Uncertain Futures: The centre-left's electoral fortunes continue to wax and wane

Arguably the highpoint for the centre-left, at least across Europe, was the early 1990s. At that point, 12 of the 15 then EC member states were led by the left. However, since the heyday of the third way governments (New Labour in the UK, the Schröder government in Germany), the 2000s were hard times for many of the family of socialist, social democratic and labour parties.

The nadir for the centre-left was the case of ‘pasokification’ in Greece. Triggered by the EU sovereign debt crisis, it led to the eventual destruction of the centre-left PASOK party in 2015-2016. The electoral fortunes are not much better in other parts of Europe...