Wu Huiping: Development Trends of Left-wing Social Movements in Western Europe Amidst Political Shifts
Since the 21st century, left-wing social movements have gained significant momentum in major Western European countries. After achieving initial social influence, they have rapidly evolved into new types of radical left-wing political parties. Their political mobilization and organizational operations are characterized by innovative features, providing an excellent case study for observing and assessing the dissemination and development of left-wing thought in Europe.
The Developmental Trend of Western European Left-Wing Social Movements
The European political and social ecosystem has undergone complex evolution under the heavy blows of a series of crises. Among these, left-wing social movements in Western European countries such as France, Italy, Spain, and Germany have shown an upward trend. In recent years, they have gradually developed into important political forces capable of influencing general election results, attracting widespread international attention. In France, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a former Minister for Vocational Education, leads the "La France Insoumise" (FI, Unbowed France) movement, which has steadily increased its influence amid fierce political competition. In February 2016, the "Unbowed France" movement held its founding rally and formally established itself as a political party in January 2017. Mélenchon subsequently ran in the 2017 general election as a candidate jointly supported by the party and the French Communist Party, winning the support of nearly one-fifth of the electorate. In 2022, Mélenchon contested the French presidential election again; he not only ranked third in the first round—trailing Marine Le Pen, the candidate for the National Rally (RN), by only 200,000 to 300,000 votes—but also led the New Ecologic and Social People's Union (NUPES) in the second round to become the second-largest political force in the National Assembly, surpassing the National Rally. This resulted in the center-left coalition led by Emmanuel Macron losing control of the legislature. "Unbowed France" developed from a social movement into a political party, yet it has retained the campaign-style activity formats of a movement even after its founding.
In Italy, the "Five Star Movement" (M5S) has achieved great success and maintained its political influence through a distinctive stance that blends left-wing and right-wing populist political platforms. This movement originated from the "Friends of Beppe Grillo" movement launched by Italian comedian Beppe Grillo on his personal website in 2009. Through exaggerated and extreme comedic performances, he critiqued current affairs, domestic political corruption, European Union policies, and the hazards of the refugee wave. By utilizing blogs, Facebook, and other methods online, he attracted grassroots participation in political activities, rapidly boosting his popularity and subsequently establishing the "Five Star Movement" party to strengthen institutional party building. The M5S began participating in local elections in 2010 and rose rapidly in the Italian political arena. At its peak in the 2018 national election, it garnered 32.7% of the vote, becoming the largest party. Following this, the M5S participated in two successive coalition governments, though it frequently clashed with other governing parties, eventually leading to the collapse of the Draghi government in 2022. Nevertheless, the party ranked third in the September 2022 parliamentary elections and returned to its role as an opposition party.
In Spain, the "Podemos" (We Can) party emerged as a fresh political force during the European debt crisis. Starting May 15, 2011, the "Indignados" [1] (The Enraged) protest movement broke out in Spain. Utilizing the "Real Democracy Now" digital platform as well as social networks like Twitter and Facebook, it mobilized youth and the unemployed to participate in protests. A series of protest activities swept through nearly 60 Spanish cities. In March 2014, Pablo Iglesias, a professor of political science at the Complutense University of Madrid, formally established the Podemos party based on this movement. The party won five seats in that year's European Parliament elections and emerged as a dark horse in the 2015 Spanish general election to become the third-largest party in parliament; it is currently the fourth-largest.
In Germany, various protest movements have emerged in an endless stream, though the organized strength of left-wing protest movements is generally more fragmented and their momentum relatively weaker compared to those in the aforementioned countries. The more influential political force is the "Aufstehen" (Stand Up) collective movement. Unlike other movements, "Stand Up" was initiated by prominent figures from the Left Party (Die Linke), Sahra Wagenknecht and Oskar Lafontaine. Officially launched in September 2018, it recruited supporters extensively through its official website and garnered support from well-known figures in the cultural sphere. Its goal is to launch a national grassroots movement to gather and mobilize people who are uninterested in current politics, using new political forms to conduct public debates on social issues of common concern to the left.
Overall, many left-wing social movements propose alternative programs to capitalism centered on social justice and encompassing a diverse range of issues. Mélenchon is explicitly anti-capitalist, maintains a pro-union stance, advocates for taxing the wealthy, and demands the elimination of all forms of inequality, including those based on family background, race, and gender. The M5S focuses on livelihood issues such as social welfare, employment, universal education, and tax cuts; it advocates reducing the work week to 20 hours, calls for tax exemptions, promotes a thorough reform of the health insurance system, and demands strengthened market regulation. After taking office, it introduced a series of livelihood policies including a universal basic income and labor protections. The German Left Party advocates for more opportunities for co-determination [2] between labor and capital, promotes the redistribution of social wealth through higher taxes on the wealthy and the introduction of a minimum wage, and demands an end to privatization policies. Beyond this, left-wing social movements also pay close attention to broad issues such as ecological protection and disarmament, fully demonstrating the characteristic of diversified political agendas.
