The (shrinking) Left in Europe

1. The (shrinking) Left in Europe Alistair Cole

2. (Northern European) Social Democracy: core and features • Strong working class anchoring, but not strictly speaking class parties (i.e. always appealing beyond just the industrial working class) • mass parties • close relationships with the trade unions • an interclassist electoral profile • dominant force of the left • accept rules of democratic game • party of government • national, rather than … internationalist parties • corporatism • mixed economy • northern-southern divide

3. French Socialists (again in search of a role) Alistair Cole

4. How does the French PS fit with this model? • Strong working class anchoring: not really…party of public sector middle classes under SFIO, but PCF • mass parties : not really a mass party. Organisation 200000 • close relationships with the trade unions: no, legacy of anarcho-syndicalism • an interclassist electoral profile: in 1981 or 1997, yes, but electorate biased towards public sector middle classes • dominant force of the left: yes, but only late on in the day • accept rules of democratic game : yes, characteristic of Blum • party of government: yes, on numerous occasions, but not recently • national, rather than internationalist parties: • corporatism : not really, but under Jospin • mixed economy : yes, a strong belief in nationalisation under Mitterrand and industrial policy under Jospin • northern-southern divide…

5. French Socialists • The first unified French Socialist party - the Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO) of 1905- was formed on the orders of the Second International as a revolutionary party, in total opposition to bourgeois society. • Though the pre-1914 SFIO fought elections, voted for progressive legislation, and ran many municipal councils, its ideological identity as an opposition party was of crucial importance in the young SFIO’s life (Judt, 1974). • As in Germany, the 1917 Revolution caused a fundamental schism within the French left: initially marginal, the French communist party (PCF) gradually became the stronger leftwing party from mid-1940s to mid-1970s. In order to support its claim to be the legitimate heir to the original 1905 party, the socialist SFIO continued to declare itself a revolutionary Marxist party. • The Popular Front government of 1936 finally buried the SFIO’s ‘non-participation’ doctrine when, under Léon Blum, the SFIO headed the first Socialist-led government in French history. • However heroic in retrospect, the Popular Front government was short-lived (1936-37), and suffered from a chronic lack of cohesion, on account of PCF ambivalence and left-wing opposition to Blum’s economic policy, the pace of reforms and whether or not to intervene in the Spanish civil war.

6. French Socialists in Office 1. • The French version of the post-war consensus had its genesis in the Tripartite government of 1944-47. • This post-war coalition of progressive forces (Communists, Christian-Democrats [MRP], Socialists) left a robust reformist record to its credit after 30 months in office. It introduced France’s comprehensive social security system. It enacted important civil and social reforms, notably the advent of female suffrage and the creation of workplace committees. Moreover, it greatly accentuated practices of economic dirigisme by taking several major industries into public ownership, and launching French planning procedures. • The nationalisation programme created large state firms in the key sectors of energy (gas, coal, electricity, Atomic energy)transport (Air France, Renault), banking (the Bank of France, and four deposit banks, including Crédit Lyonnais) and insurance. With the break-down of triparitism in May 1947, France had to wait until Mitterrand’s election in 1981 for its next experience of left-wing government.

7. Potted History of the Modern PS • Decline throughout fourth Republic. Lowc point in 1969 presidential election. Modern PS recreated at Epinay 1971 • The Epinay ‘line’ was that of the Union of the Left: the alliance with the PCF, ‘ no enemies to the left’, the PS must anchor itself to the left and resist the temptation for third force alliances with the centre. • During the 1970s Mitterrand's PS was a party well-attuned to the institutional, social and political imperatives of the Fifth Republic and the social structures of French society. • After the decade of revival (1971-81), the French Socialists experienced a decade of being the presidential party (1981-93), before being brutally rejected by the French electorate in 1993, losing the presidential election in 1995, unexpectedly returning to office in 1997 and losing again in 2002, and 2007. The French PS has now lost the last three presidential elections

