A Reconceptualization of the Party Family: SYRIZA, Podemos, and the Emergence of the Neo-Reformist Left
2023; Routledge; Volume: 45; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/07393148.2023.2235213
ISSN1469-9931
Autores Tópico(s)Populism, Right-Wing Movements
ResumoAbstractOver the past decade we have witnessed the rise of radical left parties (RLPs) in several European countries. According to the prevalent definition in the literature, the key feature of this party family is the goal to overcome capitalism. However, based on content analysis of party and governmental documents, this paper argues that the two most prominent RLPs today, SYRIZA (Greece) and Podemos (Spain), fall short in their socio-economic policies of that definition. Why are they still classified as radical left then? In addressing this puzzle, the paper critically revisits the established notion of the “party family” coined by Mair and Mudde, arguing instead that parties are what they choose to do and should therefore be classified according to their policy. Based on this, it is argued that parties such as SYRIZA and Podemos would be more accurately described as “neo-reformist left,” as a sub-type of the social democratic party family. Clarifying the character of these parties is not only important for conceptual consistency. By labelling “radical” parties that are not so, political scientists risk reinforcing the legitimacy of the neoliberal status quo, not the least by excluding from the conversation the actual radical alternatives. This is particularly relevant today, with the resurgence of anti-capitalist ideas among younger generations.Keywords: Party familyradical leftneo-reformist leftsocial democracySYRIZAPodemosneoliberalism Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Luke March, Radical Left Parties in Europe (New York: Routledge, 2011).2 Daniel Keith and Luke March, “Introduction,” in Europe’s Radical Left: From Marginality to Mainstream?, eds. L. March and D. Keith (London: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2016).3 Giulio Ferraresi, “European Populism in the 21st Century: The Ideological Background of Syriza, Podemos and the 5 Star Movement,” Biblioteca della Libertà 216 (2016): 49–68; Raul Gomez, Laura Morales, and Luis Ramiro, “Varieties of Radicalism: Examining the Diversity of Radical Left Parties and Voters in Western Europe,” West European Politics 39, no. 2 (2016): 351–79; Michael Holmes and Simon Lightfoot, “To EU or Not To EU?, ” in Europe's Radical Left: From Marginality to the Mainstream?, eds. L. March and D. Keith (London: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2016); Keith and March, “Introduction.”4 Peter Mair and Cas Mudde, “The Party Family and its Study,” Annual Review of Political Science, 1 (1998): 211–29.5 Joseph Blasi and Douglas L. Kruse, “Today’s Youth Reject Capitalism, But What do They Want to Replace it?,” The Conversation, April 4, 2018, https://theconversation.com/todays-youth-reject-capitalism-but-what-do-they-want-to-replace-it-94247 (accessed February 5, 2023); Mark John, “Capitalism Seen Doing 'More Harm Than Good' in Global Survey,” Reuters, January 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-trust-idUSKBN1ZJ0CW (accessed February 5, 2023); Christine Berry, “‘A Mood in the Air … Like 1945’: Democratic Socialism and the Post-Corbyn Labour Party,” The Political Quarterly 92, no. 2 (2021): 255–63; Institute of Economic Affairs, “67 Per cent of Young Brits Want a Socialist Economic System, Finds New Poll,” https://iea.org.uk/media/67-per-cent-of-young-brits-want-a-socialist-economic-system-finds-new-poll/ (accessed February 5, 2023).6 Daniel-Louis Seiler, Partis et familles politiques (Paris: PUF, 1980).7 Mair and Mudde, “The Party Family and Its Study,” 224.8 See Andreas Fagerholm, “Ethnic and Regionalist Parties in Western Europe: A Party Family?,” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 16, no. 2 (2016): 304–39; Christopher J. Bickerton and Carlo I. Accetti, “‘Techno-populism’ as a New Party Family: The Case of the Five Star Movement and Podemos,” Contemporary Italian Politics 10, no. 2 (2018): 132–50.9 Colin Hay, “Political Ontology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Political Science, ed. Robert E. Goodin (Abingdon: Oxford University Press, 2011).10 Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society (Cambridge: Polity, 1984).11 Mair and Mudde, “The Party Family and Its Study,” 218.12 Ibid., 226.13 Ibid., 224.14 Steve Buckler and David P. Dolowitz, “Ideology, Party Identity and Renewal,” Journal of Political Ideologies 14, no. 1 (2009): 11–30.15 Ian Budge, Lawrence Ezrow, and Michael D. McDonald, “Ideology, Party Factionalism and Policy Change: An Integrated Dynamic Theory,” British Journal of Political Science 40, no. 4 (2010): 781–804.16 Berry, “‘A Mood in the Air … Like 1945.’”17 Budge, Ezrow, and McDonald, “Ideology, Party Factionalism and Policy Change,” 795–6.18 Björn Bremer, Austerity from the Left: Social Democratic Parties in the Shadow of the Great Recession (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023).19 Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).20 Ashley Lavelle, The Death of Social Democracy: Political Consequences in the 21st Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013).21 Donald Sassoon, “Introduction: Convergence, Continuity and Change on the European Left,” in The New European Left, ed. G. Kelly (London: Fabian Society, 1999), 15.22 Luke March and Charlotte Rommerskirchen, “Out of Left Field? Explaining the Variable Electoral Success of European Radical Left Parties”, Party Politics 21, no. 1 (2015): 40–53.23 Luke March, “Beyond Syriza and Podemos, Other Radical Left Parties Are Threatening to Break into the Mainstream of European Politics,” EUROPP, March 24, 2015, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/03/24/beyond-syriza-and-podemos-other-radical-left-parties-are-threatening-to-break-into-the-mainstream-of-european-politics/ (accessed February 5, 2023); Babak Amini, The Radical Left in Europe in the Age of Austerity (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016); Gomez, Morales, and Ramiro, “Varieties of Radicalism”; Keith and March, “Introduction”; Andreas Fagerholm, “The Radical Right and the Radical Left in Contemporary Europe: Two Min-Max Definitions,” Journal of Contemporary European Studies 26, no. 4 (2018): 411–24; Alexandros Kioupkiolis and Giorgos Katsambekis, “Radical Left Populism from the Margins to the Mainstream: A Comparison of Syriza and Podemos,” in Podemos and the New Political Cycle, eds. Ó. García Agustín and M. Briziarelli (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).24 Luke March and Cas Mudde, “What’s Left of the Radical Left? The European Radical Left After 1989: Decline and Mutation,” Comparative European Politics 3 (2005): 25.25 Keith and March, “Introduction,” 6.26 Fagerholm, “The Radical Right and the Radical Left in Contemporary Europe,” 417.27 Throughout the paper the term “public ownership” is generally preferred to “nationalisation,” as it is broader and may include forms of non-state public ownership such as cooperatives. Also, while economic planning may also take place under capitalism to promote profit maximisation, here it is used in the sense outlined above, as planning in the service of social needs.28 See Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View (London: Verso, 2002).29 March and Mudde, “What’s Left of the Radical Left?,” 25; Fagerholm, “The Radical Right and the Radical Left in Contemporary Europe,” 416.30 The paper was submitted before snap general elections were held both in Greece (May-June 2023) and Spain (July 2023). Hence, the parties’ manifestos from those elections were not included here, but it is worth pointing out that these latest manifestos did not present any major changes from the previous ones. If anything, they were even more moderate than before.31 See Pola Lehmann, Simon Franzmann, Tobias Burst, Sven Regel, Felicia Riethmüller, Andrea Volkens, Bernhard Weßels, and Lisa Zehnter, The Manifesto Data Collection. Manifesto Project (MRG / CMP / MARPOR). Version 2023a [Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB) / Göttingen: Institut für Demokratieforschung (IfDem], 2023). https://doi.org/10.25522/manifesto.mpds.2023a.32 To give a concrete example of the unsuitability of the Manifesto Project dataset for the present purposes, take the topic of economic planning. According to this dataset, of all RLPs’ manifestos since the 2007-8 financial crisis, the manifesto most concerned with economic planning was that put forward by the Left Bloc from Portugal in the 2011 general elections, where over 4% of all the coded sentences were