Mobilizer and Late Modernizers: Socialist Parties in the New Southern Europe

Abstract

An examination of the nature & consequences of two interactive processes -- exploring the impact of party on society & the impact of society on party -- focuses on the Panhellenic Socialist Movement in Greece; Spain's Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol; & the Portuguese Partido Socialista. Social, political, & historical contexts surrounding the emergence & evolution of each party are traced from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. Special attention is given to trajectories of change; strategies; orientations; & capacities to build/preserve electoral coalitions. Relationships with their party system, organized social groups, & the state are explored, & policies implemented while in office are addressed in relation to tensions between political/economic modernization & the often limited potential for social reform. It is maintained that there are signs of convergence among socialist parties of northern & southern Europe, as well as with center-Right "catch-all" parties, resulting from an increasingly integrated Europe & the "centripetal logic of the democratic game of politics in the television age.". 1 Table. J. Lindroth