Social Europe published this yesterday (if I recall correctly) and it looked to be worth sharing. I have not had a chance to read it as yet
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Together with our partners from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Social Europe ran a project on the situation of progressive parties from across the world with a specific focus on social democratic parties in Europe. Most progressive parties find themselves in difficult situations in their respective political systems and it was the aim of this project is to identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats using a SWOT analysis framework often used in management. The main aim of the project was to provide a comparative analytical perspective that identifies common features whilst paying tribute to individual specific circumstances. This eBook brings together the full project collection with inputs by world leading experts.
With contributions by László Andor, Kostas Botopoulos, Colin Crouch, René Cuperus, Tim Dixon, James K. Galbraith, Eunice Goes, Philippe Marlière,Wolfgang Merkel and Bo Rothstein.
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Why thank you Richard – what a great idea.
Some good names in there particularly Colin Crouch who was one of the first to put the floodlight on neo-liberalisms destruction of democracy and the ‘post-democracy’ period. Will read. Galbraith (jnr) is usually good as well.
Just read a bit of it -nothing new there -Colin Crouch suggests that Labour’s main issue will be how they deal with the Capital flight fear that the Tories exploit. MMT has good answers to this but Labour need to slay that hydra and make it clear to the public.
Agreed
Many thanks for highlighting this ebook. Social democrat parties do not seem to be happy families in any of the EU member-states. And, as Tolstoy observed, they are all unhappy in their own ways. Colin Crouch’s piece on Labour is insightful (as one would expect) but not very optimistic. Britain is polarised by Brexit which appeals to what The Economist has described as “swivel-eyed Brexiteers and fever-brained neo-Marxists”. The respective extreme tails are wagging the dogs in both major parties. And the representatives of the majority of broadly sensible Labour, Tory and Lib Dem supporters are divided by varying degrees of atavistic tribalism. In addition, politicians on the centre-right and the centre-left previously spouted far too much bullshit to conceal the extent to which they were pandering to the desires and wishes of the corporate capitalists and high net worth individuals. As a result they now have no credibility. It will take more than one general election for this to be sorted, because at elections voters seeking change tend to focus on only one thing and that is punishing the existing government if it annoys them, has damaged their interests or is now just boring them. Governments-in-waiting (if only we had a credible one) tend to be elected by default.