The political economy of European social democracy; a critical realist approach.

9780415462136

The political economy of European social democracy; a critical realist approach.

Bailey, David J.

Routledge

2009

193 pages

$115.00

Hardcover

Critical realism; interventions

JN50

Given the predominantly market-making and liberalizing effect of European integration, asks Bailey (political science, U. of Birmingham), why have social democratic parties and their actors increasingly supported European integration as a potential means to reverse the apparent impracticability of traditional social democratic policy aims. He is not the first to ask, nor the first to seek an answer, he says, but contributes to the debate by opening it to wider questions reading the possibility, likelihood, and indeed desirability of returning to the more substantive and redistributive ambitions of traditional social democracy at either the national or the supra-natural level.

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