coded as relating to “economic planning.” However, when reading a bulk of 36 consecutive sentences all coded as such, one can see that those sentences refer to the poor state of dwellings in Portugal at the time and advance solutions such as publicly funded and repayable loans for individuals to rehabilitate their homes (Lehman et al., 2023). That may well be an interesting solution, but it hardly amounts to socialist economic planning in the service of social needs.33 Michalis Spourdalakis, “Left Strategy in the Greek Cauldron: Explaining SYRIZA’s Success,” Socialist Register 49 (2013): 108.34 Cf. Myrto Tsakatika, “Syriza’s Electoral Rise in Greece: Protest, Trust and the Art of Political Manipulation”, South European Society and Politics 21, no. 4 (2016): 519–40.35 Spourdalakis, “Left Strategy in the Greek Cauldron,” 107.36 Theofanis Exadaktylos, “A Fragmented and Polarised Political System,” in First Thoughts on the 17 June 2012 Election in Greece, ed. R. Gerodimos (PSA Greek Politics Specialist Group), http://www.gpsg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/GPSG-Election-June-2012-Pamphlet.pdf (accessed February 5, 2023).37 SYRIZA, “Electoral Manifesto,” May 27, 2021, http://www.greanvillepost.com/2012/05/27/the-european-situation-syrizas-program (accessed February 5, 2021).38 Tsakatika, “Syriza’s Electoral Rise in Greece,” 530.39 SYRIZA, “The Thessaloniki Programme,” SYRIZA website, September 2014, http://www.SYRIZA.gr/article/id/59907/SYRIZA-THE-THESSALONIKI-PROGRAMME.html#.WdTC8FtSxII (accessed February 5, 2023).40 Emmanouil Tsatsanis and Eftichia Teperoglou, “Realignment under Stress: The July 2015 Referendum and the September Parliamentary Election in Greece,” South European Society and Politics 21, no. 4 (2016): 427–50.41 SYRIZA, “Draft Government Programme”, Manifesto Project website, 2015, https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu//down/originals/2016-1/34212_201509.pdf (accessed February 5, 2023).42 Ibid., 39.43 Ibid., 127.44 Nikos S. Magginas and others, “GREECE Macro Flash: Government Budget 2019,” National Bank of Greece website, December 2018, https://www.nbg.gr/en/group/studies-and-economic-analysis/reports/elliniki-oikonomia–syntomi-analysi-tou-aep-3ou-triminou-2018.45 European Trade Union Institute, “Pension Reform in Greece – Background Summary,” ETUI website, April 5, 2017, https://www.etui.org/covid-social-impact/greece/pension-reform-in-greece-background-summary (accessed February 5, 2023).46 SYRIZA, “Απολογισμός ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 2012-2019,” SYRIZA website, 2020, https://www.syriza.gr/article/id/94170/Apologismos-SYRIZA-2012-2019.html (accessed February 5, 2023).47 Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund, “Press Release: The Transfer of the 66% of DESFA’ Shares to SENFLUGA Energy Infrastructure Holdings S.A. is Completed,” December 20, 2018, HRADF website, https://hradf.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/complete-transfer-DESFA.pdf (accessed February 5, 2023); Nikos S. Magginas and others, “Greece: Macro Outlook 2019,” National Bank of Greece website, January 2019, https://www.nbg.gr/en/group/studies-and-economic-analysis/reports/taseis-stin-elliniki-oikonomia-ianouarios-2019 (accessed February 5, 2023).48 Myrto Tsakatika, “Assessing Syriza’s Two Years in Power: How Successful Has the Party Been in Office?,” EUROPP Blog, January 26, 2017, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2017/01/26/syriza-two-years-in-power/ (accessed February 5, 2023).49 Dimitris Ziomas, Capella Antoinetta, and Konstantinidou Danai, “The National Roll-Out of the ‘Social Solidarity Income’ Scheme in Greece,” ESPN Flash Report, July 2017.50 Euclid Tsakalotos, “Macroeconomics, Structural Change and the Left,” in Thinking Left Governmentality: The SYRIZA Experience 2015-2019, eds. C. Douzinas and M. Bartsidis (Athens: Nicos Poulantzas Institutes, 2022).51 SYRIZA, “Programmatic Commitments, 2019-2023,” SYRIZA website, 2019, https://www.syriza.gr/ekloges2019/?fbclid=IwAR32zFjSV5nxbDDAWvitxlwzKHj4KCSkFqIQIM4Jm5AElMSIXHJQYd6k8wc.52 Luis Ramiro and Raul Gomez, “Radical-Left Populism during the Great Recession: Podemos and Its Competition with the Established Radical Left,” Political Studies 65, no. 1 (2017): 108–26.53 Podemos, “Mover ficha: convertir la indignación en cambio politico,” Podemos website, January 14, 2014, https://podemostorremolinos.