Learning how to lose

One thing the contemporary Labor Party has become very good at is winning elections, but a cost of this is that Labor loses badly. Perhaps the fact that so much of the active membership of the ALP is now dependent for the livelihood on Labor governments has encouraged this determination to win at all costs.

Social democratic decomposition

Gosta Esping-Andersen developed the concept of ‘social democratic decomposition’. Inspired by the differential success of the anti-tax populist right in Scandinavia in the 1970s he argued that the policies of a social democratic party in government could impact not only on its day to day popularity but more fundamentally on the party’s social base. Adam […]