What is left for the radical left? A comparative examination of the policies of radical left parties in western Europe before and after 1989

Abstract

The fall of the communist regimes in central and eastern Europe was a shattering event for the western European radical left, causing many parties to change their names and strategies. Despite prophesies pointing to the death of radical anti-capitalist politics, radical left parties (RLPs) still exist in all parts of Europe, and in many countries they have even been able to increase their influence. This paper seeks to provide a comparative mapping of the policies and policy positions of western European RLPs before and after the fall of communism. The results of the examination indicate that although leftward trends can be observed in many RLPs in the early 2010s, the general, long-time, trend shows that the radical left family – and especially democratic socialist parties – has become less radical with regards to the core left–right dimension. Moreover, the study also shows that many RLPs – and, again, especially democratic socialist parties – have become more interested in other, non-socioeconomic, issues. Despite the rise of new left issues, the radical left is, however, still distinguishable from other parties mainly through their comparatively strong emphasis on old, traditional, left issues.

Keywords:

• Issues
• policy positions
• political parties
• radical left
• socialism

Acknowledgements

An earlier draft of this article was presented at the conference ‘Democracy: A Citizen Perspective’, held in Turku (Finland), 27–28 May 2015. I thank Detlef Jahn for his comments. I am also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers of this journal for their useful comments.

Notes

1. A recent (but admittedly somewhat extreme) example of an influential RLP is Syriza, who won the plurality of the vote (36.3 and 35.5%, respectively) in the Greek legislative elections held in January and September 2015. Syriza is currently (in October 2015) the major actor in the Greek coalition government.

2. Another, less comprehensive and less informative, categorization of RLPs is provided by Backes and Moreau (2008b), who divide the family into ‘traditionalist’, ‘reform communist’, and ‘red- green’ parties.

3. In this paper, I distinguish between ‘old’ democratic socialist parties (i.e. parties with a democratic socialist profile ranging beyond 1989 and with only loose connections to the communist heritage) and ‘new’, formerly (euro)communist, democratic socialist parties.

4. Following March (2012, 18), some of the parties within the broad radical left family are better characterized as extreme. In addition to the definitions in (i) and (ii) above, extreme left parties also (iii) ‘have a [clear] “revolutionary” self-ascription, espouse [great] hostility to liberal democracy, usually denounce all compromise with “bourgeois” political forces including social democracy, emphasize extra-parliamentary struggle and define “anti-capitalism” […] strictly’. This study includes proper RLPs as well as parties of a more extreme nature.

5. As a rule, transnational overviews of western European RLPs consider the fall of communism as a ‘shattering’ (Bell 1993, 1), ‘epoch-making’ (Backes and Moreau 2008c, 9), event that threw the western European RLPs ‘into turmoil’ (Bull 1994, 210), made the already ongoing crisis of the radical left ‘even more profound’ (Botella and Ramiro 2003b, 11), and forced RLPs to ‘search for a new identity’ (Simon-Ekovich 1998, 600).

6. This distinction between the old and the new left relies heavily on an early definition of old and new politics by Hildebrandt and Dalton (1977). Here, old politics is defined as ‘den Konflikt zwischen Habenden und Nicht-Habenden, und allgemeiner das Problem der Versorgung der Gesellschaft mit ökonomischen Gütern und mit sozialer Sicherheit’. New politics, conversely, focus on ‘Umweltschutz, Gleichberechtigung der Frau, Problemen der Atomenergie oder Schwangerschaftsunterbrechungen und Scheidungsreform’ (Hildebrandt and Dalton 1977, 232, 237). Other authoritative definitions of new politics have been presented by, above all, Poguntke (1987) and Kitschelt (1988). For historical overviews of the rise of the new left, see also Eley (2002, part IV) and Sassoon (1996, chaps. 14–15, 22).

7. A response to these critiques has been delivered by Budge and Meyer (2013, cf. also Meyer 2013; chap. 3). They note that the estimates produced by most of the corrections (e.g. the ones proposed by Kim and Fording and Lowe et al., respectively) correlate highly with the original RILE scores and, consequently, that ‘there is little marginal gain from substituting or altering the […] measure already in existence, except for specialized and […] limited research purposes’ (Budge and Meyer 2013, 101, own italics).

8. A total of 172 manifestos are included in the study. Of these, 167 (97.1%) are either regular, joint, or party bloc programmes. The values for the Icelandic A in 1974 and 1979, the Dutch SP in 1994 and 1998, and the Irish Sinn Féin in 1997 are estimates based on available programmes.