Winning back the center
Or:
How Bill Clinton & Tony Blair came to power and re-positioned their
parties.
Content
1. Introduction...2
2. The Restructuring and Repositioning of the Democratic and the
Labour party...3-8
3. The DLC and the Third Way...9-10
4. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair...11-13
5. Agenda setting...14-15
6. Conclusion...16-18
7. Bibliography... 19-20
1
Introduction
Whatever their differences of character and the differences of the
political systems are, William Clinton and Tony Blair are joined at
the hip as energetic parishioners of the so-called Third way politics.
Both restructured and repositioned their parties by breaking with
their party's old style policies. New Labour and New Democrats both
meant a clear cut from their parties political past. With a new
agenda and new politics and last but not least a new and a well
organized party machine rallied behind them, both succeeded in
taking back the power after many years of opposition. But to what
political price?
In order to win back the political center Bill Clinton and Tony Blair
made significant strategically policy shifts that parted with their
parties old-style liberal/ socialist
1
paths to more business friendly
and social conservative policies.
In this paper a comparison and analysis of the political ,,Third way
politics" in the United States of America and Great Britain shall be
made. The emphasis is on how and why these politics were adopted
and whether they ultimately succeeded.
1
The American (mis) use the term liberal to refer to a left wing position.
2
2. The Restructuring and Repositioning of the
Democratic and Labour party.
-Genesis of the Third way politics: New Labour and New
Democrats-
In 1992 Bill Clinton launched a largely unexpected victory over
George W. Bush senior and became the 42nd President of the
United States. Four years later Tony Blair won by an even bigger
landslide triumph after more than 18 years of lethargic opposition.
Both victories were anticipated by crucial politic shifts of new
formatted parties known as the New Democrats and New Labour.
There is no doubt that those pragmatic shifts were one of the key
reasons for their ultimate success.
To understand the genesis of New Labour and New Democrats it is
inevitable to go back to the late 70ties early 80ties. The parties of
Bill Clinton and Tony Blair are both a product of those decades were
they found each other in an almost helpless opposition in the face of
their two proponent conservative opponents.
In America the decline of the left can be traced back to the
disastrous defeat of president Jimmy Carter against Ronald Reagan
in 1980, if not even earlier when Mc Govern was defeated by
Richard Nixon in 1972.
2
With Ronald Reagan and Margret Thatcher
began a long conservative era that was part of the counter
movement to the progressive and turbulent years of the civil rights
and anti war movements of the sixties and seventies. In America
the still prevalent shock of the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal
and the Iran hostage crises created on one hand a political climate
of disillusion and cynicism. On the other hand a desire for a strong
2
Some scholars regard the presidency of Jimmy Carter as exceptional in the context of its
conservative zeitgeist. They argue his election was rather caused by the desastrous
administration of Richard Nixon than in great sympathy for liberal policies. Compare: Juergen
Heideking, Geschichte der USA.
3
and resolute leader who represented American values like many
people saw incorporated by Ronald Reagan.
3
Great Britain was suffering from one of their biggest economical
crises in history when the Labour Party lost the trust of the
electorate to the Conservative party. During the famous ,,winter of
discontent" from 1978-1979, the Labour government tried to keep
the inflation under control by attempting to enforce a law that pay
rises have to be kept under 5% percent; first for the private and later
for the public sector. Under massive protest and strikes by trade
unions that were demanding larger pay raises Prime Minister James
Callaghan who was dependent of the support of the unions had to
give in. Shortly after the Labour Party was defeated by Margret
Thatcher who implemented a radical business and market oriented
agenda.
Both Democrats as well as the British Labour Party found
themselves in one of their biggest crisis that should last until the
early/ mid 90ties with Clinton and Blair winning office.
That is not to say that both parties had not began to re-position
their parties before. The change both parties experienced did not
come over night but was the result of an ongoing debate between
the old-style politicians and reformers within their parties. Which was
eventually won by the reform oriented party fractions of both
parties.
4
In Great Britain Neil Kinnock and John Smith had started some
fundamental structural changes like cutting down their close ties
with labour unions and parting from a socialist oriented economic
3
Juergen Heideking. Geschichte der USA. p. 483.
4
Third way Leadership, old way government: Blair, Clinton and the power to govern. British
Journal of Politics and International Relations.p. 37
4
policy that would lay the foundation to the New Labour under Tony
Blair and Gordon Brown. But the final cut with the socialist past of
the Labour party was not completed until Tony Blair eliminated the
famous clause IX of the party's constitution.
5
In the United States similar adjustments within the Democratic
Party were evolving some years earlier, although in retrospect they
look less radical and far reaching as the Labour party's reformation.
This has to do on one hand with the fact that the Democratic party
had never been- even under president Roosevelt - as far left-wing
as the Labour Party, which considered itself to be a socialist party.
So naturally the policy shifts of the Democrats were not as dramatic
as the metamorphosis of the Labour Party. On the other hand it has
to the role of the party in a presidential democracy is a different one
from the role of a party in a parliamentary system. The Democratic
candidates or representatives enjoy much more freedom to
articulate an independent opinion from their party. The strict
separation of the legislative and executive power in the American
constitution makes the president and his party relatively
independent from each other, whereas in the UK a government
could not govern without the full support of its party and
congressmen.
Never the less the reform course the Democratic Party was
undergoing was profoundly affecting the party's profile too. With the
emergence of Democrat Leadership Council called DLC in 1985, the
Democratic Party generated ideas to initiate the reshaping of the
party's profile. In the beginning the DLC was just one political organ
among others but as more and more Democratic leaders joined it, it
5
The original version of Clause IV, was drafted by Sidney Webb in November 1917 and
adopted by the party in 1918.
5
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