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/manifiesto-mover-ficha-convertir-la-indignacion-en-cambio-politico/ (accessed February 5, 2023).54 Pablo Iglesias, “Spain on Edge,” New Left Review 93 (2015): 27.55 Podemos, “26J,” Manifesto Project website, 2016, https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu//down/originals/2017-1/33210_2016.pdf (accessed February 5, 2023), 36, 135.56 Ibid., 186.57 Ibid., 136.58 Ibid., 184.59 Podemos, “Programa de Podemos,” Podemos website, 2019, https://podemos.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Podemos_programa_generales_10N.pdf (accessed February 5, 2023), 38.60 Ibid., 11.61 Unidas Podemos, “Principales logros de Unidas Podemos en el gobierno de coalición hasta octubre 2021,” October 2021, https://www.docdroid.net/tf2FGbY/logros-de-up-en-el-gobierno-de-coalicion-octubre-2021-pdf (accessed February 5, 2023).62 Miguel Muñoz, “Los datos avalan la reforma laboral de Yolanda Díaz un año después de su entrada en vigor,” Público, December 28, 2022, https://www.publico.es/politica/datos-avalan-reforma-laboral-yolanda-diaz-ano-despues-entrada-vigor.html (accessed February 5, 2023).63 Podemos, “¿Qué hemos hecho en el Gobierno?,” August 15, 2022, https://www.instagram.com/p/ChRveZDKD4a/ (accessed February 5, 2023).64 Cristina Pérez, “Las claves sobre el impuesto a las grandes fortunas: ¿a quién afecta? ¿cuánto se espera recaudar?,” RTVE, November 25, 2022, https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20221125/todo-sobre-nuevo-impuesto-grandes-fortunas-afectados-recaudacion-comunidades/2409955.shtml (accessed February 5, 2023).65 Aitor Riveiro, “Anticapitalistas Certifica su Salida de Podemos y Busca Redefinirse para el Mundo Después de la Pandemia,” El Diario, May 14, 2020, https://www.eldiario.es/politica/Anticapitalistas-certifica-Podemos-redefinirse-pandemia_0_1026798043.html (accessed February 5, 2023).66 Juana Viúdez, “Irene Montero, sobre el partido de Yolanda Díaz: “Ojalá lo termine cuanto antes,” El País, January 11, 2023, https://elpais.com/espana/2023-01-11/irene-montero-sobre-el-partido-de-yolanda-diaz-ojala-lo-termine-cuanto-antes.html (accessed February 5, 2023).67 Mudde and March, “What’s Left of the Radical Left?”; Robert Taylor, “Europe’s Divided Left,” Dissent 56, no. 2 (2009): 5–9; Daniel Keith, “Ready to Get Their Hands Dirty. The Socialist Party and GroenLinks in the Netherlands,” in From Pariahs to Players? Left Parties in National Governments, eds. J. Olsen, D. Hough and M. Koß (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Ferraresi, “European Populism in the 21st Century”; Gomez and others, “Varieties of Radicalism”; Holmes and Lightfoot, “To EU or Not To EU?”; Keith and March, “Introduction.”68 March, Radical Left Parties in Europe, 9.69 Keith and March, “Introduction,” 6, 7.70 Ferraresi, “European Populism in the 21st Century,” 50.71 Grigoris Markou, “The Systemic Metamorphosis of Greece’s Once Radical Left-Wing SYRIZA Party,” openDemocracy, June 14, 2021, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/rethinking-populism/the-systemic-metamorphosis-of-greeces-once-radical-left-wing-syriza-party/ (accessed February 5, 2023).72 David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).73 Sassoon, The New European Left, 15.74 March, Radical Left Parties in Europe, 205.75 Gomez and others, “Varieties of Radicalism,” 353.76 March, Radical Left Parties in Europe, 10.77 Paolo Chiocchetti, The Radical Left Party Family in Western Europe, 1989-2015 (London: Routledge, 2017), 10.78 Norberto Bobbio, Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Giorgos Charalambous, The European Radical Left: Movements and Parties since the 1960s (London: Pluto Press, 2022).79 Charalambous, The European Radical Left, 30.80 Giorgos Charalambous, “Reclaiming Radicalism: Discursive Wars and the Left,” tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique 19, no. 1 (2021): 213.81 Mudde and March, “What’s Left of the Radical Left?,” 33.82 See Paolo Segatti and Francesco Capuzzi, “Five Stars Movement, Syriza and Podemos: A Mediterranean Model?”, in Beyond Trump. Populism on the Rise, ed. A. Martinelli (Milan: ISPI, 2016); Takis S. Pappas, “The Pushback against Populism: The Rise and Fall of Greece's New Illiberalism,” Journal of Democracy 31, no. 2 (2020): 54–68.83 Keith and