crisis, what crisis? demand-side explanations for the performance

CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS? NORRIS 2/27/2011 3:29 PM

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“Crisis? What crisis?”(*)

Demand‐side explanations for the performance of social democracy

Pippa Norris

McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics Visiting Professor of Government and IRJohn F. Kennedy School of Government The University of SydneyHarvard University Department of Government & IR Cambridge, MA 02138 NSW, [email protected] [email protected] www.arts.sydney.edu.au

Synopsis: This study examines the electoral performance of center left parties in the light of structural and cultural theories emphasizing changes in mass society. Part I outlines the theoretical framework. For evidence, Part II analyzes long‐term trends in the proportion of votes and seats held by center left parties in national parliamentary elections in three dozen post‐industrial societies since 1945. Steady erosion in the share of votes and seats affecting many center‐left parties across similar societies would be prima facia evidence that social forces are probably at work. By contrast, trendless fluctuations would point to alternative causes. These results suggest, although they cannot prove, that supply‐side and institutional factors are probably more plausible explanations to account for varying center‐left electoral performance, rather than the impact of structural and cultural forces. The conclusion suggests that speculation about a secular decline threatening social democratic parties today greatly exaggerates the challenges they face.

Bio: Pippa Norris is the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Harvard University and Visiting Professor of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. She is the author of almost forty books comparing gender politics, political culture, and political communications.

Total words: Draft #1: 7,314 words 2/27/2011 3:29 PM

Paper for the conference The Crisis of Social Democracy? at the University of Edinburgh, March 11th 2011.


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The center left might have expected to benefit politically from the recent global financial

downturn.1 The worst financial calamity since the Great Depression of the 1930, starting in mid‐to‐

late 2007,2 was triggered by market failure and reckless lending in the private sector, notably toxic

loans, bankruptcies, and a liquidity crisis in the de‐regulated financial sector, generating a slowdown

in manufacturing orders, surging unemployment, and escalating foreclosures puncturing the housing

market bubble (Stiglitz 2010). The Obama administration responded with rescue plans for the

financial sector. Governments in the United States, China and the European Union implemented

classic Keynesian stimulus packages designed to revive the economy. Far from being rewarded

politically by the financial crisis in the market, however, center left parties suffered a string of

resounding defeats at the ballot box in France (2007), Germany (2009), Britain (2010), Sweden

(2010), and the 2010 US mid‐term elections. These events, coupled with looming budget deficits,

shrinking tax revenues, and savage cuts in public services, have encouraged speculation that social

democracy itself faces severe threat. The core electoral problem facing center‐left parties has

commonly been diagnosed as structural, following a long‐term erosion in their core working class

and trade union base, making prospects for future recovery bleak (Moschonas 2010). Others detect

�Ũ� x ː葠�摧 q cultural challenge, where it is believed that the spread of self‐expression

values has undermined support for collectivist values (Inglehart 1977), while the public has lost faith

in the capacity of governments to manage the economy in hard times (Kellner 2010), and the left has

failed to offer any clear and distinctive progressive vision following the end of the ‘third way’ debate

(Ryner 2010).

Of course grim prognostications about the supposed crisis facing the center‐left are hardly

novel; in periodic eras before the current global financial crisis, many commentators have seen

social democracy as in ‘crisis’ and ‘exhausted’ (Dahrendorf 1980), in irreversible decline (Lemke and

Marks 1992), a threatened species (Hinnfors 2006), in retreat from a supposed ‘golden age’

(Callaghan 2000), or simply dying (Lavelle 2008). In each case, the published obituaries proved

premature. There have also been many previous false dawns when observers have proclaimed that a

particular election represented a realigned party system within a country, only to find the

restoration of the status quo ante in subsequent contests. Some contemporary accounts also

challenge the popular ‘crisis thesis’, recognizing a complex patchwork of multiple center‐lefts in

Europe, some progressive forces doing well, others facing serious challenges (Cronin, Ross and Shoch

2011; Merkel et al 2008). Another interpretation suggests that the severe recession could have

triggered an anti‐incumbency electoral reaction directed against all governing parties, not merely

the center left; for example, parliamentary elections in some of the melt‐down European economies

saw modest improvement in the center‐left share of the vote, benefitting the Icelandic Social


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Democratic Alliance (+3.0%, 2009), the Greek Pannhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) (+2.6%,

2009), and the Irish Labour Party (2011), bringing these parties back into power. Nevertheless the

electoral performance of center left parties France, Germany, Britain and Sweden, in the historical

heartland of west European social democracy, triggered renewed speculation that the center left has

suffered from sustained, enduring, and long‐term erosion in the structural and ideological base of

their mass support from which social democratic parties cannot recover.