At the same time, left-wing social movements exhibit distinct populist characteristics. Western European left-wing social movements and their associated parties are unapologetic about their positioning as left-wing populists. Mélenchon utilizes the concept of left-wing populism to pit "the people" against "the elite," arguing that the environmental, social, and other serious crises facing humanity can only be solved by relying on the people. He advocates for attracting dissatisfied voters by convening the people against the elite. The concept of "the people" proposed by Mélenchon has a clear cross-class attribute and employs a method of exclusion—that is, defining the scope of the concept by determining "who is not" part of it, such as excluding financial oligarchs from the people. The M5S has risen via a populist path that is "neither left nor right" but is actually a hybrid of left and right positions. While proposing a left-wing socio-economic program, it maintains an anti-immigrant stance characteristic of right-wing populism, thereby playing both sides to maximize its range of supporters amid the social crisis.
Basic Characteristics of Western European Left-Wing Social Movements
While the specific forms and political-social influence of Western European left-wing social movements vary, they share common characteristics in terms of social foundations, mobilization formats, and organizational structures that clearly distinguish them from traditional political parties.
First, regarding political mobilization, left-wing social movements mostly utilize web platforms and social media to realize "Internet democracy." In the Internet era, various networks and new media have become the primary battlegrounds for these movements to promote their agendas and generate momentum. Social movements and parties in various countries cultivate their online presence deeply, establishing specialized digital operations teams and using various online social tools to publish political views, communicate with public opinion, solicit policy ideas, and conduct social mobilization. Among them, Podemos flexibly utilizes various online tools and software, engaging in dialogue with the public through popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as a space called "Plaza Podemos" established on the news site Reddit. It uses Loomio as a decision-making platform for online communication; currently, more than half of Loomio’s users worldwide are within the activity circles and local organizations of the Podemos party. The party also utilizes other open-source digital tools, such as real-time polling apps and citizen initiative platforms, to launch online crowdfunding campaigns to raise funds for various activities. In its early stages in 2014, it participated in the European Parliament elections through crowdfunding. Through effective digital strategies, Podemos has developed a membership of 370,000 online.
Leaders of left-wing social movements also excel at using new media in their daily activities. For example, during the 2017 campaign, Mélenchon used holographic projection technology to deliver speeches simultaneously in Lyon and Paris. Former M5S leader Beppe Grillo promoted his political views and concepts in multiple languages through blogs, Facebook, and other platforms. The "meetup.com" social platform he co-created with network operations expert Gianroberto Casaleggio organized over 1,000 exchange meetings between 2009 and 2013. Luigi Di Maio, who succeeded Grillo as leader of the M5S, had roughly ten times as many Facebook followers as the leader of the Italian Democratic Party. Germany's "Stand Up" movement relies on action groups distributed throughout the country to conduct activities, spreading and disseminating information via websites, social media, and email to invite local supporters to participate.
Second, regarding organizational structure, left-wing social movements mostly adopt innovative operational and governance models to achieve direct democracy. These emerging movements and the parties developed from them have largely broken away from the top-down hierarchical management structures of traditional parties, adopting parallel organizational levels for operation and management while fully utilizing Internet tools in all segments. Compared to traditional parties, their organizational structures are relatively loose; they do not introduce complex electoral and delegate systems, are more free and open, are oriented toward everyone as much as possible, and do not impose excessive constraints on members. Anyone who identifies with their political views can participate, often without even needing to pay party dues. many left-wing movements or parties have their own websites where joining is as simple as registering with a name, city, and email address.
Groups like "Unbowed France" and the M5S mostly use online media to manage the party, distributing action plans and brochures, conducting discussions, voting, elections, and fundraising. Candidates are generated directly online from the bottom up. These organizations are action-oriented, using a continuous stream of "campaigns" (运动) to connect with and draw in the masses. Podemos adopts a democratic form of parallel organization, establishing over 1,000 grassroots units called "Circles" across Spain to achieve a bottom-up democratic participation process. The "Stand Up" movement adopts a localized and decentralized organizational model, forming action groups in every town or region to focus as much as possible on the daily concerns of local residents. Anyone can check the map on the website for the location, contact information, and activity schedule of their local action group and become a movement activist.
