and occupied skilled and professional positions, in both the public and
the private sector. Political conflicts increasingly pitted the new middle
class, formed by these winners who were more educated and guided
by post-materialist values, against established elites and groups,
anchored in traditional values. Social demands became less focused on
production and distribution than on consumption, lifestyle, and social
risks, and they were voiced by a host of movements speaking in the
name of the young, women, or different ethnic, cultural, or sexual
minorities. New causes were also promoted, to protect the environ-
ment, ban nuclear energy, bring world peace, or defend local neigh-
borhoods. These emerging conflicts were fought using innovative
modes of operation that privileged participation, local and global
networking, and direct actions. The aim was not only to influence
political decisions, but also to change the very democratic procedures
that presided over these decisions.^16
Parties of the left were in retreat in the 1980s, and these new
movements tended to fill the void. Local and national actions were
undertaken on a broad variety of issues, and they pushed leftist pol-
itics in uncharted territory. Faced with rapid changes in the political
environment, particularly well illustrated by the rise of green parties,
social-democrats tried to adjust, sometimes by distancing themselves
from what some called the “loony left,” but more often than not by
renewing their own programs.^17 For its part, the right had to deal with
the emergence of radical parties on its side, which articulated a
populist, and at times racist, defense of the losers in post-industrialism.
Being in power, however, it usually did so more easily – at least for a
time – with symbolic gestures and piecemeal legislation that displayed
toughness against criminals, welfare recipients, or illegal immigrants.^18
Challenged on their right as well as on their left, social-democrats
also had to rethink their policy orientations to take into account the
power of the neoliberal agenda. The first adjustments in this respect
(^16) Hanspeter Kriesi, “Movements of the Left, Movements of the Right: Putting the
Mobilization of Two New Types of Social Movements into Political Context,”
in Herbert Kitschelt, Peter Lange, Gary Marks, and John D. Stephens (eds.),
Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism, Cambridge University
Press, 1999, pp. 399–406; Herbert Kitschelt,The Transformation of European
Social Democracy, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 3–6.
(^17) Geoff Eley,Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–
2000 , Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 467–78.
(^18) Kriesi, “Movements of the Left, Movements of the Right,” p. 420.
170 Left and Right in Global Politics