8. Organisation: a Factional Party • The PS is the most openly factionalised of French political parties • The leading factions each represent specific political traditions, as well as strongholds within the party itself (such as local government, think-tanks and structures of expertise, the interests of the parliamentary party or principled opposition to the leadership). • The French PS was reformed at Epinay on the basis of unifying a set of existing party organisations: SFIO, CIR, then PSU • The positioning of rivals for the presidential election has been one source of factional competition throughout the history of the Socialist Party. Issues, strategy, personality all divide

9. Types of faction in the PS • Organisation Faction. Group that controls the organisation. Stresses the importance of respecting internal organisational rules and the control of the organisation as the fount of all legitimacy. Emphasises internal organisational rules over external popularity. Francois Hollande leader since 1997 • Left faction. CERES in 1970s. Today’s version of this left opposition is crystallised over European integration; the No camp in the 2005 referendum, around Laurent Fabius. Benoit Hamon, 19% in votes on motions for the Reims congress 14-16/11/2008 • External faction...refers to an individual/group who relies on resources outside of the official party organisation to try and make a challenge to conquer the latter. Mitterrand against Mollet in the 1960s ; Rocard against Mitterrand in the late 1970s; Royal in 2006 and 2008 (Royal ahead in the votes for the Reims congress with 29%) • Parallel faction. Any group with a parallel organisation to that of the party itself.

10. The left in Office 1 • 36-37, 44-47, 56-57, 81-86, 88-93, 97-02 • The plural left, 1997-2002.. Jospin’s government delivered a distinctive political programme that bore some similarities with the 1981-83 period. • the French Socialists rejected most of the precepts of New Labour. In response to Blair’s ‘third way’ between the old left and the new right, Jospin pointedly refused to define a new orientation between social-democracy and liberalism, preferring the former to the latter. (‘Yes to a market economy, no to a market society’). • While Blair advocated reforming the policy environment to adapt to globalisation, Jospin stressed the importance of EU and state-level public policy intervention to control globalisation. • While Blair assiduously courted business during the first term, the landmark reforms of the Jospin premiership, and especially the 35-hour week, were implemented in the face of fierce business opposition.

11. French Socialists in Office 2 • Despite its antipathy to the label social-democratic, the Mauroy government (1981-84) enthusiastically adopted classic social-democratic remedies while these were being progressively jettisoned elsewhere. The Socialist-led government implemented Keynesian demand management policies to stimulate growth and combat unemployment. In the early 1980s, with the US and western Europe in the midst of recession, the French socialist government’s counter-cyclical economic policy contrasted starkly with the macroeconomic policies being pursued by France’s principal trading partners. Moreover, its audacious industrial policies (the 1982 nationalisation of 36 banks and five major industrial groups) ran directly counter to the incipient privatisation trends elsewhere. Its social generosity (as measured by increases in pensions, the minimum wage, and family allowances) contributed to the goal of economic relaunch, and fiscal redistribution (consolidated by the Wealth tax), but created intolerable economic strains.

12. French Socialists in Office 3 • Harsh economic realities forced the government to modify the pace of redistributive welfare reforms and Keynesian pump-priming. The French economy simply could not absorb the pressure imposed by spiralling trade and budget deficits. The left’s economic U-turn - which took place in two stages, in June 1982 and in March 1983 - demonstrated for most observers France’s economic vulnerability: unilateral Keynesian reflationary policies were no longer possible for a medium-sized nation such as France in an interdependent world economy. The failure of Socialist reflation from 1981‑83 revealed the pressures for convergence between French economic policies and those of its main competitors, especially Germany. There was a particularly strong linkage between domestic budget retrenchment, monetary rigour, and the drive for closer European integration in the 1980s and 1990s, not least because of the prominent role by Mitterrand (and Delors) in negotiating the Single European Act (1986) and the Maastricht Treaty (1993).

