Losing the Middle Ground: Progressive Voters and Decline of Social Democracy

• In Event: Social Democracy. From Transformation to Demise?

Abstract

This paper investigates the determinants of the electoral decline of Social Democratic parties between 2000 and 2018. The recent electoral losses for Social Democratic and mainstream left parties have caused much public debate and academic attention. Generally, much of the debate has focused on the mainstream left’s dwindling support among working-class voters, often attributed to the rise of the radical right. However, these claims, lack empirical support and stand in contrast to academic research that emphasizes that educated middle class voters are the key constituency for understanding the electoral fate of Social Democratic parties. From this perspective, to arrive at a proper understanding of the electoral decline of Social Democratic parties it is necessary to analyze their competition with left-libertarian/green and mainstream right parties, which are the two other party families competing for this voter segment. We argue that social democratic parties have seen an erosion of their support among socio-cultural and other professionals when they have failed to successfully appeal to these groups within a transformed political space. Educated middle class voters have abandoned Social Democratic parties when these have remained uncommitted to socially liberal policies and have withdrawn from centrist economic stances, leading to voter defection towards left-libertarian/green and mainstream right parties, respectively. We empirically describe these developments using national election and panel studies. We then additionally make use of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems to analyze voter transitions between these parties as a function of party positions and the politicization of different dimensions.

Authors

• Markus Wagner, University of Vienna

• Tarik Abou-Chadi, University of Zurich