Dissertation projekt
Anchoring Social-Democratic EU-policies
Introduction
How do you anchor politics? In the Swedish political discourse this expression is commonly used as is, and without any clarifying preamble. The general idea is by no means limited to the Swedish context, however. Somehow, political leaders need to build support from their democratic bases in order to gain legitimacy for difficult decisions. The actual process is complex and depends on wholly idiosyncratic circumstances, but if we look beyond short-term success indicators, it is possible to improve our understanding of the “anchoring”-process – and its democratic consequences. The first aim of this project is to establish a structured, two-pronged framework of analysis building on deliberative democratic theory (conceptualised as a “convince” approach) and a subset of negotiation theory focusing on strategic action (the corresponding “persuade” approach). The framework is specifically designed to “parse” strategic or tactical action, with the aim to establish likely democratic fallout. To put it bluntly, apparent gains in the short term may well engender undesired consequences in the long run, and politicians need to be able properly to weigh the various goods before committing to a certain course of action. Armed with this analytical tool, an ensuing empirical study is initiated where the Swedish Social Democratic Party’s internal handling of the debates leading up to two crucial referenda: the EU membership referendum of 1994, and the EMU referendum of 2003. In both cases, party elites had to contest with determined grass-root opposition, and to try to win over recalcitrant elements high up in the party hierarchy. Such a situation is ideally suited to an “anchoring” analysis as an outright party split cannot be considered a viable option, and so the winning of hearts and minds becomes paramount. It may however still be tempting to go for strategies that maximise the referendum vote rather than an approach that maximises the party’s democratic good in the long run. The analysis shows that the referendum situation is in fact particularly problematic in this respect, and that the inevitably looming deadline gradually galvanises and entrenches opposition, making long-term “convince” strategies harder to maintain. Referenda are relatively rare beasts, but there is much to suggest, that practitioners would generally benefit from more sophisticated democratic-repercussion analysis before deciding on ways to garner internal support. The empirical study shows that the suggested framework of analysis works and can, at the very least, aid party-internal retrospection efforts. Such reviews – using this tool and others – constitute rudimentary democratic health-checks and need to be undertaken on a recurring basis.
Full text dokument
Department Researchers in this Project
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Koordinator/Projektledare
Malena
Rosén Sundström
(Senior Lecturer) |
