Origins and Evolution of European Social Democracy

Author: Liu Chengmayao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Social democracy is a relatively broad concept. Over more than a hundred years, or even longer, since its emergence, the ideology of social democracy has undergone significant changes. Moreover, there are considerable differences in guiding principles among social democratic parties in various countries. Even within a single country, the guiding principles of its social democratic party evolve continuously with the times. The main idea of this book is to attempt to study social democracy as a whole and systematically present the commonalities and differences of social democratic parties in different countries in one volume. For this purpose, the book is divided into eight chapters: Chapter 1 discusses the origin, internal struggles, and divisions of social democracy; Chapter 2 systematically elaborates on the formation and development of the Socialist International; Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 conduct case studies of the social democratic parties in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Sweden, respectively; Chapter 7 explores the pressures and dilemmas faced by social democracy and social democratic parties in the late 1980s; Chapter 8 explains the revival of social democracy and the ideological content of the "Third Way."