To analyze this issue, Part I outlines the theoretical framework. This study focuses upon

structural and cultural theories seeking to explain changes in the mass electorate. These accounts

should be understood as ‘demand‐side’ perspectives, emphasizing the electoral impact of long‐term

processes of societal modernization and economic development occurring in post‐industrial

societies. Both differ, however, in their diagnosis of the expected consequences. Structural accounts,

drawing upon the Lipset and Rokkan (1969) classic tradition, emphasize that modern societies have

weakened the salience of class‐based subjective identities, and sapped the linkage between these

É�∙ ¥�¥�∙ í ¥ ass and trade union populations living in European societies. Alternative cultural

theories, drawing upon theories of societal modernization developed by Inglehart (1977), focus upon

the way that development is thought to have transformed social and political values within affluent

nations, reducing support for traditional collectivist appeals due to the growth of self‐actualization

values.

While they differ in certain important regards, the logic of both demand‐side accounts

implies that common and persistent trends should have undermined the electoral performance of

center‐left parties across similar post‐industrial societies and established democracies. Thus

aggregate electoral results demonstrating a steady erosion in the share of votes and seats among

social democratic and center‐left parties across similar post‐industrial societies would be prima facia

evidence that social forces are probably at work, although this strategy by itself would be unable to

determine whether any such downwards trajectory was due to the transformation of the labor‐force

or cultural values. Parallel trajectories could always be attributed to a series of coincidences, but it

becomes more likely that similar underlying social drivers are at work. By contrast, trendless short‐

term fluctuations in social democratic performance over time, and growing cross‐national contrasts

within party families in post‐industrial societies, would suggest the need to search elsewhere for

plausible explanations.

For evidence, to test these theories, Part II in this chapter analyzes long‐term trends in the

proportion of votes and seats held by center left parties in national parliamentary elections in almost

three dozen societies since the end of World War II. This analysis updates a previous survey by Mair

(2001). The evidence suggests that, far from a simple steady decline in west European Social


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Democratic electoral support over successive decades, as demand‐side theories posit, in fact far

more complex fluctuations are evident, and substantial regional and cross‐national variations can be

observed. Indeed the comparison of aggregate center left voting performance over successive

decades since the mid‐twentieth century disguises considerable underlying volatility occurring

within each state. Moreover the main beneficiaries of any loss of Social Democratic support in

Western Europe are not simply the major parties on the center right. Christian Democracy has also

lost substantial ground, as others have noted (Fraser 2006). Voting gains are most often registered

by a mélange of radical right, green, territorial, and ethnic parties throughout Europe. The evidence

thus casts doubt on demand‐side accounts of the performance of center left parties based on the

deterministic impact of inevitable secular trends affecting citizens in mass society. Studies of

electoral behavior about individual‐level voting choices need to understand the broader context of

party and candidate choices presented to citizens. This suggests, although of course it is unable to

prove, that scholars should instead use multilevel analysis exploring voting behavior, party

strategies, and institutional contexts. The conclusion considers the implications of the main findings

for understanding party competition and the future of social democracy.

I: Theories of social democratic electoral performance

The extensive research literature on the electoral performance of center‐left parties offers

three alternative theoretical perspectives:

(i) Accounts focusing upon the broader institutional context regulating party

competition in the electoral marketplace (exemplified by the impact of the voting

franchise, ballot access laws, electoral systems, and party funding regulations);

(ii) Theories stressing ‘supply‐side’ factors, determined by the decisions of strategic

political actors (such as the effect of the choice of party policies, the selection of

leaders, the governments’ management of public goods and services, and the

impact of party organizations, campaign spending, mass media, opinion polls, and

political marketing); and lastly,

(iii) Those accounts emphasizing the ‘demand‐side’ of the mass electorate (including the

social and ideological basis of voting behavior).

Two related mainstream perspectives have long dominated the demand‐side perspective, focused

on the effect of structural and cultural changes in mass society.

