Were Social Democratic Parties Really More Working Class in the Past?

Abstract

The goal of this chapter is to establish a baseline for the strength of the working-class character of social democracy in the decades following the Second World War in order to avoid any over-or underestimation. The chapter develops criteria to analyse the class profile of social democracy and define a working-class party. The leading idea is that social democracy as a working-class party does not per se exclude support from other allied classes. I therefore propose a distinction between hybrid and pure working-class parties. The chapter demonstrates the relatively strong working-class character of social democracy in six Western European countries. The analysis focuses on the 1970s because this period still featured the 'Keynesian class compromise' (although it started to be in serious crisis) and comparative survey data are available.

The rightward shift and electoral decline of social democratic parties under increasing inequality

“…Combined with the rise of populism, this has led many to question whether social democracy is in crisis. Central to the debate is the pronounced reduction in class voting compared to the heyday of Social Democrats in the 1960s and 70 s. Much evidence now exists that the far-right has made substantial inroads among the working class in recent years (Afonso and Rennwald 2018;Mosimann et al 2019;Rydgren 2013) and Social Democratic parties have suffered losses amongst its traditional working-class base (Arndt 2013;Gingrich and Häusermann 2015;Rennwald 2020). Some scholars believe this is occurring because voters are increasingly being mobilised via identity rather than distributive politics (Häusermann et al 2020;Häusermann and Kriesi 2015).…”

Class, religion and socialist parties: The unpredicted effect of (a)religious voting

“…This interpretation received a large consensus in the 1990s (see Nieuwbeerta 1995) but some recent research has questioned the final ‘death’ of class. (Evans and Carl 2017; Evans and De Graaf 2013; Evans and Northmore-Ball 2017; Houtman 2003; Jansen et al, 2013; Rennwald 2020).…”

“…The hypothesis that religion has acted as a strong voting driver for socialist parties is not due to an increasing adhesion of socialist voters to any religion. Rather, religion has acted as a new mobilizing factor for socialist voters, with an a contrario logic: the secular and permissive attitudes expressed by socialist parties on a series of ethical–moral issues since the end of the 1990s (Dobbelaere and Pérez-Agote 2015; Engeli et al 2013; Euchner 2019; Rennwald 2020; Studlar and Burns 2015) which has placed them in confrontation with confessional parties and religious associations. This cultural divide (opposition to religious prescriptions on a series of liberalizing issues) might have provided socialist parties with more appeal than traditional class-related issues.…”

“…This cultural divide (opposition to religious prescriptions on a series of liberalizing issues) might have provided socialist parties with more appeal than traditional class-related issues. Such dynamics should have enabled socialist parties either to keep part of their old constituency as it had traditionally been secular, and to attract other social components, urbanized and educated, more in tune with new political issues (Kriesi et al 2012; Norris and Inglehart 2019; Rennwald 2020; see also Engeli et al 2012a; Fink 2008; Ribberink et al 2015).…”

The Electoral Crisis of Social Democracy: Postindustrial Dilemmas or Neoliberal Contamination?

“…In the field of political science, numerous authors from different subfields such as party politics, political sociology, and political economy have analyzed the crisis of social democracy from various angles and with different time horizons (e.g. Bailey et al, 2014; Benedetto et al, 2020; Berman, 2006; Berman and Snegovaya, 2019; Frega, 2021; Kitschelt, 1994; Lavelle, 2008; Manwaring and Kennedy, 2018; Moschonas, 2002; Mudge, 2018; Rennwald, 2020).…”