The challenge of turning malcontents into (sensible) militants

από τον Economist

WHEN George Papandreou, the Greek opposition leader and president of the Socialist International—a global association of centre-left parties—convened the latest of his summer talkfests on the shores of the Aegean, the mood was upbeat. Veterans of the annual gathering said it was the cheeriest they could recall.

But the reasons for the optimism blowing in the pine-scented air were mainly local: after struggling for several years to rally discontent with Greece’s ruling conservatives, Mr Papandreou is now doing well in the opinion polls. He has a good chance, some time over the next year, of becoming prime minister, following in the trail of his liberal grandfather and firebrand father.

Ségolène Royal, the French vice-president of the Socialist International (SI), also came to the Aegean with a success story of sorts, but it too was on a small scale. In the region of Poitou-Charentes, which she runs, the problem of voter apathy is being solved, she insisted, with newfangled experiments in grassroots democracy: for example, “citizens’ juries” chosen by lot to monitor the work of local officials.

If the talk turned to town-hall matters, that was partly because, nationally, this is a bad moment for Ms Royal, whose party is in chaos. The picture is hardly more cheerful for much of Europe’s moderate left, whether in power or in opposition. With the exception of Greece, the European elections in June were a disaster for social democratic parties. From France to Austria, centre-leftists failed to harness dislike of conservative incumbents. There was a swing against ruling socialists from Bulgaria (where they were ousted from national power in July) to Britain (whose prime minister, Gordon Brown, looks irredeemably unpopular). In Spain supporters of the ruling socialists tried hard to convince people that they were as upset as anybody about unemployment of nearly 20%, but voters still nudged to the right.

Elsewhere in the world, the picture is more mixed. But in almost every democracy, politicians who style themselves progressive face a common set of problems, to do with shrinking treasuries, looming environmental challenges, general pessimism and the resurgence of nationalism.

There is a paradox here. In many ways, the centre-left should be making hay. Whatever problems he may face at home, Barack Obama has emboldened critics of the status quo—and made life harder for purist conservatives—across the world. Mr Obama has given heart to those who argue that democracy (as opposed to street protests or violence) can produce real change; and helped those on the left who still say that America, for all its recent flaws, can be a guarantor of democracy and freedom.

Meanwhile the banking crisis and the global downturn have been seized on by the Cassandras (many of them worthy centre-leftists) who said, even at the height of the boom, that global capitalism might become an uncontrollable monster.

But many voters seem unconvinced by the efforts of the centre-left to cash in with told-you-so talk. In some cases, that is because the right has stolen their clothes by launching economic rescue packages, and joining the denunciation of wild “Anglo-Saxon” capitalism. France’s conservative president, Nicolas Sarkozy, for one, has borrowed personnel as well as rhetoric and ideas from the left.

In several countries the centre-right has held together with a judicious mixture of talk about tough border controls and promises of economic regeneration. “They sound just a little bit harder on immigration and voters get the hint,” says Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank. The centre-left, by contrast, has haemorrhaged votes, as malcontents drift to various extremes, or into apathy.

A Marxist moment

Indeed, if any group has been making told-you-so arguments with success, it is the radical foes of the system, including Marxists, who denounce their more cautious comrades for being complicit in the capitalist order. In Germany, for example, the far-left vote held up better than that of parties nearer the middle—though some thought it would do better still.
AFP In the pink: Papandreou and Royal

Admittedly, some of the travails of the European centre-left reflect problems that are peculiar to the old continent. Under parties of any stripe, Europe’s relative weight in the world economy would be doomed to decline—along with its ability to fund welfare programmes whose roots go back to post-1945 reconstruction and the ideological contests of the cold war.

Australia’s Kevin Rudd, whose Labor Party scored a landslide victory in 2007, is holding up in the opinion polls, despite the difficulty of keeping promises and transforming the country’s environmental posture in a deep recession. But Mr Rudd has advantages that his European counterparts lack: the cushion provided by a decade-long boom, and by signs that China—which buys Australia’s commodities—is rapidly emerging from the downturn. He is promising a return to fiscal caution once his stimulus has helped the economy.

In Latin America, meanwhile, the centre-left is riding out the recession with comparative success. Take Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose working-class origins and pragmatic policies are still a winning mixture. He has managed to convince his compatriots that the recession was thrust upon the region from outside: it is, as he puts it, the fault of “blonde, blue-eyed” bankers from the north.