13. Plural left, 1997-2002 • The plural left’s electoral victory in June 1997 brought the Socialists back to power rather earlier than most observers expected. The Jospin government delivered a distinctive political message based on defending the French social model under attack from a neo-liberal onslaught and the invisible forces of globalisation that bore many similarities with the 1981-83 period. The main difference between the two periods relates to the degree of interdependence of France and her European partners, and the limited sovereignty of national economic policies after the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty. The economic activity of the Mauroy government during 1981-82 presupposed a degree of formal national economic sovereignty that no longer existed in 1997. The nationalisation programme of 1982 would certainly not have been possible in 1997, EU competition policy obliging. Moreover, European policy fashions have shifted over the period, in favour of greater marketisation and privatisation. Yet a resurgent French Socialist party, once again in government since June 1997, has been reluctant to accept the cultural or ideological reference frames in vogue amongst certain other social-democratic parties (notably the mantra of labour flexibility), to the extent of being seen as ‘archaic’ by Anglo-Saxon commentators enamoured with Tony Blair and new Labour.

14. The Left in Office 2 • There was a strong faith in state action to fight unemployment, promote growth and reform society. 35 working hour at the centre of the government reform programme: the idea that unemployment can be resolved by sharing existing work, an idea strongly contested in the 2007 election by Sarkozy. An activist employment policy also symbolised by the emploisjeunes, the creation of 350,000 jobs for young workers on a CDD (five years). • But the Socialists were/are also realistic in relation to the limits of state activism and the role of France in the international environment. We should not forget that the largest privatisation programme ever undertaken in France – in terms of capitalisation – took place while Jospin was PM, including Air France under the Communist Transport minister Gayssot. • Key social democratic elements: corporatism? Welfare redistribution and benefits…

15. Plural left, 1997-2002.. • If the margins of manoeuvre open to the Jospin government were limited, this was partly as a result of the legacy of the Mitterrand presidency itself. Mitterrand’s principal achievements (of Europeanisation, marketisation, and modernisation ) were difficult to reconcile with a traditional social-democratic political agenda.[1] In European policy, the single European Act and the Maastricht treaty were major achievements for which Mitterrand could claim some credit. The Maastricht Treaty imposed a monetarist vision of an ever closer union, a logic which had little in common with Keynesian reflationary policies or the left’s traditional social objectives. While the Jospin method was consciously crafted as the antithesis of the Mitterrand presidency, the new government had to operate within the parameters of powerful constraints, not least those relating to the prospect of EMU and the convergence criteria, which were in a real sense the legacy of Mitterrand.[1] Cole François Mitterrand: a Study in Political Leadership, chapter 12.

16. 35 Hour week and other reforms • The 35 hours was by far the most audacious reform of the Jospin government. Premier Jospin refused to accept that nothing could be done about unemployment; bold government action was called for. Specialist advice was divided, however; certain economists predicted real job gains from a move to 35 hours, whereas others doubted it would have any effect. [1] At a National Conference attended by government ministers, trade unions and employers associations on October 10, 1997, premier Jospin announced that ‘a law would fix the legal duration of the working week at 35 hours from January 1, 2000’, for all firms with more than 10 workers. [2] Such a law was passed through the National Assembly in January 1998 , instructing employers and unions to negotiate the modalities of the passage to 35 hours by the year 2000. This decision was more radical than expected, to the satisfaction of the plural left majority and the trade unions, and the distress of the CNPF.

17. Jospin…then oblivion? • The essence of Jospin’s governing method was to stress the autonomy of political action, even in a context of strong interdependence. Jospin did not call into question the market, but adopted a far less accommodating stance to business interests than late Mitterrandism; this was demonstrated by the increase in company taxation in July 1997, and above all by the legally binding move to a 35 hour week against fierce CNPF opposition. Ultimately, there were similarities, as well as differences, between Jospin, and his former mentor Mitterrand. Both leaders placed a high value on the importance of politics, as against technical constraints. The attempt at economic reflation and thoroughgoing social reform had illustrated Mitterrand's belief in the ascendancy of the political over the economic, a belief strongly maintained until France was constrained to change course in 1982-83. • But the 2002 elections ,, represented a major setback for the French PS and the left. Is it now a municipal socialist party?

18. What Future for the French Socialists? • Divisions over strategy: centre-PS alliances? No enemies to the left? • Divisions over policy: laid bare during and since the 2007presidential elections. Role of the 35 hour week totemic • Attitude to Sarkozy: confrontation, attraction, ‘responsible’ opposition? • Role of Hollande and control of the organisation. 2008 municipal elections • Lost three presidential elections in a row • Victory in Regional elections – but so what? • 2012: lendemains qui chantent?

