| ID | 085012 |
| Title Proper | Left divided |
| Other Title Information | parties, unions, and the resolution of southern Spain's agrarian social question |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Watson, Sara |
| Publication | 2008. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | This article challenges dominant explanations in the comparative political economy literature on the origins and purposes of social protection. Far from being a tool of working-class mobilization, social protection in southern Spain was strategically employed by a left party to politically demobilize its supposedly "natural" constituencies. This peculiar outcome is the result of a setting that is common in welfare states outside of northern Europe: the context of a divided left, in which parties and unions are seeking to mobilize different constituencies and in which left parties are themselves divided between moderate and far-left groups. The result in Spain was that social policy became a weapon in parties' efforts to undermine their political competition. This suggests the need to rethink the received wisdom about what the welfare state does to build working-class power in the context of a divided left |
| `In' analytical Note | Politics and Society Vol. 36, No. 4; Dec 2008: p451-477 |
| Journal Source | Politics and Society Vol. 36, No. 4; Dec 2008: p451-477 |
| Key Words | welfare State ; Left Parties ; Unions ; Demobilization ; Social Democracy ; Agrarian Society |