Pasokification

Pasokification is the decline of centre-left social-democratic political parties in Europe and several other Western countries during the 2010s, often accompanied by the rise of nationalist, left-wing and right-wing populist alternatives.[1]

The decline of PASOK's popularity in the 2010s led to the creation of the term Pasokification.

The term originates from the Greek party PASOK, which saw a declining share of the vote in national elections from 43.9% in 2009 to 13.2% in May 2012 to 12.3% in June 2012 to 4.7% in 2015 due to its poor handling of the Greek government-debt crisis and implementation of harsh austerity measures.[2][3] At the same time, the left-wing anti-austerity Syriza saw a growth in vote share and influence.[4]

Since PASOK's decline, it has been applied to similar such declines for numerous other social democratic and Third Way parties.[5]

Overview

Examples of Pasokification include the following countries:

• France, where the Socialist Party candidate Benoît Hamon received 6.4% of the vote, placing fifth in the first round of the 2017 presidential election, down from 28.6% in the 2012 when the party's candidate François Hollande was eventually elected president. In November 2016, Hollande's approval rating was 4%.
• Germany, where the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) dramatically fell from 34.2% of the vote in 2005 to 23.0% in 2009, the lowest support for the SPD in post-World War II history. It was further reduced to 20.5% in the 2017 federal election and to 15.8% in the 2019 European Parliament election. This decline has been attributed to its acceptance of Third Way and neoliberal policies as well as coinciding with a series of grand coalitions with the CDU/CSU (2005–2009; 2013–present).
• Greece, where PASOK was once the dominant centre-left party in Greece, but it received just 4.8% and 6.3% of the vote in the January 2015 and September 2015 legislative elections due to its enforcement of harsh austerity measures that led to massive social unrest and economic collapse, with much of its former electorate going to the anti-austerity Syriza. Following a series of austerity and bailouts packages, implemented despite the rejection in a referendum, that resulted in several splits within the party, Syriza was defeated in the 2019 legislative election while the social democratic alliance KINAL rebounded to 8.10% and a gain of five seats.
• Iceland, where the Social Democratic Alliance received 5.7% of the vote in the 2016 parliamentary election, down from 29.8% in the 2009 parliamentary election. This is their lowest support in any election since the main predecessor of the alliance, namely the Social Democratic Party, first ran for election in August 1916. While the Social Democratic Alliance lost support during the 2016 election, the Left-Green Movement increased its vote share by 5%, becoming the second largest party in Iceland's Althing.
• Ireland, where the Labour Party received 6.6% of the vote in the 2016 general election, their worst result since the 1987 general election and down from 19.5% in the 2011 general election. In the 2020 general election, the party achieved its worst result ever with 4.4% of the vote while the left-wing Sinn Féin became the most voted party since the 1922 general election.
• Italy, where the Democratic Party gained 18.8% of the vote in the 2018 general election, the lowest result for the Italian centre-left. The decline was particularly dramatic considering that just four years before the party received more than 40% of vote in the European Parliament election. Its drastic decline is commonly attributed to its enforcement of austerity measures, a poor economic recovery and a failed attempt to move towards a two-party system in the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum.
• Luxembourg, where the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party received 20.2% of the vote in the 2013 general election, their lowest support since the 1931 general election. Nonetheless, it took part in several government coalitions since the 2004 general election, the first time since the 1984 general election their share of votes went up. It further went down 2.68% to 17.60% in the 2018 Luxembourg general election, ranking third for number of seats for the first time since the 1999 general election.
• Netherlands, where the social democratic Labour Party received 5.7% of the vote in the 2017 Dutch general election, down from 24.8% in the 2012 general election.
• Spain, where the 2015 general election resulted in the worst electoral results for the social democratic Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) since the re-establishment of democracy in 1977 as the party received 22% of the vote, losing support to Unidas Podemos. Following the 2018 vote of no confidence in the government of Mariano Rajoy, the PSOE returned to government. In the April 2019 general election, the PSOE became the largest party since 2008 and obtained its best result since 2011 with 28.7% of the vote.
• Sweden, where the 2018 general election resulted in the Swedish Social Democratic Party's lowest level of support since the 1908 general election with 28.3% of the vote.

