Vol. 49 No. 196 (2019): Crisis of (European) Social Democracy

In May 2019, European social democracy suffered a fiasco in the European elections. It got one of the worst results in its history. The election result is an expression of a deep crisis of the social democratic project and the result of its long decline. In the meantime, the golden years of Social Democratic electoral success are some 20 years ago. Since the 1990s, social democracy has been subject to a process of transformation, both in terms of content and strategy, known as "market social democracy" (Oliver Nachtwey). The resulting lack of legitimacy removed the European social democratic parties from their ancestral clientele. From then on they wanted to be parties of the "middle". The crisis since 2008 accelerated the decline, which is accompanied by a tectonic shift within the party system. The new PROKLA 196 analyses the "crisis of (European) social democracy" and elaborates its social, political and economic reasons in various articles.