Post-crisis social democratic policy capacity in France and the United Kingdom : a lesson from the globalisation and social democracy debate

Two decades ago many commentators suggested that economic globalisation had eroded social democratic economic policy capacity. Although this argument has largely been discredited, the global financial crisis has revived the state-market debate. As governments succumb to fiscal consolidation, a similar theory of declining state capacity now challenges social democrats. This article redresses the contemporary situation by using the economic globalisation debate from the mid-1990s to 2005 as a lens through which to comparatively analyse the current fiscal policy positions of the Parti Socialiste and the Labour Party. It draws similarities between the two situations and illustrates how contested notions of the contemporary political economy constrain social democratic fiscal policy capacity, suggesting that greater capacity exists than is currently acknowledged

Britain’s productivity problem reaches well beyond the plans set out by either Labour or the Conservatives

The Conservatives’ plan for addressing Britain’s productivity problem seems to be to funnel limited spending into established areas of manufacturing and to create mini tax havens. At the same time, Labour are being too cautious to articulate a coherent alternative. Neither approach is good enough, writes Sean McDaniel

Young people and the post-crisis precarity: the abnormality of the 'new normal'

Craig Berry and Sean McDaniel draw upon research with focus groups and an online community exercise to examine the attitudes of young people in relation to the apparent 'normalisation' of precarity in the post-2008 economy. They find that although young people recognise the abnormality of labour market conditions, they nevertheless fail to see value in conventional forms of trade union organisation

Britain’s productivity puzzle reflects not individual failings of workers, but dysfunctionalities in Britain’s model of capitalism and the politics that upholds it

Ben Clift and Sean McDaniel discuss the overlapping problems of British productivity. They explain why any analysis that foregrounds the supposed laziness of British workers only serves to let politicians, institutions, and the state off the hook

New geographies of European financial competition? Frankfurt, Paris and the political economy of Brexit

The UK’s exit from the EU is unlikely to challenge the City of London’s position as Europe’s leading international financial centre (IFC). However, Brexit does create opportunities for alternative financial centres located inside the remaining EU member states. In this article, we assess the strategic positioning of private and public actors within two European IFCs - Frankfurt and Paris - in the period following the Brexit vote. Agents within these centres are seeking to differentially benefit from Brexit in two distinct ways: by mobilising to attract ‘low hanging fruit’ – vulnerable financial sub-sectors – away from the City and by utilising Brexit as a ‘bargaining chip’ to leverage domestic and European regulatory reforms. In light of these findings we argue that existing approaches to financial centre relations - in particular ‘Globalisation and World Cities’ research - should engage with the ways in which political actors shape European financial relations. Whilst private actors inside financial ‘networks’ may agitate for continued ‘cooperation’ and regulatory convergence after Brexit, new competitive orientations are also in evidence as political actors seek to privilege their territories relative to rival spaces

French Socialism in crisis: The undoing of Hollande’s ‘anti-austerity’ programme

With the failure of President Hollande’s anti-austerity programme and promise of ‘le changement’, ahead of this year’s elections in France, the Parti Socialiste finds itself severely weakened and perhaps even at breaking point

Social democracy in the age of austerity: the cases of the UK Labour Party and France’s Parti Socialiste, 2010-17

This thesis’ core aim is to understand why the major social democratic parties in the UK and France – the Labour Party and the Parti Socialiste (PS), respectively – were unable and/or unwilling to articulate a social democratic economic alternative to austerity in the post-global financial crisis era. It engages with existing literatures that analytically prioritise either material economic (e.g. capital mobility) or institutional (e.g. European integration) constraints yet contends that these cannot sufficiently explain the absence of a social democratic alternative. Instead, this study advances a constructivist political economy perspective in order to develop a more dynamic conception of the relationship between interests, institutions and ideas. In doing so, it places crisis conceptualisations and the ‘postcrisis politics of austerity’ at the centre of its analysis. Utilising ‘discursive institutionalism’ (Schmidt 2002; 2008a) as a tool to study the ideational foundations of Labour and the PS’s ‘statecraft’ (Bulpitt 1986), the research draws upon elite interviews and analysis of English and French language primary documentary material. I argue that we must view the failure of these parties to deliver a social democratic alternative, despite the fact that austerity was not a necessity post-crisis, as a consequence of their inability to challenge the dominant discourses concerning the crisis and ‘economic credibility’. Whilst recognising key material and institutional constraints across the two case, the thesis highlights the significance of three key political and ideational factors: weak ideational supply, the continued dominance of a ‘social liberal’ intellectual framework and organisational divisions within the parties. The absence of an alternative to austerity has, I argue, created a ‘crisis of social democratic party identity’. This, in turn, has significant implications for the wider ‘crisis of democratic representation’ in Europe (Mair 2006; 2009; 2013), which has enabled the rise of radical alternative parties and movements in recent years