Political traditions and the role of the state

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In the 1970s and early 1980s conservative and Christian democratic parties departed from the ‘social democratic consensus’ of the 1960s and were converted to economic neo‐liberalism. In the 1980s and early 1990s social democrats also shifted considerably towards neo‐liberal policy options thereby introducing a new policy convergence with conservative and Christian democratic parties. As a result of these two shifts, the whole political spectrum has shifted to the right compared with the 1960s. Since the major political families advocate a set of similar policies the present situation bears similarities with the 1960s. A new ‐ neoliberal — consensus has emerged, but it is of limited extent and contains internal tensions. Nevertheless, the policy distance between the major political families in socio‐economic questions is smaller now than it was under the ‘social democratic consensus’ of the 1960s.