Welcome back to the David Pakman show. It's
great to welcome to the program today. Sheri
Berman, who's a professor of Political Science
Barnard College
at Columbia University. Most recent book is
democracy and dictatorship in Europe from
the, and I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly,
the NCCN regime to the present day. Is that
how it's said? That's perfect. Good. Okay.
Uh, all right, so let's, so let's jump right
into it. We've been talking a lot about, um,
social democracy in the context of what are
the differences between that and democratic
socialism. How does this compare to different
types of capitalism? And one of the interesting
areas of this is that much of sort of modern
social democracy, socially democratic thought
stems from uh, early 20th century Sweden and
the Social Democratic Party. And if we look
today at Europe and what's going on, that
model has actually changed significantly with
the rise in right wing nationalism in Europe
and a lot of other changes that are taking
place. So how would you, if someone just says
to you, you know, Sherry, how has the state
of social democracy changed over the last
Hundred Years in Europe? How would you generally
characterize it?
Well, so there's lots of different ways to
answer that question, which is never a good
answer to a question. I mean, as far as the
sort of status of parties that call themselves
social democratic or would be seen as kind
of center left, we have seen a dramatic decline
in support for these parties over the late
20th and early 21st century. So one way to
tell this story is to talk about the rise
of these parties electorally, politically
during the early 20th century. There sort
of greatest electoral success after the Second
World War and then a decline that again has
set in over the last decades. Um, the other
way to tell the story is by focusing less
on how many votes they get and more on their
ideas and how powerful those ideas have been.
The traditionally or those sort of distinctive
social democratic view is one that accepts
capitalism, but as wary of it and believes
that it is necessary for the democratic state
to intervene in markets and in the economic
sphere in general to sort of protect citizens
from the most destructive and destabilizing
consequences of markets.
And again, if we're going to look at it that
way, then one could say I'm starting in the
20th. The beginning of the 20th century Social
Democrats within left started fighting for
this view against folks further to the left
Marxist Communists, Democratic Socialists,
um, only in Scandinavia and particularly in
Sweden where these kinds of social democratic
use able to triumph on the left during the
interwar period. But after the Second World
War, these type of use come to dominate mainstream
center left and social democratic parties
as well as by the way most other parties in
Europe on the center and center. Right. So
this basic social democratic view that it
was the task of democratic states to control
capitalism to or rather to tame capitalism,
to protect citizens. This was basically accepted
across the board in Europe after the Second
World War. But by the end of the 20th century,
this consensus begins to fray and in fact
becomes largely replaced by a more neo liberal
consensus which rains, uh, you know, sort
of up through, I would say the financial and
euro crisis. And now we're back again to an
era when that consensus, that more neoliberal
consensus is being questioned. And we're again
debating some fundamental questions about
the relationship between democracy and capitalism,
the correct role and scope for markets, things
of that nature.
Is there a, let me rephrase it a different
way. Are there places in Europe where, uh,
uh, as as an, as a sort of idea labeled as
social democracy, many of those ideas are
just sort of mainstream and as such, it's
not as important that they be labeled in that
way. So when you look at, for example, the
healthcare systems of many European countries,
the debate over, well it's the Social Democrats
who want one type of system and they're pushing
against everybody else who wants to sort of
more American type system, aren't a lot of
those, um, uh, institutions now just kind
of part of the baseline. And as such, there
are no longer labeled as socially democratic.
So I mean, that is absolutely correct. Unlike
in the United States, citizens in Europe since
1945 have come to take for granted a whole
range of social protections that we are still
fighting over here in the United States. And
you mentioned the most obvious ones, universal
healthcare, free education, a whole variety
of other social protections that we do not
have as a matter of citizenship here in the
u s in that sense, a sort of social democratic
view of the relationship between states and
markets still reigns. But these kinds of systems
have come under stress in Europe. Um, and
they have been changed and they have changed
fairly dramatically over the past decade.
So while you still have a very extensive welfare
state, for example, in Europe and while in
places like Sweden, you know, you still have
high levels of government spending, everybody
expects healthcare, pensions, education, et
Cetera to be given. As a matter of course,
you have seen significant privatization of
many of these policies. You've seen rising
inequality and you've seen some deterioration
around the edge in the kinds of commitments
states have made to citizens. So yes, um,
no. In Europe it is generally accepted that,
um, you know, welfare states you are a good
thing and that governments do need to provide
social protection for citizens. But there
has been an erosion of many of these policies
and more importantly, perhaps many of the
principles upon which they were predicated
after the Second World War.
