Beyond Social Democracy

Beyond Social Democracy: The Transformation of the Left in Emerging Knowledge Societies examines the electoral decline of social democratic parties and how distinctive strategic moves might enable them to salvage different segments of their former electoral coalitions. Social democratic decline, however, does not imply the demise of basic tenets of the parties’ programmatic appeals. Under the impact of novel twenty-first-century political-economic challenges, these concerns are also invoked and repackaged with new ideas by other left parties. Empirically, voter movements show that social democratic parties incur net losses mostly to these other leftist parties, while sustaining a balanced, but voluminous exchange with center-right parties. Contrary to commonly held preconceptions, there is little net loss to the new extreme right. These findings will be pertinent to anyone interested in understanding or devising party strategies in twenty-first-century democracies. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Silja Häusermann is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich, where she studies welfare state politics and party system change in advanced capitalist democracies. She is the author of The Politics of Welfare State Reform in Continental Europe (2010), coeditor of The Politics of Advanced Capitalism (2015), and coauthor of Cleavage Formation in the 21st Century: How Social Identities Shape Voting Behavior in Contexts of Electoral Realignment, all with Cambridge University Press.

Herbert Kitschelt is George V. Allen Distinguished Professor of International Relations at Duke University, where his investigations cover political party competition and citizen–politician linkages. He is the author of The Transformation of European Social Democracy (1994) and coeditor of The Politics of Advanced Capitalism (2015), both with Cambridge University Press.