ABSTRACT
‘Democratic socialism’ has often been a vague and unstable alloy. For much of the twentieth century it was usually considered synonymous with social democracy, particularly in continental European social democratic parties which had developed from the Marxist tradition but which sought to distinguish themselves from Soviet-style authoritarian socialism. Hence the Socialist International, and Party of European Socialists, the majority of whose members nevertheless call themselves ‘social democrats’. Nevertheless, to many self-described democratic socialists, the term implied a greater commitment to systemic transformation, public ownership and grass-roots democracy than mainstream social democracy (Benn 1980; Kilmarnock 1988).
