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Social Democracy
The Social Democratic party family is a central part of political life in the West. This book focuses on this party family as well as a unique political force in the industrialised world. It provides a critical comparative survey of when, where, how and why Social Democracy developed within established capitalist democracies. The book explains the electoral fortunes of Social Democratic parties, the influence of the party system dynamics and co-operation between parties in government. It examines the ideological tensions within Social Democratic parties between socialists and reformists and its ramifications for pursuing a ‘better and kinder’ world. This study also discusses the recent state of affairs and its mission in the 21st century. The book features a comparative analysis of 21 cases from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the United States. It will be of key interest to students and scholars of public policy, comparative politics, party politics and democracy studies.
244 pages, Paperback
First published July 13, 2013
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February 14, 2023
Terrible book. The author, like all academics, links his work to practical intents in the introduction, then throws all that out of the window as soon as the analysis starts. He analyses the differences between social-democratic parties in 21 countries. He concludes the differences in performance, ideology and strategy are largely due to historical development. Thus, any practical pretence is thrown out of the window. Try to read this and find at any point a lesson worth learning for a social-democratic politician. There are observations and predictions on social-democracy as a social movement and as a parliamentary force but nothing that could be used for making the world and faire, gentler place, which is Keman’s stated goal.
In this regard, Keman’s study is an abject failure. But not only in this regard. Keman restricts himself to producing “value X” and similar data about social-Democratic parties but he never states anything definite. Since the reader does not know what assumptions were used in collecting the data and since this data has very little immediately obvious bearing on anything, this is reduced to a useless performance of philistine erudition. I now know the X value of various social-democratic parties. Great. How is this supposed to change my view of them? Of strategy? Of ideology? Of history?
This data proves a few common places. At one point Keman proudly blathers on and on about how he has proven that social democratic parties in different countries get a different share of the votes in elections. Thank god! I thought every country was identical in every way. But Keman enlightened me.
He proves his points by illustrating arbitrary categories with data. But none of this data means anything so he ends up proving nothing.
When we get to the concepts, the arbitrary constructions, he uses for his analysis, things are even worse. When he investigates the difference in ideology, he has to reduce everything to measurable categories. These he arbitrarily constructs from his own mind. The supreme distinction is whether a social-democratic party views social-democracy as a model of governing or a project to be implemented. Keman twaddles on page after page about a few of these extremely abstract distinctions. We never actually find out anything about any party in particular. At no point is it made clear what the relevance of these categories is for understanding actual politics. How, exactly, is the distinction between model social-democracy and project social-democracy supposed to create a “kinder” and “gentler world”?
Keman’s categories are entirely arbitrary. While they do align into 4 clusters, which is one of Keman’s points, that social-democracy is divided into 4 somewhat different, territorially based movements, if I were to collect data on any other part of these parties’ performances ideology, no matter how irrelevant, it would likely also emerge. Otherwise, it would not be useful analytical categories. Just the way data happened to align on a few issues.
The fact that the Nazis, the Bolsheviks, the Republicans and the SPD and the French liberal revolutionaries of the olden days all all used red as their main colour does not make the redness of a party a useful analytical category. But if a category is analytically useful, like I believe Keman’s 4 way divide is, it should be rather easy to come across because it shows up again and again.
His distinction between regional variants of social-democracy is the only useful part of the book. That is because it is the only conclusion Keman does not force onto the data through his arbitrary distinctions. Nations and nation states are real. When Keman presents his data by nation, he sees a pattern. Time after time, the same trends occur in certain clusters of nations. This distinction, however is not relevant outside of data analysis of the kind of Keman. In that field, the distinction up to this point was a simple two way split between continental and Anglo-Saxon. Keman adds that the Nordic and continental varieties are somewhat different from each other but generally similar when compared to Anglo-Saxon varieties. Mediterranean varieties are quite different from the others because of the recent experience of dictatorship. No doubt there is a wealth of difference between Mediterranean and more established varieties of social-democracy. We learn nothing about it.
Keman restricts himself to very abstract statements about statistics behind which the concrete differences are thoroughly hidden. To translate this into useful information means to study each movement covered by Keman and trying to link a concrete picture to the data. However, that is exactly what I went to an expert for. I don’t want to have to devote my life to studying social-democracy in late 20th century and up to 2005 in order to understand you book. I want to understand because you explain to me.
But that’s unfair, you might say. Clearly the book is written for scholars of contemporary social-democracy. You just read a book that was not written for you. If that is the case, this book fails just as badly. Its data is not new, it is a mere collection of what was already known.
Keman’s most rigorous work is into regional differences. But even this is somewhat arbitrary. The United States, Australia and New Zealand, Keman explains, don’t conform all that well to the model of Anglo-Saxon social-democracy he has imposed on them. So really only Canada, Britain and Ireland conform to his model. Belize and Guyana are not included in the study. But the NDP in Canada obviously plays quite a different role than the Labour Party in Britain. So, ultimately, now useful is this category? It could’ve been split in two or combined with part of the other categories to form another perspective just as valid.
The book has no redeeming values. It is written more poorly than this review. And this review is quickly improvised. The book as carefully composed. Not only is it poorly written, filled with nonsense and is the data poorly poorly analysed, when Keman ventures out into the real of theory, he makes his worst blunders. He notes that some social-democratic ideologues advocate for specific policies to be enacted. To implement these policies, they rely on support from the labour movement. Therefore, they assign a goal to the labour movement, which is pseudo-scientific teleology. How amazingly smart of Keman! How does he avoid this supposed pseudo-scientific procedure? He still states the labour movement must realise social-democracy, he just doesn’t suggest any actual policies. He reduces his politics to a vague sense of wanting a better world for the downtrodden. He then accuses other scholars and ideologues of detaching the movement from concrete policies and, to top it off, commits the teleological fallacy himself. The very same chapter where he presents a very incoherent accusation of teleology, he does it himself. But not only logical fallacies, arbitrariness and vagueness invest this study. It’s also riddled with unsupported statements of opinion.
