Globalisation, the "Third Way" and European Social Democracy: Economic Discourses and Electoral Strategies of the European Center-Left.

It is now widely held that left governments in Europe have abandoned traditional Social Democratic policies in favour of a ‘third way’ of adulterated neo-liberalism. This paper assesses the extent to which this interpretation holds across the five largest West European states, and examines possible explanations for this putative rightwards drift, and the varying extent to which different parties have adopted a ‘third way’ discourse. Three types of explanations are considered: those that stress the role of international economic constraints, those that emphasise the changing electoral opportunity structures resulting from socio-economic change, and those that emphasise the changing organisational features of contemporary political parties. It is concluded that ideological change in Social Democratic parties can be usefully interpreted in terms of the ways in which socio-economic changes are filtered through the longstanding political cleavages which structure party competition in Western Europe. This perspective suggests that the historical importance of the religious cleavage is a key factor influencing Social Democratic parties’ willingness to embrace conservative economic policies as a response to economic and electoral constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]