Nordic social democrats: Still Europe's progressive vanguards?
2020-11-27

Since the latest heyday of European social democratic parties in the 1990s, it has seemed they are virtually unable to win elections. Indeed, some social democratic parties, such as the Dutch Labour Party or the French Socialist Party, have faced electoral disasters and have shrunk to a fraction of what they used to be. While Nordic social democrats have also suffered losses, the severity of their defeats has not been quite as dramatic. After a relatively long period of electoral malaise and a general trend characterized by a shift to the right with liberal, conservative and radical right parties making electoral gains, recent elections in the Nordic countries have again resulted in victories for social democratic parties (see Figure 1). In historical comparison, these victories have been relatively modest but at least the parties have been able to return to government. With the exception of Norway, the other Nordic countries have returned to being ruled by Social Democrats or coalitions led by Social Democrats. In this paper, I consider the current situation in both historical and comparative context. We could think about at least two broad dimensions that impact upon the future of Nordic Social Democratic parties. Firstly, there are challenges that relate to the changing context within which the parties find themselves. This includes contextual shifts both at the domestic and international level. These could be thought of, for instance, in terms of changing societal structures that affect the class-dimensions of voting in national elections or the general voter fragmentation and the recent shift to the right in many European countries. Secondly, there are issues that are linked to wider electoral strategy. In this, agency plays an important role. Most obviously, this could be understood as an issue of leadership, which is essentially about strategy in terms of how the party reacts to the structural challenges. In this regard, we need to also think about the realm of ideas as a key factor. The decisions a party takes in addressing the structural challenges are often also linked to a wider set of coherent norms and values, or key ideas, the party represents. Here there is an important analytical difference between ideas as slightly more abstract or higher worldviews and the more practical ideas that are concrete solutions to concrete policy problems, informed by the wider worldviews. The Covid-19 crisis has made the policy environment even more complex and uncertain also in the Nordic countries. While it is impossible to say yet if the current crisis can benefit certain parties more than others, it is clear that the Nordic welfare model has played a key role in managing the immediate healthcare crisis and traditional social democratic countercyclical fiscal policies might also be in high demand during the post-crisis economic recovery. All in all, I argue that the recent victories represent a modest success story for the Nordic social democratic parties and, when compared to their continental neighbours, they at least can still be considered as viable political candidates for government. However, in light of the broad areas of challenges identified, it is not at all clear that their future is bright. First of all, the structural transformations mean that their natural old constituencies have diminished and the organized social forces that used to represent the social democratic interests, such as the trade union movement, for instance, are also in decline. This means that the pressures for strategic reactions to these challenges by party leadership, especially in terms of what kind of values and policy ideas are used for “branding” the parties are immense. So far, there have been attempts to react to some of these new challenges by embracing the values of competing parties. The turn to the right in the shape of the Third Way policies in the 1990s (Belfrage & Kuisma, 2017; Kuisma & Ryner, 2012), the more recent adoption of green environmental agenda, and the strict immigration policies adopted as a response to the rising popularity of the radical right are but some examples. Here, there is a challenge of political branding, as the worldviews that characterise these parties are becoming more and more similar with other broadly liberal parties and deciding what is essentially social democratic in the 21st century is not an easy task. Some of the recent ideational and policy responses might, in the end, provide only short-term victories and serve to obfuscate further the identities of the parties in question. For a long-term solution, a turn back to the political roots of the parties might, indeed, be needed. The most recent elections in the Nordic region have certainly given some new hope for social democratic parties. In the Swedish general election of 2018, Stefan Löfven's Social Democrats (SAP) retained their position as the party of government, though the election victory itself was bittersweet. The party recorded its worst result in over 100 years, as it received only 28.7% of the votes, which is rather low compared with what the party has been used to (see Figure 2 for an overview), though many other parties especially in proportional multi-party electoral systems would be genuinely envious of that kind of numbers. However, as in the previous elections, the key difficulties in forming a government coalition were caused by the success of the populist radical right Sweden Democrats (SD) who received 17.8% of the votes. This meant that neither of the two main coalition alliances (centre-right and red-green) was able to secure a simple majority in the Riksdag. After a very complicated and lengthy process of votes and negotiations, Löfven's red-green government coalition was able to continue, albeit the deal they had to strike with the Centre Party and the Liberals certainly meant that the ability of the social democrats to determine the direction of policy had diminished. This translated into some concessions in terms of economic policy and government spending, which was not received positively by the Swedish left (Aylott & Bolin, 2019, pp. 9–10). However, for the social democrats, though the process was difficult, the SAP had managed to, on the one hand, split the centre-right Alliance and. On the other, the deal they struck with the Centre Party and the Liberals meant that the cordon