What’s Left? Ten Years after the Third Way

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, a rich body of literature analyzed the way left-wing parties reacted to globalizing tendencies and dramatic shifts in the European economic, social and cultural structure. Particularly, the Third Way paradigm and the rise of post-material, libertarian organizations received a great deal of scholarly attention. Two decades after these developments, however, the European Left finds itself troubled by old and new doubts. Global issues such as the current economic crisis and the environmental emergency undermine the role played by the State, traditional social-democratic instrument and field of action. The growing support toward technocracy and populism weakens the legitimacy of party government and forces left-wing parties to question what model of democracy they stand for. At the same time, the ongoing trends of mediatization and personalization deeply transformed their leadership culture. Responding to this increasingly complex scenario, the panel will cover several inter-related themes, seeking to conceptualize the identity challenges of the European Left along three main dimensions. It will firstly deal with the emerging debate on what organizational forms left-wing parties are adopting, on how to rethink the concept of membership and to answer grassroots demand for increasing internal democracy. Secondly, participants will be encouraged to investigate the shifting relationship between left-wing parties and the State, and most particularly the policy developments in terms of welfare and job-market reforms. Another related theme consists in the policy constraints imposed by the need to address multiple constituencies, targeting the middle class meanwhile reassuring radical core-voters. The third dimension concerns the struggle of left-wing parties to build a new narrative reconciling multiple ideological positions. The panelists will discuss how classic principles such as equality and justice relate to today’s left-wing philosophy and whether identity-reconstruction processes take place exclusively at a national level or involve the creation of a transnational platform.