Vieira Mathieu | Université libre de Bruxelles (original) (raw)

Books by Vieira Mathieu

This book addresses the question of how social democratic parties in Europe have responded to th... more This book addresses the question of how social democratic parties in Europe
have responded to the global economic crisis – at the national level, across the
European Union, and within the institutions of the EU. Many commentators
have been keen to see a social democratic response to the global economic
crisis that began with the sub-prime crisis and subsequently morphed into a full
financial and economic crisis, from the collapse of Lehman Brothers onwards.
In order for a social democratic alternative to globalised and finance-driven
capitalism to emerge, however, we also need social democratic parties to be
moving in the direction of producing such policies, and for them to be in a
viable and popular form. This book is one of the first to assess whether this is
the case.

The book draws together some of the best-known and most prestigious scholars
of social democracy and social democratic parties, along with a number of
impressive new scholars in the field, to present a compelling and up-to-date
analysis of social democratic fortunes in the contemporary period. It benefits
from an analysis of social democratic parties’ experiences in six different
countries – the UK, Sweden, Germany, France, Spain, and Greece – along with a
number of chapters on social democracy in the European Union.
It will be of interest to all scholars and students of social democracy and social
democratic parties, European politics, party politics, and political economy

The nature of social democracy in the countries of the European Union is more significant and bet... more The nature of social democracy in the countries of the European Union is more significant and better understood than is indicated by the available literature. This thought-provoking handbook aims to redress this disparity by bringing together Political scientists from across Europe to provide a definitive collection on social democracy in the EU.
"What is 'left' remains the crucial question in European politics, and De Waele, Escalona and Vieira provide an answer to be meditated and remembered by giving an exhaustive, non conventional picture of social democratic parties and singling out the challenges they have to cope with and overcome."

- Leonardo Morlino, President of the International Political Science Association (IPSA), 2009/12 and Professor Political Science, LUISS Guido Carlo University, Italy.

"A remarkably useful compendium analyzing, with a considerable sense of balance, the social democratic left in twenty-seven member-countries of the European Union: history, membership, electoral results, party programmes and, at the end of each essay, a brave attempt to peer into the uncertain future of social democracy. A great tool for comparativists. Thank you!"

- Donald Sassoon, Emeritus Professor of Comparative European History, Queen Mary, University of London, UK

"This Handbook assembles an outstanding group of international experts on social democracy in their respective countries. Its special strength is that all experts speak to the same analytical questions of social democratic party development and thereby systematically cover hard-to-find information on party organization and intra-party dynamics. The Handbook is exceptionally valuable for students of social democracy in a comparative perspective as well as practitioners and country experts who seek to relate social democratic experience in their own to that of other countries. I cannot think of a better source to begin research on European social democracy."

- Herbert Kitschelt, Department of Political Science, Duke University, USA

Assistons-nous à une droitisation de la classe ouvrière en Europe ? Sinon provocante, la question... more Assistons-nous à une droitisation de la classe ouvrière en Europe ?
Sinon provocante, la question posée est assurément inconfortable pour la gauche tant elle remet en cause des corrélations naturalisées entre cette dernière et le monde ouvrier.
Depuis 2005 et l'arrivée d'Angela Merkel en Allemagne, les droites européennes ne cessent d'engranger les victoires électorales. Les échecs répétés des partis de gauche ont ainsi conduit de nombreux commentateurs à expliquer la droitisation de l'Europe par l'hégémonie culturelle de la droite qui aurait gagné la bataille des idées et par un glissement à droite voire à l'extrême droite d'une partie de l'électoral ouvrier.

Dans une perspective résolument comparative, cet ouvrage privilégie cette deuxième entrée et interroge les raisons, les enjeux et les effets de cette dynamique de désalignement. Où en est aujourd'hui le vote de classe chez les populations ouvrières ? Comment entendre la notion même de droitisation ?
En répondant a ces questions, cet ouvrage offre des outils pour mieux comprendre le formidable enjeu politique qui se noue dans les démocraties européennes autour des classes populaires.