So, um, in any election, there is always what
we would call some level of defection, people
who in a primary vote on one side and a nut
voting for in the general election for someone
from a different party there. There's the
affection of all kinds, but we have some data
specifically that 12% of Bernie Primary voters
in 2016 ended up voting for Donald Trump.
Now they were, you can argue balanced out
by some, uh, you know, ted Cruz voters who
ended up voting for Hillary Clinton. But to
focus in specifically for the purposes of
our conversation on those 12%, is that a phenomenon
that is also identifiable in Europe where
European Social Democrats and folks more aligned
with the ideology of Bernie Sanders gets sort
of swept up in some of these populist right
wing movements or in the nationalism and end
up supporting that or, or is that not a dynamic
you've observed in Europe?
So the answer to your question again is yes
and no. Okay. I mean, look at any, um, American
election, the candidate in the primaries,
who, what the supporters of primary candidates
who lose some percentage of them always defect
the other party. So the 12% of Bernie Sanders
voters who defected to Trump is not out of
line with the number of Clinton supporters
who defected after Clinton lost to Obama.
But the larger point that you raise is a very
important one. The defection of lower educated
and working class white voters from the Democratic
Party to the Republican Party. And particularly
to Trump in 2016 this is a broader phenomenon
that we have seen in Europe. In fact, in many
European countries now it is not social democratic
parties, but right wing populous parties that
are the largest working class parties in their
party systems. That is to say more workers,
people in the working class support right
wing populist parties in many European countries,
including France and Austria. Then they do
Social Democratic Party. So the broader phenomenon,
right? Uh, folks defecting from the left,
particularly again among the working class
and people with lower educational levels to
the populist. Right. This is a profoundly
important and he stabilizing phenomenon that
you can see on both sides of the Atlantic.
Hmm. Um, in the book sort of related to this,
one of the things we talk about our countries
in Europe that have formed, uh, I guess what
we would call liberal Western democracies
and the last hundreds, several hundred years,
and that at different points in time and for
different reasons, there's sort of a backsliding
that happens towards autocracy towards authoritarianism.
Um, what are the more common reasons, if there
are unifying, are common reasons that that
happens? Or are they really unique cases?
Well, there's lots of reasons why they happen
and I think it is important given how worried
we are about the state of democracy today
to point out that we still have more democracies
in the world today than ever before, and that
we've had less backsliding after the wave
of democratization that began in the late
20th century with the collapse of the Soviet
Union. Then we have during previous democratic
wave. So those would be waves in 1848 after
the first world war, after the Second World
War. So overall the state of democracy is
still quite strong. But for countries that
do backslid in places where democracy does
decay if not collapse, there are definitely
some patterns that um, you know we should
be wary of because in the past they have led
to again, significant problems with democracy,
social polarization, which of course is something
we are constantly talking about here in the
u s this is very problematic because it makes
democracy almost impossible to function.
People see their opponents is illegitimate
rather than just as opponents. They find it
very difficult to compromise and bargain,
which of course is what democracy requires.
Every political battle becomes zero sum and
so it's very difficult to have well functioning
democracies and the kinds of situations where
you have social polarization parties are pushed
further to the extreme, that kind of thing.
In general, if we think about the sort of
period when democracy, quote unquote work
best in the west, that is to say after the
Second World War when we got stable, well
functioning democracies in western Europe
as well as obviously well functioning democracy
here in the United States. We should also
remember that this was a period with very
particular social and economic characteristics
as well. We had rising growth. Europe grew
the fastest it's ever grown, um, in its entire
history in the 30 years after 1945 and along
with that growth came incredible equalization
of incomes and wealth.
Um, again, greater equalization that had ever
occurred before. And this is important because
it helped to diminish divisions in society
and help to create the sense that the democratic
system could deliver for everyone. That the
gains of one group did not come at the expense
of the others and that politicians and parties
were responsive to the needs of their citizens.
Of course, we all know that this kind of,
um, these kinds of developments changed dramatically
in the late 20th century when growth slowed,
unemployment rose, particularly in Europe,
inequality skyrocketed in the United States
in particular, but in almost all European
countries. Well, and we began to see, again,
greater divisions within Western societies,
all of which were, um, accompanied by dramatic
social and demographic change, which only
complicated the process of democratic politics,
even more [inaudible].
Absolutely fascinating stuff. And I think
anybody who has listened to our conversation
can tell that there is a lot to be gleaned
from the history of Europe in terms of what,
uh, we are starting to see in some ways in
the United States today. The book is democracy
and dictatorship in Europe from the onsie
on regime to the present day. We've been speaking
with the books.
They're Barnard College Professor Sheri Berman.
Sherri, really a pleasure having you on. Thank
you so much. I was really glad to have this
conversation.