March, “Introduction,” 9–12. For the analogous argument with regards to parties on the radical right, see Yannis Stavrakakis and others, “Extreme Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Revisiting a Reified Association,” Critical Discourse Studies 14, no. 4 (2017): 420–39.84 Benjamin Moffitt and Simon Tormey, “Rethinking Populism: Politics, Mediatisation and Political Style,” Political Studies 62, no. 2 (2014): 381–97.85 Bradley Ward and Marco Guglielmo, “Pop-Socialism: A New Radical Left Politics? Evaluating the Rise and Fall of the British and Italian Left in the Anti-Austerity Age,” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 24, no. 4 (2022): 688.86 See Paris Aslanidis and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, “Dealing with Populists in Government: The SYRIZA-ANEL Coalition in Greece,” Democratization 23, no. 6 (2016): 1077–91.87 See Uwe Backes, “Meaning and Forms of Political Extremism in Past and Present,” Středoevropské politické studie 9, no. 4 (2007): 242–62. For a brief critique, see Simon Choat and Choat S. “‘Horseshoe Theory’ Is Nonsense – The Far Right and Far Left Have Little in Common,” The Conversation, May 12, 2017, https://theconversation.com/horseshoe-theory-is-nonsense-the-far-right-and-far-left-have-little-in-common-77588 (accessed February 8, 2023).88 See Ward and Guglielmo, “Pop-Socialism: A New Radical Left Politics?,” who build in this respect on the distinction made by Stuart Hall between “authoritarian populist” and “popular-democratic” respectively.89 Niko Hatakka and Juha Herkman, “Hegemonic Meanings of Populism: Populism as a Signifier in Legacy Dailies of Six Countries 2000–2018,” Media, Culture & Society 44, no. 8 (2022): 1523–40.90 Enrico Calossi, Anti-Austerity Left Parties in the European Union: Competition, Coordination and Integration (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2016).91 For one of the few instances of this term being used in this sense in the English language, see David Broder, “Hammer and Salsiccia,” Tribune Magazine, November 09, 2020, https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/11/hammer-and-salsiccia (accessed June 21, 2023).92 Rob Manwaring and Josh Holloway, “A New Wave of Social Democracy? Policy Change across the Social Democratic Party Family, 1970s–2010s,” Government and Opposition 57, no. 1 (2022): 171–91.93 Sarantis Michalopoulos, “EU Socialist Leaders Call on Greek Progressives to Join Forces,” Euractiv, April 15, 2022, https://www.euractiv.com/section/elections/news/eu-socialist-leaders-call-on-greek-progressives-to-join-forces/ (accessed February 8, 2023).94 Riveiro, “Anticapitalistas Certifica su Salida de Podemos.”95 Mudde and March, “What’s Left of the Radical Left?,” 34.96 See e.g. Heather Stewart, “Jeremy Corbyn Launches Most Radical Labour Manifesto in Decades,” The Guardian, November 21, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/21/labour-manifesto-to-slap-11bn-tax-on-oil-and-gas-firms-to-fund-green-plan (accessed February 8, 2023); Ryan Bourne, “Bernie Sanders Is Far More Radical Than Corbyn’s Labour,” Cato Institute website, February 17, 2020, https://www.cato.org/commentary/bernie-sanders-far-more-radical-corbyns-labour (accessed February 8, 2023).97 William M. Downs, Political Extremism in Democracies: Combating Intolerance (New York: Springer, 2012).98 Pablo Iglesias, “Understanding Podemos,” New Left Review 93, (2015): 15–6.99 Andoni Fernández, “El PP y Vox Utilizan ‘El Comunismo Invisible’ para Tumbar a Sánchez,” Moncloa, May 21, 2020, https://www.moncloa.com/pp-vox-comunismo-invisible/ (accessed February 8, 2023).100 See e.g. Costas Douzinas, SYRIZA in Power. Reflections of an Accidental Politician (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017).101 Blasi and Kruse, “Today’s Youth Reject Capitalism”; John, “Capitalism Seen Doing 'Mo Than Good'; Berry, “‘A Mood in the Air … Like 1945’”; Institute of Economic Affairs, “67 Per cent of Young Brits.”102 Yannis Varoufakis, “ΜέΡΑ25: Η Προγραμματική Συστράτευση της Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς και των Κινημάτων που οραματιζόμαστε,” The Press Project, December 12, 2022, https://thepressproject.gr/mera25-i-programmatiki-systratefsi-tis-rizospastikis-aristeras-kai-ton-kinimaton-pou-oramatizomaste/ (accessed February 8, 2023).
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