19. Labour and New Labour in the UK

20. How does Labour fit with this model? • Strong working class anchoring: yes, party of trade unions • mass parties : yes, via Unions • close relationships with the trade unions: yes… but weaker today • an interclassist electoral profile: under new Labour, yes • dominant force of the left; yes, no competition • accept rules of democratic game: yes • party of government: yes • national, rather than … internationalist parties: yes • corporatism : under old Labour • mixed economy : yes. But NL accepts neo-liberal legacy • northern-southern divide

21. British Labour Party • The British Labour Party was organically linked with the Labour movement in a manner which had no equivalent elsewhere. Labour was ‘labourist’, rather than socialist or social-democratic. • Organically bound to industrial labour and the trade union movement, Labour was originally created as a mechanism for electing trade union sponsored representatives of the working class to parliament, rather than to combat capitalism, such as the French or German parties. • Labour never made Marxism into a creed, unlike many continental European social‑democratic and socialist parties. It first made an explicit commitment to socialism in its constitution of 1918, clause four of which committed the party to public ownership of the means of production and exchange. • The socialism present within the Labour party was of the intellectual (Fabian), Christian socialist, or non-conformist variety: Marxism was a minority pastime. • The 1917 Soviet revolution had a minimal effect; the communist party (CPGB) never established itself as a serious competitor.

22. British Labour • Unlike in France or Germany, there was never any principled opposition to participation in bourgeois governments. Indeed, the two interwar minority Labour governments of 1924 and 1929-31 depended for their survival upon a measure of complicity from other parties. • Of our three countries Britain alone experienced a homogeneous social-democratic government during the formative years of the post-war consensus. • The 1945-51 post-war Labour government established the model of consensual British social democracy that exercised a preponderant ideological and policy influence on all parties until the mid-1970s. • The 1945-51 Labour government carried out an important programme of nationalisations, introduced demand-management policies and - on the back of the Beveridge report - enacted the most imposing series of welfare reforms in British history. • The centrepiece of the reforms - the National Health Service - has survived until the present. • Somewhat less durable was the legacy of a bureaucratic model of public ownership, with the major utilities (water, gas, electricity, railways) directly managed by the state. This aspect of the social-democratic heritage was in the main dismantled by the Thatcher governments (1979-1990).

23. 1964-70; 1974-1979 • Labour’s performance in government from 1964-70, and - especially - 1974-79 has had a less exalted historical reputation. • Both governments were tormented by economic difficulties. The 1964-1970 government was beset by the problem of the currency, and suffered the humiliation of two major devaluations of sterling in short succession. The 1974-79 administration was a minority government that survived after 1976 only thanks to the support of the Liberals. • Economic crisis severely weakened both Labour governments. The Callaghan government was forced to go to the IMF in 1976 for an emergency loan to stablise the economy. • The Labour governmental heritage was also one of failed neo-corporatism. In spite of attempts to build neo-corporatist structures (collective conventions, regulated pay bargaining, industrial tripartism) Labour governments entered into direct conflict with the trades unions over pay policies and industrial relations reform. • In 1969, the Wilson government reluctantly abandoned an attempt to reform industrial relations law - In Place of Strife - after threatened strikes from the unions. In 1978-79, the Callaghan government was paralysed by a wave of public sector strikes during the Winter of Discontent. • Labour government thus became associated with images of economic incompetence, poor industrial relations and inflation.

