European Social Democracy Research Articles

Realism, Postmodernism and/as Metanarrative

Abstract The question of how realism and metanarratives are related in the philosophy of history does not seem to have been widely discussed. Whereas there are distinct philosophical and political senses of ‘realism’, contrasting with ‘idealism’ and ‘utopianism’ respectively, ‘metanarrative’ has a singular meaning based on Jean-François Lyotard’s sceptical definition of postmodernism as “incredulity towards metanarratives”. Lyotard defined metanarratives as philosophies of history that serve some legitimatory function, but claimed that their importance was waning. From this point of view, postmodernism can be described as a species of philosophical ‘realism’. But the appearance of Francis Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ thesis, which explicitly presented itself as a neo-Hegelian critique of political realism, suggested that Lyotard had underestimated the enduring power of metanarrative insofar as it served the interests of the American liberal-democratic capitalist order. For Jacques Derrida, Fukuyama’s work thus underlined the importance of breaking with what he called ‘onto-theological’ visions of history, although Derrida himself could be seen as authoring a metanarrative in the service of European social democracy. But if so, Derrida’s approach to metanarratives was very different in kind to contemporary religious and nationalistic versions. One way to resolve the difficulty is to make a distinction between modern ‘utopian’ and postmodern ‘realist’ versions of metanarratives.

Legal-economic fragilities in contemporary thought. How to explain inequality: Thomas Piketty's contribution

For Piketty finally, we have the political proposal of inclusive liberalism on the field to counter the enormous inequalities caused by the unbridled neoliberalism that characterizes the globalized world of our days. The current of liberal thought defined as embedded liberalism, which is opposed to uncostrained liberalism unfettered. We have to understand if inclusive liberalism accepts the classic policies of European social democracies, without which true social inclusion is difficult. As long as there are no serious proposals for a redistributive policy of wealth, on social justice, the parties of the traditional left will lose support. The challenge represented by the social question inequality evidently implies the totality of social life.

The rise and fall of national capitalism

AbstractFor three millennia, there has been a conflict between landed military power (the traditional enforcers, now nation‐states) and urban commerce (capitalists, now a lawless global plutocracy). This ancient battle was resumed by the European Renaissance, culminating in industrial revolution around 1800. This seemed at first to be a victory of the money interest over landed power. In the mid‐nineteenth century, however, the capitalists discovered that they could not manage without crowd control by the traditional enforcers, a compromise between money and landed power (business and government) that unleashed “national capitalism” in political revolutions involving the leading powers of the last century. These generated mass production and consumption at home and a global takeover by European colonial empires, both enabled by a bureaucratic revolution first proposed by Hegel. National capitalism—a merger of industrial capitalism and the “nation” by strong states attempting to modify the former's contradictions through central bureaucracies acting in the interest of the citizen body—became the main form of society after the Second World War, first through developmental states varying from socially responsible capitalism in the United States through social democracy in Europe to communism in the Soviet bloc, with the newly independent former colonies divided between the antagonists in the Cold War. Undermined by financial imperialism in the last four decades, this system is now failing, but humanity is far from achieving a world society to replace it.

From Jacobin flaws to transformative populism: Left populism and the legacy of European social democracy

From Jacobin flaws to transformative populism: Left populism and the legacy of European social democracy

Between Ideological Loyalty and Political Adaptation: The “Agrarian Question” in the Development of Bulgarian Social Democracy, 1891–1912

At the end of the nineteenth century, European social democracy found acceptance among some circles of the Bulgarian intelligentsia. However, the social base of this new ideology, including industrialization and urbanization, was almost missing. This contradiction confronted the young party with the challenge of adapting to local social reality, not only leading it to a chain of internal ideological dilemmas questioning its social democratic identity, but also stimulating various political interactions with the public environment, culminating in a change of national politics. The present article lays out the problem of social democracy’s political adaptation by focusing first on the “Agrarian Question” debates among the party elite through investigation of the public discussions in the congresses, newspapers, and letters, and second, on political practice in the field of electoral politics through analyses of electoral statistics and mobilization discourses. The article’s main conclusions are that (1) dialectics between the intensive transfer of modern ideas and the complex process of their adaptation to national conditions is one of the “moving contradictions” of Bulgarian social democracy’s development in the Balkan peripheral context, (2) the Bulgarian Workers’ Social Democratic Party’s (BWSDP) experience confirms the more general tendency in Second International social democracy of a strong interdependence between electoral politics and ideological debates, and (3) the efforts for political mobilization of the petty peasants and artisans through Marxist language led to its evolution into a socialist-populist discourse that stimulated massification of political participation and encouraged but also opposed the early Agrarian movement.