Third, regarding the social composition of supporters, left-wing social movements exhibit the characteristics of being youth-oriented and cross-class. In major Western European countries, the backbone of these movements and emerging parties shows a trend toward younger demographics, with higher levels of education generally correlating with higher levels of approval. This is the greatest difference between the emerging Western European left and the traditional left, whose class base was primarily composed of the working class, low-to-middle-income earners, and the unemployed. Young intellectual elites who grew up in the post-Cold War environment often resonate with left-wing social movements in several aspects: first, a critique of the capitalist mode of production and lifestyle. Many young people believe capitalism has fallen into a systemic predicament, highlighting institutional defects that require reckoning and transformation. Second, a focus on environmental protection. Young people are more concerned than other age groups about issues such as climate change that affect the future of humanity; the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified their anxiety and sense of urgency regarding environmental issues. Third, opposition to inequality. Young people have a stronger desire to drive social progress, especially opposing inequalities based on innate factors like race, origin, and gender, as well as those that cannot be changed later in life. However, positions on the EU among young people are polarized: young French voters have a lower level of identification with the EU than those over 55, while the support for the EU among young Italian voters far exceeds that of those over 45. Furthermore, the Italian left-wing social movement has adopted a hybrid left-right platform, winning widespread support from cross-generational and cross-class voters, with its supporters showing broad diversity in terms of gender, age, occupation, and geography.
The Driving Forces Behind Western European Left-Wing Social Movements
The rise of left-wing social movements in certain Western European countries has multi-faceted roots and driving forces. It is the result of the combined action of multiple factors since the start of the 21st century, including globalization, the technological revolution, and political turmoil.
First, the intensification of the gap between rich and poor under neoliberalism has further exacerbated social contradictions. Since the end of the Cold War, globalization has entered a new phase of rapid development, and neoliberalism has become prevalent across Western European capitalist countries. National industrial structures have undergone profound adjustments, and for a time, the process of globalization and technological progress pushed the middle class to rise collectively as the backbone of society. However, after a period of development, the neoliberal economy became unsustainable, creating a social reality of continuously widening wealth disparity. This led to rapid changes in the social structure formed in Western Europe after World War II, triggering new social conflicts and contradictions. In particular, the successive international financial crisis and the European debt crisis led to a sustained economic downturn in Europe, bringing about social problems such as a surge in unemployment. In countries like Italy and Spain, young people have been particularly hard hit by the economic crisis; the youth unemployment rate in Spain has consistently remained above 50%, reaching as high as 69% in some regions in 2015. Western Europe has a long tradition of radical left-wing revolution and student movements. Faced with bleak employment prospects and various social injustices, some young students, former members of the middle class who have fallen into the underclass, and low-income groups found themselves powerless. They discovered a resonance in the political programs of left-wing social movements and new types of political parties, subsequently moving to the opposite side of the establishment to critique the direction of neoliberal development and seek alternative solutions.
Second, the restructuring of traditional politics and party systems has accelerated. Since the 21st century, the role of traditional European parties as political spokespersons in social and political life has continued to decline. Their organizational and mobilization capacities have weakened, their public credibility has steadily dropped, and their social foundations have increasingly loosened, evidenced by significant decreases in membership and vote shares. Many large traditional parties have seen a serious decline in their ability to control the political situation, and the degree of political fragmentation across European countries has deepened, intensifying political competition and deadlock. In countries such as France and Italy, the traditional party landscape is on the verge of collapse after several election cycles; the influence of former ruling parties is waning, with their vote shares experiencing a "cliff-like" drop. Meanwhile, emerging political forces have risen rapidly, posing a powerful challenge to the party landscape and squeezing the breathing room of traditional parties. Among these, various social movements have become important channels for leading and representing public opinion, attracting large numbers of supporters and generating relatively lasting social impact. In these emerging social movements, political outsiders [3] have become political leaders. These core figures accumulate popularity through the power of "fans" rather than party organizational work. They take a clear stand against the existing system and political corruption, promote proposals to protect the interests of the grassroots, and adopt innovative forms of organization and mobilization, attracting many voters who are dissatisfied with and angry at current politics. As German scholar Henrik Müller has pointed out, Western democracy is undergoing a fundamental structural transformation where political competition is intensifying and the threshold for participation is lowering; complex organizational structures and long-term bonding ties are no longer required, which favors the organizational mobilization of social movements.
Third, the technological revolution has driven the transformation of Western democratic politics. The revolution in information technology and the popularization of social media have caused new political mobilization methods and channels to emerge continuously. Especially in the current wave of digital transformation, the digital economy—represented by "Internet Plus" and "Intelligence Plus"—is flourishing. "Digital existence" has shifted from a hot topic to a reality. The ubiquity of the internet and social media has, to a large extent, reshaped the power structure of Western democratic politics, intensified the deconstruction of traditional party politics, and driven reforms in party politics and innovations in party models. On one hand, the emergence of the internet has greatly influenced and changed people's thoughts, political concepts, and behavioral patterns. Political transparency and mass online political participation have become the prevailing trend. Online democracy, direct democracy, and new political phenomena have brought unprecedented challenges to traditional indirect democracy. On the other hand, technological progress has provided technical means and innovative channels for decentralized, parallel organizations and forms of democratic participation that are transparent, equal, and real-time. In past party competitions, traditional parties often relied on strong organizational resources accumulated over years of operation to form a competitive advantage. Many parties developed into elite-oriented, state-oriented, bureaucratized, and "cartel-type" parties. However, in the era of "digital existence," political leaders and even political outsiders can use the internet as a main battlefield to speak directly with the people. Various diverse online platforms and software tools can quickly achieve organizational, mobilization, and communication functions at local or national levels—a phenomenon that poses a significant challenge to traditional parties.