24. New Labour • New Labour grew from an rejection of social-democracy, as understood in its neo-corporatist, Labourite manifestation. • Hostile to traditional symbols of social-democracy- notably the link with organised labour - the Blair government developed a political discourse based on communautarianism, and individual rights and responsibilities, as demonstrated in its Welfare to Work proposals. • Blair’s communautarianism goes way beyond past Labour revisionist thinking. It stresses duties, rather than rights and emphasises the moral, rather than the socio-economic basis of community. This has had a major impact at the level of problem-definition. Thus the unemployment problem is defined not as one of scarcity of work, but one of the employability of individuals. • New Labour thus appears as an original blend of political radicalism, socio-economic conservatism, and civil rights. • A minimal welfare state and an acceptance that the universalist principle is outmoded are the salient features of new Labour. But this is also a redistributive government-, with the minimum wage, tax credits, Sure start, child benefit…

25. New Labour against social democracy? • While the landmark reforms of the Jospin premiership were implemented in the face of fierce business opposition (35 hour week), Blair appeared more wary of espousing anti-business policies for fear of damaging a sustained effort at repositioning and repackaging an old party. • Acting on the environment, embracing globalisation and increasing labour flexibility and employability were the key cognitive codes of the Blair universe. They break with social-democracy in a more distinctive manner than in France or Germany.

26. New Labour: interpretations • Politicalenterprise Electoral exercise to allow Labour to be re-elected. Reorientate Labour electorate away from the declining groups of the population. Appeal to middle-class voters of Middle England • Ideologicalrestructuring… There is more to this than simple ‘neo-liberalism’. The Welfare to work programme clearly sets out to accompany individuals in their quest for work : to offer social counterparts for individual effort, notably in the form of training. • Thus governments should act – but in terms of improving the overall environment, notably the education and training system. • Thus, the New Labour enterprise is quite a subtle compromise – not one that avoids collective action altogether.. When in power in 1997, it was essential to demonstrate economic credibility and to steer the economy in a manner consistent with globalisation (NB). Since 2001, the labour government was been very heavily investing in public services ; in fact, spending vast sums of money in a manner that it recognisably social-democratic. • By 2008, new Labojur had become… old Labour and had reverted to older forms of Keynesian economic policy

27. New Labour and old Socialists • Attempts to define a new equilibrium for the European centre-left sparked fraternal rivalries between Blair and Jospin in particular. • In response to Blair’s ‘third way’ between the old left and the new right, Jospin has pointedly refused to define a new orientation between social-democracy and liberalism. • While the new Labour enterprise was intended to demarcate the party from ‘the perceived defeats and bankruptcy of traditional social-democracy’ (Randell, 1998), the French Socialist administration rediscovered a familiar social-democratic political style. • While Blair looked to the international centre-left (to Clinton and the new Democrats in particular), Jospin’s activity focussed more firmly on reorientating the European centre-left towards a new equilibrium less favourable to globalised international exchanges and more resolutely favourable to EU-level and state public policy intervention • Schroder somewhere in between

28. Comparing Socialist and Social Democratic Parties today

29. ‘Social democracy is a policy paradigm, rather than an organised political movement’ Peter Hall. • A social-democratic ethos underpinning the postwar consensus? Evidence usually involves the following • a new form of settlement between politics and markets. Acceptance of a higher degree of state interventionism in economic management (especially through the budget) • Public ownership or regulation of certain key industries, especially natural monopolies like gas, electricity and transport. • Governments also invented interventionist industrial policies where the State played an important role: including in countries such as the UK. • The SD model associated with Keynesian demand management in macro-economic policies: the role of governments was to pump prime – to create demand in periods of recession

30. End of the first wave of social-democracy? • The basic assumption of social-democracy had been that an interventionist state could control the economic cycle through the use of Keynesian demand-management techniques. • Damaged by the move to global recession after 1973-4. • Keynesian policies, where applied, increased public expenditure and aggravated inflation. • Inflation, unemployment, balance of trade crises and state debt put paid to Keynesianism. • While certain features of social-democratic management initially appeared strengthened by the 1970s crisis (notably attempts at corporatist-style management), others were irremediably weakened. • Even successful social-democratic governments - such as those in Scandanavia - began to cut back upon the huge bureaucracies they had created, and to adopt anti-inflation programmes. • Revenge of social-democracy?

