![]() Such assumptions are often made about professionals supporting green and left-libertarian parties in the progressive bloc. On the contrary, research shows that even the newer segments of the left electorate strongly favour progressive, redistributive economic and social policies – beyond their support for social inclusion and sustainability.Īnother false assumption that often skews analysis of the crisis of the left is that the middle-class voters induce a rightward shift on such topics as income redistribution and egalitarianism. Broadening their electoral base to middle-class voters does not need to weaken the redistributive message. To wield political influence, progressive politicians and parties need to consolidate support from beyond the industrial working class. Any analysis that keeps insisting on the declining blue-collar working class as the sole viable electoral constituency of the left underestimates the electoral base of progressive parties overall. Progressive parties today engage with a diverse range of voters, from people in precarious or insecure work, women and migrants, to the expanding middle classes. Second, voters from the educated middle classes, often employed in services or the public sector, have become the largest and most loyal electorate of progressive parties, whether social democratic, socialist, green or left-libertarian. They differ from the industrial working class in that they tend to be younger, female and often have a migration background. The working class has changed: workers in the service sector, particularly in care, personal and recreational services, are today the most disadvantaged. However, the decline of the industrial workforce does not signal the demise of progressive politics, for two reasons. The traditional left electorate – industrial workers – has become a minority in most western European democracies, representing 10-20% of the workforce only. True, the socioeconomic structure in western Europe today is very different from that which underpinned the golden age of social democracy in the postwar years of the 20th century. This misinterpretation is rooted in outdated notions about the social composition of progressive party electorates. One of these flawed claims is the supposed decline of working-class support for the left, which obscures the massive voter gains that progressive parties have made beyond their traditional constituencies. Many of the diagnoses of the left’s challenges rely on assumptions that are at odds with recent research (which we draw on in six new briefs). While mainstream parties on the left are declining, progressive politics is transforming, renewing and in some instances even thriving. ![]() But fixating on the fate of social democratic parties alone is misleading: it overlooks the broader fate of progressive politics that prioritises the core principles of egalitarianism, inclusion and sustainability.
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