Renewing Social Democracy? Beyond the Third Way

It is not surprising that debates about the future of social democracy have recently proliferated.More than two decades of neoliberalism have left citizens and communities everywhere seeking respite from an unbridled globalizing capitalism.In Europe, the backdrop has a decade of social democratic electoral resurgence amid much uncertainty about appropriate governing philosophies and policy frameworks for the exercise of power.In North America, similar debates have emerged at a different point in the electoral cycle, addressing the potential demise of the New Democratic Party or the disappointing results of the Nader Green Party campaign.Yet the underlying question is the same: can social democrats generate the ideas and strategy to power a credible electoral and policy alternative to neoliberalism?While consensus exists on the passing of social democracy's "classical model," there is much less clarity on the meaning and direction of a new social democracy.This commentary offers some thoughts on the state of social democracy's renewal.The inspiration is twofold.It grows out of a dissatisfaction with the leading intellectual reformulations of social democracy and their practical expression in the politics of the so-called Third Way.It also flows from a belief that the Left, for all the remarkable vitality "in the streets" of Seattle, Quebec City and elsewhere, still requires a robust parliamentary vehicle if it is to adequately confront state and corporate power.I begin by briefly situating social democracy's current impasse in its postwar political context, then move on to critically engage with the Third Way, concluding with five alternative themes that might constructively inform new social democratic thought and practice.145 Studies in Political Economy 67, Spring 2002Redrawing the Social Democratic Map: Kitschelt's New Social Movements and Giddens' New Individualism The current rethinking responds to the passing of the classical postwar model rooted in the political realignments and policy shifts that followed the Great Depression and Second World War.The model's defining features are well known: a class compromise between the organized working class and largescale business, lubricated by sustained growth and the Keynesian employment commitment.Booming capitalist profits were redistributed into relatively high wages, buttressed by a host of collective goods and public institutions.Progressive taxation, universal social programs, and collective bargaining rights limited market-generated inequalities, albeit privileging the "male breadwinner."This political deal came apart in the 1970s for a host of economic and sociological reasons.Globalization of production and finance, postindustrial labour processes and markets, and cultural changes spawning novel political identities combined to undermine classic social democracy's operational principles.Key assumptions about a unified working class identity, a coherent national business interest, and national policy sovereignty were all challenged.By the 1980s, prominent analysts of social democracy such as Adam Przeworksi hypothesized an irreversible political decline as party fortunes tracked a shrinking industrial working class base. 1 More recently, Herbert Kitschelt and Anthony Giddens, in separate, influential treatises, have rejected such pessimism.They agree that "new times" have rendered obsolete traditional social democratic formulae but insist that an array of options is opened if parties are prepared to transcend their "programmatic, organizational, and electoral legacies." 2 Kitschelt argues that success awaits those parties that replace blue collar workers and distributive policies with new social movements and leftlibertarian issues.3 Increased affluence and education, the growth of the welfare state, and the rise of the service economy have heightened the significance of postmaterial concerns.Valuing job autonomy and "communicative social processes," a growing cohort of Leftlibertarians seek political representation in new movements of feminism, ecology, and human rights.4 Here Kitschelt finds the base for a

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