Social democracy

Social democracy is a political ideology that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a capitalist economy, and a policy regime involving welfare state provisions, collective bargaining arrangements, regulation of the economy in the general interest, measures for income redistribution, and a commitment to representative democracy. Social democracy thus aims to create the conditions for capitalism to lead to greater egalitarian, democratic and solidaristic outcomes; and is often associated with the set of socioeconomic policies that became prominent in Western and Northern Europe—particularly the Nordic model in the Nordic countries—during the latter half of the 20th century.

Social democracy originated as a political ideology that advocated a peaceful, evolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism using established political processes in contrast to the revolutionary approach to transition associated with orthodox Marxism. In the post-war era in Western Europe, the example of the totalitarian Soviet Union, where the state controlled everything, was unappealing and socialists sought an alternative viable form of socialism that compromised between socialism and capitalism. In this period, social democrats embraced a mixed economy based on the predominance of private property, with only a minority of essential utilities and public services under public ownership. As a result, social democracy became associated with Keynesian economics, state interventionism, and the welfare state, while abandoning the prior goal of abolishing the capitalist system (private property, factor markets and wage labour) and substituting it for a qualitatively different socialist economic system.

Social Democracy (Mexico)

Social Democracy (Spanish: Democracia Social) was a Mexican political party formed in June 1999 and disbanded after the 2000 federal elections.

In the 2 July 2000 presidential elections its candidate, Gilberto Rincón Gallardo, won 1.6% of the popular vote. In the senatorial elections of the same date the party won 1.8% but no seats in the Senate of Mexico. Since it did not secure 2.0% percent of the national vote it lost its conditional recognition by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE).

In 2003 its most visible leaders could not reorganize its former members under the Party of the Rose (Partido de la Rosa). After failing to regain the federal recognition, most of them migrated to different parties of the center-left such as México Posible, Fuerza Ciudadana, Convergencia and the Social Democratic and Peasant Alternative Party.

Among its most prominents members were Gilberto Rincón Gallardo, Ricardo Raphael and Patricia Mercado.

See also

Social Democracy (Serbia)

Social Democracy (Serbian: Социјалдемократија) is a political party in Serbia. The party leader is Nenad Vukasović. It took part in Serbian parliamentary election, 2007 as an independent list but won no seats with only 0.12 percent of vote or 4,903 votes. It is one of four parties that won less than 10,000 votes even though they had to submit exactly the same number of signatures in order to be able to run in the elections.

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