TY - JOUR

T1 - The Rise and Fall of Social Democracy, 1918-2017

AU - Benedetto, Giacomo

AU - Hix, Simon

AU - Mastrorocco, Nicola

PY - 2020/8

Y1 - 2020/8

N2 - We describe the electoral history of one of Europe’s most successful party families over the past 100 years in 31 countries. With a unique and newly collected dataset of national election results, and a large number of economic and social variables measured for each country-election observation, we find that two main factors drive the electoral performance of social democratic parties: public sector spending, and the size of the manufacturing sector. Our findings suggest that most of the fall in support for social democratic parties in recent years is correlated with a decline in the number of industrial workers as well as a reduction in the propensity of social democratic parties’ core supporters (industrial workers and public sector employees) to vote for them.

AB - We describe the electoral history of one of Europe’s most successful party families over the past 100 years in 31 countries. With a unique and newly collected dataset of national election results, and a large number of economic and social variables measured for each country-election observation, we find that two main factors drive the electoral performance of social democratic parties: public sector spending, and the size of the manufacturing sector. Our findings suggest that most of the fall in support for social democratic parties in recent years is correlated with a decline in the number of industrial workers as well as a reduction in the propensity of social democratic parties’ core supporters (industrial workers and public sector employees) to vote for them.

U2 - 10.1017/S0003055420000234

DO - 10.1017/S0003055420000234

M3 - Article

VL - 114

SP - 928

EP - 939

JO - American Political Science Review

JF - American Political Science Review

SN - 1537-5943

IS - 3

ER -