The Broad Church: Ideational Change and Party Structures in Social Democratic Parties

Mainstream left parties are in the midst of an existential crisis as they appear incapable of mobilising their traditional electoral coalition. Existing research has accounted for their continued adherence to a “left neoliberalism” even after the financial crisis, which alienates potential working and middle class support. Historically, mainstream left parties have responded to similar crises through ideological reinvention – moving from socialist to Keynesian ideas in the post-depression period and then to neoliberalism from the 1980s. I question why contemporary mainstream left parties have proved incapable of reinvention. I argue that the specific form of each ideological reinvention was contingent on the internal balance of power between internal groups: the parliamentary party, trade unions and grassroots members. The balance of forces that emerged had implications for class mobilisation strategies as different groups held distinct resource advantages. The prevailing “left neoliberalism” is contingent on the hegemonic domination of the parliamentary party, and especially the leader. The neoliberal reinvention traded the mobilisation and representation of class interests for dependence on state resources within cartelised party systems. As these systems broke down after the financial crisis, the continued hegemonic dominance of the parliamentary party has ensured that the mainstream left lacks the organisational capacity for renewed class mobilisation. Through over twenty-five interviews with party elites I compare the Miliband and Corbyn leaderships of the British Labour party. I trace the process through which the parliamentary party curtailed Miliband’s effort at reinvention as he refused or was unable to mobilise union support, while grassroots members were too weak. Nevertheless, this period weakened the parliamentary party’s dominance, creating the circumstances for a more substantive reinvention under Corbyn through the re-engagement of unions and unprecedented re-mobilisation of grassroots parties. However while Corbyn's leadership cemented ideological shift on the economic dimension, it was unable to mobilise its coalition in the face of broader social division over Brexit.