Sociological explanations, societal modernization and social class identities

Considerable debate surrounds changing patterns of class voting in established democracies,

with some scholars detecting long‐term class dealignment and others seeing trendless fluctuations


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(see Evans 1999). European political sociology has traditionally been dominated by theories of class

voting, originating in the classic work of Lipset and Rokkan (1967). This perspective was

subsequently developed, theoretically and empirically, by numerous scholars (see, for example,

Bartolini and Mair 1990; Franklin 1992, 2009; Nieuwbeerta 1995; Evans 1999, 2000; Oskarson 2006).

Lipset and Rokkan emphasized the impact of traditional social cleavages, including social class,

religion, and cultural regions, which divided European societies and European party politics during

the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the industrial era when the mass franchise was

extended and mass political parties organized and mobilized their grassroots support base. The

working class and trade unions formed the historical bedrock of Labour, Social Democratic and

Socialist party organizations, providing funds, members and voters. The traditional cleavages of

class, religion, and region were theorized to have a strong impact upon voting preferences in

industrialized European societies, since social groups shared a common sense of identity and set of

interests, and they supported political parties reflecting their identities and defending their

interests. The process of socialization encourages children to adopt parental party preferences, and

thus early cleavages were fixed from generation to generation.

The classic structural explanation of center‐left electoral decline, arising from this influential

perspective, builds upon Daniel Bell’s (1973) notion that modern post‐industrial economies have

been transformed by growing societal complexity and a series of fundamental social changes,

including rising educational levels, globalization, population migration, changes in family structures

and marriage, and the entry of more women into the workforce. The growth of the white‐collar

service sector among clerical, sales, administrative, professionals and managers, in particular,

eroded the number of skilled and unskilled manual workers employed in manufacturing industry,

transforming the occupational structure across OECD states (Bell 1973; Crouch 1999). In the mid‐

twentieth century, European societies were divided into large blocks of employment in farming

(agriculture), factory (manufacturing), or office (administrative) sectors; outside of Mediterranean

Europe and Ireland, Crouch (2008) estimates that during the 1970s, manufacturing industry was the

largest employment sector in Europe (especially male employment). By contrast, contemporary

office employment is fragmented and sub‐divided into multiple gradations of managers,

professionals, administrative and clerical roles, with different career‐structures, income and salaries,

levels of security, roles and responsibilities, as well as divisions into the public/non‐profit and private

�ectors (Crouch 2008). New cross‐cutting social cleavages have also arisen, not least due to the entry

of women into the workforce and the substantial waves of population migration into post‐industrial

societies. Europe has hosted the largest number of international migrants, who are estimated by

the OECD (2008) to constitute almost one tenth of Europe’s total population. The rapid settlement


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of Muslim migrants into European societies, in particular, has raised important challenges for how

European policymakers manage cultural diversity, maintain social cohesion, and accommodate

minorities (Heckman 2005;Fetzer 2004). Developments have also been complicated by the process

of democratization and rapid economic restructuring, occurring first in Mediterranean Europe during

the md‐1970s and early‐1980s, and then post‐1989 in Central and parts of Eastern Europe.

Contemporary multicultural European societies (especially urban areas) are characterized by cross‐

cutting cleavages where social identities based the Industrial cleavages of farm, factory or office

work, as well as gradations of socioeconomic status (and thus income, wealth, and education), have

become fractured by alternative multiple identities arising from religion and religiosity, nationality,

race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, age and generation, territorial region, and language.

Structural theories of social dealignment have long suggested that these processes have several

important political consequences in post‐industrial societies, by (i) weakening the salience and

strength of class identities as the primary driver of party preferences, as well as by (ii) shrinking the

relative size of the traditional working class and the trade union base of center‐left parties (Dalton,

Flanagan, and Beck 1984; Crewe and Denver 1985; Franklin et al. 1992, 1999; Manza and Brooks

1999).

If changes in the occupational class structure, and weakening class identities, have indeed

undermined the social foundations of center‐left parties in post‐industrial societies, then long‐term

secular and glacial erosion in voting support for these parties should be observable throughout

Western Europe. Moreover the growth in the size of the professional and managerial middle class

within the service‐sector could also be expected to expand electoral support for the center‐right in

affluent societies.