Fourth, Europe's multiple crises have catalyzed political changes and social problems. Since the 21st century, Europe has been hit by multiple crises in succession, including terrorist attacks, the international economic and financial crisis, the European debt crisis, and the refugee crisis. These have brought about political deadlock and led to regime changes in several countries. The social reality of unstable economic and employment prospects, combined with the sharp increase in the migrant and refugee population, has exacerbated conflicts of interest between native and immigrant populations. This has also impacted some conservative voters, particularly culturally conservative groups and the lower social strata, leading to the rise of identity politics and deepening social problems and contradictions. The political, economic, cultural, and social consequences of these multiple crises have overlapped, triggering a wave of populism across Europe. Some left-wing social movements have added fuel to the flames, using the situation to increase their influence. Countries where left-wing social movements have been more successful, such as Italy and Spain, are precisely the weakest links under the heavy blows of Europe's multiple crises. Diverging from the pro-European stance held by traditional parties in Western European countries, most left-wing social movements, represented by the Five Star Movement, hold a skeptical or even negative attitude toward European integration. They oppose the achievements of integration, such as the EU, the Euro, and the European Stability Mechanism, publicly advocating for national referendums on exiting the Eurozone or "Brexit," and opposing the cosmopolitanism promoted by mainstream political elites.
Developmental Bottlenecks and Future Trends of Western European Left-Wing Social Movements
Broadly speaking, emerging left-wing social movements in Western Europe are more open and flexible than the traditional left, attracting large-scale public support and achieving certain political results. The experiences and practices of these emerging movements and their successor parties during their rise—such as innovations in political mobilization, operational forms, and organizational structures—provide insights and lessons for the modern transformation of traditional parties.
However, as emerging Western European left-wing social movements transition from movements to parties, they still face many internal and external constraints in their development. On one hand, the greatest constraint on the further development of left-wing social movements and their successor parties is a serious lack of governing capacity. Although the traditional party system is under immense pressure, the role of political parties in Western political life remains irreplaceable, especially in performing key functions like holding parliamentary seats and participating in government. New left-wing parties transformed from social movements generally lack experience in state governance [4]. Many of their political demands are too idealistic, radical, or impractical, and their ability to deconstruct European politics far exceeds their capacity for construction. For example, the Five Star Movement saw its polling support drop rapidly to second place within its first year of governing in 2018 due to insufficient governing capacity and difficulty in advancing its policy program according to campaign slogans. It performed poorly in some cities where it governed and in the 2021 local elections; in the 2022 general election, it lost a large number of voters, with its vote share cut by more than half compared to the previous election.
On the other hand, left-wing social movements face fierce competition from right-wing populism. The American scholar Francis Fukuyama once noted a general situation in Western countries where the left is weak and right-wing populism is prevalent. The main reason for this phenomenon is the left's failure in the ideological sphere, while the right has occupied the ideological high ground with libertarian concepts. European right-wing populism similarly focuses on livelihood issues and seeks supporters among low-income groups, significantly diverting supporters away from left-wing social movements. For instance, the National Rally in France emphasized increasing people's purchasing power and ensuring priority for French citizens in jobs and social relief in its campaign platform; its candidate, Marine Le Pen, was most popular in traditional industrial areas and among workers and employees. The Left Party in Germany hoped to rally left-wing political forces through the "Aufstehen" (Stand Up) movement, but this movement did not help the party move beyond its marginal status, and its political and social influence cannot rival that of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Currently, the COVID-19 pandemic, which has lingered for several years, has seriously weighed down the European economy. The geopolitical conflict under the Russia-Ukraine conflict has shaken the European security landscape, triggering an energy supply crisis and price hikes, threatening the prospects for Europe's post-pandemic economic recovery and bringing about serious livelihood issues. Europe continues to move from one crisis to the next, raising the risk of social conflict and exacerbating political chaos, which provides an opportunity for left-wing social movements to further grow their momentum. Whether left-wing social forces can continue to enhance their political and social influence after developing from movements into parties depends largely on whether they can improve their governing capacity, successfully resist competition from right-wing populism in terms of programs and ideology, and produce more persuasive and feasible alternative solutions.
(The author is a professor at the Institute of German Studies, Tongji University) Web Editor: Zhang Jian Source: Contemporary World, Issue 1, 2023