Who still likes social democracy? The support base of social democratic parties reconsidered

Abstract

Social democratic parties have experienced a profound electoral crisis in recent years. We study who still supports the centre-left by analysing two different ties to social democracy: vote choice and party identification. We develop a simple typology, which categorises voters into ‘core supporters’, ‘distant supporters’, ‘demobilised supporters’ and ‘non-supporters’. While demobilised supporters still identify with social democratic parties but do not vote for them, distant supporters vote for social democratic parties but do not identify with them. Based on data from the European Social Survey, we then show that working-class voters are more likely to be demobilised supporters than middle-class voters, whereas distant voters are a heterogeneous group. Union membership as well as more pro-redistribution and pro-immigration attitudes are positively correlated with being a core supporter. This helps us to re-evaluate the support base of social democratic parties and contribute to a better understanding of their current electoral crisis.

The micro-foundations of social democratic welfare chauvinism and inclusion: class demand and policy reforms in Western Europe, 1980−2018

“…Rather middle-class individuals, in particular socio-cultural professionals, have become a dominant constituency of Social Democracy (Häusermann and Kriesi, 2015;Oesch and Rennwald, 2018). This is, on the one hand, due to electoral realignment, through which younger generations of working-class voters have become attached to the radical right rather than the left (Oesch, 2008;Rydgren, 2012;Rennwald et al, 2021) or have become politically demobilised (Bremer and Rennwald, 2023). Due to processes of tertiarisation, educational expansion and occupational upgrading, the working class has also simply reduced in relative size to the middle-class population more broadly (Oesch, 2008;Evans and Tilley 2017).…”

Turning off the base: Social democracy's neoliberal turn, income inequality, and turnout

“…For example, in the 2010s, when compared to the previous decade, the ratio of working‐class turnout to the overall average fell substantially in all six northwestern European countries analyzed. Using the same data, Bremer and Rennwald (2022) find that demobilized nonvoting supporters of social democrats are more likely to come from the working class than the middle class. Elff and Roßteutscher (2017) show that this high degree of social democratic vote abstention for its working‐class base in Germany is linked to the party family's mobilization efforts switching to the middle class, whereas the mainstream right party (Christian Democratic Union) has been unaffected by the same mobilization problems with its religious base.…”

“…All else being constant, higher turnout should then translate into a greater vote share for leftist parties if they attain the support of the lower class (Bartolini, 2000;Fauvelle-Aymark et al, 2000;Lee & Hwang, 2012;Pacek & Radcliff, 1995). However, the lower class has been gradually moving away from social democrats over the past generation (Arndt, 2013;Bremer & Rennwald, 2022;Gingrich & Häusermann, 2015;Polacko, 2023;Rennwald, 2020), which some attribute to the party family's rightward economic movement since the 1990s (Berman & Kundnani, 2021;Piketty, 2020). These associations among turnout decline, social democratic positions, and income inequality raise important questions.…”

Social Democracy's Muted Revival

“…General trends indicate that where social democrats have been successful in winning government (in Germany and Australia), it has been on the basis of a core vote from identifiably working class elements, with a strong correlation between union membership and voting social democratic. 17 But it is clear that the traditional class base of support is withering and the number of loyalists dwindling. There are two major reasons for this.…”