ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to shed light on the trends by examining the case of the Bob Hawke and Paul Keating Labor governments in Australia between 1983 and 1996. It provides a sketch of the Australian economy as it stood when the Australian Labor Party (ALP) took office in 1983 and a brief examination of the nature of the party itself. Within modern capitalism parliamentarism has been the dominant form of social democratic mobilization, in the Australian case through the ALP. Right-wing factions did win out in the Australian, New Zealand and British labour parties in the 1980s. More controversial is the impact of economic internationalization on the power of nation states and, by implication, the prospects for social democracy. Closer global economic integration has been a feature of the capitalist mode of production since its inception, but has been particularly consistent and intense since World War II.
