Divided They Fell

Sean McDaniel

Description

Why has Europe’s centre-left failed to respond to the crisis of neoliberalism in Europe? Rather than opening up a moment in political time for the centre-left to puncture the dominance of neoliberalism, the multitude of crises in Europe since 2008 have consolidated its difficulties and contributed to the rise of radical and populist alternatives.

Divided They Fell examines the failures of mainstream politics, and in particular the inability of the centre-left to respond to the global financial crisis more effectively. By exploring the cases of the UK Labour Party and France’s Parti Socialiste, the book investigates the role of, and interplay between, institutional intra-party dynamics, the parties’ ideational landscapes and the wider political economy in shaping their responses to the crisis.

Important reputational, ideational and strategic path dependencies in both parties, it is shown, constrained the flow of fresh ideas and entrenched their internal organizational divisions, leaving them unable to offer an effective post-neoliberal economic alternative. Ultimately, this fractured the parties and sparked a crisis of centre-left identity that opened the door to emergent alternative parties and movements in both cases.

Divided They Fell helps to diagnose what has gone wrong for the centre-left in Europe and forces us to consider whether such parties are, in the context of new and emerging crises, still fit for purpose.

Introduction

1. Neoliberal convergence and the politics of austerity: is there still space for the centre-left?

2. Struggling to win: centre-left electoral decline and the strategic dilemma of the Third Way

3. Developing a strategy: the internal dynamics of the centre-left’s response to the crisis of neoliberalism

4. Delivering the strategy: how the centre-left sought to communicate a response to the crisis of neoliberalism

5. Stagnation, failure and fragmentation: the rise of the radical left

6. Post-pandemic politics: how are the centre-left rebuilding?

Conclusion

Appendix: list of interviewees and interview location

Sujets

• Political Parties
• Political Advocacy
• Political Process
• Political Ideologies
• Political Economy
• Political Science
• Great Recession
• Communism
• Third Way
• Parti Socialiste
• General officer
• Ideology
• Political party
• Politics
• Activism
• General
• Communisme

Informations

• Publié par: Agenda Publishing
• Date de parution: 23 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781788216074
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Building Progressive Alternatives
Series Editors: David Coates†, Ben Rosamond and Matthew Watson
Bringing together economists, political economists and other social scientists, this series offers pathways to a coherent, credible and progressive economic growth strategy which, when accompanied by an associated set of wider public policies, can inspire and underpin the revival of a successful centre-left politics in advanced capitalist societies.
Published
Corbynism in Perspective: The Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn
Edited by Andrew S. Roe-Crines
Divided They Fell: Crisis and the Collapse of Europe’s Centre-Left
Sean McDaniel
The European Social Question: Tackling Key Controversies
Amandine Crespy
Flawed Capitalism: The Anglo-American Condition and its Resolution
David Coates
The Political Economy of Industrial Strategy in the UK: From Productivity
Problems to Development Dilemmas
Edited by Craig Berry, Julie Froud and Tom Barker
Race and the Undeserving Poor: From Abolition to Brexit
Robbie Shilliam
Reflections on the Future of the Left
Edited by David Coates