Articles by Vieira Mathieu

Cet article traite de l’opposition à l’Europe des dissidents socialistes ayant créé le Parti de ... more Cet article traite de l’opposition à l’Europe des dissidents socialistes ayant créé
le Parti de gauche puis œuvré à la constitution du Front de gauche. Il soutient
que si l’ensemble de leur projet politique n’est pas réductible à leur résistance
à l’intégration européenne, celle-ci a été un catalyseur de la dissidence, un outil
privilégié de mobilisation et de différenciation vis-à-vis du Parti socialiste, ainsi
qu’un moyen de circonscrire les frontières de « l’autre gauche ». L’opposition à
l’Europe des dissidents est donc analysée à la fois pour son sens idéologique
et pour son usage stratégique dans les processus d’unification et de coalition
partisanes dont ils ont été les entrepreneurs.
The meaning and the role of resistance to the EU in the Left Party

This article focuses on opposition to Europe from the socialist dissenters who
founded the Left Party and co-founded the Left Front. We argue that opposition
to Europe is not only a form of resistance to European integration, but also
a catalyst of dissent, a tool for mobilization and differentiation towards the
Socialist party, and a way to define the boundaries of the “other left”. The
article deals with the ideological meaning and strategic use of opposition to
Europe, which has played a significant role in the political enterprise of unifying
socialist dissenters.

Political science literature has extensively described social democracy’s ‘two metamorphoses’. Fi... more Political science literature has extensively described social democracy’s ‘two metamorphoses’. First there was the establishment of social democratic parties as major government parties in the ‘Keynesian State’ period and then their ‘de-social-democratisation’ after the 1970s, while the renovation promoted by Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder was associated with electoral success at the end of the 1990s. The propulsive power of this new social democratic identity was then rapidly exhausted.

Until the last days before the 2014 European elections, opinion polls carried out in EU member countries allowed the social democrats to hope that they could pass the 200-seat threshold in the 751-seat European Parliament (EP) and make good the setback they had suffered five years earlier. Indeed, in 2009 only a quarter of the MEPs belonged to the EP’s S&D group, which was at an historically low level.

We will first show that social democracy managed to stabilise its weight in the EP only while continuing to decline in percentage of votes. This result should be seen in the context of the historic trajectory of a political family of parties that we extensively studied in The Palgrave Handbook of Social Democracy.2We will next address the present state of this family of parties in the middle of capitalism’s structural crisis and the dilemmas it faces in the very peculiar regime of the European Union. The social democrats, because of their own history, have tied themselves up in a bundle of constraints — which are creating their present difficulties. For this reason, they will probably not be of much help in putting an end to the austerity that is devastating the European continent. This will be the last point covered by this article.

Working papers by Vieira Mathieu

Pour l’Ovipol, les auteurs de cette note reviennent sur l’état de la social-démocratie depuis les... more Pour l’Ovipol, les auteurs de cette note reviennent sur l’état de la social-démocratie depuis les années 2000, après l’élargissement à l’Est et l’éclatement d’une grande crise du capitalisme, et sur les dilemmes qu’elle a à affronter, et notamment celui de l’unité de la famille.

Parmi les familles de la gauche européenne contemporaine, celle de la gauche radicale est encore ... more Parmi les familles de la gauche européenne contemporaine, celle de la gauche radicale est encore peu européanisée et regroupe des traditions et des cultures politiques diverses. Pour l’Observatoire de la vie politique, Fabien Escalona et Mathieu Vieira analysent son émergence et ses composantes internes.

Analysant le poids des électeurs socialistes dans les « idéopôles », ces métropoles concentrant l... more Analysant le poids des électeurs socialistes dans les « idéopôles », ces métropoles concentrant les activités et les groupes sociaux typiques de l’économie post-industrielle et de la mondialisation, les deux auteurs décryptent les recompositions de cet électorat en cours depuis quinze ans.

