Sąjūdis, however, was much more determined than that of the Communist Party. After the declaration of independence on 11 March 1990, the main division between the two political forces was regarding the question of the speed at which economic and political reforms should be introduced, and relations with Russia. The Lithuanian Communist Party advocated a step-by-step reform policy and good relations with Russia, while Sąjūdis aimed at forcing events and increasing political and economic distance between Lithuania and the former Soviet Union. Before the early parliamentary elections of 1992, Sąjūdis began disintegrating as some of its activists created their own parties. The bigger party, led by Vytautas Landsbergis, the main architect of Lithuanian independence, continued to exist under the label of Sąjūdis, and later transformed into the Homeland Union (Lithuanian Conservatives). Although the party lost the elections, a two-block structure of the party system was maintained with the ex-communist Labour Democrats on the left of the party spectrum and the Homeland Union (Lithuanian Conservatives) on the right. The other two parliamentary parties with a much smaller share of seats were the Lithuanian Christian Democrats on the right and the Lithuanian Social Democrats on the left. This simple structure of the Lithuanianparty system continued to exist after the 1996 elections and this relative stability allowed some scholars to conclude that the process of structuring the Lithuanian party system was over (see Žeruolis, 1998). Even though electoral volatility was quite high in comparison with Western European countries, low fragmentation and a bipolar pattern of party competition remained irrespective of somewhat successful attempts of the Centre Union to change the dominant conflict axis by forming a ‘third force’. The parliamentary elections of 2000, however, destroyed that apparent stability as two new players – the New Union (Social Liberals) and the Lithuanian Liberal Union – emerged on the political scene, expelling the Christian Democrats and the Centre Union from the political game. As it appeared later, this was only the beginning of the decay of the ‘traditional parties’. Despite the growth of the economy and the consolidation efforts of the main parliamentary parties (especially the merger of the Labour Democrats and Social Democrats), turmoil in the Lithuanian party system has been increasing as the elections to the European Parliament (EP) and the parliamentary elections of October 2004 have demonstrated. Three new parties managed to cross the threshold and win seats in the European Parliament and in the new parliament, including the Labour Party, which was founded only eight months before the European Parliament elections. The Labour Party, led by a businessman of Russian origin, was able to win about 30 per cent of the votes in the European Parliament elections and 28 per cent of the votes in the subsequent national parliamentary elections. Recent elections have revealed that the Lithuanian party system is undergoing a dramatic structural change, as ex-communist and ex-Sąjūdis parties have lost their dominant positions, party system fragmentation is increasing and electoral volatility is growing with every election. Therefore, the development of the Lithuanian party system must be divided into two stages: (1) formation of the party system in 1989-1998, and (2) destabilization of the party system, apparent since 2000. Consequently, the intention is not only to describe the development and characteristics of the Lithuanian party system, but also to analyse the destabilization of the Lithuanian party system in the last consecutive elections. The Formation of the Lithuanian Party System The first parties (apart from the Lithuanian Communist Party) emerged in postSoviet Lithuania in 1989. Most of theses new organizations claimed to be the descendants of pre-war Lithuanian parties (e.g., Social Democrats and Christian Democrats). In fact, however, the continuity is only symbolic because the leaders, the organization and the electorate of the parties have changed beyond recognition. The first free elections to the Supreme Soviet of Lithuania in 1990 were dominated by Sąjūdis and the Lithuanian Communist Party. Most candidates of new parties, as well as some reform-orientated Communist Party members and independents, were supported by the Sąjūdis. In the elections, Sąjūdis candidates won theabsolute majority and formed the government. Soon after the declaration of independence, the huge economic problems of the country and internal political disagreements disrupted the unity of the Sąjūdis and the Supreme Soviet. This invoked the second wave of creating parties, mainly on the basis of parliamentary groups. Finally, the fragmentation of the Supreme Soviet had become so high that it had to dissolve itself and to declare early elections. Before the elections, an agreement on a new Constitution and a new electoral law was reached among the main political forces. As a compromise, a semipresidential institutional design with a directly elected, though rather weak president, was adopted. Furthermore, a mixed electoral system combining singlemember districts and multi-member districts was introduced. Under the law, 71 members of the Seimas (the parliament of Lithuania) are elected in single-member districts by a majority system and 70 members are elected by proportional representation. This kind of a mixed system was in fact favourable to the largest parties, as was the national threshold of 4 per cent, which was later increased to five.1 The parliamentary elections of 1992 and the presidential elections of 1993 were successful for the ex-communist Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party (LDDP). By gaining about 43 per cent of the votes in multi-member districts, the LDDP won the absolute majority of seats in parliament (see Table 4.1) and could form a single-party government. Moreover, the leader of the party, Algirdas Brazauskas, won the presidential elections. Sąjūdis (later reorganised into the Homeland Union/Lithuanian Conservatives) remained the second largest party in the parliament, despite the defeat, and returned to power in 1996 by winning 70 seats in the parliament. Rather than forming a single-party government, the Conservatives created a governing coalition with the Christian Democrats, often regarded as the ‘younger sister’ of the Homeland Union. The Democratic Labour Party and Social Democrats formed a leftist opposition, while the Centre Union put itself in a vague position vis-a-vis the government. Destabilization of the Party System after 2000 The parliamentary elections of 2000 were a turning point in the development of Lithuania’s party system. The combined number of seats of the Homeland Union and the Democratic Labour Party decreased from 72.5 in 1992 to 42.6 in 2000 (Jurkynas, 2003), while the newcomers, the New Union (Social Liberals) and the Liberal Union, received almost 45 per cent of the seats in parliament. Moreover, the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party and the Centre Union failed to cross the threshold and get seats in the multi-member districts.

