The Problem of Democracy in Europe Conflicting and Converging Conceptions of Democracy in France, West Germany, and Italy, 1945-1989
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The Problem of Democracy in Europe Conflicting and Converging Conceptions of Democracy in France, West Germany, and Italy, 1945-1989 Democratie als probleem in Europa Conflicterende en convergerende concepties van democratie in Frankrijk, West- Duitsland en Italië, 1945-1989 (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 18 maart 2016 des middags te 4.15 uur door Pepijn Corduwener geboren op 12 oktober 1986 te Amersfoort Promotor: Prof. dr. I. de Haan Contents Introduction. The history of democracy in postwar Western Europe 1 The problem of democracy in the postwar era 1 Democracy since the Second World War 3 Comparing debates on democracy in postwar Western Europe 8 Analysing conceptions of democracy 13 Outline 17 I. The transformation of democracy in the aftermath of the War 19 Political reconstruction as a democratic moment 19 The lessons of Interwar democracy 22 The construction of party democracies 30 Shielding democracy against popular involvement 38 The divisive issue of capitalism 42 Competing narratives of democracy in the age of constitution signing 48 II. Contesting democratic legitimacy in the Cold War 53 The 1950s as a decade of division 53 Democracy in the strife for political power in the late 1940s 54 Capitalism in the Cold War 60 The discontent with party democracy 66 The contested militancy of postwar democracies in the 1950s 72 Democratic legitimacy and political power relations in the 1950s 83 III. Converging conceptions of democracy at the turn of the 1960s 87 The turn of the 1960s as turning point 87 Socialists, Christian democrats and converging conceptions of democracy 88 Discontent with the new political constellation in Italy and West Germany 100 The establishment of the Fifth Republic and political consensus 107 Converging conceptions of democracy and their limits in the early 1960s 117 IV. The extra-parliamentary challenge and its consequences 123 The extra-parliamentary Left in the context of the debate on democracy 123 Parliamentary actors and the sentiment of democratic decline in the 1960s 124 The problems of democracy according to the extra-parliamentary Left 131 i The democratic paradigm of the extra-parliamentary Left 137 The contribution of the extra-parliamentary Left and the question of Organisation 142 Political elites and ’68 144 ’68 and the strengthening of a cross-party consensus on democracy 156 V. Consensus on the principles of democracy and its discontents 161 The making of consensus in the 1970s 161 Converging conceptions of democracy of the French and Italian Left 162 The free market as constitutive element of democracy in the 1970s and 1980s 171 Balancing representation and participation 183 Consensus on the principles of democracy in a comparative perspective 195 Democracy at the turn of the 1980s 204 Conclusion. The problem of democracy in postwar Western Europe 207 Democracy in the postwar era as an object of historical research 207 The formation of the postwar model of democracy 210 The postwar debate on democracy and its relevance for the present 218 References 223 Samenvatting 271 ii iii List of abbreviations CDU Christlich Demokratische Union CLN Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale CSU Christlich-Soziale Union DC Democrazia Cristiana FDP Freie Demokratische Partei Front Fronte dell’Uomo Qualunque KDP Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands MRP Mouvement Républicain Populaire MSI Movimento Sociale Italiano PCF Parti Communiste Français PCI Partito Comunista Italiano PSI Partito Socialista Italiano PSIUP Partito Socialista Italiano di Unità Proletaria PS Parti Socialiste PSU Parti Socialiste Unifié RPF Rassemblement du Peuple Français SDS Sozialistischer Deutsche Studentenbund SFIO Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands SRP Sozialistische Reichspartei iv Introduction Introduction. The history of democracy in postwar Western Europe The problem of democracy in the postwar era The first decades after the War are often seen as a ‘golden age’ of democracy. The period between the end of the War and the early 1970s seemed a peaceful interlude, during which democracy’s stability and vitality contrasted sharply with the crisis of the Interwar era. It was a time in which civic commitment still seemed constructive, political parties were firmly rooted in society, and politicians shared a set of political principles which provided moral clarity and a base for fruitful collaboration. Nowadays, by contrast, democracy seems to be in crisis. The economic recession has raised doubts about the relationship between democracy and free market capitalism. Political parties face declining membership numbers, voter volatility, and changing modes of political participation. Politicians find it increasingly difficult to build coalitions in a fragmented and polarised political landscape. And citizens seem distrustful and dissatisfied with the way in which political elites run political affairs.1 Although it is tempting to see the contemporary history of democracy as the decline of the postwar consensus model, the principles of democracy were actually fiercely contested during the first decades after the War. Indeed, although democracy in the postwar era was certainly more stable than in the Interwar period,2 the forging of a broad consensus among political elites on the meaning of democracy was the result of a long and contentious process. Concerns over the precarious democratisation process after years of dictatorship, suspicions inherited from the fascist era, and domestic tensions which reflected the antagonisms of the Cold War, all contributed to ideological differences between political parties on the question what democracy was, what it required in terms of social conditions and institutional design, and who qualified as a democrat. There was consequently not one dominant model of democracy which united politicians, but there existed various democratic paradigms of rival parties and ideologies 1 See for instance: P. Rosanvallon, Counter Democracy. Politics in an Age of Distrust (Cambridge: Cambdridge University Press, 2008); J. Keane, The Life and Death of Democracy (London: Simon and Schuster, 2009); B. Manin, The Principles of Representative Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 2 The only major institutional overhaul was in France in 1958, although some historians argue that also the events in Italy at the beginning of the 1990s qualify as such: D. Hine, ‘Italian political reform in comparative perspective’, in: S. Gundle and S. Parker eds., The New Italian Republic. From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Berlusconi (London: Routledge 1996), pp. 311-325, at p. 315. 1 Introduction which competed for supremacy in an age in which being seen as the true democrat was the key to political power. These different democratic paradigms, which were related to the major ideological families in Europe, clashed frequently, especially in the first fifteen years after the War. This not only counted for France and Italy, which harboured large communist parties which laid claim to the meaning of democracy as much as the Christian democrats there, but also for the more stable Federal Republic, which saw deep divisions between the SPD and Christian democrats on the question who embodied West Germany’s democratic values. Such tensions were slowly overcome from the 1960s onwards, after which the 1968 protests and the 1973 economic crisis strengthened the consensus among political elites on the principles of democracy. The model of democracy which faced the Fall of the Berlin Wall was therefore not only the result of a long conceptual struggle between various understandings of democracy, but also harboured the seeds of growing discontent with the way in which political elites increasingly consensually defined the boundaries of the democratic – and delegitimised those who proposed political alternatives to how societies should be governed. The model which emerged from this long struggle was consequently no unequivocal success, and constitutes another example of a democratic paradigm which has come under attack. Any understanding of the development of postwar democracy requires a comprehensive approach which analyses these competing democratic paradigms, relates them to political events, and compares changes across national borders. However, an account which contrives the political debates in France, Italy and West Germany in this crucial timeframe is still missing. This study provides a conceptual and comparative perspective on the formation of the postwar democratic order and investigates how leading politicians publically put forward their understanding of democracy and challenged that of others. It puts the discourse of politicians at the centre of this investigation, because it have been politicians who were in the first place able to shape the content of democracy and determine its practices and institutions. By comparing three national debates on the question what democracy meant and how it should be practiced, it becomes evident that democracy was an intensely contested concept, and that the conceptual struggle among politicians profoundly influenced political relationships. It thereby unveils the problems in the formation of the postwar democratic order, and 2 Introduction shows that the main political actors