Theories of cultural change

Yet processes of societal modernization could change values as well as the structure of the

economy. Alternative demand‐side explanations seek to explain the electoral performance of

center‐left parties by emphasizing enduring cultural shifts in public opinion which are believed to

have occurred in post‐industrial societies. The most comprehensive theoretical framework of

cultural change has been developed in an extensive series of publications by Inglehart (Inglehart

1977, 1990, 1997, Inglehart and Welzel 2005). Inglehart argues that a long‐term process of cultural

change has reduced the salience of ‘Industrial’ variables for voting behavior, notably the impact of

¥. Growing affluence and security have simultaneously expanded a wide range of ‘self‐actualization’

actualization’ and ‘self‐expression’ values in post‐industrial societies, Inglehart argues, especially

among the younger generation, including growing social tolerance and trust, secularization,

permissive attitudes towards sex and sexuality, respect for human rights, and support for


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environmentalism and related quality of life issues. This process is thought to have either eroded

support for, or reduced the salience of, the traditional post‐world war values of collectivism, state

ownership, economic redistribution and social equality, and universal welfare states, especially

among the younger generation, stranding ‘Old Left’ parties in the ideological wilderness.

Cultural change is thought to have increased the salience of polarizing issues ‐‐ including

policy debates about globalization, climate change and environmentalism, gender and sexuality,

population migration, multiculturalism, nationalism, and minority rights. In turn this process is

believed to have fragmented issue publics and weakened traditional social identities, limited the

capacity of ‘Old Left’ parties to respond to their core constituencies. Divisive issues reflecting

‘morality’ issues can be seen as zero‐sum games; delivering to one constituency can alienate another

(Lowi 1998; Smith 2002). In this regard they differ from distributive or regulatory policies towards

bread‐and‐butter concerns about economic performance, national security, and managing delivery

of core public goods and services, including health, education and social security, where public

preferences are distributed as more of a normal ‘bell’ shaped curve. Issue polarization is thought to

have encouraged new social movements and protest politics directed against governing parties,

providing opportunities for diverse minor parties, appealing to both the populist right as well as

Green and ethnic‐regional parties on the ‘New’ Left.

If cultural shifts are at the heart of changes in party systems, this should be understood as a

broader phenomenon which should be evident in collapsing voting support for both the center‐left

and the center‐right of the political spectrum. The cultural thesis would also be confirmed if the

European public expresses less support today for many core principles of social democracy, including

attitudes towards the welfare state, unemployment, health‐care, social benefits and services, or if

the balance of public opinion now favors neo‐liberal values.

II: Trends in party votes and seats, 1945‐2009

To understand the nature of longitudinal change we can start by establishing evidence for

trends in the electoral fortunes of center‐left parties, both cross‐nationally and over time. There are

multiple ways to classify party families, whether in terms of their shared programmatic policies and

doctrinal appeals, formal organizational structures, the social characteristics of supporters,

transnational organizational links, or party names (Mair and Mudde 1998). Worldwide the center‐

left includes diverse parties, reflecting distinctive national cultures, organizational histories,

democratic pathways, institutional contexts, and welfare state traditions (see, for example, Ladrech

and Marlière 1999). It is therefore important to adopt a broad comparative perspective, not simply

focused on developments in Western Europe. Perhaps the most straightforward and unambiguous


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approach to classification counts ‘center‐left’ parties as those which choose to be fully affiliated with

Socialist International, accepting its core principles, including diverse Socialist, Labour and Social

Democratic parties. 3 Transnational party organizations suggest some shared identities and

networks, even when parties within this family diverge in their ideological positions and

programmatic stances.

Based on this convention, today center‐left governing parties hold executive office as

coalition partners or in single‐party cabinets in many countries throughout Latin America, including

in Brazil, Costa Rica, Peru, Uruguay, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Guatamala. Perhaps due to

disillusionment with the results of neo‐liberal reforms disseminated by the Bretton Woods financial

institutions in the early‐1990s under the Washington consensus, leftist political forces are now in

government in nine Latin American nations, and or 'progressive' social movements continue to

challenge neo‐liberalism in several other countries in the region (Barrett et al 2010). In emerging

economies and developing societies in Sub‐Saharan Africa, as well, social democracy is alive and

well, with center‐left governments in democracies such as South Africa, Mozambique, Angola,

Ghana, and Mali. Despite much heated speculation about an electoral ‘crisis’, therefore, a global

perspective suggests that support for social democratic parties has not eroded in developing

countries and emerging economies worldwide (Sandbrook et al. 2007). In total, out of the 109

center‐left parties around the globe, today 45 (41%) are in government (see Figure 1). Moreover if

we focus only upon post‐industrial societies, center‐left parties currently hold power, by themselves

or in coalition, in five smaller West European welfare states (Andorra, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium,

��í�Û�í�É�∙�ope (Greece, Portugal, Spain), four Balkan states (Serbia, Slovenia,

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro), and one Westminster democracy (Australia).