Workers and Nationalism: Czech and German Social Democracy in Habsburg Austria, 890–1918 by Jakub S. Beneš

The study focuses on the dynamics of the formation of the inde- pendent Czechoslovak Republic in the context of the Great War and the immediately following post-war period. Emphasis is placed on identifying the concepts on which Czechoslova- kia’s territorial claims to the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian and German empire were based and their formative influence on the subsequent political and economic orientation of the new state formation in the web of newly constructed rela- tions in the Versailles-era geographic and geopolitical config- uration of the wider Central European area. An important context for this paper is that the period under study represents a paradigmatic shift for Central Europe with the dramatic disintegration of integrated state entities into a number of independent states in accordance with the right to self-determination of nations advocated by American president Woodrow Wilson. In connection with the right to self-determination, the author of the article mentions that the Czechoslovak state was granted this right in full, despite some fabrications concerning the concept of a Czechoslovak nation of two “branches” speaking the Czechoslovak language and Edvard Beneš’s “inaccuracies” about the number and other socio-geographical character- istics of the German population in the territory claimed by Czechoslovakia at the Paris Peace Conference. Moreover, it was rather peculiar that the new state with a republican order insisted on the historical raison d’etre, i.e. on the full consid- eration of the historical rights of the Crown of the Kingdom of Bohemia in the Czech lands, and conversely, on the break- ing of the millennial union of Slovakia with the Crown of St. Stephen’s lands on the basis of the natural right of the “imagined” Czechoslovak nation to its state. Last but not least, the paper addresses the question of whether this fragmentation, or Balkanisation in the contemporary sense of the term, helped to stabilize the overall post-war situation in Central Europe, or whether it created a rather undesirable and dangerous power vacuum in this vital area for European security. In this context, the paper elucidates the genesis of the idea of state independence from the declaration of loyalty to Emperor Charles I by the domestic political representation during the war to the leaning towards the position of the Czech emigre and the disintegration of the century-old union of territories of the Habsburg monarchy after the final reversal of the war events in the summer of 1918. The author of the study also raises the question of whether this programme was implemented with the consent of the Diets of particular crown lands or German popula- tion prior to the proclamation or after the proclamation of inde- pendent Czechoslovakia on 28 October 1918, or only through the unelected Czechoslovak National Committee or the Revolutionary National Assembly from Prague. The question of the role of the emperor, or his dethronement, as well as Czechoslovakia’s attitude to the continuity of Austro-Hungarian statehood in contrast to the reception of the Austro-Hungarian legal order, is also considered. The author of the study also emphasizes the fact that Czechoslovakia, like other successor states, was emerging in a completely new reality and that Czechoslovakia in particular lacked the essential element of statehood, sovereignty, in much of the territory it claimed, especially in the German-speaking border areas and Slovakia; therefore, trade and political relations played a key role in this situation as one of the main surrogate instruments of state sovereignty. The article also deals with the use of the more robust resource and industrial base and the privileged position of a member of the Entente to promote Czechoslovak political interests with neighbouring states, especially Austria, particularly in the context of the recognition of Czechoslovak control over the parts of Czech lands inhabited by the German-speaking population that had come under Czechoslovak administration before the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain. Some attention is also paid to the complicated issue of Teschen (Cieszyn) in the context of relations with Poland.

