Social democracy between decline and resilience: PASOK and CHP in comparative perspective

This paper challenges the perceived inevitability of the peripheral decline of social democratic parties (SDPs) in Europe by comparing the most dramatic case of collapse – PASOK in Greece – with a notable case of resilience – CHP in Turkey. Drawing on the Third Way (TW) debates as a theoretical lens, we present three key findings. First, we argue that despite their distinct ideological legacies, both parties converged through their adoption of traditional social democracy in the 1970s and TW in the 1990s and 2000s. Second, we posit that while TW initially appeared to address the electoral dilemmas facing SDPs, it proved politically costly over the long term, particularly for SDPs in government. Finally, we suggest that a strategic return to traditional social democracy – as exemplified by CHP – offers the most viable path to recovery, even under authoritarian settings.