This book is beyond saving. It contains nothing new, useful or interesting. If you’re really interested in Hans Keman, give it a read! Otherwise, avoid this.
In this regard, Keman’s study is an abject failure. But not only in this regard. Keman restricts himself to producing “value X” and similar data about social-Democratic parties but he never states anything definite. Since the reader does not know what assumptions were used in collecting the data and since this data has very little immediately obvious bearing on anything, this is reduced to a useless performance of philistine erudition. I now know the X value of various social-democratic parties. Great. How is this supposed to change my view of them? Of strategy? Of ideology? Of history?
This data proves a few common places. At one point Keman proudly blathers on and on about how he has proven that social democratic parties in different countries get a different share of the votes in elections. Thank god! I thought every country was identical in every way. But Keman enlightened me.
He proves his points by illustrating arbitrary categories with data. But none of this data means anything so he ends up proving nothing.
When we get to the concepts, the arbitrary constructions, he uses for his analysis, things are even worse. When he investigates the difference in ideology, he has to reduce everything to measurable categories. These he arbitrarily constructs from his own mind. The supreme distinction is whether a social-democratic party views social-democracy as a model of governing or a project to be implemented. Keman twaddles on page after page about a few of these extremely abstract distinctions. We never actually find out anything about any party in particular. At no point is it made clear what the relevance of these categories is for understanding actual politics. How, exactly, is the distinction between model social-democracy and project social-democracy supposed to create a “kinder” and “gentler world”?
Keman’s categories are entirely arbitrary. While they do align into 4 clusters, which is one of Keman’s points, that social-democracy is divided into 4 somewhat different, territorially based movements, if I were to collect data on any other part of these parties’ performances ideology, no matter how irrelevant, it would likely also emerge. Otherwise, it would not be useful analytical categories. Just the way data happened to align on a few issues.
The fact that the Nazis, the Bolsheviks, the Republicans and the SPD and the French liberal revolutionaries of the olden days all all used red as their main colour does not make the redness of a party a useful analytical category. But if a category is analytically useful, like I believe Keman’s 4 way divide is, it should be rather easy to come across because it shows up again and again.
His distinction between regional variants of social-democracy is the only useful part of the book. That is because it is the only conclusion Keman does not force onto the data through his arbitrary distinctions. Nations and nation states are real. When Keman presents his data by nation, he sees a pattern. Time after time, the same trends occur in certain clusters of nations. This distinction, however is not relevant outside of data analysis of the kind of Keman. In that field, the distinction up to this point was a simple two way split between continental and Anglo-Saxon. Keman adds that the Nordic and continental varieties are somewhat different from each other but generally similar when compared to Anglo-Saxon varieties. Mediterranean varieties are quite different from the others because of the recent experience of dictatorship. No doubt there is a wealth of difference between Mediterranean and more established varieties of social-democracy. We learn nothing about it.
Keman restricts himself to very abstract statements about statistics behind which the concrete differences are thoroughly hidden. To translate this into useful information means to study each movement covered by Keman and trying to link a concrete picture to the data. However, that is exactly what I went to an expert for. I don’t want to have to devote my life to studying social-democracy in late 20th century and up to 2005 in order to understand you book. I want to understand because you explain to me.
But that’s unfair, you might say. Clearly the book is written for scholars of contemporary social-democracy. You just read a book that was not written for you. If that is the case, this book fails just as badly. Its data is not new, it is a mere collection of what was already known.
Keman’s most rigorous work is into regional differences. But even this is somewhat arbitrary. The United States, Australia and New Zealand, Keman explains, don’t conform all that well to the model of Anglo-Saxon social-democracy he has imposed on them. So really only Canada, Britain and Ireland conform to his model. Belize and Guyana are not included in the study. But the NDP in Canada obviously plays quite a different role than the Labour Party in Britain. So, ultimately, now useful is this category? It could’ve been split in two or combined with part of the other categories to form another perspective just as valid.
The book has no redeeming values. It is written more poorly than this review. And this review is quickly improvised. The book as carefully composed. Not only is it poorly written, filled with nonsense and is the data poorly poorly analysed, when Keman ventures out into the real of theory, he makes his worst blunders. He notes that some social-democratic ideologues advocate for specific policies to be enacted. To implement these policies, they rely on support from the labour movement. Therefore, they assign a goal to the labour movement, which is pseudo-scientific teleology. How amazingly smart of Keman! How does he avoid this supposed pseudo-scientific procedure? He still states the labour movement must realise social-democracy, he just doesn’t suggest any actual policies. He reduces his politics to a vague sense of wanting a better world for the downtrodden. He then accuses other scholars and ideologues of detaching the movement from concrete policies and, to top it off, commits the teleological fallacy himself. The very same chapter where he presents a very incoherent accusation of teleology, he does it himself. But not only logical fallacies, arbitrariness and vagueness invest this study. It’s also riddled with unsupported statements of opinion.
This book is beyond saving. It contains nothing new, useful or interesting. If you’re really interested in Hans Keman, give it a read! Otherwise, avoid this.
Displaying 1 of 1 review