Countries

France

The Socialist Party has suffered a significant decline after winning the 2012 presidential election. In the 2015 French regional elections it became the third largest party by vote-share during first round, having previously placed either first or second. In the 2017 presidential election, the Socialist Party's candidate Benoît Hamon suffered a historically poor result, placing fifth with just 6.4% of the vote. The Socialist Party suffered the worst losses of any party in the 2017 legislative election, with the Socialist Party-led centre-left faction receiving just 9.5% of the vote during the first round, winning only 45 seats overall.[6] In the 2019 European Parliament election, the party allied with a number of minor centre-left parties, but nonetheless suffered major losses. In sixth place, it became the smallest list to win seats, taking only 6.2% of the vote, a decline of 10.7% from 2014. It was surpassed by both Europe Ecology – The Greens and the left-wing populist movement of La France Insoumise.

Germany

The Social Democratic Party support started to fade away by late 2000s (in 2009 federal election it achieved just 23% of the votes).

The party achieved its worst national result since 1890 in the 2017 federal election, winning just 20.5% of the vote.[5] After the party entered into a grand coalition government with Angela Merkel's party, the Christian Democratic Union, the third since 2005, it suffered a string of electoral setbacks at the Bavarian and Hessian state elections in 2018, losing its status as the second-largest party in each state.[7] The SPD won just 15.8% of the vote in the 2019 European election, falling to third place in a national election for the first time in its history behind the CDU and the Greens.

Italy

The Democratic Party started to lose support by late 2000s in the Po Valley. First elections when Democratic Party lost to more radical party were 2010 Venetian regional election (20.34 per cent vs 35.16 per cent obtained by Lega Nord). The party lost 185 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 58 seats in the Senate in the 2018 general election,[8] falling from the largest to the third largest faction in the Italian parliament, although the party still came in second place in terms of popular vote.[9] However, the PD entered government in September 2019 with the Five Star Movement after the collapse of the previous M5S–Lega government.

Netherlands

The Labour Party lost significant support in the 2017 general election with vote share falling from 25% (in the previous election) to 6%.[10]

Sweden

The Swedish Social Democratic Party from the mid-1930s to mid-1980s in half of all general elections got between 44.6% and 46.2% (averaging 45.3%) of the votes, making it one of the most successful political parties in the history of the liberal democratic world.[11] In late 1990s party began to receive just under 40% of the votes. However, after the elections of 2010, their vote share dramatically declined, some of these votes being lost to the right-wing populist party Sweden Democrats.[12][13][14] In the 2018 Swedish general election, the Social Democrats' only reached 28.3 percent support, its lowest level since 1908.

See also

• Decline of center-left parties

References

1. "Why Labour is obsessed with Greek politics". The Economist. 30 June 2018.
2. Gary Younge (22 May 2017). "Jeremy Corbyn has defied his critics to become Labour's best hope of survival". The Guardian.
3. Mark Lowen (5 April 2013). "How Greece's once-mighty Pasok party fell from grace". BBC News. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
4. "Rose thou art sick". The Economist. 2 April 2016.
5. "Germany's SPD may have signed its death warrant". New Statesman. 8 February 2018. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
6. "Montebourg: "Le PS est sur la route du Pasok grec".
7. "Europe's centre-left parties poll below 20% for the first time ahead of EU elections". The Independent. 30 October 2018. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
8. "Camera 04/03/2018" (in Italian). Dipartimento per gli Affari Interni e Territoriali. 4 March 2018. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
9. Sondaggi elettorali, continua la crescita del Pd: superato il Movimento 5 Stelle
10. "Kerngegevens Tweede Kamerverkiezing 2017" (in Dutch). Kiesraad. 21 March 2017. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
11. Göran Therborn, "A Unique Chapter in the History of Democracy: The Swedish Social Democrats", in. K. Misgeld et al (eds.), Creating Social Democracy, University Park Pa., Penn State University Press, 1996
12. Kelly, Ben (September 8, 2018). "Sweden Democrats: How a nationalist, anti-immigrant party took root in a liberal Nordic haven". The Independent.
13. Ahlander, Johan (February 7, 2019). "Populist Sweden Democrats ditch 'Swexit' ahead of EU elections". Reuters.
14. Orange, Richard (November 15, 2018). "Swedish Moderate-led council to ban halal meat in deal with populists". The Local.