Social Democracy in a Global World1

This essay argues that after being internationalist in the nineteenth century, social democracy became predominantly national in character after the First World War, reinforced by the breakdown of the liberal world order in the 1930s following the Great Crash. It examines how the nation-state acquired a new legitimacy during post-war reconstruction after 1945 within a new liberal international order under the leadership of the United States and with policies of full employment and economic redistribution, and how the era of national protectionism gradually became outmoded because of the push to greater globalisation in the 1980s and 1990s which restricted the autonomy of national governments. Following the 2008 financial crash the dilemmas of social democratic governments in balancing the need for global engagement with maintaining national support have become acute.