sanitaire on the SD could be maintained. Swedish election results 1945- [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] Note: Includes parties that have received more than 10% in at least one General Election since 1945. Party acronyms: SAP – Social Democratic Party (Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetarparti); M – Moderate Party (Moderata samlingspartiet); C – Centre Party (Centerpartiet); SD – Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna); V – Left Party (Vänsterpartiet); KD – Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna); L – Liberals (Liberalerna) In a departure from established party approaches, during the election campaign in 2018 SAP announced its ambitions of moving towards a more restrictive immigration policy and this was repeated by Löfven in October 2019 in an interview to Sydsvenskan newspaper. However, especially the Green Party, one of his government partners, was angered by this and Löfven was forced to clarify that he had made the statement as SAP leader, not PM. This caused further criticism from the opposition, as this confusion within the government was considered by them as indecisiveness on behalf of the government to deal with the increased gun crime and gang violence that many, especially SD and their supporters, had attributed to the liberal Swedish immigration policies. What made this all more complicated for Löfven was that this all happened at a time when the popularity of the SD was increasing to record levels in the opinion polls. For instance, in a poll conducted by Swedish national broadcaster SVT and Novus in December 2019, SD (24.0%) were more popular than the SAP (23.7%). Part of this swing can certainly be attributed to public perceptions and ambiguous communication in this key policy area. The story of the Finnish general election of April 2019 was comparable to the Swedish case. After being in opposition for four years, Antti Rinne's Social Democratic Party (SDP) emerged as the largest party and. As a consequence, he was given the task of forming a government and the social democrat led majority coalition government was sworn in June 2019. However, similar to the Swedish case, also this election victory was bittersweet, as the 17.7% of the votes the party received was the second worst result in the party's electoral history. The recent decline of the party is highlighted by the fact that SDP received its worst ever result (16.5%) in the 2015 election (see Figure 3 for overview). Hence, Antti Rinne has the questionable honour of being the SDP leader under whose leadership the party has achieved two of its worst ever election results. Furthermore, as the trend in the election was vote fragmentation, the coalition negotiations were also rather demanding, as coalitions between only three or four parties would not have been sufficient to ensure a majority.11 Unlike in the other Nordic countries, there have not been minority governments in Finland since the 1970s. The new Finnish constitution adopted in 2000 also strengthened the role of the Eduskunta in the formation of government and that further diminished the possibility of Finnish minority governments. Denmark has had only four majority governments in the post-war era. Similarly, in Sweden and Norway, minority governments, also single-party minority governments have been more rule than exception. Hence, the Social Democrat led coalition now consists of five parties, with relatively different political values and origins. As an outcome, the government policy programme is, by definition, a constant compromise and is dominated much less by the social democratic brand than might have been the case in the past. Finnish election results 1945- [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] Note: Includes parties that have received more than 10% in at least one General Election since 1945. Party acronyms: Kesk – Centre Party (Suomen Keskusta); SDP – Social Democratic Party (Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue); Kok – National Coalition Party (Kansallinen Kokoomus); SMP/PS – Finnish Rural Party (Suomen Maaseudun Puolue)/Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset); SKDL/Vas – Finnish People's Democratic League (Suomen Kansan Demokraattinen Liitto)/Left Alliance (Vasemmistoliitto); Vihr – Green League (Vihreä liitto) A further twist to this story came in the end of November when the labour dispute in the Finnish postal service ballooned out of control and led to the resignation of PM Rinne. The official reason was a lack of personal trust between Rinne and SDP's main coalition partner, the Centre Party. However, the conflict between the parties has longer roots in personal and organisational rivalries and the postal service labour dispute was just the tip of the iceberg. However, from the beginning of the brief but dramatic government crisis it seemed clear that the current coalition would continue but SDP would have to replace the PM. The party elected Sanna Marin, a 34-year old party deputy leader as its new PM and she formed a new government with existing coalition partners within days. International press followed the events closely, as this meant that all five government parties would have women leaders with four out of them being under 35 years of age. While Marin's anointment as the new PM is unlikely to represent a major change of direction for the SDP or the government, it is likely to lead to a stabilisation of the internal politics of the SDP after the years of conflict associated with Antti Rinne's leadership. In addition, having a young social democratic PM will not be unwelcome for a party that has struggled with gaining support with the younger voters. After a very successful beginning to her Premiership, the SDP party conference elected Sanna Marin (unopposed) as the leader of the party in August 2020. Like in Sweden and Finland, the result of the Danish election in June 2019 also meant that the SDs were once again the largest party and a few weeks later they formed a minority government with the support of other smaller left-of-centre parties. However, also this election result, while being generally positive for the Danish Social Democrats, came with a bittersweet flavour. Namely, their result of 25.9% of the vote is marginally weaker than their result in the 2015 election and it is also the fifth worst election result ever for the Danish social democrats (see Figure 4 for an