Olaf Cramme: Social democrats failing to make the case for 'more Europe'

POLICY NETWORK - 17 SEPTEMBER 2011
Social democrats failing to make the case for 'more Europe'
di Olaf Cramme
To claim stronger ownership of the European project, social democracy must urgently raise its
game
Does ideology matter in the fight to save the euro and, as some have argued, the entire process of
European integration? Pundits have come a long way to recognise that the current crisis is
fundamentally a political one – and less about economics. Put bluntly, almost everyone seems to
know what to do but nobody knows how to do it. Democracy, legitimacy and sovereignty have
become the principle concerns for incumbent governments across the European Union as they
attempt to bridge the reputedly irreconcilable positions of different interest groups and national
constituencies. They struggle because they have failed, over the last two decades, to create a
compelling narrative - which justifies and explains their pooling and transfer of power to
supranational institutions.
Those policymakers, in trouble and presently facing existential choices vis-à-vis EU integration,
are overwhelmingly from the conservative or centre-right family. After the likely change in
Denmark, they still dominate 21 of the 27 EU member states, and 14 out of the 17 eurozone
countries. Some, therefore, hoped that this homogenous political picture would facilitate the
emergence of a political settlement capable of transcending the boundaries of a highly diverse and
polarised Europe; building on from the great Christian democratic tradition that helped facilitate
unification in the first place. The dogmatic emphasis on "austerity", though, is not only failing to
resolve the immediate problems - but is also not looking like a winning formula for embattled
centre-right parties, unsure as to how they should confront the mounting anger among citizens.
Against this background, social democracy is finally beginning to sniff an opportunity – after a
long series of painful defeats at national and, indeed, European elections. While some centre-left
parties continue to shy away from the impossible choices that the union has thrown up in the wake
of the crisis, others, like the German SPD have taken a truly assertive stance - outpacing their
political rivals with proposals on the scale and scope of further integration. As such, social
democrats are making a bold claim for leadership. At a time when Euroscepticism is on the rise and
uncertainty is widespread, they demand "more Europe" to put the union back on a sustainable path
of development.
Yet, how plausible is this renewed confidence? In a new research paper, I analyse the ideational
challenge for social democracy in the context of European integration. The historical account shows
that the left's internal heterogeneity and, above all, the absence of a clear line of reasoning about the
power and purpose of integration have so far impeded a stronger social democratic imprint on the
European project. This weakness, in turn, derives from the failure of social democrats to come to
terms with at least three major predicaments.
First, there is the overwhelming logic of economic liberalisation in EU politics - which developed
into a self-fulfilling prophecy and came to define the competences of, and the relationship between,
the various levels of supranational governance. In other words, it is not only that open markets have
created a favourable environment for a particular kind of ideology, but also that Europe's now
strongly intertwined economies have become powerful sources in the defence of economic
liberalism. Social policy, on the other hand – often presented as the antidote by the centre-left –
does not have as much punching power and its advocates have struggled to present a coherent
intellectual case for its advancement.
A second predicament relates to the new political and electoral cleavages, which the processes of
integration - at both European and global levels - have created. Structural and ideological voting
along traditional left-right lines is in steady decline. This has been brought about by the emergence
of an additional value-based dimension, which stretches along an authoritarian-libertarian axis.
While this increased polarisation affects the political system as a whole, social democracy seems
particularly hard hit because of the idiosyncratic sociological composition of its support base -
heavily divided on questions of boundary control versus boundary transcendence. As a
consequence, settling on a credible "catch-all" position has become almost impossible.
The third predicament is institutional and, so, directly impacts on the other two. Critics have argued
that social democracy is basically squeezed between encumbering influence from the top - the EU
level - and insufficient room for manoeuvre at the bottom - the national level. From this perspective,
the half-way federalisation has brought the worst of both worlds to the fore. Whereas in the past,
nation-state social democracy could deploy the full range of macro and micro-economic instruments
to tame rampant capitalism - it is, nowadays, limited to prioritising supply-side reforms and fighting
a rather defensive struggle to maintain existing levels of social security and welfare. The
supranational institutions, by contrast, lack the mandate and competences to be a more forceful
corrective to the injustices created by open markets.
None of this ought to suggest that social democracy has to turn its back on the idea of European
integration. On the contrary, while the EU's "democratic deficit" should be of real concern to the
centre-left politicians, they must not give way to a defeatist view in which transnational
policymaking must always and inevitably be less responsive to popular demands and needs than
more traditional modes of representative democracy. European states left to their own devices, and
dependant on weak international institutions, will never be capable of taking on the destructive
forces – and, indeed, undemocratic nature of global capitalism. But to become a more dominant
agenda-setter and claim stronger ownership of the European project, social democracy must
urgently raise its game. At the very least, it needs to better identify the policy space in which
Europe can make a qualitative difference to the objective of creating a more cohesive and
solidaristic society. Otherwise, the social democratic promise on Europe is bound to misfire