The School of Social and Policy Studies is pleased to host a two-day conference reflecting on the future of social democratic politics and policy. Social democratic politics is in the state of flux, and has failed to offer a compelling response to the dominance of neo-liberalism. Remarkably, since the 2008 global financial crisis, the future of many social democratic and labour parties in industrial societies has declined. In 2000, 27 left-leaning governments were in power across the EU, and currently this number stands at just five. The end of the British New Labour government in 2010 marked the exhaustion of the ‘third way’ project, perhaps one of the most publicised attempts to institute a revitalised ‘new social democracy’.

Conference themes

• Comparative Social Democracy – examining alternative paths and strategies of social democratic and labour parties in advanced industrial settings
• Assessing the dilemmas and challenges facing social democratic political economy
• Social Democracy and alliances with wider progressive politics – including Green parties, Trade Unions and NGOs
• The changing role of the state and civil society in Social Democratic politics
• Social Democracy and specific policy areas: education, health, democratic renewal
• Australian Social Democracy at the State and Federal level