One Party, Two Different Approaches: Rethinking the Analysis of the Party of European Socialists
One Party, Two Different Approaches: Rethinking the Analysis of the Party of European Socialists

Author(s): Erol Kulahci
Subject(s): EU-Approach / EU-Accession / EU-Development
Published by: Publishing Inc. European Readings & Prodifmultimedia/Editura Napoca Star
Keywords: Socialists in EU-Parliament;
Summary/Abstract: It is the absence and not the presence of full European Social Democracy (ESD) that is significant when analysing the relation between social democracy and European integration. I will try to make a few steps in understanding and explaining this problem. In order to do so, I will argue that an important theoretical/conceptual/methodological requirement is needed for an inquiry into why ESD has not developed further in the European political life, namely the synthesis of the acquis académique! I will illustrate my argument by focussing on the Party of European Socialists (PES) as an extra-parliamentary actor at the European level. When reviewing the state of the art regarding the PES, it is possible to distinguish two types of contributions based respectively on the Europarty and the Social Democrat Approaches. The main problem, I would argue, is that these two approaches do have the same object, but there is almost no bridge between them. Thus, the risk might be related to the fact that we are missing a broader insight when analysing the PES in particular, and the ESD in general. Accordingly, I will show that it is important to combine these two approaches in order to better analyse the Party of European Socialists. For this purpose, I will respectively summarise and comment the acquis académique of these two lines of interpretation. Thus, I will synthesise the findings of these approaches in relation to the general problem of the PES weaknesses and conclude by presenting the implications for the future of the PES research agenda.

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