ABSTRACT
International comparisons draw attention either to the similarities or to the differences between cases. In the last two decades of the twentieth century a great many comparative studies on European social democracy were published, of which most address the differences between national parties (especially with respect to electoral results). Contrary to these dominant perspectives, the author aims – based on a historical long view – to identify major similarities in European social democracy’s long-term development, without presuming a secular electoral decline. Most North European social democratic parties arose during the economic downturn at the end of the nineteenth century: consecutively, Germany in 1875, Denmark in 1876, Belgium in 1885, Norway in 1887, Switzerland in 1888, Austria and Sweden in 1889, and the Netherlands in 1894. After describing the pattern in Northern Europe, the author examines its prevalence in the Southern European parties in Spain, France and Italy.
