The Old World’s Old and New Parties
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Doctor of History, Chief Researcher of the RAS Institute for European Studies
The fast-changing world not only affects the role played by political parties, but also makes it necessary to adjust our assessment of current political party culture in Western Europe. Complicated and highly controversial issues arise, among them the fact that the traditional system, in which parties are classified into the left, right and center, has become outdated.
Historically, European political parties are divided into the right wing, i.e. those that want to preserve the capitalist social system (conservatives, democratic Christians and liberals) and the left wing, that either want to convert capitalism into democratic socialism (social democrats, socialists) or remove it by revolutionary action (communists). The self-destruction of the "socialist community" in East Europe and the collapse of major communist parties in West Europe (Italy, France, Spain), in addition to the establishment of the EU’s supranational structures are the factors that generate new parameters for the European political party space, with the values of globalization and European integration coming to the forefront. The financial and economic crisis in the early 21st century has only shifted the vector of concurrence-difference in political party activities. In fact, the similarity of the anti-crisis measures implemented by governing parties is obliterating the previous distinction between the left and the right. At the same time, there seems to be growing harmony in the positions adopted by the newer, more radical parties.
The fast-changing world not only affects the role played by political parties, but also makes it necessary to adjust our assessment of current political party culture in Western Europe. Complicated and highly controversial issues arise, among them the fact that the traditional system, in which parties are classified into the left, right and center, has become outdated.
Parties under Old and New Capitalism
of the United Kingdom (1979–1990).
Leader of the Conservative Party)
While the capitalist system was just forming and developing, this traditional division was unchallenged. The right-wingers were represented by conservative liberal and political clericalist forces that defended the interests of the wealthy, and worked solely to strengthen traditions or cautiously reform existing structures while adhering unconditionally to the preservation of the old values. In the second half of the 20th century, the most vivid examples of this approach were seen in the West German Christian Democrats and the neoconservative policy of Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain. The left were viewed as defenders of the socially and politically marginalized sectors of society, and strived either to the evolution, or a radical dismantling, of the capitalist system. Moderate transformation was implemented by Swedish, Norwegian and Danish social democrats who created the social state model. Both camps possessed radical wings: fascist and left-wing ultras.
By the late 20th century, Europe had settled on a social system that could be provisionally called socialized capitalism, with its distinctive triad of economy, social state and social-political partnership. The right concentrated on economic development, whereas the left initiated social change, the two sides closing ranks to build a rule-of-law state and keep away extremists of all stripes. They also entered into partnerships aiming to settle class differences through negotiation, Austria being an example of this socio-political partnership.
As a product of combined efforts from the left and right, socialized capitalism indicates the limitations of the single-path approach to social development. The conservatives and liberals have failed to create a society guided exclusively by tradition and based on the unrestricted right to private property. In their turn, the social democrats achieved only a partial realization of their democratic socialism model, planting its postulates into the superstructures of capitalist social relations. The defeat of the social order that claimed to be real socialism has only exposed the utopia of the communist approach to societal change.
21st Century Realities
Pier Luigi Bersani is an Italian politician and
the current Secretary of the Democratic Party,
the main center-left political party in Italy
As a result of these processes, at the turn of the millennium the traditional political groups lost many of their long-standing features. The left-right pattern, primarily the self-identification of key political actors, still exists as ideological differences and political competition remain. However, in practice, axial parties of the left and the right tend to win electoral support by addressing a particular range of social strata and social groups. Coming to power independently or in coalitions, both implement policies that contain a variety of elements, which in the context of our current reality seems quite logical, especially as the legal base would not allow the ruling forces to move beyond the boundaries set by law.
Over the past 20 years, the European Union has managed to modernize the European legal space, which used to resemble a patchwork of different approaches, and establish a relatively orderly system of legal norms obligatory for member countries.
As it gains momentum, European integration both deepens and widens, creating a new form of political division, i.e. conditional or unconditional supporters for the EU’s economic and political systems vs. its opponents; proponents of further integration of Western and Central European countries vs. those who tend to view integration and globalization negatively.
Pro-System and Anti-System Parties
Convergence and Union wins elections
in Catalonia, November 2012
Pro-system parties are thought to include liberals and conservatives (plus political clericals – although these are on the wane), as well as social democrats, with sometime adjoining parties previously regarded as communist. The latter are most active in Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. The camp is divided into those who insist on globalization-adjusted market values (liberals, conservatives and democratic Christians) and those who emphasize socio-economic and ecological issues (Social Democrats and adjacent reformed Communists and the Green).
