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Pasokification is the decline ofcentre-left,social-democratic political parties in European and otherWestern countries during the 2010s, often accompanied by the rise ofnationalist,left-wing andright-wing populist alternatives.[1][2] InEurope, the share of votes for centre-left parties was at its 70-year lowest in 2015.[3]
The term originates from theGreek partyPASOK, which saw a declining share of the vote in national elections — from 43.9% in 2009 to 13.2% in May 2012, to 12.3% in June 2012 and 4.7% in 2015 — due to its perceived poor handling of theGreek government-debt crisis and implementation of harsh austerity measures.[4][5] Simultaneously, the left-winganti-austeritySyriza party saw a growth in vote share and influence.[6] Since PASOK's decline, the term has been applied to similar declines for other social-democratic andThird Way parties.
In the early 2020s, theSocial Democratic Party of Germany won the2021 German federal election, while theLabour Party andPASOK-KINAL performed well in the polls for the2024 United Kingdom and2023 Greek elections respectively, leading to discussions about the possibility of "de-Pasokification",[7] "reverse Pasokification", or "Kinalification."[8]
TheSocial Democratic Party of Austria lost 5.7 percentage points in the2019 Austrian legislative election, resulting in a share of 21.2%, the party's worst election result since World War II. In the same election, the conservativeAustrian People's Party gained 6 percentage points, with a share of 37.5%, its best since2002.
The2024 Austrian legislative election saw the far-rightFPÖ placing first, winning 28.8% of the vote and achieving its best result in the party's history. The governingÖVP lost 19 seats, while its coalition partner, the Greens, lost 10 seats. The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) won just 21.1%, marking its worst result ever in the National Council. TheNEOS improved from 2019, rising from 15 to 18 seats.
TheBulgarian Socialist Party lost 12.2 percentage points and fell from 80 to 43 seats in theApril 2021 Bulgarian parliamentary election. In theJuly 2021 Bulgarian parliamentary election the party lost another 1.6 percentage points, returning to parliament with just 36 seats. In theNovember 2021 Bulgarian general election, the BSP lost a further 3.27 percentage points and returned to parliament with 26 seats, their worst result since democratic reforms; however, the party joined the new coalition government.
TheSocial Democratic Party of Croatia had in the2019 European Parliament election (18.7%) their worst EP election result, in the2020 parliamentary election (24.9%) their worst parliamentary election result since 2003 and in the first round of the2019–20 presidential election they had their worst result since 2000 but in the end they won the second round.
TheCzech Social Democratic Party lost much of its support in the2017 Czech legislative election, falling from 50 in theprevious general election to just 15 seats out of 200. They did even worse in2021, with its vote share falling below the 5% threshold required for representation in the legislature.KSČM also fell below the threshold in 2021.Meanwhile,ANO 2011 gained 31 seats, and theCivic Democratic Party gained 9 seats in 2017.
TheSocialist Party's decline since its victory in the2012 presidential election has been described as an example of Pasokification.[9] By 2016, then-PresidentFrançois Hollande's approval rating was just 4%, and he became the first president in the history of the Fifth Republic not to run for re-election. In the2017 presidential election, Socialist Party candidateBenoît Hamon suffered an historically poor result, placing fifth with 6.4% of the vote. In the2017 legislative election a month later, the Socialist Party suffered the worst losses of any party, falling from 280 to 30 seats. The Socialist-led centre-left faction received 9.5% of the vote during the first round and only 45 seats overall.[10] In the2019 European elections, the PS allied with a number of minor centre-left parties, but still placed only sixth. It became the smallest party to win seats, receiving 6.2% of the vote. It was surpassed by bothEurope Ecology – The Greens and the left-wing populistLa France Insoumise. In the2022 French presidential election, Socialist Party candidate,Anne Hidalgo, received only 1.7% of the vote. In the legislative elections, the country's leftist forces combined into one electoral unit calledNUPES, anticipating fallout from poor results in the years prior.
In the2024 snap French legislative elections - called by Emmanuel Macron due to strong French far-right results in the2024 European Parliament elections - NUPES was abandoned due to differences on foreign policy triggered by the Israeli invasion of Gaza.[11] A new similar alliance called theNouveau Front Populaire (NFP) manifested comprising the main leftist parties in France, with the distinction that they did not declare a Prime Ministerial candidate.[12] While NFP did not win a majority, they surprisingly emerged as the single biggest party, having employed an informal cooperation agreement with Macron's renamedRenaissance party to defeat the apparently ascendant far-right.
TheSocial Democratic Party of Finland began to lose votes in2007 (3.03%) and achieved their worst results to date in2011 (19.10%) and2015 (16.51%). Although they managed to become the strongest force in2019 for the first time in a decade, they also had their second worst success in their history, with just under 18%. Despite an increase in the vote share in2023, the party lost power to a coalition of theNCP andFinns. Additionally, on the municipal level, the SDP have been declining for decades. The SDP used to be the party with the most seats of representation in the council as well as the top vote share from the 1950s to 2000, however following the 2008 municipal elections, the National Coalition Party became the strongest in terms of the vote share and the Centre Party has had the most individual representatives, partly due to dominance in agrarian and rural based municipalities. Additionally, the general decline of SDP's vote share in municipal elections can perhaps be explained by the overall decline of the number of municipalities from roughly 600 in the 1940s to about 500 in 1970 and the mid 300s in the early 2000s.[13][14][15]
TheÅland Social Democrats halved their voting rates between 2011 and 2019.
TheSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) has been cited as an example of Pasokification. Its popularity has waned since the late 2000s, particularly in the2009 federal election, when it recorded its worst result since before the Second World War. The SPD's post-2005 decline has been attributed to its decision to enter intogrand coalitions with its traditional rival, the conservativeChristian Democratic Union. Despite a small recovery in 2013/14, the SPD's decline continued through the late 2010s, winning just 20.5% of the vote in the2017 federal election.[9] Similarly poor results have been recorded in local and state elections across the country.[16] The SPD won just 15.8% of the vote in the2019 European Parliament election in Germany, falling to third place in a national election for the first time in its history. This decline was somewhat halted however as the SPD won the most seats in the2021 federal election with 25.7% of the vote (although this was the smallest vote share of a first-placed party in an election in the post-war period). The 2021 election also brought with it a much higher vote share for the Green party, and resulted in a left-liberaltraffic-light coalition (SPD-GRÜNE-FDP) taking power.
In the2025 German federal election, the SPD received just 16.4% of the vote, falling below 20% in one of the worst results in its history. This was a worse result than even inMarch 1933 (whenAdolf Hitler had taken power) and only better than in1887, during theGerman Empire.
PASOK was once the dominant centre-left party in Greece. PASOK received just 4.8% and 6.3% of the vote in the 2015January andSeptember Greek legislative elections respectively, due to its enforcement of harsh austerity measures in the wake of theEuropean debt crisis, which, along with the ensuingGreat Recession, led to massive social unrest and economic collapse, with much of its former electorate going to the anti-austeritySyriza. Following a series of austerity and bailout packages, implemented despite rejection in the2015 Greek bailout referendum, resulting in several splits within the party, Syriza was defeated in the2019 legislative election while the social democratic allianceMovement for Change (KINAL, which includes PASOK and minor centre-left movements) rebounded to 8.1% and gained 22 seats.
TheHungarian Socialist Party lost significant support in the2010 Hungarian parliamentary election after a series of corruption scandals affectedFerenc Gyurcsány's government. This resulted in a loss of 133 seats, falling from 192 to 59 seats. It suffered defeat again in the2014 and2018 parliamentary elections, falling from 29 to 16 seats in the latter. These election losses culminated in the rise of the right-wingFidesz–KDNP alliance.
TheSocial Democratic Alliance (SDA) was formed in 1999 to unite the fragmented Icelandic left-wing. In its first decade it established itself as the second-strongest force behind the right-wingIndependence Party, debuting at 26.8% in1999 and improving to 31.0% in 2003. The SDA became the largest party in the country in the2009 election with 29.8%. However, it suffered a major defeat in the2013 election with 12.9%. They were reduced to just 5.7% in2016, becoming the smallest of seven parties in parliament, and were surpassed by theLeft-Green Movement as the strongest left-wing party in Iceland. This was the worst ever result for the SDA or its predecessor party theSocial Democratic Party since they first ran for election in August 1916, when they won 6.8%. The SDA achieved a minor recovery in the2017 election with 12.1%, though they remained a minor force behind the Left-Greens, whose leaderKatrín Jakobsdóttir went on to become prime minister. However, this recovery was short-lived, with the party winning 9.9% in2021. In the2024 election, however, the party rebounded to 20.8% and managed to form a government with its leaderKristrún Frostadóttir as prime minister.
TheLabour Party received 6.6% of the vote in the2016 Irish general election and fell from 33 to 7 seats, down from 19.5% in the2011 general election.[17] This fell further to 4.4% in the2020 general election—their worst result since1987—while theleft wing nationalistSinn Féin had its best result since1922.[18]
TheDemocratic Party (PD) started to lose support by the late 2000s in thePo Valley. The first election in which the Democratic Party lost to a more radical party was the2010 Venetian regional election (20.34% of the vote, compared to the 35.16% obtained byLega Nord). The party's 18.8% vote share in the2018 Italian general election meant it lost 185 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 58 seats in the Senate,[19] falling from the largest to the third-largest faction in the Italian parliament. This was particularly dramatic considering that the party received more than 40% of vote just four year prior, in the2014 European Parliament election in Italy, and is commonly attributed to its enforcement of austerity measures, a poor economic recovery and a failed attempt to move towards a two-party system in the2016 Italian constitutional referendum. However, the party still came in second place in the popular vote[20] and entered government in September 2019 with theFive Star Movement after the collapse of the previousConte I Cabinet. After the collapse of thesecond Conte government in January 2021, the PD joined thenew government of national unity led byMario Draghi, former director of theEuropean Central Bank. After the latter's crisis in summer 2022 and thegeneral elections in October (which saw a landslide victory forright-wing parties), the Democratic Party returned to opposition but still remained the second most voted party.
