Overview

This open access book carefully explores the relationship between social democracy and its working-class electorate in Western Europe. Relying on different indicators, it demonstrates an important transformation in the class basis of social democracy. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the working-class vote is strongly fragmented and social democratic parties face competition on multiple fronts for their core electorate – and not only from radical right parties. Starting from a reflection on ‘working-class parties’ and using a sophisticated class schema, the book paints a nuanced and diversified picture of the trajectory of social democracy that goes beyond a simple shift from working-class to middle-class parties. Following a detailed description, the book reviews possible explanations of workers' new voting patterns and emphasizes the crucial changes in parties' ideologies. It closes with a discussion on the role of the working class in social democracy's future electoralstrategies.

Full Product Details

Author:   Line Rennwald
Publisher:   Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Imprint:   Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Edition:   1st ed. 2020
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9783030462383

ISBN 10:   3030462382
Pages:   111
Publication Date:   22 July 2020
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: IntroductionSocial democratic parties as children of the industrial revolution Re-examining the class base of the electorate for social democracySocial democracy in crisis: adding a piece to the puzzle of understanding a complex transformationPlan of the book Chapter 2: A reflection on classes; a reflection on partiesTaking sociology seriously: social class to capture important differences in the labour marketTaking politics seriously: The role of political parties in class mobilisationTaking history seriously: Social democracy as a workers' party, but not only as suchA note: A ‘working-class party’ is more than a working-class electorateUsing the Oesch class schema to study the transformation of social democracy Chapter 3: Were social democratic parties really more working-class in the past? Conceptualising the relationship between social democracy and social classesSocial democracy as hybrid working-class parties in the 1970sDominance over the working-class voteSumming up  Chapter 4: The class basis of social democracy at the beginning of the twenty-first centurySmall and large breaks with the working classThe new fragmentation of the working-class voteMobilising the working class and allied classesSumming up  Chapter 5: Parties' changing political projects and workers' political attitudesBringing parties back inBetween pro-redistributive and anti-immigration worker preferences in the 1970sContinuity in class preferences in the 2010sSumming up  Chapter 6: Renewing social democracy by re-mobilising the working class?Fragmentation in the working-class vote and the de-proletarianisation of social democracyContinuity in preferences; changes in parties' political offersShould workers be mobilised at all?How should workers be mobilised?

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Author Information

Line Rennwald currently works on the ERC Advanced Grant “Unequal Democracies” at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. She previously held post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Amsterdam, the University of Lausanne and the European University Institute.

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