The Formation of the “United Front” Policy of the Comintern and Soviet Foreign Policy of 1921–1922

The author examines the policies of the Comintern in the context of the Soviet foreign policy in 1921–1922. He demonstrates that the dynamics of the former was not directly tied to the course of the latter and the turn to the NEP in March 1921. The Comintern had its own internal logic of development. With its help the communist leadership could manoeuvre between a more radical probing of the readiness of the capitalist world for a new wave of revolutionary destabilisation or a moderate policy of prolonged “siege” of capitalism, which involved rapprochement with social democracy under the banner of a “united workers' front”. By early 1922, following sharp discussions on the eve and during the Third Congress of the Comintern, its policies were gradually synchronised with the foreign policy course of Soviet Russia, which allowed rapprochement with West European Social Democracy to be exploited in Soviet foreign interests. However, there was little diplomatic gain from this, and after the failure of the Genoa Conference the Comintern continued to pursue a “united front” policy, no longer directly linked to the objectives of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, but as the basis of the Communist strategy for the struggle to ascend to power in Western Europe. At the same time, both in negotiations with the Social Democrats and in planning at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, the Communists prioritised their monopoly on power, regarding the policy of alliances and concessions as tactical and temporary, rejecting the “political NEP” and the pluralist model of multiparty democratic socialism.

Beyond Medicine: Why European Social Democracies Enjoy Better Health Outcomes Than the United States

Beyond Medicine: Why European Social Democracies Enjoy Better Health Outcomes Than the United States

Kryzys gospodarczy, faszyzm i „warstwy pośrednie”. Reakcje polskich socjalistów na zwycięstwo nazizmu w Niemczech

The decline of the democratic Weimar Republic and NSDAP’s rise to power in 1933 caused a huge political uproar, especially among European socialists and social democrats. For many decades German SPD was a role-model for other socialist parties. The German working class was also perceived as the best organized and the most politically educated in all of Europe. Therefore, as Gerd-Reiner Horn noticed in his path-breaking study, the period of about 40 months after the creation of Hitler’s cabinet was a time of extremely intensive (and perhaps most passionate in the interwar period) discussion on strategy and political practice of the European socialist movement. In the following article, the Polish part of this debate is presented in detail. I examine official resolutions and ideological statements of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), polemic pamphlets, the wide range of comments and political analyses published in socialist press, police reports, etc., in order to address three main issues: 1. in what way the Nazi Party’s rise to power catalyzed the process of radicalization among Polish socialists; 2. what the connection is between socialists’ opinion on the social basis of the German fascist movement and the evolution of their political strategy; 3. to what extent their diagnoses regarding the social basis of fascist movements in general determined their views on the possible evolution of the Nazi regime. I argue that the tragedy of SPD made Polish socialists more sensitive to the role of emotions in political mobilization and urged them to reevaluate some of their previous propaganda techniques. According to the majority of acclaimed socialist intellectuals, fascism was objectively a procapitalist movement, the social basis of which was composed of pauperized and disorientated “middle strata” (e.g. shopkeepers, clerks, artisans, peasants, unemployed youth, etc.). In orthodox Marxism these groups were perceived as declining and deprived of genuine historical agency. But the Nazi rise to power showed that they have immense political potential and their support may be decisive for the result of the clash between socialism and fascism. Thus, the question of how to mobilize the majority of the “middle strata” in favor of socialism became a crucial part of debates among Polish socialists in the mid-1930s. As I argue, different answers for this crucial question determined profound tactical differences and contributed to harsh arguments on PPS’s politics.

A Crisis of Social Democracy in Europe? An Answer from the Citizens’ Perspective

This article analyses the public support for the social model of democracy by focusing on the gap between what citizens expect democracy to deliver in the social realm and how they do evaluate its achievement in the practice. Using data from the European Social Survey Round 6 (2012), the results reveal that individuals with a lower socio-economic background, those positioned on the left and those who are more distrustful of political institutions tend to be more supportive of social democracy, while they evaluate its performance more negatively. The data also demonstrate that individuals’ social expectations and evaluations are moderated by their country’s institutional configuration of the welfare state, and more particularly, its degree of universalism. Overall, the results support the intuition that the alleged crisis of social democracy does not exist generally across Europe, but only in those countries where the welfare state has been unable to close the gap between expectations and evaluations.