And in Latin America the centre-left has reaped some benefit from stimulus packages designed to protect jobs. In Chile—homeland of the Socialist International’s secretary-general, Luis Ayala—such measures have boosted the popularity of the ruling coalition, three of whose constituents are members of the SI. The centre-left is now tipped to win a forthcoming presidential election, mainly because voters feel the need to protect the poor. For similar reasons, Uruguay’s ruling left-of-centre coalition looks set to retain power in an electoral contest this autumn. And in Mexico’s recent legislative election, it was the Institutional Revolutionary Party, a lumbering titan of the centre-left, that gained at the expense of the ruling conservatives, not parties of a more radical stripe.

At the same time, Latin America’s far left seems a less attractive option for people hard hit by recession. More than in Western Europe, voters there have experience of far-leftist experiments—and their results. Administrations of a deep-red hue are now in power in a few countries, and their economies are in some ways doing worse than those of their neighbours. The red-hot “21st-century socialism” of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez has been obliged to cool down by sagging world energy prices. In Argentina’s mid-term election, in June, the populist government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner lost its parliamentary majority.

True, there is one country where a centre-leftist leader is struggling under the impact of the recession, and under threat from radicals—Peru. But even there, ultra-leftism is not in the ascendant: the main radical contender for the 2011 election, Ollanta Humala, has tried to portray himself as a moderate and stressed his differences with the fiery Mr Chávez.
Is green the new colour?

Both in the commodity-rich economies of the South, and in the tired old industrial societies of the North, a common dilemma—and perhaps, opportunity—for moderate leftists is posed by the environment.

Especially in Europe, centre-leftist politics and concern for the planet have almost blended into a single, warm and sometimes fuzzy discourse. Mr Papandreou, for one, expects a full merger. He wants to add environmentalism to the SI’s core ideals of democracy and social justice. At home, he has taken risks in defence of that idea, by recruiting to his party a young independent green, Kriton Arsenis, whose campaign against construction on Aegean islands had threatened vested interests, including pro-Socialist ones.

But elsewhere, the terms of a political marriage between social democracy and greenery look uncertain. Many eyes are on Germany, where the Social Democratic Party (SPD)—now sharing power with the centre-right—did appallingly in the Euro-elections, with a record low of 21%, even as the Green vote held steady at 12%.

What does this portend for Germany’s general election on September 27th? On the face of things, the only possibility of a left-of-centre government lies in a new “red-green” coalition, like the one that held power from 1998 to 2005, but with the greens dictating more of the terms.

A Green legislator, Kerstin Andreae, says the SPD is paying the price for internal strife and a lack of convincing leadership. The centre-left is still seen as the tree-huggers’ natural partner. Recent German polls have sent a different message, however: that some voters like the idea of a more improbable alliance of greens and centre-rightists, a so-called black-green alliance of the kind that now has power in Hamburg.

Could it happen nationally? Ms Andreae notes that there are big gaps between her party and Germany’s Christian Democrats (over nuclear power, say)—but she concedes that they have moved nearer the centre and “we have hopes for them.” The only thing her party has ruled out is a “Jamaica” (green-black-yellow) deal with Christian Democrats and the liberal Free Democrats, in which the Greens would represent a lone non-establishment voice.

If Europe’s premier green party made a deal with the centre-right, that might leave the centre-left feeling lonelier than ever. But recent events in Ireland (where centre-rightists and environmentalists have been sharing power) contain some sobering lessons for anybody contemplating such a bargain. In the European elections, both parts of the ruling coalition were soundly thrashed by recession-weary voters, especially the Greens.

Still, even in Ireland, centre-leftists would be wrong to see the environmentalists as tame fellow-travellers, easy to co-opt because they have nowhere else to go. Whichever partners they choose, green-minded people will have their own ideas.

Take Nessa Childers, an Irish Labour Euro-MP who was formerly a local Green politician. She, at least, is not about to convert to dogmatic leftism. “The old left-right divide has ceased to reflect the choices people have in their lives,” she says. Instead, she hopes her new colleagues will wrestle harder with the meaning of “sustainable policies—for the fabric of society as well as for the planet.” Another good topic for a summer symposium.