Nevertheless several signs indicate that center‐left parties in post‐industrial societies, if not

yet experiencing an electoral ‘crisis’, are under growing pressure, especially in western Europe, the

historic heartland of social democracy. Among the G8 powers, recent years witnessed the defeat of

several major center left parties. In 2007, Ségolène Royal for the Parti Socialiste (PS) was defeated in

the French Presidential elections by Nicolas Sarkozy, although staging a 10 percentage point

recovery for the PS share of the vote compared with 2002. In 2009, across the border in Germany

the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) won 23% of the Bundestag vote, their lowest

share ever in a post‐war federal election. Then under the leadership of Gordon Brown, after eleven

years in power, in the 2010 British general election the Labour government returned to the

opposition benches with just 29% of the UK vote, their second worst share since 1918. Nevertheless

the outcome was close, generating a hung parliament although the Liberal Democrats under Nick


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Clegg entered coalition with David Cameron’s Conservative party. In the 2010 Swedish elections, the

broad left opposition, led by the once dominant Sveriges Socialdemokratiska Arbetareparti (SPA),

suffered its worst result since 1921. In the same year, in the U.S. midterm elections, the Republicans

gained 63 seats in the House of Representatives, making this the largest seat gain in any mid‐term

election since 1938. 4

Do the results in these countries represent the outcome of particular events, leaders and

issues in specific contests, ‐ such as a Tea Party tax backlash against the Obama administration in the

United States and the end of an extended period of Blair‐Brown Labour governments in the UK? Or

has a broader long‐term trend has systematically eroded center‐left support across many countries?

Data from the European Union Democracy Observatory (EUDO) allows us to compare 5‐year

averaged trends since the end of World War II (1944‐2009) in the share of the vote and seats won by

parties and party families in 35 post‐industrial societies (see Figure 2). 5 EUDO classifies 89 parties as

part of the Social Democratic family, such as the Norwegian Labour Party, the SDP in Germany, and

the Socialist Party in France. The EUDO dataset includes election results from multiparty contests in

all five nations in Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Denmark), seven nations in

Western Europe (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and

Switzerland), six from Mediterranean Europe (Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, Malta, Portugal), five

Anglo‐American Westminster democracies (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the UK),

one Asian society (Japan), and nine younger post‐Communist democracies in Central Europe

(Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia).

[Table 1 and Figure 2 about here]

Figure 2 illustrates the longitudinal patterns across all these 35 nations. The trend reveals a

clear and substantial (12‐percentage point) slide in the social democratic party mean share of the

vote from 1945 (30.8%) until the early‐1990s (19%), the nadir of their fortunes following the era of

neo‐liberal ascendancy under Thatcher and Reagan. The following decades saw a subsequent 4‐point

restoration in center‐left support across all the countries under comparison during the following

decades, symbolized perhaps in 1997 by the British Labour party’s historic victory under Tony Blair

and the success of the U.S. Democratic Party under Bill Clinton in the 1992 and 1996 presidential

�É ∙ ¥�¥�∙ í ¥ egression confirms the significant erosion observed over the whole post‐war

regression confirms the significant erosion observed over the whole post‐war era (b= ‐.145 se= .034,

sig p.=.000). Before judging whether this, in itself, constitutes evidence of a crisis of popular support

for the center left, trends have to be examined for other contenders in the electoral market. As can

be seen from the graph, the social democrats are not alone in this regard, however, since Christian

Democratic parties also lose support during the second half of the twentieth century, before also


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stabilizing or even recovering slightly in recent years. Over the whole period, the regression

coefficients show significant erosion of the Christian Democrat share of the vote (b.=‐.170, se .040,

sig. p.=000), similar in size to that experienced by the center left parties. This strongly suggests the

need to examine patterns of electoral competition and voting behavior across party systems, rather

than focusing too narrowly on specific explanations for any loss of center‐left popularity. The

electoral fortunes of most of the other parties under comparison usually fluctuate around the mean,

rather than revealing a general trend, with three important exceptions. As expected, the 36

Green/Ecology parties show steady growth since the 1970s (b.=+.174, se .033, Sig p.=.000). The

growing success of these parties has been widely discussed, including the way that Green parties

have now entered national governments as coalition partners in several countries, including Finland,

Italy, Germany, France, Australia, and Belgium (Muller‐Rommel and Pogunte 2002). In addition, the

nine parties classified by EUDO as representing ethnic minorities ‐‐such as those for Maoris,

Romanians and Hungarians ‐‐ also grow steadily, although from a low base, during the late twentieth

century. Lastly, the radical right parties under comparison also grow in popularity, but for a shorter

period and also from a low base, with sharply varying performances within Western Europe (Norris

2005).

