The transformation of western European social democracy and its reflections on Turkish center-left
Author
Evcan, Sinan
Advisor
Gençkaya, Ömer Faruk
Date
1999Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
This master’s thesis is a general overview of the practical and ideological
implications of the post-1980 transformation of Western European social democratic
parties with specific reference to Britain, Germany and Sweden and the reflections of
this transformation on Turkish center-left parties. Within this framework, the roots
and developmental trend of Western European Social Democracy have been narrated
throughout the first chapter of this study to clarify which social democratic principles
and policies have changed during the most recent transformation of these parties.
In the following chapters, which concentrate on the post-1980 period, the
reasons for the electoral erosion of the Northwestern European social democratic
parties during the 1980’s and the way they transformed themselves during the 1990’s
to stop the decline have been analysed with reference to societal and economic
changes on the one hand and to the strategical and structural changes of the parties on
the other. The implications of these changes in terms of the shift in the equality
principle and the changing function of pragmatism have been highlighted to draw a
main profile of the social democratic transformation often referred to as the “Third
Way”.
The last part of my study focuses on the common and divergent patterns of
the Turkish and Western European center-left, both past and present, and compares
the current situation of the so-called social democratic parties in Turkey with those of
Western Europe presently being conquered by a la mode Third Way currents.