West European social democracy as a model for transfer

Abstract

West European social democratic parties (SDPs) have to varying degrees provided a model for programmatic change for the communist successor parties (CSPs) of Eastern and Central Europe (ECE). The examples of the British Labour Party, the French Parti Socialiste and the German Social Democrats demonstrate both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors of policy transfer. ‘Policy transfer’ or ‘policy learning’ has taken place to a limited extent through two main channels. SDP policies, first, provided a model for emulation drawing CSPs to policies on the basis of the perceived success of the individual policy and party. Second, learning occurred through the active engagement of the SDPs with their sister parties to the East (‘transfer networks’). The probability of transfer is determined by the ‘proximity’ (geographical, ideological and cultural) of the ‘exporter’ party to the ‘importer’ party. In practice, the German Social Democratic Party has been the most influential of the three SDPs, as a consequence of its greater proximity to the successor parties of Eastern and Central Europe.

Notes

This study is based on research carried out for a Leverhulme-funded project (F/00094/O) on ‘Policy Transfer and Programmatic Change in the Communist Successor Parties of East–Central Europe’.

The present study explores policy transfer from the perspective of the exporter party, complementing the analyses of CSPs elsewhere in this collection, which analyse transfer from the point of view of the importer party.

M. Evans and J. Davies, ‘Understanding Policy Transfer: A Multi-Level, Multi-Disciplinary Perspective’, Public Administration, Vol.77, No.2 (1999), pp.361–85; H. Wolman and E. Page, ‘Policy Diffusion among Local Governments: An Information-Theory Approach’, Governance, Vol.15, No.4 (2002), pp.477–501. A number of studies have looked at why policies are adopted by importer parties – see, for example, R. Rose, Lesson-Drawing in Public Policy: A Guide to Learning across Times and Space (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1993) – and other works focus on the intentional aspects of policy transfer for exporter parties – see, for example, W. Jacoby, ‘Tutors and Pupils: International Organizations, Central European Elites, and Western Models’, Governance, Vol.14, No.2 (2001), pp.169–200. This essay focuses on the exporter side of the transfer process.

D. Dolowitz, ‘Introduction’, Governance, Vol.13, No.1 (2000), pp.1–4, at p.2.

See the article by William E. Paterson and James Sloam, ‘Learning from the West: Policy Transfer and Political Parties’, in this collection, pp.37–51.

Rose, Lesson-Drawing; Evans and Davies, ‘Understanding Policy Transfer’.

See Paterson and Sloam, ‘Learning from the West’.

President Mitterrand was considered to be ‘above politics’ and not really representative of the PS during the cohabitation of 1993–95, and his ill health also forced him to remain something of a peripheral figure; in terms of electoral success, the PS was unable to hold the government and the presidency simultaneously after 1993.

In 2001 one former member of the Polish Politburo revealed in conversation that ‘Giddens is the only author who is translated into Polish and whom the SLD leaders such as Miller read’.

Furthermore, in the late 1990s several of the successor parties were in government, and therefore had greater knowledge resources of their own. They also had to pay more attention to the implementation of policy in their very different socio-economic circumstances (national contexts).

A. Giddens, The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1998); A. Gamble and T. Wright (eds.), The New Social Democracy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1999); F. Walter, Die SPD: Vom Proletariat zum Neue Mitte (Berlin: Alexander Fest Verlag, 2002); J. Sloam, The European Policy of the German Social Democrats: Interpreting a Changing World (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005); W.E. Paterson and J. Sloam, ‘Gerhard Schröder and the Unlikely Victory of the German Social Democrats’, in D. Conradt, Gerald R. Kleinfeld and Christian Søe (eds.), A Precarious Victory: Schröder and the German Election of 2002 (Oxford: Berghahn, 2005); B. Clift, ‘The Jospin Way’, Political Quarterly, Vol.72, No.2 (2001), pp.170–79.

T. Meyer, ‘Soziale Demokratie statt demokratischer Sozialismus: Alte SPD und neue Realität: Ketzereien eines bekennenden Sozialdemokraten’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 18 Sept. 2003.

Giddens, The Third Way.

Labour Party, Ambitions for Britain (London: Labour Party, 2001); see also <http://www.labour.org.uk/manifesto>, accessed 18 Nov. 2004.

T. Blair, The Third Way: New Politics for the New Century, Fabian Society Pamphlet 588 (London: Fabian Society, 1998).

L. Jospin, Modern Socialism, Fabian Society Pamphlet 592 (London: Fabian Society, 1999).

The Neue Mitte economic liberal wing of the SPD came into the ascendancy after the resignation of Oskar Lafontaine as finance minister and party chairman in March 1999: see B. Hombach, The Politics of the New Centre (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2000).

Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was a strong proponent of this reform agenda, arguing that Germany must ‘modernize or die’: see ‘Modernise or Die’, Guardian, 8 July 2003, available at <http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalization/story/0,7369,993469,00.html>, accessed 18 Nov. 2004.

OECD, Economic Outlook No.75, Annexes, 2004, available at <http://www.oecd.org/document/61/0,2340,en_2649_33733_2483901_1_1_1_1,00.html>, accessed 1 July 2004.

R. Keohane and J. Nye, Power and Interdependence, 2nd edn. (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1989), p.8.

€40,000 million. See Sloam, The European Policy of the German Social Democrats.

Interview in 2003 with an official in the secretariat of the Party of European Socialists.

One SPD politician, strongly identified with the German reunification process, emphasized in 2003 the point that ‘people from Eastern Germany have felt the need to engage with these parties and countries much more keenly’.

These continuing tensions, furthermore, have made CSP politicians reluctant to admit to any German influence on their policy programmes.

SPD, Der Neue Weg: ökologisch, sozial, wirtschaftlich stark (Bonn: SPD-Vorstand, 1990), p.23.

Parti Socialiste, Changeons d'avenir (Paris: Parti Socialiste, 1997), available at <http://www.psinfo.net/elections/legislatives/1997/changeons0.html>, accessed 18 Nov. 2004; Parti Socialiste, Un Vote Clair Pour Une France Plus Juste (1995), available at <www.psinfo.net/elections/president/1995/programme/html>.

Labour Party, It's Time to Get Britain Working Again (London: Labour Party, 1992).

Labour Party, Britain in the World (London: Labour Party, 2001), p.10. Labour, like the SPD, also began to attach conditions to eastern enlargement when in government, although only last-minute measures when accession became imminent. An example of this was the attempt to place restrictions, in spring 2004, on the entitlement of citizens from the accession states to receive welfare benefits in the UK.

See the article by V. Handl and V. Leška, ‘Between Emulation and Adjustment: External Influences on Programmatic Change in the Slovak SDL’, in this collection, pp.109–126.

The subordination of the Labour Party's international section to government activities was further illustrated by the fact that the person responsible for international contacts in the Number 10 Policy Unit subsequently became international secretary of the party. The foreign policy section of the Labour Party website in 2004, in addition, had links to the relevant government department, but none to the international section of the party itself.

Interview in 2003 with Labour Party politician who is heavily involved in European politics.

Labour Party, Labour Party International, Vol.1 (London: Labour Party, 2003).

W. Jacoby, ‘Priest and Penitent: The EU as a Force in the Domestic Politics of Eastern Europe’, East European Constitutional Review, Vol.8, Nos.1–2 (1999), pp.62–7.

Interview in 2003 with a Labour MEP.

Interview in 2003 with a representative of the SPD's international section.

Interview in 2003 with an official from the SPD's foreign policy establishment.

Interview in 2003 with a Labour MEP.

Interview in 2003 with a senior figure in the EU enlargement directorate.

Interview in 2003 with a Labour MEP.

Evans and Davies, ‘Understanding Policy Transfer’; D. Marsh and M. Smith, ‘Understanding Policy Networks: Towards a Dialectical Approach’, Political Studies, Vol.48, No.1 (2000), pp.4–21.

With an annual budget of over €110 million and a long tradition of international activity (over 50 per cent of the budget is devoted to international co-operation), the FES had established offices in all the countries of Eastern and Central Europe by the mid-1990s.

The Westminster Foundation was nevertheless central to Labour Party work on Eastern and Central Europe outside government, as it funded two of the three permanent staff working in the international office. All of its €3 million funding, furthermore, went towards international activities. While international co-operation is a ‘central goal’ of the Fondation Jean Jaurès (attached to the Parti Socialiste), its €2.3 million budget is only partly devoted to external operations. The one advantage that these two foundations had in terms of the diffusion of ideas and policies over the FES is their ability to co-operate directly with their sister parties (they are allowed to offer assistance and support for political activities).

Transfer networks do not, however, represent a one-way flow of information. The engagement of importer parties is also a key to their successful operation. The willingness of the Polish SLD to interact with its sister parties on both a bilateral and a multilateral basis, for example, led to the instances of co-operation with the SPD and Labour mentioned above, as well as to the party hosting important Socialist International and PES meetings in 1999 and 2002.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James Sloam

honorary Research Fellow in the Institute of German Studies, University of Birmingham.