Has Social Democracy still a future?

These are generally dark days for the mainstream centre-left political parties. In many of their traditional homes they are out of office and languishing in opposition. In the Netherlands, Germany, France, UK, and Australia for example, the electoral fortunes of the left are bleak. Indeed, the term ‘pasokification’ was devised to describe the eventual end of a centre-left party – the Greek PASOK party. Of course, this is not a uniform picture and in New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and some of the Nordics, the left are in power, although mostly in coalition. Indeed, even when they are in office, they are faced with ongoing problems - as experienced by the recent government crisis faced up by the Swedish social democrat Prime Minister Stefan Löfven.