Social Democracy in Power: The Capacity to Reform

Globalisation, European integration, and social change have devaluated traditional social democratic policy instruments. This book compares and explores how social democratic governments have had to adapt, and also whether they have successfully managed to uphold old social democratic goals and values in the light of these challenges. This volume examines the policy measures of social democratic parties in government in a comparative framework. The authors focus on traditional social democratic tools goals and tools, in particular, fiscal, employment, and social policy, in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark. They identify three policy patterns in social democratic governments: traditional, modernised, and liberalised social democracy and provide a comparative account of the explanatory power of the national context for policy adopted by social democratic parties. Although in some cases differences in policy and performance between the six governments correspond to the programmatic position of the social democratic party, they are primarily attributable in this order to the specific structure of national party competition, to the behaviour of trade unions, and to institutional veto points. Finally, the extent to which social democratic parties have been able to use the European Union as a political space for social democratic governance and policy-making is examined. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, comparative politics, European studies and public policy.Merkel, Wolfgang is the author of 'Social Democracy in Power: The Capacity to Reform', published 2008 under ISBN 9780415438209 and ISBN 0415438209.