Why the Left Loses: The Decline of the Centre-Left in Comparative Perspective

Description

Social Democracy is on the back-foot, and increasingly centre-left political parties are struggling to win office. Bringing together a range of leading academics and experts on social democratic politics and policy, Why the Left Loses offers an international, comparative view of the changing political landscape, examining the degree to which the centre-left project is exhausted and is able to renew its message in a neo-liberal age.

Dr Rob Manwaring is a senior lecturer at Flinders University, in South Australia. He researches into the areas of labour and social democratic politics, comparative politics, political parties, and democracy. Dr Paul Kennedy is Lecturer in Spanish and European Studies at the University of Bath. He is the author of The Spanish Socialist Party and the modernisation of Spain (Manchester University Press: 2013) and is co-author, with David Cutts, of Podemos and the Art of the Possible (Manchester University Press: forthcoming 2018).

"This case-study methodology edifyingly delves into the specific political and policy histories in each country." Law and Culture (Alternative Law Journal) "This lucid and timely collection of essays deserves to be read by all those with a scholarly or political interest in the fate of social democracy." Patrick Diamond, Queen Mary University of London