Liberal Parties Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The term liberal is often ambiguous. In the United States, the expression liberal parties refers to left-wing social democrats or socialists, whereas in Europe, the term applies to the centrist parties grouped in the European Parliament and the Liberal International. In the latter usage, the parties include the German Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP), the UK Liberal Democrats, and the French Radicals, among others. These parties are more like the U.S. Democratic Party than socialists, and they support a free market and European integration. However, there is a division between those with an interventionist and welfare agenda, such as the Liberal Democrats, and those that are more aggressively free market, such as the FDP. In the nineteenth century, liberals were the parliamentary parties pioneering representative institutions and developing constitutional human rights, but those positions are now common to all mainstream European parties. However, they remain important parties and potential components of government coalitions in most of the European Union states.

Second International And Socialist Parties

Second International social democratic “liberal” par ties developed with industrialism in the nineteenth century and evolved as emanations of the working class, although expressing a socialist creed that was disseminated by evangelists across the continent. The socialist parties, which are now present on all continents and in most open systems, do not take orders from the Second International, which is more of a forum than a political institution. Socialist parties had emerged having strong links with the working class through institutions such as trade unions and working people’s associations, as well as through newspapers and books that disseminated the socialist message. Most socialist parties—apart from those in the former British Empire and Israel—initially adopted Marxism as their ideology, defining themselves as revolutionary working-class parties. Electoral success and the deficiencies of Marxism meant that in the early twentieth century, most had muted—or dropped—the revolutionary aspect and sought electoral alliances as a way into parliament and eventually government with the intention of influencing policy.

Social Democrats

At the time of the Russian Revolution (1917), the split between the revolutionary communists and the reformist social democrats was consummated with Bolshevik parties taking their orders from Moscow Communists. Social democrats took up the original socialist issues of employment conditions, social insurance, and discontent with the cycles of boom and recession that characterized the market economies, but they had no blueprint for how their aims could be achieved. By the 1920s, most were established parties and the major ones, including France, Germany, and the UK, had been in government or offered positions in government, but their lack of concrete policy found them struggling to respond to the Great Depression. By the 1940s, the social democratic parties had adopted Keynesian ideas about economic management and welfare state systems, although these should not be seen as exclusively socialist. The main difference between the social democrats and the other parties was the emphasis on equality, not the “equality of opportunity” that characterized the centrist liberal parties. By the middle of the past century they were the dominant parties or the main opposition in most western European states. In Greece, Portugal, and Spain they were in government shortly after the fall of the dictatorships in the 1970s. They were vote seeking parties but also the principal parties of the working classes and the poorer sections of society, although large sections of the working class in Europe voted for conservatives and middle class support was always sought by socialists and usually found.

In postwar Europe, the left-right competition led to the description of these parties as “catch-all” parties, eclectically sweeping up votes from various sectors of society and not just from the working class. They were proponents of the postindustrial lifestyle issues of the late century, such as environment and women’s rights, although these were not always welcomed by their core supporters. However, the parties needed to have a wide appeal if they were to enter government, and that necessitated some extensive ideological adjustments. Then with the inflation of the 1970s and the problems of unemployment and industrial restructuring in Europe, the parties were forced onto the defensive in economic management and many espoused free market ideas. New Labour is the most well-known of these parties, but they had muted their antibusiness rhetoric by that time and had embraced privatization.

Analysis

The swing toward free market ideas is in keeping with the idea that the parties would be unable to retain their position as working-class parties and attain electoral success. To have wide appeal, they had to drop their class aspects, which would alienate their core support. The change in the social makeup of Western society in which the manual and skilled working class was a diminishing force and the middle class was rising meant the social democratic parties were in terminal decline. In Europe, the idea of “dealignment” of the working class and the socialists has gained some support; however, they remain major forces in all European countries.

These parties have lost some of their connection with the working class. While the union link remains in most societies, it is weakened, and the institutions that bound the workers to the socialists have lost their force in the new consumer and mass societies of western Europe. In Europe, their vote has diversified and they have captured the new middle class vote that has, to an extent, compensated for the loss of the working class vote. In many European countries, the rise of the extreme right has made inroads into the traditional voting patterns. However, they remain the main working-class parties, and within that, the parties of the public service workers. This is a generalization across the continent and some exceptions stand out, such as the southern states of Spain, Portugal and Greece. European liberal parties are still well placed to become governing parties, so their capacity for making governing alliances remains undiminished.

Bibliography:

Clark,Terry Nichols, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Michael Rempel. “The Declining Significance of Social Class.” International Sociology 8, no. 3 (1993): 293–316.
Crosland, C. A. R. The Future of Socialism. London: Cape, 1956.
De Ruggiero, Guido. The History of European Liberalism. Boston: Beacon, 1959.
Larech, Robert E., and Philippe Marlière. Social Democratic Parties in the European Union. London: Macmillan, 1999.
Maravall, José M. ed. Socialist Parties in Europe. Barcelona: Institut de ciècias politiquesi socials, 1991.
Moschonas, Gerassimos. In the Name of Social Democracy. London Verso, 2001.
Przeworski, Adam. ed. Paper Stones. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1986.
Sassoon, Donald. One Hundred Years of Socialism. London: Fontana, 1997.

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