Since the first European elections in 1979 and the empowerment of the European parliament (EP), t... more Since the first European elections in 1979 and the empowerment of the European parliament (EP), the research agenda on the EP has been focused on understanding the emergence of “Europarties” and a “European party system”. However, although the scholars who study the party phenomenon at the EU level refer to the concept of party system, the question of the existence of such a system has never been properly examined. Without being debated, the concept is used by convenience. In a similar manner, scholars tend to confuse the conditions of existence and the classification criteria (i.e. division state and ideological polarization) of a party system. In other words, rather than establishing the conditions of existence of a party system, these researches have been trying to determine the form that it could have taken.
This mix-up can be explained by the lack of interest of the political scientists in the definition of the concept of party system. On this matter, Sartori’s (1970) well-known distinction between the intension and the extension of a concept helps us to characterize this propensity of scholars concerning the party systems: while there are numerous typologies of party systems, we can hardly find any clarification of the concept properties. Thus, the concept of party system does not escape to the reef of “conceptual stretching”.
In light of these observations, I will favor a deductive method (Stoker, 1995). Such a method requires on the one hand examining the properties of the concept of party system, by identifying the conditions of existence of a party system. On the other hand, I will compare this framework with the system formed by the European political organizations (parliamentary groups and European federations). This method has the advantage of clearly indentifying the conditions of existence that this “unidentified political object” must satisfy in order to pretend to the label of European party system.
The paper will be organized as follows: Fist, I will provide an overview on the research area on the emergence of “Europarties” and a European party system. Second, I will specify the conditions of existence of a party system. Third, the paper will explain why the European partisan network does not pretend to the label of party system.

Book chapters by Vieira Mathieu

Conference papers by Vieira Mathieu

Focused on the French case, this paper aims at investigating a geographical change of electoral s... more Focused on the French case, this paper aims at investigating a geographical change of electoral support, which is part of wider transformations of the electoral base of the Socialist Party, in particular the trend of working class dealignment. While a specific sociology emerged in “ideopolises”, anchored in the post-industrial and knowledge-based economy, a shift of the traditional socialist electoral support occurred in those cities (but not for all types of elections). We argue that this dynamic has been particularly pronounced in 2007.

- Leonardo Morlino, President of the International Political Science Association (IPSA), 2009/12 and Professor Political Science, LUISS Guido Carlo University, Italy.

- Donald Sassoon, Emeritus Professor of Comparative European History, Queen Mary, University of London, UK

- Herbert Kitschelt, Department of Political Science, Duke University, USA

Communication AFSP, Jul 2013

Après avoir montré que les idéopôles constituent des lieux d’observation privilégiés dans lesquel... more Après avoir montré que les idéopôles constituent des lieux d’observation privilégiés dans lesquels se concentrent et se cristallisent les dynamiques socio-politiques inhérentes à la révolution globale, nous proposerons une définition et une opérationnalisation du concept d’idéopôle, grâce à la construction d’un indice idéopôles. Nous évaluerons ensuite la pénétration des différentes forces de gauche dans les villes de plus de 100 000 habitants et les idéopôles, à l’aune des résultats obtenus par ces dernières aux élections présidentielles, européennes et municipales. Nous opérerons dans le même temps un « focus » sur les deux idéopôles de Paris et de Lyon.

Developed countries are facing an unprecedented structural crisis of capitalism since 1929. This ... more Developed countries are facing an unprecedented structural crisis of capitalism since 1929. This crisis also affects neoliberal ideas that have become prevalent after the death of social democratic compromise of the postwar period. One might therefore expect this critical juncture to be a “window of opportunity” for social democracy. Yet, this window of opportunity seems to have been missed. This assertion can be backed up by two types of observations.
First, we observe a global electoral failure of social democratic parties in national and EU elections since the crisis. Second, this failure also concerns public policies since social democrats have not managed to impose their views in response to the financial crisis. No electoral gain, no intellectual revenge, and no alternative policy: this picture should be clarified and nuanced especially in respect to national trajectories and specific issues structuring political life of each country. In addition, we have to tackle with the ability and willingness for social democracy to embody an alternative to neoliberalism.
This conference will mainly focus on analysing the social democratic responses to the financial crisis as well as the opportunities and constraints hanging over a potential social democratic alternative.