Participation of Jews in the processes of Russian social-democratic movement

The formation of social democracy in the Russian Empire was another stage in the «Russian reception» of the Western models of the socialist movement, the result of certain ideological contradictions on the Russian ground. Given the semi-feudal society of the Russian Empire, the paternalism of autocratic power, the absence of deep traditions of liberal culture, the Russian social democratic movement could hardly count on obvious success without a deep revolutionary renewal of the entire socio-economic and political system of the Russian state. Since Jews were an urban ethnic group, it is not surprising that the provinces of the Jewish Pale in the late 19th century proved to be the epicentre of the revolutionary energy concentration.Thus, in the late 19th century the processes of formation and development of not the Russian, but the Jewish social-democratic movement continued on the territory of the Jewish Pale, the prominent centres of which were the Belarusian and Ukrainian cities of the Russian Empire. Despite the low level of the industrial development in the north-western part of the Russian Empire, as well as police persecution, imprisonment, and exile of many activists, the Jewish Social Democratic movement grew qualitatively and quantitatively, got loyal supporters, and spread to other cities such as Minsk, Grodno, Bialystok and Warsaw. The Bund (the Union of Jewish Workers in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia) played a key role in organizing the Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) on March 1-3, 1898, at which the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) was founded which was supposed to unite revolutionary Marxist groups of the empire, regardless of their ethnicity. The processes of formation of the organizational and personnel structure of the Russian Social-Democracy continued during the First Russian Revolution. Jews took an active part in these processes. Their role in the organization of Russian social-democratic movement and in its staffing is difficult to overestimate. In particular, S. Dikstein, H.S. Khurgin, E.A. Abramovich, I.A. Gurvich, E.A. Gurvich, O. Belakh, L. Berkovich and many other Jewish activists found themselves at the origins of Russian social-democratic movement, and such distinguished Jewish figures of Russian social democracy as P. Axelrod and Yu. Martov in the early 19th century headed the Menshevik wing of the RSDLP.The author noted that until 1917 the model for the development of the social democratic movement in the Russian Empire was the European Social Democracy, among the recognized authorities of which were also Jews (F. Lassall, E. Bernstein, V. Adler, O. Bauer). Eventually, the Jewish origin of Marx, the founder of «scientific» socialism, canonized his doctrine in the mass consciousness of the urban Jewry of the Russian Empire, which awaited a new messiah who would «bring» them out of the ghetto of the Jewish Pale.At the same time, the theory of self-liberation of the Jewish proletariat, adopted by the Jewish Social Democrats of Vilno, Minsk, and Kyiv as opposed to the seemingly utopian ideas of the Zionists from Basel, Switzerland, became the leading ideology of the Russia’s first political organization of Jewish proletarian – the Bund, which emerged in the same 1897, when the First World Congress of Zionists took place.Thus, the intensification of state anti-Semitism, the Jewish pogroms, and the escalation of the political crisis in the Russian Empire on the eve of the First Russian Revolution pushed Russian and Jewish Social-Democracy to develop a common position on the proletariat’s participation in future revolutionary events, optimized the search for overcoming the internal party crisis that arose after the withdrawal of the Bund from the RSDLP. For the first time in its history, the Jewish Social Democrats tried to ignite the fire of the Russian revolution on the «Jewish street» and prove the political significance of the powerful revolutionary potential of the Jewish masses in the Jewish Pale for the all-Russian social democratic movement.

From East-West Balancing to Militant Anti-Communism

Abstract The journal known as Socialist World—the short-lived publication of the Committee of the International Socialist Conference—is instructive for what it reveals about European Social Democracy at the beginning of the Cold War and about the problems of internationalism among Socialists. At first, the journal served to mediate between West European anti-Communist Socialists and the Communists in Eastern Europe. The Socialists tried to reach a common understanding of world affairs through a dialogue across borders, but divergent ideas and the impact of international events tore this cohabitation apart. After the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, Socialist World became an instrument of anti-Communist propaganda. The articles in the journal also reveal the interests, concerns, and opinions of Socialists during the early Cold War regarding bipolar confrontation, planning, European integration, and colonialism. The journal was too public to allow frank discussion and too overburdened with rules to focus on topics of greater interest. Socialist parties that aspired to gain election in their countries wanted to protect their respectability—a concern made more urgent by the Cold War.

