Introduction: North and South in European and Global Social Democracy

This chapter introduces the book’s perspective on the political history of European social democracy and its particular emphasis on Northern and Southern European experiences in the period from the end of what is sometimes referred to as the golden age of capitalism in the 1970s, until the end of the Cold War and the early 1990s. Focusing on the European North–South axis as our point of departure not only enables us to historicise a major division of contemporary European politics but also allows us to shed new light on the transformation of socialism and social democracy in the critical juncture that stretches from the international economic crises of the 1970s to the launch of third way politics in the 1990s.