Depuis le début des années 1980, l’hypothèse du « gel des principales alternatives partisanes » f... more Depuis le début des années 1980, l’hypothèse du « gel des principales alternatives partisanes » formulée par Seymour Martin Lipset et Stein Rokkan, ne cesse de soulever des débats et des commentaires. L’apparition de nouveaux partis écologistes et d’extrême droite ainsi que la hausse marquée de la volatilité électorale sont autant d’éléments qui viennent questionner l’hypothèse de la stabilité des systèmes partisans, consacrée par l’intégration politique des masses à partir des années 1920. Le relâchement des démarcations sociales, économiques et culturelles des sociétés européennes sous l’effet du double processus de globalisation et d’intégration européenne autorise certains politistes à s’interroger sur l’émergence possible d’une nouvelle révolution historique, au même titre que la « révolution nationale » ou la « révolution industrielle ». Cette « révolution mondiale » ou « révolution de l’intégration » se superposerait aux révolutions classiques et favoriserait ainsi l’apparition de nouveaux clivages.
Cet atelier procède d’un double constat. D’une part, la restructuration des systèmes de clivages nationaux est un courant d’analyse marginal et peu structuré dans la science politique francophone. D’autre part, il existe peu d’étude systématique comparée des effets de la globalisation et de l’intégration européenne sur les structures de clivages nationaux. L’objectif d’un tel atelier est donc de poursuivre dans le champ francophone ces premières analyses et de proposer de nouvelles perspectives théoriques et méthodologiques.
Le type de propositions recherché portera prioritairement sur l’un des axes de recherche suivants :
• Etablir un état de la question dans la littérature scientifique francophone au regard des travaux existants
• Identifier finement les trajectoires nationales et les modes singuliers d’adaptation aux évolutions en cours
• Présenter de nouvelles pistes comparatives dans le temps et dans l’espace
• Proposer de nouvelles pistes théoriques et méthodologiques
Les organisateurs de cet atelier seront particulièrement sensibles aux propositions de contribution qui croiseront une réflexion théorique et/ou méthodologique à l’étude empirique originale. Les études de cas ou les comparaisons retenues pourront aussi bien porter sur l’Europe Occidentale que sur l’Europe Centrale et Orientale.

The purpose of this panel is to contribute to the definition and classification of the relevant r... more The purpose of this panel is to contribute to the definition and classification of the relevant radical left parties in contemporary Western Europe (i.e. left of social democracy, former communist parties, red-green alliances, trotskyists formations or even left fronts, etc.). Although many scholars have studied the collapse of communist parties, the formation and the reconversion of radical left parties have received little attention. Our intention is to fill this gap while raising the hypothesis of the gradual structuration of a new radical left family since 1989.

The contributors are invited to discuss the validity of this assumption, to define the outlines of this emerging anti-capitalist family, to propose a typology of its various components and to examine the role and the systemic positioning of radical left parties within their national party systems.

As pointed out by Peter Mair and Cas Mudde, the party family approach remains ‘one of the most under-theorised and least-specified approaches to the general classification of parties’ (1998: 214). There is a lack of theoretical and methodological toolbox and the multidimensional nature of a party family implies to explore several dimensions. We then expect the contributions to deal with one or more of these dimensions: genetic, ideological, electoral, organisational and systemic.

Beyond this conference, the ambition of the panel is to set up a European research network whose members share similar research questions and approaches. Comparative and case studies will be both appreciated.

Compte rendu de l'ouvrage: Line Rennwald, Partis socialistes et classe ouvrière. Ruptures et cont... more Compte rendu de l'ouvrage: Line Rennwald, Partis socialistes et classe ouvrière. Ruptures et continuités du lien électoral en Suisse, en Autriche, en Allemagne, en Grande-Bretagne et en France, (1970-2008), Neuchâtel, Éditions Alphil-Presses universitaires suisses, 2015 in Revue Française de Science Politique, 66 (3-4), 2016, pp. 87-88.

Conférence de méthode, Sciences Po Lille, 36H, étudiants internationaux

TD, Université Lille II, 30H, L2, 2 groupes

Conférence de méthode, Sciences Po Lille, 36H, L2, 2 groupes

Conférence de méthode, Sciences Po Lille, 36H, L1 (étudiants franco-allemands)

Séminaire,Université Libre de Bruxelles, 24H, L2

Intervention dans le cadre du cours "Partis politiques", Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2H, L3

Intervention dans le cadre du cours "Politique européenne comparée", Université Libre de Bruxelle... more Intervention dans le cadre du cours "Politique européenne comparée", Université Libre de Bruxelles (Institut d'Études Européennes), 2H, Master