The Western European Left and the First Moon Landing: The Fall of Scientific Enthusiasm and the Ebb of Socialism

During the Cold War, the thinking of Western European social democrats and communists around science shifted from optimism about scientific progress as necessary to solve social problems to scepticism and concern for technological risks and unaccountable technocracy. The first moon landing offers a vantage point to analyse this transition, as it started a debate about science and crystallised hostility towards scientific funding through taxpayers’ money. The reactions of the Western European Left towards Apollo were varied and can be classified into three categories: Big Science Socialism, which celebrated the positive feedback loop between science, state power and socialism; Earth-First Critique, which balanced celebration with reminding of urgent problems on Earth; Radical Anti-Scientism, to which Apollo epitomised imperialistic capitalism and the hegemony of materialistic scientism over humanism. The article examines three figures who approved the Apollo programme for helping collectivism (Tony Benn, Emilio Sereni, Karl Steinbuch) and three figures who condemned it (Marcello Cini, Nigel Calder, Robert Jungk). Beyond these extremes, the article examines the fourth, more nuanced position of the British Labour Party, the German Social Democrats (SPD) and the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which had to reinvent science policies beyond exhausted technocratic dreams and inflexible renunciation of technological modernity.

Факторы, определяющие раскрытие финансовой информации

The article examines the issues of the dependence of the composition of the accounting (financial) reporting forms, prepared based on the results of the accounting process, on the theoretical views prevailing in scientific circles and in society as a whole. The author analyzes the main provisions of Western liberalism, conservatism, Western European social democracy and draws corresponding parallels, reveals the relationship with those elements that make up financial statements. According to the results of the study, the author claims that the domestic professional community is on the verge of another wave of reforming accounting knowledge and accounting practice.

The right of nations to self-determination as the fundamental principle of Soviet federalism

The subject of this research is the process of establishment and development of the right of nations to self-determination as the fundamental principle of Soviet federalism. The author carefully examines the origin and evolution of the idea of the right of nations to self-determination within the environment of the revolutionary social democracy; the concept, characteristics and principles of the right of nations to self-determination; the normative unification of the right of nations to self-determination with the federal principle of government system in the Soviet constitutions; variations of exercising this right within the framework of socialist federal state. Special attention is given to the evolution of the right of nations to self-determination and the transformation of its goals at different stages of the development of Soviet State. The novelty of this research consists in formulation of the original definition of the right of nations to self-determination in the context of phenomenology of the Soviet federalism. The key characteristics of this right are outlined: 1) suggests multivariance of implementation; 2) drags on time depending on the socioeconomic and political-legal development of the nation; 3) implies adequacy of implementation to the level of collective national sociocultural and political self-identity, etc. The principles of the right in question are determined : 1) priority of actual self-determination in relation to legal formalization if the latter is mandatory; 2) definiteness of the right of nations to self-determination via national declaration of will with regards to legitimation by the positivistic attitudes of the state; 3) evolution in chronological perspective from the national legal nature towards international legal level, etc. The author derives the criteria and classifies the right of nations to self-determination based on them. Description is given to the peculiarities of regulation and implementation of the right of nations to self-determination in accordance with the development stages of the Soviet Federation The author's special contribution lies in the establishment of dialectical link between the formational and civilizational approaches towards comprehension of the essence of the right of nations to self-determination through the prism of the European and Russian social democracy.

European Social Democracy in the Post-COVID Period: Importance of Update

This article presents an analysis of the process of changing the approach of the European social democratic parties to the social policy and employment policy of the European Union in the post-crisis period. In particular, the role of the Party of European Socialists (PES) and its group Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament (EP) in the development and implementation of a new strategy for strengthening the social sphere, presented by the European Commission headed by J.-C. Juncker at the initiative of the representatives of the PES in it, including the initiative for the creation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR). Various options for coping with the consequences of the COVID‐19 pandemic proposed by the PES, as well as the new strategy for the transition to a social Europe put forward by it, are considered.