[Figure 3 about here]

Focusing upon the longitudinal vote share for the 89 social democratic parties under

comparison when broken down by region and nation helps to identify three patterns. First, is a

general linear trend apparent cross‐nationally throughout these decades? If so, this would suggest

the potential impact of common sociological developments such as the shrinkage of the blue‐collar

sector occurring across diverse post‐industrial societies. Second, are there indications of any clear

period effects, for example if the expansion of globalization since the early‐1970s depresses social

democratic support in many countries, especially those at the forefront of this process? Lastly, do

the electoral fortunes of these parties fluctuate over time in different regions and nation‐states? If

so, this suggests more specific political causes, exemplified by changes in party leaders, policies and

performance. Figure 3 illustrates the trends by nation across the 34 post‐industrial societies under

comparison.

The most striking impression from the results in Figure 3 is one of considerable contrasts in

the trends displayed across countries and also patterns of trendless fluctuations around the mean,

rather than consistent linear declines or common period effects. Hence although starting from

different levels, a steady fall in the social democratic share of the vote is indeed evident over these

years in New Zealand, Belgium, Japan and Norway, best exemplifying sociological claims of secular

decline and social change in these cases. By contrast, however, sharp volatility is evident in Malta,


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France, Finland, Greece, and Luxembourg, often with sudden dips followed by recovery, suggesting

the more direct impact of specific short‐term events. It is notable that far from proving typical, the

UK trend proves to an outlier by experiencing a precipitate plunge during the early 1970s, the period

when the Liberal Democrats mounted a sustained challenge to the British Labour Party, followed by

an important subsequent recovery.


To scrutinize visual trends further, we can also examine the share of the seats won by Social

Democratic Parties since 1945. Obviously we would expect broadly similar trends to those already

observed for voting support, although the effects of electoral systems would be evident in either

amplifying the patterns (for larger parties in majoritarian electoral systems) or by dampening them

(under PR systems). The results in Figure 4 largely confirm the observations made earlier. varying

longitudinal patterns are evident across countries, with the clearest support for any decline over

successive decades thesis found in Japan, Norway, the UK and Belgium. In other countries, no clear

period effect is evident, nor is there any uniform direction of change. In short, the wisest conclusion

based on the comparison across a range of diverse post‐industrial societies, including older and

younger democracies, is to be extremely cautious in assuming any steady and uniform erosion of

support for parties on the center‐left. a more complex picture emerges, which requires further

exploration with survey evidence captured at individual level.


Finally, to summarize longitudinal trends, the electoral performance of center‐left parties in

the 35 postindustrial societies under comparison can be compared by global region, to see whether

there are common or divergent trends. If structural changes in the basis of social class is at the heart

of any erosion of social democratic support, notably the shrinkage in the proportion of blue collar

workers in the labor force, then this structural change should be evident as a steady decline in

center left votes across similar affluent economies which have gradually shifted from manufacturing

industry to service work such as in the banking, insurance and educational sectors, irrespective of

their global region. Nevertheless Table 1 and Figure 5 displays some contrasting regional patterns.

the sharpest decline in social democratic support has occurred in the Anglo‐American societies,

where votes for the center‐left falls on average by 10 percentage points from 1945 to date. A

parallel slide is evident in the single Asian country – Japan‐ which has also experienced massive

social and economic change during the post‐war era. The aggregate trends in these nations are

therefore consistent with the story of class change. By contrast, however, mean voting support for

social democracy falls in Scandinavia from 1945 to the early‐1990s – and then recovers across the


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region. Moreover, even less consistent with the structural change narrative, Western European

states see a pattern of trendless fluctuations in center left votes around the mean – and more

complex fluctuations are evident in Mediterranean Europe and in post‐communist Europe.

III: Conclusions and discussion

Clearly it is not possible within the space of this brief study to address the extensive

literature addressing sociological theories of changes in the composition and saliency of social class

for voting behavior, nor to review the extensive evidence concerning cross‐national trends in

cultural values. Nevertheless the descriptive evidence tracing the post‐war electoral performance of

social democracy provides some important insights into demand‐side explanations of this

phenomenon. The results presented here certainly suggest that a more complex story is required,

rather than any simple narrative concerning inevitable erosion – still less a crisis ‐ of electoral

support for the center‐left.

