A discreet alternative: The Socialist International’s ill-fated battle for ‘global Keynesianism’ and a New International Economic Order in the 1980s

Fulla, Mathieu

doi:10.5040/9781350252523.ch-6

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“…106 The early 1980s were a moment of hesitationand at times resistanceparticularly within supra-national organisations such as the Socialist International (SI) and the Confederation of the Socialist Parties of the European Community (CSPEC). 107 Meetings between socialist heads of state held by the PS in 1983 clearly illustrated this atmosphere of mistrust. In January, Felipe Gonzalez, Bruno Kreisky, Pierre Mauroy, Olof Palme, Andreas Papandreou, Kalevi Sorza and Habib Thiamthe respective prime ministers of Spain, Austria, France, Sweden, Greece, Finland and Senegalinsisted on a global relaunch plan to reshape the international monetary order, developing impoverished countries and stabilising raw material costs.…”

Section: A Socialist Neoliberal Turn?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…110 The spectrum of socialist resistance to austerity in this period is beyond the scope of this article, but the SI and the CSPEC drafted numerous documents in response to a 1980 report by the UN Brandt Commission urging developed countries to seriously address North-South inequalities. 111 The Mauroy government conspicuously cited the Thatcher administration as a countermodel. 112 Many politicians and senior civil servants actively involved in the tournant were hostile to Thatcher's monetarist policies.…”

Section: A Socialist Neoliberal Turn?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Neoliberal Turn that Never Was: Breaking with the Standard Narrative of Mitterrand's tournant de la rigueur

Fulla

2023

Contemporary European History

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On 10 May 1981, French voters elected a socialist president, François Mitterrand, whose programmes promised to change their daily lives. Less than two years later, his government definitively endorsed economic austerity. The adverse international context, it was argued at the time, forced France to prioritise its European commitments over radical reform of capitalism. Since then, most commentators have interpreted this decision either as a betrayal by the socialist elites or as a symbol of their economic incompetence. This article reappraises these narratives. Based on archival research and a large body of lesser-known critical French-language scholarship, it contends that the 1983 austerity plan was neither a sudden shift nor a neoliberal turn. Without denying the crucial political and symbolic dimensions of the decisions of the left in 1983, the article also shows that the crucial stages of the liberalisation of French capitalism occurred in fact later in the decade.

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Section: A Socialist Neoliberal Turn?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Socialist Neoliberal Turn?mentioning

confidence: 99%