User:EmmaCoop/sandbox/Pasokification

Pasokification is a term used to describe the decline of European social democratic political parties in the 2010s. The term itself originates from the decline of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) in Greece, but has come to describe the declining electoral performance of social democratic parties across Europe. At their expense, nationalist and populist political parties, both left and right, have won elections in Europe. However, it has been suggested that Pasokification may be reversing course.

Background


Since 1981, the social democratic Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) had been the foremost left-wing political party in Greece and helped in the development a welfare state and the modernisation of the country. However, the country was also accumulating debt while the centre-left PASOK and centre-right New Democracy went in and out of government throughout the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century. In the 2009 Greek legislative election, PASOK won the election with 44% of the vote and subsequently entered into government after being the leading opposition party.

However, by the time PASOK entered into government in 2009, Greece was beginning to face a government-debt crisis. While the government moved to implement an austere fiscal policy that cut pensions, wages, and jobs; this action was met with domestic opposition. Because of the crisis, prime minister George Papandreou resigned and was succeeded by an ND–PASOK coalition government led by former European Central Bank vice president Lucas Papademos.

In the May 2012 Greek legislative election, PASOK was third in the election behind Syriza, a political party to the left of PASOK. From winning 44% of the vote in the 2009 election, PASOK won just 13% of the vote in this election, marking a 70% decline. Aside from Syriza, the nationalist Independent Greeks and fascist Golden Dawn also won seats in the Hellenic Parliament for the first time. However, because a government could not be formed after the election, another one was held the next month, which resulted in New Democracy being successful in forming a majority government. In the January 2015 Greek legislative election, PASOK fell to become the seventh-largest party with only 5% of the vote.

Spread (2015–present)
In the 2017 French presidential election, Socialist Party candidate Benoît Hamon won only 6.4% of the vote and lost 250 seats in the legislative election. This was a major reversal from the electoral successes of François Hollande and the Socialist Party in the 2012 elections, both presidential and legislative.

Possible reversal
In October 2019, New Statesman editor George Eaton suggested that a possible reversal in Pasokification was beginning to manifest, citing the Dutch Labour Party's performance in the 2019 European Parliament election and the opinion polls for the next Dutch general election.