Suchergebnisse

Considers the implications of globalization & the purported "triumph of capitalism" for the notion & practice of social democracy. Social democratic ideals are reviewed & the relationship between various political traditions of social democracy & the Rawlsian (1971) variety of welfare liberalism & the Walzerian (1983) defense of an egalitarian liberal regime are explored, highlighting the notions of shared citizenship, egalitarian politics, & rights. Theoretical justifications for social democracy offered by political philosophy are reviewed, & it is concluded that any declaration by political scientists that "social democracy is dead" would be premature. K. Hyatt Stewart

This article argues that social-democratic governments throughout the 20th century faced internal & international constraints arising from the operation of capitalist economies & that the evidence for a qualitative deepening of such constraints since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system is far from unequivocal. Financial markets were already big enough & fast enough to deter such governments from the pursuit of egalitarian policies in the interwar years or to destabilize them if they ignored the warning signs. This article also shows that the efficacy of Keynesian macroeconomic policy in the Golden Age has been exaggerated & that the problem of short-term movements of speculative capital persisted throughout this era in a country such as Britain. Keynesianism never worked in the face of mass unemployment & it is misleading to suggest that its breakdown in the 1970s somehow robbed social democracy of the policy tools that had maintained full employment in the 1950s & 1960s. A host of additional problems have indeed beset social-democratic governments since 1973, but the analysis of such problems is hindered rather than helped by much of the literature that invokes economic globalization. Globalization theory is in need of further specification before it can be useful & arguments about the economic consequences of globalization since 1973 need to distinguish its effects from those of the many conjunctural problems of the period as well as the policies that important agencies have pursued in search of solutions to them. 63 References. Adapted from the source document.

Socialist and Social Democratic parties leave few political observers and citizens indifferent. For several years, a certain number of actors on the political scene have presented it as a political family in crisis, lacking in imagination and dynamism, incapable of renewal and doomed to fade into insignificance. Others, on the contrary, describe it as a grouping with a promising, even brilliant future.This book does not set out to confirm either of those two visions. Its aim is to analyse in-depth the transformations which are affecting, at the current time, the different aspects of Social Democracy: new organisational models, changes in political and electoral performance, changing relations with the trade unions and civil society associations, reactions to the emergence of new political rivais and new values, new ideological trends and political programmes, etc. For the first time, the analysis does not concern exclusively Western Europe, but also deals with the Social Democratic parties of the consolidated democracies and the organisations that claim to be part of democratic socialism in Central and Eastern Europe, and highlights the specific characteristics and points in common. At the dawn of the 21st century, it is therefore the challenges and the different responses to those challenges that are analysed by several of the leading European specialists in Social Democratic parties in Europe.

This article makes the case for social democracy in the context of difficult national and international economic conditions and changes in domestic politics that see a Conservative-dominated Coalition government and the Labour party in Opposition for the first time since 1997. It rejects much current thinking in the Labour party and instead argues that traditional social democratic values, such as equality and social justice, are of contemporary relevance and can only be achieved through a strong central state committed to those values. Adapted from the source document.

Argues that traditional social democratic commitment to policies involving social protection, economic equality, and the institutional authority of labor can be maintained in the face of challenges posed by globalization; European Union.