something is now too powerful to hide behind past failures, and the left –
recognizing those failures – is taking a much tougher approach to perfor-
mance and results.^14
This chapter explores this rapprochement between the left and the
right. The story starts with the transformation of the left in the 1990s,
which brought progressive forces around the world to accept some
aspects of the neoliberal agenda. The following two sections consider
the tangible consequences of this evolution, and ponder in parti-
cular the significance of “Third Way” politics and of what has been
deemed the “new development consensus.” The last section underlines
the continuing relevance of the left–right cleavage, in a context where
the search for equality continues to be a defining division, in global as
well as in domestic politics.
A renewed left
In the 1990s, the left was confronted with two challenges, which
pulled it in opposite directions. On one hand, a host of new movements
emerged, to question established parties and organizations and voice
additional demands, which were not met readily by traditional socialist
or social-democratic approaches. On the other hand, the political
success of the right forced progressives to revise their orientations,
accept more openly the market economy, and design policy options
that were more attuned to the requirements of global competition.
Consider, first, the rise of new social movements. Between the end
of the Second World War and the 1980s, economic growth, the
expansion of the service sector, high levels of employment, and the
welfare state literally transformed affluent democracies. Manufac-
turing workers declined in numbers compared to service employees,
which became the dominant category in post-industrial economies.^15
Many of these service employees were little qualified, poorly paid, and
poorly protected. They found themselves on the losing side of mod-
ernization. Numerous others, however, ended up on the winning side,
(^14) Mark Malloch Brown, “Meeting the Millennium Challenge: A Strategy for
Helping Achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals,” address
by the Administrator of the UNDP, Berlin, June 27, 2002, p. 1.
(^15) Donald Sassoon,One Hundred Years of Socialism: The West European Left in
the Twentieth Century, New York, The New Press, 1996, pp. 651–52.
Twenty-first-century rapprochement 169