In The Transformation of European Social Democracy, Kitschelt sets out to explain two phenomena: 1) the differential electoral success of social democratic parties in different countries; and 2) the strategic choices made by social democratic parties. In developing his explanations, Kitschelt draws connections between a macro-level of changes in the global political-economy, a meso-level of the spatial configuration of the political field, and a micro-level of interaction between leaders and rank and file activists within social democratic parties. He sets his argument against what he terms ‘external’ explanations of the electoral performance of social democratic parties that solely look to macro-level factors such as class structure or political economic factors to account for electoral outcomes. Rather, Kitschelt convincingly demonstrates that a complete analysis must focus both on external factors and those ‘internal’ to the political process, such as strategic interactions among competing parties and between actors within parties. Kitschelt also criticizes class-based and political economic accounts for focusing only on the distributive dimension of politics, ignoring the communitarian dimension that has taken on growing importance in late capitalism.
In accounting for the varying electoral success of the social democratic parties in his study, Kitschelt focuses on the strategic opportunities provided by the structural features of the political field, taking into consideration such factors as the distribution of voter preferences, the number of competitors situated to one’s left or right along the main ideological axis of competition, and the costs of entry for new political parties. Different structural configurations provide incentives for different strategies, including straightforward vote maximization strategies, pivoting strategies that seek control of the median voter through moderate appeals, and oligopolistic strategies that attempt to thwart radical competitors through a leftward shift in party stances. The most successful parties are the ones that capitalize on the opportunities provided by their national political field. But not all parties are able to capitalize on these opportunities. To account for the extent to which strategic parties behave ‘irrationally’, Kitschelt looks to the organizational structures of parties. Seizing opportunities often requires parties either to allow input from rank and file members to detect shifts in the distribution of preferences or to have an unconstrained leadership to make rapid strategic shifts. Parties that suffered electoral losses possessed organizational structures that were ill-suited to realizing the opportunities with which they were presented by the systemic environment.
