In the 1990s developments within the Democratic party would lead to the ideological decline, and then electoral decline of European social democracy. Now, almost three decades later, could recent developments within that same party be the start of an ideological and electoral rejuvenation of European social democracy?

The 1980s hit European social democracy hard. Although social democratic parties still performed reasonably well in elections, the postwar social democratic consensus – with a mix of centrist Christian democracy – was under fundamental attack from the first wave of neoconservatism, personified by Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US. Like the Democratic party, the British Labour party was reduced to an increasingly irrelevant opposition party, as neoconservatives dismantled key institutions of the social democratic welfare state and, more importantly, undermined its fundamental belief in solidarity and the regulatory state.

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When Ronald Reagan made his now famous anti-government statement “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem,” in his 1981 inaugural speech, it received more ridicule than praise. Now, almost four decades later, it is considered “common sense” by many Americans and European alike. Sadly, social democrats play a major role in this.

Bill Clinton successfully adopted a neoliberal “common sense” approach to win back the presidency. His surprise victory against an incumbent Republican president was an inspiration to many Europe social democrats, none more so than an ambitious, young Labour politician named Tony Blair.

In 1993 Blair was part of a Labour delegation that met with the Clinton transition team in Washington DC. Four years later, now prime minister, he recalled the main lesson from that meeting, which he had dotted on a piece of paper: “Opportunity, responsibility, community.” It was this hollow “common sense” pragmatism, steeped in an often implicit neoliberalism, that was later intellectualized by the British sociologist Anthony Giddens in his 1998 book The Third Way, which functioned as the unofficial New Labour program.

By the turn of the century, almost all European social democratic parties had bought into the Clinton-inspired “third way” – some enthusiastically, like Gerhard Schröder’s SPD in Germany, some more reluctantly, such as Lionel Jospin’s PS in France. In (coalition) government in 12 of the (then) 15 EU member states, social democratic parties were the staunchest defenders of the “integration consensus”, supporting integration in cultural (immigration), economic (neoliberal globalization) and political (European integration) terms. Politics was subjected to economics and ideology to pragmatism. The ideological basis of neoliberalism was denied by referring to either “common sense” or “expertise”.

The third way only temporarily slowed down the electoral decline of social democratic parties. In the 21st century, its ideological decline would lead to an inevitable electoral implosion. Increasingly indistinguishable from (center-)rightwing parties, social democratic parties have suffered record electoral defeats from Greece to the Netherlands.

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So far, the main response to the existential crisis of European social democracy has been another third way response, this time in social-cultural terms, ie a call for “immigration realism”. Leftwing critiques of the Third Way have come primarily from outside of the social democratic parties, from intellectuals such as Chantal Mouffe and parties such as Podemos. A partial exception is the British Labour party, in part shielded by its electoral system, although Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum are still battling deeply entrenched third way forces within the party.

How different has been the response in the United States. The first shockwaves could be seen in the Occupy movement, which lacked infrastructure and leaders to direct influence on US policies, but shifted the political discourse and inspired and mobilized a new generation of leftwing, rather than liberal, activists and politicians. Once famous for its absence of socialism, the US is currently swamped by young and old Democrats who proudly claim to be democratic socialists.

Although his unexpected challenge to the ultimate third way candidate, Hillary Clinton, was unsuccessful in 2016, Bernie Sanders left an impact on the Democratic party platform. Two years later, some commentators even claim that Sanders has “conquered” the Democratic party. If true, it is certainly more in terms of ideology than personality – as the record number of Democratic primary candidates shows.

The 2020 Democratic primaries are slated to become the most inspiring debate on social democratic policies and politics in decades. In the past few months Elizabeth Warren alone has offered more innovative social democratic policies than all European social democrat parties together in the past two decades. Sure, quite a lot of progressive Democratic policies either address specific US issues (such as gun control and voter suppression) or aim to bring the US to the same level of Europe (like universal healthcare), but the broader debate should be an inspiration and wake-up call to European social democrats.

While some of the targeted issues (eg economic inequality and structural racism) are more pronounced in the US, they are major issues in European countries too. And yet, economic inequality is at best a secondary issue in European political discourse, which, like education and employment, is crowded out by immigration, concerns about Islam and security. Similarly, while the #MeToo movement has clearly not changed the sexist power structure in the US, as the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation to the US supreme court painfully illustrated again, most European countries have not even had any public discussion on sexism and sexual assault. And in which European country do social democratic politicians loudly and proudly defend the rights and dignity of immigrants and minorities against the onslaught of nativist policies and rhetoric unleashed by populist radical right parties and their mainstream fellow travelers?

This can and must change! In the 1990s, European social democrats sent many of their best and brightest to the US to learn from the success of Bill Clinton. They came back with mostly the wrong lessons, ultimately helping to weaken social democracy. Let’s hope that the best and brightest from the broader European social democratic movement, rather than just the dilapidated parties, will descend upon the US once again in 2020, but this time learning the right lessons, which can help rejuvenate European social democracy.