The anti-system realm is very diverse, primarily combining anti- or rather non-globalist movements striving to change the key vectors of globalization and integration-orientated development. To a certain extent, these basically internationalist movements, which may be seen as successors of the old left, also contain left-wing radicals, i.e. the remaining communist parties, radical socialists and some environmentalists. They operate in Greece, France, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. The opposite flank is made of staunch radical nationalists who profess nationalism, xenophobia and a pathological rejection of everything they see as unacceptable changes that amount to a betrayal of tradition. Radical nationalists are most active in France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Greece, and some countries of Eastern Europe. Regional separatists whose extremes go as far as seeking the destruction of particular states and offer retrograde approaches to most issues of modern development, among them national separatists in Scotland, Flanders, North Italy, and two Spanish provinces, i.e. the Basque Country and Catalonia are also counted as being anti-system.
Evolution or Degradation?
On 17 February 2012, Christian Wulff (member
of the Christian Democratic Union) resigned as
President of Germany, facing the prospect
of prosecution for allegations of corruption
In these circumstances, centrism is losing its political significance as a term expressing the intermediate essence of the existing parties. The addition of the words right and left may just indicate weakly expressed compromise political solutions. Permanently staying within the framework seems to be impossible, due to the swiftly changing socio-economic and foreign policy situation. In political terms, centrism tends to involve the dissociation of parties from management in dire straits, the engagement of non-party managers (Mario Ponti's government in Italy), and the establishment of temporary coalitions on a shaky compromise basis (Greece). In some cases, these governments include not only pro-system parties but also their antagonists: anti-system figures.
However, this pattern of government only seems possible as a palliative for a shaky parliamentary majority of pro-system parties. To this end, such cases as the breakup of a coalition with support of the ultra-rightists in Holland and the acute crisis of the coalition that included radical leftists in Denmark seem typical. Quickened by the current economic crisis, the degradation of the European party structure is also facilitated by trends that emerged at the turn of the 21st century. These include a drop in the number of parties and their declining influence among professional, age- and gender-based organizations. The party press is almost dead. Party-specific sources of funding are vanishing. Corruption scandals (for example in Germany and the UK) undermine the parties’ prestige as those involved often hail from the party elite or even governing bodies. Sometime mighty inter-party global associations like the Socialist International are sinking into oblivion, while pan-European inter-party cooperation structures have not yet replaced the obsolete connections. The experience of the European Parliament indicates that most decisions are taken on a country-by-country basis rather than along party lines.
A Forecast for the Future
Since there seem to be no concerted moves underway to counteract the crisis phenomena inherent in globalization and European integration, the European party-based discourse does not seem to have any palpable prospects for recovery. In the near future, the parties will exist trapped in a vice between two forces. The first being the authoritarian globalized neo-corporatism that is increasingly becoming the worldwide regulator of financial, economic and social processes. The second involves the mass non-party movements that are unseating the political parties and that seek to oppose neo-corporatism beyond the realm of purely party-based decisions. The personification of the political space is also a current trend, since the government leader de facto replaces the democratic decision-making process via party-wide discussion. In these conditions, the pro-system parties, despite their penchant for political maneuvering, will act as purely advisory bodies or, at best, as intermediaries within the unpredictable process of repeated, acute social domestic clashes and international conflicts.
In these circumstances, we might expect stronger centripetal tendencies in the pro-system party field. Though fond of declare isolation from each other, they will have to find points of contact as they search for the way out of the current financial and economic crisis, and also as they look for improved development strategies regarding globalization and the EU integration processes. Coalitions will be always preferable to the concentration of responsibility in one actor’s hands. As far as anti-system parties are concerned, these largely abstain from purely parliamentary methods of struggle or pressurizing majorities in coalition governments in favor of participation in extraparliamentary protest actions to gain points in these domestic-policy battles. So far, dialogue involving different groups of anti-system parties has not even been hinted at.
There is no reason to expect any major changes in the electoral moods of politically active Europeans, making any transfer of power from pro-system to anti-system parties unlikely. Although critical of the authorities, voters are still unprepared to hand over control to politically unpredictable leaders lacking a positive view of the European horizons.
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