It has been recognized since the publication of Esping-Andersen’s Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism that the advanced Western welfare state comes in—at least— three variants: as a Nordic social-democratic regime, a conservative regime on the European continent or as a liberal welfare state regime in the Anglo-Saxon countries. Why exactly welfare states fit into this three-regime typology remains controversial, however. This article presents an argument which provides the three-regime heuristic with a historical foundation. The argument combines insights into the importance of electoral rules for the representation of socioeconomic interests (of the lower and middle classes) with insights about the different cleavage structures which left their imprint on the party systems of Western Europe. This article’s central claim is that a majoritarian electoral system leads to a residual-liberal welfare state, whereas in countries with proportional representation, either a red–green coalition between Social Democracy and agrarian parties (Scandinavia) or a red–black coalition between Social Democracy and Christian Democracy (on the European continent) was responsible for the build-up of the Nordic and continental welfare state, respectively.

Party systems in Europe have been in transition since the 1990s. New parties have emerged and appear more successful in gaining representation in parliament and government than before. Conversely the established party families in many postwar West European party systems - Social Democracy and Christian Democracy in particular - seem to have lost ground. We argue that an ideological convergence is developing between these two party families towards the 'centre of gravity' of their respective party systems. This may help to explain why 'new' parties of the Left and the Right have competed more successfully since the 1990s: they have bypassed Social and Christian Democratic parties in terms of both Left/Right and Progressive/Conservative dimensions and differences. These developments are explored by analysing party programmes. It appears that many Social and Christian Democratic parties are indeed often moving closer to each other. In fact, we conclude that being in the centre of a party system or in government is hardly an electoral asset any more in most West European polities.

The German elections of 2005 proved a critical turning point for a number of reasons. The result led to the fall of Gerhard Schröder's Red-Green government, to the first ‘grand coalition’ between the two Volksparteien (catch-all parties) since the 1960s, and to the election of Germany's first woman and first easterner to the job of chancellor. The election campaign saw the Christian Democrats throw away a strong lead and lose the opportunity to govern with their preferred coalition partner, the liberal Free Democratic party. The results raised key questions about the German party system. Why did the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats achieve their lowest combined score since 1949? How should we explain the success of the smaller parties? To what extent can this be considered a lasting development? This article argues that shrinking support for the two main parties is likely to lead to greater instability in the party system without a clear improvement in the German economy.

There is considerable consensus that social democracy is in crisis. But there remains room for more analysis of what social democracy was and why it has become a hollow political shell. Born in the late nineteenth century, social democracy was the product of a particular stage of economic development corresponding with two main forms of class struggle between those with a stake in the system and between those with and without. It is now a spent force, having outlived its usefulness as the policy reflection of successive phases of economic growth and class struggle characteristic of the history of capitalism. No longer a meaningful political form for capital, social democracy parades as life-support, as it always has, but now without the possibility of following through on its promises. Its legitimacy is in question everywhere, a fact it cannot change or reverse. At best, it can offer only what other parties offer – more retrenchment, more concessions to the corporate sector and more discipline for the working class. In general, the crisis of social democracy around the world today appears to signal nothing less than the end of the once imagined ‘parliamentary road’ to socialism.

