BiblioVault - Books about Social Democracy

The Left Unraveled

Social Democracy & the New Left Challenge in Britain & West Germany

Thomas A. Koelble

Duke University Press, 1991

In the early 1980s both the British Labour Party and the West German Social Democrats (SPD), confronted with serious internal challenges from the political left, experienced an erosion of support that resulted in the emergence of new political parties—the British Social Democratic Party and the West German Green Party. Explicitly comparative, this study presents a theoretically innovative analysis while offering a sophisticated understanding of the political confrontations between social democrats, the new left, traditional socialists, and trade unionists in both Britain and West Germany.
By focusing on the established parties rather than on external developments, Koelble departs from conventional methodology regarding the fortunes of political parties. In examining the fundamental processes of decision making and coalition building within the SPD and the Labour Party, he argues that it is the organizational structures within parties that shape political results by setting limits, creating opportunities, and determining strategies.

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Social Democracy in Manitoba

A History of the CCF/NDP

Nelson Wiseman

University of Manitoba Press, 1983

In this volume, Nelson Wiseman skilfully describes the history of the New Democratic Party in Manitoba, tracing the roots of the social democratic movement to the years of mass immigration and social unrest that preceded the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919.Drawing extensively on personal interviews, on the private papers and correspondence of party leaders and activists, and on archival materials, Wiseman portrays clearly the party's philosophy and leadership, its organization and inner workings, its electoral support, and its relations with other parties, with labour, and with farmers.

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Social Democracy in Power

The First Georgian Republic, 1918–1921

Stephen F. Jones

Harvard University Press

Socialism in Georgian Colors

The European Road to Social Democracy, 1883–1917

Stephen F. Jones

Harvard University Press, 2005

Georgian social democracy was the most successful social democratic movement in the Russian Empire. Despite its small size, it produced many of the leading revolutionary figures of 1917, including Irakli Tsereteli, Karlo Chkheidze, Noe Zhordania, and Joseph Stalin. In the first of two volumes, Stephen Jones writes the first history in English of this undeservedly neglected national movement, which represented one of the earliest examples of European social democracy at the turn of the twentieth century.

Georgian social democracy was part of the Russian social democracy from which Bolshevism and Menshevism emerged. But innovative theoretical programs and tactics led Georgian social democracy down an independent path. The powerful Georgian organization united all native classes behind it, and it set a remarkable precedent for many of the anti-colonial nationalist movements of the twentieth century. At the same time, Georgian social democracy was committed to a "European" path, a "third way" that attempted to combine grassroots democracy, private manufacturing, and private land ownership with socialist ideology.

One of the few Western historians fluent in Georgian, Jones fills major gaps in the history of revolutionary and national movements of the Russian Empire.

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The Three Worlds of Social Democracy

A Global View

Edited by Ingo Schmidt

Pluto Press, 2016

The twentieth century saw social democracy emerge to become the dominant ideology of governance in Western Europe, and today its influence spreads far beyond the continent, reaching into the Global South. At the same time, however, social democracy appears to be on shakier ground than ever, its programs eroded by new geopolitical and sociopolitical realities.
The Three Worlds of Social Democracy presents a view of the current state of social democracy through close looks at the experiences of social democratic parties and governments in Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, India, and South Africa. The contributors review the ideas and policies of the different parties and discuss efforts to deal with contemporary economic and social challenges. The result is a volume that will be of value to students of comparative politics even as it furthers the debate about the future of social democratic policies.

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