“This is the final fall”. An electoral history of European Social Democracy (1870-2019)

Malgré un nombre appréciable de contributions consacrées à la social-démocratie européenne, il subsiste certains angles morts dans l’analyse de cette famille politique. Un conflit d’interprétation sur l’état actuel de la social-démocratie européenne se donne par ailleurs à voir. Pour certains, la résilience du socialisme européen est réelle. Pour d’autres, son déclin est patent et, dans la logique de l’empan de vie isolé par Pedersen, sa fin est annoncée. L’objectif de ce papier est d’arbitrer ce différend sur le destin de la social-démocratie européenne et de comprendre sa dynamique électorale sur 150 ans. À partir d’une analyse de 692 élections intervenues dans 32 États européens entre 1870 et 2019, quatre grandes étapes de l’histoire électorale de la social-démocratie sont mises en évidence : a) une lente émergence à la fin du XIX e siècle et un premier envol au début du vingtième, b) l’installation dans le paysage politique européen au sortir de la première guerre et un pic électoral qui est quasiment atteint dès les années 1930 dans les pays démocratiquement consolidés, c) une stabilisation de cette performance sur un demi-siècle et d) un tassement entamé dans les années 1980 qui mène à un déclin très prononcé dans les années 2010. Le chute de la famille socialiste européenne entre 2010 et 2019 est détonante. L’histoire électorale de la social-démocratie européenne est mise en perspective de celle de l’ensemble de la gauche socio-économique, ce qui permet d’observer non seulement la chute marquante dans la période contemporaine mais aussi la perte d’influence de la social-démocratie au sein du spectre de gauche.

The neo‐nationalist ascendency: further thoughts on class, value and the return of the repressed

The neo‐nationalist ascendency: further thoughts on class, value and the return of the repressed

“Rebellious Parliament”: period of the “policy of reservations” in Denmark-NATO Relations (1982-1988)

The object of this research is the foreign policy of Denmark in the 1980s. The subject of this research on the one hand is the ideological foundations of Denmark's foreign policy during this period, which were strongly affected by the ideas of European social democracy, and on the other hand – the influence of the Danish Parliament (Folketing) upon the formation of Denmark’s official position on the issues of European security discussed within the framework of NATO. Denmark’s refutation of neutrality after the World War II and its entry into NATO in many ways determined the foreign policy position of Denmark throughout the Cold War as a small European state that perceived the Soviet Union as a threat to national security. At the same time, the desire of Denmark of maintain maximum flexibility and avoid making far-reaching commitments within the framework of NATO, led to the fact that Denmark was often perceived as an unreliable and inconvenient ally. The period from 1982 to 1988 indicates the Atlantic dissidence of Denmark and simultaneous improvement of relations with the Soviet Union), when Denmark’s representatives in the NATO sessions, being obliged to take into account the position of the parliamentary majority in the Folketing, were forced to make reservations to the final documents of the sessions, expressing disagreement or criticism of implemented measures. Among the Russian scholars dealing with the history of Denmark, this period has not yet received wide coverage. This article is an attempt to describe and explain the causes and consequences of the period of the “policy of reservations” for Denmark’s foreign policy in the context of the end of Cold War and in the conditions of transition towards the post-bipolar system of international relations.

Review: Lifeworlds of Islam: The Pragmatics of a Religion, by Mohammed A. Bamyeh

Review: <i>Lifeworlds of Islam: The Pragmatics of a Religion</i>, by Mohammed A. Bamyeh

A dual lens approach to exploring informal communication's influence on learning in a political party

PurposeThe study aims to explore and discuss the extent of influence of informal communication on learning in a European social democracy political party through a dual lens approach combining information behaviour and organisational learning perspectives.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents results from an in depth qualitative study, whereby data were collected through semi-structured and episodic narrative interviews. Template analysis was used.FindingsInformal conversations were identified as intrinsic to the work of the political party. They did influence learning at individual and group levels, and there was a degree of diffusion within the organisation, although the latter was found to depend on opportunity, individual self-efficacy, level of involvement in the party and perceptions of who has influence. The dual lens approach facilitated greater levels of granularity of analysis at individual and group levels of learning.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper highlights the benefits of using a dual lens approach to add depth to the interpretation of the research findings. Due to the small number of participants further research is needed to verify and extend the results and support a greater degree of transferability.Originality/valueThe information behaviour and organisational research theory that underpin the research have not been used together in this way before, and the context for the phenomenon being researched, a traditional political party struggling against the rise of populism in the 21st century, is both contemporary and understudied in each of the theory areas.