Winning Power, Not Just Government
- Loren Balhorn
For twenty-five years, European left parties have joined broad coalition governments and come out with nothing to show for it.
Is it a shortcut, if it’s seemingly the only path on offer? Many left parties in Europe today see participating in a center-left coalition government as the only realistic way to win reforms. They often justify joining these administrations by reasoning that having a left party in government will at least block the most regressive policies and keep a more reactionary formation from taking power. These parties also believe government participation will increase their credibility in the eyes of voters and members, ultimately strengthening their prospects to govern on their own.
Twenty-five years of history, however, suggest that these expectations are rarely met.
Italy
In the early 2000s, Italy’s Rifondazione Comunista became an important touchstone for the European left. Well-grounded in the country’s longstanding communist tradition, self-critical of its own history, internally diverse and pluralistic, open to new ideas, and deeply embedded in the social movements, Rifondazione appeared to many as a role model for other young, radical left formations across the continent. It played a lead role in the 2001 antiglobalization protests in Genoa and made a huge contribution to the antiwar movement that brought three million people onto Rome’s streets on February 15, 2003.
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