For Charlotte and baby Albert
© Sean McDaniel 2023
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2023 by Agenda Publishing
Agenda Publishing Limited
The Core
Bath Lane
Newcastle Helix
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE4 5TF
www.agendapub.com
ISBN 978-1-78821-605-0
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Typeset by JS Typesetting Ltd, Porthcawl, Mid Glamorgan
Printed and bound in the UK by TJ Books
CONTENTS
List of abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Neoliberal convergence and the politics of austerity: is there still space for the centre-left?
2. Struggling to win: centre-left electoral decline and the strategic dilemma of the Third Way
3. Developing a strategy: the internal dynamics of the centre-left’s response to the crisis of neoliberalism
4. Delivering the strategy: how the centre-left sought to communicate a response to the crisis of neoliberalism
5. Stagnation, failure and fragmentation: the rise of the radical left
6. Post-pandemic politics: how are the centre-left rebuilding?
Conclusion
Appendix: interviewees and interview locations
Notes
References
Index
ABBREVIATIONS BoE Bank of England CERES Centre d’ études , de recherches et d’ éducation socialiste CICE crédit d’impôt pour la compétitivité et l’emploi CLC cost of living crisis CLP Constituency Labour Party EC European Commission ECB European Central Bank ECT European Constitution Treaty EDP Excessive Deficit Procedure EFC expansionary fiscal consolidation EMU Economic and Monetary Union ENA École nationale d’administration FJJ Fondation Jean-Jaurès FPTP first past the post FS first secretary GDP gross domestic product GFC Global Financial Crisis GND Green New Deal GQRR Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research HCFP Haut Conseil des finances publiques IFOP Institut français d’opinion publique IFS Institute for Fiscal Studies IMF International Monetary Fund IPPR Institute for Public Policy Research ISF impôt de solidarité sur la fortune LAEC L’Avenir en commun LFI La France Insoumise NEC National Executive Committee NPF National Policy Forum NUPES La Nouvelle Union Populaire Écologique et Sociale OBR Office for Budget Responsibility OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development PCF French Communist Party PLP Parliamentary Labour Party PS Parti Socialiste SEA Single European Act SGP Stability and Growth Pact SNP Scottish National Party SPD German Social Democratic Party TINA there is no alternative VAT value-added tax
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My interest in the political economy of the centre-left began while I was a student at the University of Sheffield, writing my MA dissertation under the guidance of Colin Hay. That dissertation formed the basis of my doctorate and, in many ways, has led me directly to where I am now. I was fortunate enough to spend a few months working under Colin again at Sciences Po, while I conducted interviews in Paris for this book and am indebted to his help along the way. I completed my PhD at the University of Warwick, where I was extremely fortunate to have two such engaged and conscientious supervisors in Ben Clift and Chris Rogers, whose guidance helped me enormously then and has continued to do so ever since. I am grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council and Warwick for the Chancellor’s Scholarship that allowed me to complete my doctoral studies.
My thanks go to all the participants in my research over the past few years (listed in the Appendix); meeting and talking with different figures from the two parties was (almost) always a pleasure and I am particularly grateful to those who went out of their way to help put me in touch with others and enabled my research to take flight.
I have been fortunate to be surrounded by great colleagues in the Future Economies Research Centre at Manchester Metropolitan University. Particular mention must be given to Craig Berry, who has always been so supportive of my work, as well as David Beel, Nick O’Donovan and Dan Bailey. Not only have they been good friends and colleagues, but they have helped read through drafts and provided valuable comments on earlier versions of chapters. There are too many others to mention, but friends and colleagues such as Scott Lavery and Jeremy Green have been incredibly helpful, and so my thanks go to all of them also.
When the time came to think about writing a book, several colleagues suggested that Agenda Publishing would be a good fit for my work and I am delighted to say they were right. Matthew Watson was, as ever, incredibly generous with his time in helping me to think through how the book might work and put me in touch with Alison Howson. It has been a pleasure working with Alison at Agenda, who has made the whole process a smooth and enjoyable one.
Writing a book is never an easy task, and there will inevitably be frustrations along the way. But publishing a book is a privilege, and not something I would have always believed was possible. I owe a lifetime of gratitude to a history teacher who, on my last day at high school, told me that he was convinced I would one day write a book. For him, it may have been little more than a supportive comment to a student. To me, however, that one remark planted a seed in my mind that has shaped my adult life. Publishing this book is a testament to the work that teachers everywhere do every day.
I am lucky to have a such a caring and generous family – Mum, Dad, Paul, Laura and Aimie – to support me. I reserve special mention however for Charlotte, without whom this book would not have been possible. Ever since our undergraduate days at Sheffield, Charlotte has been an ever present source of encouragement and guidance. Through the long, lean years of the PhD to moving to the other side of the country for my work, she has helped me navigate through life and pushed me to fulfil my ambitions. This book is for her and Albert.
Sean McDaniel
INTRODUCTION
The crisis of neoliberalism
This book is concerned with the fortunes of two of Europe’s centre-left parties in the context of “the crisis of neoliberalism”, beginning with the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008; to better understand why this crisis of neoliberalism is significant for the centre-left, we need first to go back several decades. The beginning of the neoliberal period in the late 1970s spelled trouble for Europe’s centre-left parties. With the economic crises of the mid-1970s, including the 1973 oil shock and growing stagflation, the postwar Keynesian settlement that had characterized much of the 30-year period from 1945 was put under threat and was eventually displaced by neoliberalism. Neoliberal ideas began to strongly influence governments and policy-makers across the globe in the late 1970s, and particularly in the UK and USA, which oversaw the dismantling of postwar capital controls and permitted a growing role for global financial capital, as well as a focus on price stability and sound money over full employment and redistributive welfare.
For many commentators, the new stage of liberalized global capitalism it ushered in rendered traditional centre-left social democratic politics impossible. Widespread financial deregulation following the collapse of the Bretton Woods international monetary system had, it was argued, engendered a new age of highly mobile global capital which disempowered domestic policy-makers. Deindustrialization, exacerbated by economic globalization, further fragmented the traditional working-class electoral core of centre-left parties, while there was a growing feeling that a new age of “popular capitalism” – underpinned by widening access to, for example, housing assets – spelled trouble for progressive political actors.
The 1990s, nonetheless, ushered in a new age of the European “Third Way” centre-left (see Giddens 1998). The Third Way was an ideological approach and political strategy that saw the centre-left redefine its relationship with capitalism as an economic system and recast its ambitions for what modern “progressive” governments can and should do in power. For some, such as the UK Labour Party under Tony Blair and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) under Gerhard Schröder, this was simply about accepting the “realities” of modern capitalism, albeit while attempting to ensure sufficient protection from market forces for the population at large. For its critics, the Third Way centre-left simply co-opted the neoliberal ideology (see Hay 1999a). Whichever perspective is taken, it is clear that Margaret Thatcher’s famous quip that “there is no alternative” (TINA) was – to a greater or lesser extent – accepted by the European centre-left at this point. That was all, however, put into question in