First published in 1993. This title is the product of a conference designed to throw light on some central questions about the phase of programmatic renewal from the 1950s to the then-present-day. The evidence presented in this volume pursues to demonstrate the existence of a European 'wave' of social democratic programmatic renewal effort during the 1980s, the sweep of which, the author argues, being broader than the previous renewal wave in the 1950s.

With a combined focus on social democrats in Northern and Southern Europe, this book crucially broadens our understanding of the transformation of European social democracy from the mid-1970s to the early-1990s. In doing so, it revisits the transformation of this ideological family at the end of the Cold War, and before the launch of Third Way politics, and examines the dynamics and power relations at play among European social democratic parties in a context of nascent globalisation. The chronological, methodological and geographical approaches adopted allow for a more nuanced narrative of change for European social democracy than the hitherto dominant centric perspective. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of social democracy, the European Centre-left, political parties, ideologies and more broadly to comparative politics and European politics and history.

This volume examines the fortunes of social democracy in Western and East-Central Europe and the policy challenges it faces. By arguing that social democracy is a way of reconciling market capitalism with social inclusion and equality, they show that it h