Social Democracy in Power: Explaining the Capacity to Reform

This article gives an empirically founded answer to the question of whether classical political goals and instruments of social-democratic governments have been revised in view of the changes induced by the integration into global markets, Europeanization as well as social change. A comparison of fiscal, employment, and social policies of six social-democratic governments in Great Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark reveals three distinct types of social democratic governments: traditional, modernized, and liberalized social democracy. Each type corresponds to a certain pattern of policy outcomes. In order to explain these policy patterns, the explanatory power of institutional and actor-centred approaches are discussed. The results prove that institutional approaches alone do not explain the extent and direction of policy change.