overview). The relatively low result by the usual standards of the party also meant that they have considerably less power than in the past to determine their own policy programme. Danish election results 1945- [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] Note: Includes parties that have received more than 10% in at least one General Election since 1945. Party acronyms: SD – Social Democratic Party (Socialdemokratiet); V – Liberal Party (Venstre); C – Conservative People's Party (Det Konservative Folkeparti); K – Christian Democrats (Kristendemokraterne); RV – Social Liberal Party (Radikale Venstre); SPP – Socialist People's Party (Socialistisk Folkeparti); Prog – Progress Party (Fremskridtspartiet); DPP – Danish People's Party (Dansk Folkeparti) Some have argued that the harder immigration stance Mette Frederiksen's party has now adopted may well be complemented with a shift towards the right also in terms of economic policy, which follows the example of the previous social democratic government (Møller Stahl, 2019). However, while in Sweden a cordon sanitaire was applied to the populist radical right party, the SD, no such treatment was received by their Danish counterparts, the Danish People's Party (DF). For 10 years from 2001 to 2011, DF provided support in parliament to the Liberal-led minority government and it continued to do so after the 2015 election. As an outcome, during the last years they have left ‘more than light footprints’ on government policies (Kosiara-Pedersen, 2019, p. 2), and now indirectly also in the policy approach of the SDP, especially in immigration policy. In Norway, the Labour Party (Ap) had governed for 8 years (2005–2013) in a majority coalition together with the Centre Party (SP) and the Socialist Left (SV). This was a remarkable cooperation, as, on the one hand, SP had never before participated in AP led coalitions, and, on the other, SV had never before been a part of any government coalition. So, after 8 years of the red-green coalition of PM Jens Stoltenberg, it was no major surprise that in the 2013 election the government lost its majority. The main outcome of the ‘Jens vs. Erna’ election22 Named after the leader of the Labour Party, Jens Stoltenberg, and the leader of the Conservatives, Erna Solberg. was that the electorate ‘turned to the right’ and chose Erna Solberg's Conservative Party and its allies as their government of choice (Allern & Karlsen, 2014). While their Nordic neighbours have experienced a fragmentation of their party systems, in Norway the recent sequence of events has led, if anything, to a polarization of the Norwegian political system. What has made this more possible is at least partly that, similar to for instance Sweden, the Norwegian party system is largely driven by two blocs, the Ap-led red-green bloc and the Conservative-led centre-right bloc. However, the difference between Norway and Sweden is that after a long period of a cordon sanitaire being applied to the populist Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet), the Conservative Party decided to enter into a coalition together with them. This also was the guarantor of the ‘turn to the right’ in the 2013 election. After 4 years of centre-right rule, the election of 2017 was a good opportunity for a comeback for left-wing politics. It seemed that a turn further left of the Labour Party could be a possibility (Aardal & Bergh, 2018), and this contributed to an increasing polarization of the Norwegian party system. However, the Labour Party could not capitalise on this, as its strategy of using economic issues as the key campaigning tool did not resonate with the electorate. There was generally no sense of economic crisis in the country and the electorate concentrated on other issues. Hence, Ap did not manage to bank on its opposition status and, compared to the election in 2013, it lost 3.4 percentage points and six seats. With a relatively normal performance it would have returned to power but with ‘only’ 27.4% of the votes, it recorded its second worst election result since 1924 and stayed in opposition (see Figure 5, for an overview). Norwegian election results 1945- [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] Note: Includes parties that have received more than 10% in at least one General Election since 1945. Party acronyms: Ap – Labour Party (Arbeiderpartiet); H – Conservative Party (Høyre); V – Liberal Party (Venstre); Sp – Centre Party (Senterpartiet); KrF – Christian Democratic Party (Kristelig Folkeparti); SV – Socialist Left Party (Sosialistisk Venstreparti); FrP – Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) While some of the recent victories of Nordic social democrats could be interpreted as successful comebacks for a once hegemonic political force, it is sensible to throw caution to the wind and consider the bigger picture. It is true that the social democratic parties are, once again, the largest parties in all of the four Nordic countries but, at the same time, their position is far from that of the decades of social democratic hegemony in the latter parts of the 20th century. Indeed, despite being top of the pack, the recent Nordic social democratic election victories have been secured with record low results. Nordic social democrats have, with perhaps the exception of Finland, dominated post-war era politics in the region both in terms of electoral performance and ideology. Indeed, their electoral performance in the 1960s and 1970s was such that it is difficult to find any parties in advanced western that would have been more However, as can be from Figure after their of electoral success in the 1960s the last decades have been a story of electoral decline for the Nordic social making the recent electoral into a new success story for these parties, we to consider the results in historical As in his of the Labour Party, sense of also how we think about who we In the current and future of the Nordic social democrats the is that the long-term decline of Nordic social democratic parties and the crisis of the Nordic model of welfare are to be in their than who the recent election results with of the other European social democratic parties. despite some such as the three Danish elections in the 1990s, the Swedish election in the Finnish election in and the Norwegian election in the about the electoral performance of the Nordic social democrats during the last of decades has been one of decline. vote