The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's Twentieth Century. By Sheri Berman. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2006. 238p. $65.00 cloth, $23.99 paper. Sheri Berman has written an engaging book about the origins, development, and deployment of social democracy in Europe since the late nineteenth century. The central argument is that social democracy, as one of several movements that challenged liberalism and orthodox Marxism, ultimately prevailed over competitors. In Berman's view, the triumphant social democratic reconciliation of capitalism and democracy in post–World War II Europe cannot be understood as simply a muscular form of embedded liberalism; social democracy is a distinct ideology that undergirds a system of political control of capitalism and communitarian policies and institutions.

By the late nineteenth century, socialism had emerged as a global ideological movement reaching the Balkan periphery. The adaptation of social democracy to Southeast Europe was a complex process, confronting not only underdeveloped social structures but also challenges stemming from the contested nation-building process. The article explores the role of the Bulgarian social democratic movement in shaping national identity and promoting democratization by engaging in the Russophile–Russophobe debates over Russia’s political and historical role in Bulgaria. These debates reflected a deep tension in post-Liberation society, oscillating between gratitude for Russia’s role in the 1877–78 Russo-Turkish War and subsequent national independence, and widespread resentment over its opposition to the 1885 Unification. The article shows how social democrats’ participation in public debates not only helped incorporate socialist ideology into national society and politics but also influenced the shaping of collective memory by endorsing a project for a national identity independent of Russian influence. The study also demonstrates how social democrats’ involvement in the ideological controversy through civic initiatives such as demonstrations and commemorations fostered political modernization by encouraging the rise of mass politics and democratic engagement in post-Liberation society.

The age of social democracy: Norway and Sweden in the twentieth century

The Danish party system is characterized by (gradual) change within (considerable) stability. Even though the historical major parties are still the main players, other parties have reached a high level of electoral support or entered the government. While the Social Democrats historically has been the largest party with the rest of variying sizes, it no longer holds this position consistently and the party system is now characterized by three equally large parties, namely the two old parties (Social Democrats and Liberals), and the more recently created party, the Danish People’s Party. The electoral support for the four old parties established more than a hundred years ago has declined from three-quarters to half. The new parties of the earthquake election of 1973 have been replaced. The electoral success of the four new parties created since 1990 have resulted in the strengthening of the poles of the two major political dimensions of the Danish system (economic and new politics/values). In sum, while the overall number of parties has largely remained stable, replacements and shifts in electoral support have taken place.

1. Claim to the Right of Intervention in the Defence of Socialism: The Brezhnev Doctrine asserts the Soviet Union's right to intervene in the internal affairs of the states comprising the Socialist Bloc. The source of this Doctrine is Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko's declaration at the June 27, 1968, session of the Supreme Soviet, when he announced that the Socialist commonwealth would not tolerate the withdrawal of any of its constituent parts, should it be attempted.This statement formed the basis of what is called the “Brezhnev Doctrine”, as formulated in an article appearing in Pravda on September 26, 1968. The Doctrine is designed to affirm the “limited sovereignty” of every Socialist State and to justify the military intervention of members of the Warsaw Pact in Czechoslovakia.The Pravda article asserted that Czechoslovakia's self-determination impaired the essential interests of the Socialist commonwealth and required the “Soviet Union and the other Socialist countries…to take actions…in the fulfillment of their international obligations towards the Czechoslovak nation and in the defence of their Socialist achievements”.The Soviet Union's special role within the Socialist commonwealth and its right to intervene in its name was justified as follows:

We know little about repression's effects on opposition party mobilization under electoral authoritarianism. I argue that targeted repression of opposition leaders has both direct negative effects on mobilization and indirect effects on activist and voter support. However, party organizations and ideological leadership can adapt to mitigate targeted repression's effects. In Germany, from 1878–1890 the social democratic party was banned and its leaders were expelled from their home districts. I estimate difference- in-differences models that leverage variation in expulsion timing and frequency to estimate their effects on electoral outcomes. Expulsions caused declines in social democrats' electoral support. However, their effects diminished with each additional expulsion and after the first election post-expulsions, as local party organizations adapted to maintain mobilization in electoral districts despite targeted repression.