Three key findings emerging from this study deserve to be highlighted. Firstly, many center‐

left governments hold power, especially in Latin America and Sub‐Saharan Africa. Even within

affluent post‐industrial societies, today center‐left parties govern more than a dozen states. It is true

that the social democratic mean share of the vote across post‐industrial societies fell by about a

dozen percentage points from 1945 to the early‐1990s, a substantial drop which cannot be

dismissed. Nevertheless this needs to be set in a broader context, since center‐left support

subsequently recovered slightly. Moreover before attributing this to any shrinkage in the size of the

blue collar workforce and the growth of the middle classes, the study demonstrated that the overall

share of the Christian Democrat vote also declined by an equivalent amount. As a result of these

developments, electoral competition among the major parties remains on roughly equal footing.

This is equivalent to both Coke and Pepsi losing market share to juice drinks; but it is not the case

that one major rival company is losing ground to their primary competitor. The main challenge to

the status quo obviously arises from the success of the diverse minor party contestants; notably the

Greens, radical right, and ethnic minority parties. These parties have made substantial gains in

recent years although more in their share of votes than seats, due to the constraints of vote

thresholds present in all electoral systems. Lastly, the center‐left vote displays trendless fluctuations

across regions and nations, more than a consistent secular decline. Thus these patterns suggest,

although they cannot prove, that supply‐side and institutional factors are probably more plausible

explanations to account for varying center‐left electoral performance across different societies,

rather than the impact of long‐term structural and cultural forces on the mass electorate. That is,

citizens face different choices today than fifty years ago; not surprisingly, they make different

decisions. During the post‐war era, European consumers faced displays of carrots, onions and


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cabbage; today they now can now choose from a bewildering array of lemongrass, bok choy,

plantain, daikon, and organic kohlrabi. Not surprisingly, like our menus, voting behavior and election

outcomes have become less predictable and more colorful.

The results documented in this study lend credence to alternative institutional and supply‐

side accounts emphasizing that any sustained shifts in social structure and public opinion which have

occurred do not necessarily determine the fate of social democracy. Rational choice theories

suggest that political parties can choose to either reinforce the strength of group‐party ties, through

issuing bonding appeals, or they can decide to weaken these linkages, through bridging strategies.

These ideas were developed by Adam Przeworski and John Sprague (1986), and subsequently

expanded by other scholars (Kitschelt 1994, 1995, 2000; Koelble 1992; Norris 2004). Strategic

theories emphasize that parties can respond to social and cultural developments by shifting policy

positions, social appeals, and ideological locations within the electoral market. Center left parties

can thus decide to widen their strategic appeals to attract other social sectors, such as professional

and manager public sector employees, and they can aim to mobilize broader and more

heterogeneous electoral coalitions, for example by emphasizing issues appealing to women, younger

voters, and ethnic minorities. Hence many contemporary center‐left parties now strongly espouse

progressive principles, emphasizing environmentalism, feminism, human rights, multiculturalism and

racial equality, while retreating from traditional socialist notions of state control of the economy and

income redistribution. From this perspective, the erosion in the size of the working class base,

weakening of subjective class identities and party loyalties, and the subsequent growth of electoral

volatility, are all factors which make it more difficult, but far from impossible, for social democratic

parties to regain power. Cultural and social changes make the electoral challenge harder for center‐

left parties; essentially, social democrats have to race uphill to recover support against a downward

moving escalator. Institutional changes which lower the hurdles in attaining elected office also

commonly favor minor parties, especially reforms making electoral systems more proportional,

establishing multilevel and decentralized elected bodies, and implementing inclusive forms of public

funding of parties and campaigns (Colomer 2004; Norris 2004; Gallagher and Mitchell 2005; Gauja

2010). Speculation about an inevitable secular decline which is threatening social democratic parties

today, based on the transformation of mass society, thus exaggerates the complex global challenges

they face; often they still can and do succeed.


14

Figure 1: Countries where center‐left parties are in government worldwide, 2011

Note: ‘Center‐left’ parties are defined by full membership of the Socialist International, including

social democratic, socialist and labor parties. ‘Government’ includes those states where center‐left

parties hold an absolute majority or where they are members of a ruling coalition.