that once over and even on one in Sweden over Nordic social democrats have now had to to vote between and In Finland, social democrats have never been quite as hegemonic as in the Nordic countries, the party that once achieved results to the election in April 2019 with its second result of However, the decline is and it has to be in a wider context in to be from Finland, it is that from Danish elections during social democratic parties in Sweden, Denmark and Norway have received the of the national vote in all elections since 1945. As the crisis is a one and also linked to a wider structural change in the political in the last few and of the post-war party systems in certainly to be under increased especially after the of Green and and the radical right’ during the and The these are the roots of the challenges faced by Nordic social democrats In the current position and future of Nordic social democratic parties, we consider their recent electoral performance both in terms of internal challenges within Nordic politics but also in the context of a wider set of changing that are in structural that have the of electoral and party politics in in It is clear that there has been a structural a of which can be in the changing electoral which relate not only to the power of social democratic ideas, political leadership or structural shifts but perhaps all three of these broad a the electorate has been towards the right and part of this process is in a of the social of the social democratic parties & Ryner, After the decline of old and the in the of the power of the trade union has also a need for the social democratic parties to their social Indeed, there is a of the vote that a long-term for social In Sweden, for instance, this has been on since the As between and the of the vote from to In 2018, it had to This is a that is linked to wider societal transformations social is from its previous and is as of a Finnish and for the conservative National Coalition Party to after having been an of SDP for that these it is to be a social democrat in than SDP (Suomen 2019). electoral both in terms of and demand is the Nordic parties who are an increasing of the vote and in terms of their economic and social are also competing with in many social democratic The is that while the social democrats have lost much of the vote they could they have it only with a of the competing over them with and other left-wing parties. In this the that have emerged and that have been are not issues but they are to wider structural and contextual in European politics. Here we in to how the on which traditional party politics have been and especially the social structures that have them have been In practical this has meant that as new and new political have new parties have also as of these Here we can for instance, the environmental and the Green that emerged as an outcome in the 1970s and linked to this Green have also faced wider structural challenges that are most in the from an to This is but one case in for the of the old party as by and There are also other this structural shift and they relate to associated with the of European politics. Here, we can think of the challenges from European and international immigration and the of it as a Furthermore, the of these is also to the of the new populist that emerged in parts of as a and that later at least partly with the new that could be as a the of politics. of these transformations are new and they not have as a surprise to political Indeed, the of the was in the 1970s by many such as However, their has not only meant that have but also that existing parties and their politics in to some of the new and Indeed, the established of the of the European party systems after the immediate post-war decades & and the of the power of the parties have been into and it is parties social democrats that with both of these have struggled for many For instance, they have not been used to their as used to be to the party during the post-war to with more campaign is certainly not these parties of all, they have parties and it could be argued that moving back to a more set of issue for instance, is not an easy task to especially as many of the new issues that have with the public are by other parties. that the current situation for social democratic parties is that their electorate is and the parties are generally not the choice of the young voters. As while there is to that the are rather to their parties of the challenge is that the parties find it difficult to the young swing In Finland, for instance, out of the an increasing in 2019, are & 2019). In that the social democrats as they only fifth with only of the social In it is only in the over the social democrats are the largest party and the old support of the are What has happened in general within the party systems is that there has been a process of the political towards the right and also the party system Here, Denmark is perhaps the Nordic as a fragmentation of the party system is that has Danish politics. However, if we at the other Nordic countries, the established post-war model of four or five parties out of which three or four were candidates for government party or we have to a system there are more parties for in parliament and also more parties with a of forming a government, and more often in coalition with than used to be the case. In Sweden, for instance, the party system has from five parties in the to & 2019). In Finland, the of parties in the Eduskunta has not but the vote between the parties have in the past the party system was on a model of parties after the recent elections, it has clear that in Finnish politics there now are five parties that could all for the obviously, forming majority coalitions more difficult and can also lead to which are in more As can be from the results of national elections, what has happened over the years is the of the between the results of the social democrats and their this shift was perhaps more towards the more centre-right parties that have managed to especially in terms of their economic policies. it was partly the Third Way within social that the for this in the 1990s and (Belfrage & Kuisma, 2017; Kuisma & Ryner, The Third Way was essentially about making social for the and moving it to the the old between Left and It did electoral victories for many European social democratic parties, perhaps most the Labour Party led by who also the party brand as