Has Third Way politics brought about radical change?

Sciences politiques | 8 pages | 05-03-2006 | Format : | Note : Non noté

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Résumé

With special reference to one or two policy areas, critically discuss whether Third Way politics has brought about radical change.

Extract:

In 1999, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder issued a joint statement entitled The Third Way, Die neue Mitte. The statement committed itself to a “newly defined role for the active state” and stated that “the essential function of markets must be complemented and improved by political action, not hampered by it” , sometimes raising eyebrows among the European left, not least the French one, which thought that both SPD and Labour had abandoned their social-democratic commitments and embraced neo-liberal ideology. Recently, a clutch of welfare and labour market reforms was adopted in Germany, sparking protests and demonstrations.

The Third Way has brought controversy among students of social-democracy when it comes to its relations with social-democracy and its positioning on a right-left spectrum. For its major academic theorist, Anthony Giddens, the Third Way is “social-democracy, revived and modernised” , whereas for one of its most vocal critics, sociologist Stuart Hall, it stands for “deregulation of markets, the continued privatisation of public assets, low taxation, breaking the inhibitions to market flexibility and institutionalising the culture of private provision and personal risk”.

With reference to the field of welfare (which will be given here the broad sense of social policy concerning benefits, pensions, labour market policies, education), this essay will try to confront the Blair and Schröder experience with the five core social-democratic values, identified by Eric Shaw, drawing upon the work of Labour politician and theorist, Anthony Crosland: social justice, the right to work, social equality, labour protection, social solidarity and collective risk protection . We will try to show that the German SPD and Labour still position themselves in the tradition of British and German social-democracy, while having brought new concerns to social-democratic values (to a greater extent for Labour). Therefore, the concern with equality of opportunity has replaced the commitment to equality of outcome, a greater concern with flexibility has been brought to the idea of labour market protection, a new rhetoric links social rights with duties and responsibilities, and both parties have taken into account the rise of individualism among Western societies. However, what we have to bear in mind during this comparison is that the idea of a generous welfare state is much more entrenched in Germany than in Britain, and that the two countries face different economic contexts (which would mean that the British government has more room for manoeuvre, but to know whether the Blair government has initiated economic growth or has just beneficiated from favourable economic trends will not be discussed here).

We will first concentrate on New Labour, by highlighting its incorporation of values more associated with neo-liberalism than with social-democracy, then by looking at the continuity with “Old” Labour and at how New Labour has renewed its social-democratic values. We will then move on more briefly to the German example, and confront the recent welfare and labour market reforms in the light of Schröder's overall policy ...

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