31. Comparing Socialist and Social Democratic Parties today • Social-democratic parties have always followed the nature of capitalism (Bull, 1998). They have provided responses to the evolution of capitalism at any given point in history. • Comparison provides more precise responses • Adjustment, adaptation, rejection, reframing? Responses reveal clear differences between European social-democratic parties: from the pan-European activism of the French Socialist party - calling for a Keynesian relaunch at the European level and a concerted European effort against unemployment - to the proselytising neo-liberal flexibility of the Blair administration.

32. first narrative: Adaptation • there is an argument that social-democratic parties in the late 2000s can at best adapt to common externally driven convergence pressures. • European integration and globalisation have called into question many features traditionally associated with the politics and policies characteristic of social-democratic governmental experience. • European integration agenda threatens the social-democratic model of public service and of political economy. • how have social-democratic parties coped with common externally driven convergence pressures?

33. Adaptation? • Social-democratic parties are converging towards a common pattern of political management, under the influence of the separate but related exogenous pressures of globalisation and Europeanisation. • The essence of the ‘external convergence’ argument is that economic globalisation and European integration have combined to disempower social-democratic parties in office. • These pressures include the impact of globalisation, the ascendancy of a particular type of European integration project (EMU), the contingent necessity for domestic budget and welfare state retrenchment and changing policy fashions, rendering more difficult traditional interventionist industrial policies. • Social democracy in office has been restricted ; the case of Schroder and Hartz 4 reforms in Germany.

34. Second narrative Internally driven convergence • Parties also respond to pressures for internally driven convergence: EU societies are becoming more and more similar. They have had to affront comparable cultural and political effects of social change. • There has been a lessened significance of cleavages based on social class. • In their internal programmes, parties have abandoned Marxism and responded to the emergence of new political agendas and ideas based on post-materialism and individualism. • Parties have reacted in similar manners to comparable domestic demographic and economic changes.

35. Third narrative: Regulation? • While globalisation introduces a new form of macro-economic regulation, European integration provides a political arena whereby European polities (Social-democratic parties in particular) can combine their governance capacity to create (or strengthen) a European political, social and economic model. • Given the weakness of the nation-state, the European arena is the only arena where politics can reinvent new forms of political regulation faced with economic globalisation. • This underlies mainstream French perceptions of the single currency. It underpinned the efforts of the Jospin government to strengthen social and employment policies at the European level. • The credibility of such a perspective has increased with the dysfunctionning of the global economy and international financial markets in particular. • The revival of Keynesian solutions of demand management since the onset of crisis in 2008: but these measures have not, in the main, been carried out by social-democratic parties

36. fourth narrative Institutional and cultural differentiation. • Institutional and cultural forces differentiate between parties, and are more important than any pressures for convergence. • According to this hypothesis, party behaviour is above all shaped by the very different national cultures and institutional arrangements and incentives. This can include institutions stricto sensu ( the structure of executive leadership; executive-legislative relations; electoral laws, and central-local relations), but also the myths and symbols attached to institutionalist perspective. • It also comprises different discursive traditions and rhetorical devices which are themselves rooted in nationally specific cultural traditions. Compare the French PS and the British Labour party...

37. New Labour and old Socialists • Attempts to define a new equilibrium for the European centre-left sparked fraternal rivalries between Blair and Jospin in particular. • In response to Blair’s ‘third way’ between the old left and the new right, Jospin has pointedly refused to define a new orientation between social-democracy and liberalism. • While the new Labour enterprise was intended to demarcate the party from ‘the perceived defeats and bankruptcy of traditional social-democracy’ (Randell, 1998), the French Socialist administration rediscovered a familiar social-democratic political style. • While Blair looked to the international centre-left (to Clinton and the new Democrats in particular), Jospin’s activity focussed more firmly on reorientating the European centre-left towards a new equilibrium less favourable to globalised international exchanges and more resolutely favourable to EU-level and state public policy intervention • Schroder somewhere in between

38. Finally, National versus partisan responses • the importance of national and partisan contexts as filters of change and tellers of truth. • While all parties in government have had to cope with similar pressures, national responses have varied. • In a narrower time frame, parties have also to react to the institutional and policy legacies of previous governments. Thus, Blair’s new Labour has incorporated a more radical paradigm shift than is the case for the French Socialists • National contexts might matter much more than the partisan ones.