What Explains the Electoral Crisis of Social Democracy? A Systematic Review of the Literature

Abstract

While there are some signs of revitalization, social democracy has witnessed a deep electoral crisis over the last decades. The causes for the decline of social democratic parties are highly contested among researchers. This article provides a systematic review of the literature which spans several fields such as party politics, political sociology and political economy. Four kinds of explanations (sociological, materialist, ideational and institutional) are distinguished and scrutinized on the basis of empirical studies published since 2010. The findings indicate that there is not one explanation that stands out but that the electoral crisis of social democracy is a complex phenomenon with multiple causes, such as socio-structural changes, fiscal austerity and neoliberal depolarization. In addition, the findings suggest that a liberal turn on sociocultural issues does not necessarily lead to vote losses. Further research should explore more deeply how short-term and long-term factors have worked together in the process of social democratic decline.

Electoral change through generational replacement: An age-period-cohort analysis of vote choice across 21 countries between 1948 and 2021

“…Conversely, social democratic parties had equally high levels of support among pre-WW2 generations and baby boomers, but their popularity decreased substantially among more recent cohorts. As such, this study found no evidence that generational replacement has played an important role in the electoral decline of social democratic parties up until 2021 (see Figure 6), but the results do indicate that generational replacement could deepen the "crisis of social democracy" (Keating and McCrone, 2013;Bandau, 2023) in multi-party systems over the coming decades as baby boomers are replaced by newer cohorts. Conservative parties in multi-party systems show yet another pattern, with a decrease among baby Frontiers in Political Science boomers and then another decline among millennials.…”

Table_2.docx

“…Conversely, social democratic parties had equally high levels of support among pre-WW2 generations and baby boomers, but their popularity decreased substantially among more recent cohorts. As such, this study found no evidence that generational replacement has played an important role in the electoral decline of social democratic parties up until 2021 (see Figure 6), but the results do indicate that generational replacement could deepen the "crisis of social democracy" (Keating and McCrone, 2013;Bandau, 2023) in multi-party systems over the coming decades as baby boomers are replaced by newer cohorts. Conservative parties in multi-party systems show yet another pattern, with a decrease among baby Frontiers in Political Science boomers and then another decline among millennials.…”

Table_4.docx

“…Conversely, social democratic parties had equally high levels of support among pre-WW2 generations and baby boomers, but their popularity decreased substantially among more recent cohorts. As such, this study found no evidence that generational replacement has played an important role in the electoral decline of social democratic parties up until 2021 (see Figure 6), but the results do indicate that generational replacement could deepen the "crisis of social democracy" (Keating and McCrone, 2013;Bandau, 2023) in multi-party systems over the coming decades as baby boomers are replaced by newer cohorts. Conservative parties in multi-party systems show yet another pattern, with a decrease among baby Frontiers in Political Science boomers and then another decline among millennials.…”