Divided They Fell: Crisis and the Collapse of Europe's Centre-Left(Building Progressive Alternatives)

Why has Europe's centre-left failed to respond to the crisis of neoliberalism in Europe? Rather than opening up a moment in political time for the centre-left to puncture the dominance of neoliberalism, the multitude of crises in Europe since 2008 have consolidated its difficulties and contributed to the rise of radical and populist alternatives. Divided They Fell examines the failures of mainstream politics, and in particular the inability of the centre-left to respond to the global financial crisis more effectively. By exploring the cases of the UK Labour Party and France's Parti Socialiste, the book investigates the role of, and interplay between, institutional intra-party dynamics, the parties' ideational landscapes and the wider political economy in shaping their responses to the crisis. Important reputational, ideational and strategic path dependencies in both parties, it is shown, constrained the flow of fresh ideas and entrenched their internal organizational divisions, leaving them unable to offer an effective post-neoliberal economic alternative. Ultimately, this fractured the parties and sparked a crisis of centre-left identity that opened the door to emergent alternative parties and movements in both cases. Divided They Fell helps to diagnose what has gone wrong for the centre-left in Europe and forces us to consider whether such parties are, in the context of new and emerging crises, still fit for purpose.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. Neoliberal convergence and the politics of austerity: is there still space for the centre-left? 2. Struggling to win: centre-left electoral decline and the strategic dilemma of the Third Way 3. Developing a strategy: the internal dynamics of the centre-left’s response to the crisis of neoliberalism 4. Delivering the strategy: how the centre-left sought to communicate a response to the crisis of neoliberalism 5. Stagnation, failure and fragmentation: the rise of the radical left 6. Post-pandemic politics: how are the centre-left rebuilding? Conclusion Appendix: list of interviewees and interview location

About the Author :
Sean McDaniel is Lecturer in British Politics at University of Leeds. He was previously at the Future Economies Research Centre, Manchester Metropolitan University and held a Visiting Fellowship at Sciences Po, Paris. He completed his PhD at the University of Warwick.

Review :
A truly fabulous book on a supremely important topic. It is both prescient and timely, on the one hand, and yet timeless and long-lasting in its implications, on the other. Required reading for all those who have turned intuitively to the centre-left for their political inspiration and been so sadly disappointed – and for all those struggling to make sense of that disappointment and the failure it represents. Why austerity was embraced by centre-left parties in European countries that were not constrained by a bail-out has remained surprisingly under-researched. McDaniel documents how the conversion to neoliberal tenets led the Labour Party and the PS to "waste a good crisis" and accelerate their own electoral decline. With this book, McDaniel offers a crucial update in a longstanding research tradition, namely the study of ideological and programmatic dynamics within political parties. In this lively and highly relevant book, drawing on interviews with key players, McDaniel demonstrates that parties and their ideologies matter: after the global financial crisis, centre-left parties in France and the UK got stuck, wedded to ideas that reduced their ability to respond creatively to political challenges. Students, scholars and politicians can all learn important lessons from this book about what not to do in a crisis. McDaniel offers a compelling narrative of social democracy’s struggle with neoliberalism... provides an unprecedented insight into the internal decision-making processes of Labour and Le Parti Socialiste, alongside how these decisions were then communicated to the public... should be essential reading for both scholars and political strategists.