Source:


15

Figure 2: % Vote by party family, 1945‐2009

Note: % vote in national parliamentary elections in 34 post‐industrial societies

Source: Calculated from Holger Döring and Philip Manow, “ParlGov Spring 2010 “


16

Figure 3: % Vote for Social Democratic parties, 1945‐2009, by nation

Note: % vote in national parliamentary elections in 34 post‐industrial societies. Year is coded: 1’1945‐49’ 2’1950‐54’ 3’1955‐59’ 4’1960‐64’ 5’1965‐69’ 6’1970‐74’ 7’1975‐79’ 8’1980‐84’ 9’1985‐1989’ 10’1990‐94’ 11’1995‐99’ 12’2000‐05’ 13’2005‐09’.



17

Figure 4: % Seats for Social Democratic parties, 1945‐2009, by nation

Note: % seats in national parliamentary elections in 34 post‐industrial societies. Year is coded: 1’1945‐49’ 2’1950‐54’ 3’1955‐59’ 4’1960‐64’ 5’1965‐69’ 6’1970‐74’ 7’1975‐79’ 8’1980‐84’ 9’1985‐1989’ 10’1990‐94’ 11’1995‐99’ 12’2000‐05’ 13’2005‐09’.



18

Figure 5: % Vote for Social Democratic parties in post‐industrial societies, 1945‐2009, by region

Note: % vote in national parliamentary elections in 34 post‐industrial societies. Year is coded:

1’1945‐49’ 2’1950‐54’ 3’1955‐59’ 4’1960‐64’ 5’1965‐69’ 6’1970‐74’ 7’1975‐79’ 8’1980‐84’ 9’1985‐

1989’ 10’1990‐94’ 11’1995‐99’ 12’2000‐05’ 13’2005‐09’. See text for regional classifications.



19

Table 1: % Vote for social democratic parties, by region, 1945‐2009

Anglo‐American

Scandinavian Western Europe

Mediterranean Europe

Post‐Communist Europe

Asia ALL

Year % N % N % N % N % N % N % N

1945‐1949

31.2 9 32.4 9 24.8 15 67.1 2 30.8 35

1950‐1955

36.5 11 35.3 8 20.1 15 32.7 6 29.5 40

1956‐1960

30.1 7 30.9 11 25.5 13 23.2 3 28.0 34

1961‐1965

28.0 9 31.0 7 25.9 12 17.5 3 18.2 2 26.4 33

1966‐1970

37.2 8 26.2 11 24.0 12 16.8 3 16.1 4 26.0 38

1971‐1975

26.1 14 24.6 21 19.2 21 32.2 2 19.3 4 14.4 2 22.7 64

1976‐1980

26.5 8 27.6 10 15.7 22 34.1 4 31.5 7 10.2 8 21.6 59

1981‐1985

25.4 10 26.5 11 17.4 19 35.1 6 22.4 7 9.1 3 22.7 56

1986‐1990

20.1 12 20.7 11 18.5 22 42.0 6 20.5 8 9.1 6 20.7 65

1991‐1995

22.8 7 24.2 10 17.0 18 35.8 4 15.8 23 6.6 3 19.0 65

1996‐2000

21.6 11 26.9 6 21.9 11 33.4 8 18.5 24 7.9 2 22.0 62

2001‐2005

20.5 13 26.0 8 20.7 15 27.8 5 21.4 21 9.7 4 21.4 66

2006‐2009

17.8 7 29.0 6 18.1 11 43.6 4 22.5 14 7.9 2 22.8 44

Total 26.2 126 27.3 129 20.1 206 34.3 53 20.3 108 11.6 39 23.3 661

Change 1945‐49 to 2006‐2009

‐13.4 ‐3.4 ‐6.7

Note: Mean % vote and number of multiparty elections per region. See text for regional

classification.

Source: Calculated from Holger Döring and Philip Manow, "ParlGov Spring 2010 ."


20

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1 It should be noted that throughout this paper the terms ‘social democracy’ and ‘center‐left’ are used

interchangeably. When referring to ‘Social Democratic Parties’, however, this is defined by full membership

affiliation with the Socialist International, whatever their official title.

2 U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

3 See http://www.socialistinternational.org/

4 The Democratic Party in the U.S. is not officially a social democratic party, defined by affiliation with the

Socialist International, even though sharing many core ideas of the center‐left.

5 For details, see Holger Döring and Philip Manow, "ParlGov Spring 2010 Preview Release" 25th February 2010.

crisis, what crisis? demand-side explanations for the performance

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