TheSocial Democratic Party of Lithuania received 9.59% of the vote in the2020 Lithuanian parliamentary election, down from 15.04% in2016 and 18.37% in2012. The party rebounded to 19.32% in the2024 election and formed a government led by it in the election’s aftermath.
TheLuxembourg Socialist Workers' Party (LSAP) received 20.2% of the vote in the2013 Luxembourg general election, their lowest support since the1931 general election. This decreased further to 17.60% in the2018 general election, ranking third for number of seats for the first time since1999. However, the LSAP has been part of Luxembourg's coalition governments since the 2013 election.
The social-democraticLabour Party received 5.7% of the vote in the2017 Dutch general election, down from 24.8% in the2012 general election.[9] This remained unchanged at the2021 election.
Before the1997 parliamentary elections,Labour Party (Ap) leaderThorbjørn Jagland infamously promised that if, should his party get less than 36,9% of the votes, his government would step down.[21] The final results gave Ap merely 35,0%, and paved the way for acentrist minority government. This coalition government fell in March 2000 after a vote of no confidence, whereafter Ap again formed agovernment supported by the Centre Party and the Socialist Left Party. This government only lasted until the2001 elections however, when they lost it to thesame centrist coalition. In this election, Ap got only 24.3% of the votes, their worst electoral result since 1924.
Support for the party soon rebounded slightly, but has been steadily declining since the2013 election. Despite their victory in the2021 Norwegian parliamentary election, where they scored 26,3% of the votes, the party lost a seat and were briefly in third-place behind theConservative Party andthe Centre Party in pre-election polls. After forming a minority government with theCentre Party in October 2021, the support for Ap has dropped drastically in the polls, scoring as low as 15,5% in March 2023.[22] Parallel to this drop in support, the Norwegian radical left, represented by theRed Party andSocialist Left Party has seen increased support in the polls.[23] The Red Party also managed to break the electoral threshold of 4% for the first time since its formation in the2021 elections, gaining 8 mandates in theStorting.
The2023 local elections was the first local or national election since 1924 in which Ap was not the largest party in Norway.[24] Before the elections, Ap held the mayoralty in 37 out of the 50 most populous municipalities, a number which fell to 6 in the aftermath of the election.[25] They lost the governing mayors inOslo andBergen, as well as the mayors in major municipalities likeTrondheim,Stavanger,Kristiansand,Drammen andFredrikstad. They also lost the mayoralty in the traditional Labour stronghold ofSarpsborg, an office held by Ap since 1913.[26]
TheDemocratic Left Alliance became only third during the rise of the liberalCivic Platform since 2003 following theRywin affair. In2015 they only got 7.55% and lost all seats but returned into theSejm in2019 and did not enter the government until2023 whenNew Left (merger ofSpring and the Democratic Left Alliance) enteredTusk's third cabinet as a junior coalition partner.
The2015 Spanish general election produced the worst results for the social-democraticSpanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) since theSpanish transition to democracy in the 1970s, as the party received 22% of the vote, losing support toUnidas Podemos. The PSOE returned to government following the2018 vote of no confidence in the government of Mariano Rajoy and, in theApril 2019 general election, became the largest party since 2008 and obtained its best result since 2011 with 28.7% of the vote. The party lost support in theNovember election, but increased their vote share to 31.7% in2023.
TheSwedish Social Democratic Party averaged 45.3% of the votes in half of all general elections between the mid-1930s and mid-1980s, making it one of the most successful political parties in the history of theliberal democratic world.[27] In the1968 election, the Social Democrats even won an outright majority with 50,12% of the votes. In the late 1990s, the party began to receive just under 40% of the votes. After the2010 Swedish general election, their vote share dramatically declined, some of these votes being lost to theright-wing populist partySweden Democrats.[28][29][30] In the2018 general election, the Social Democrats' only received 28.3% of the votes, its lowest level since1908.
England (and national Westminster)
In 2015, the nationalLabour Party electedJeremy Corbyn as their leader. Corbyn's leadership has been characterized as more left-wing than that of his predecessors of theNew Labour era.[31] In 2017, Labour stalled their long decline by increasing their vote share for the first time since 2001, seemingly challenging the conception that a more radical leadership would be highly unsuccessful in elections.[32]
However, the2019 general election resulted in a catastrophic defeat in which the governingConservative Party — led byBoris Johnson — won many long-held Labour seats in the party's traditional English and Welsh heartlands (sometimes described as the 'Red Wall').Brexit and the unpopularity of Jeremy Corbyn were listed as reasons for the defeat in subsequent polling.[33]
Corbyn was succeeded as party leader in April 2020 byKeir Starmer.[34] In May 2021, Starmer failed to improve on the party's fortunes in a'bumper' set of local and devolved parliamentary elections (taking place due to Mayoral and local races being postponed due toCOVID-19 in 2020). Among the failures was another loss in the 'Red Wall'Hartlepool by-election for the Westminster parliament to the Conservative candidate by nearly 7,000 votes. Hartlepool had previously been held by Labour under Corbyn twice in 2017 and 2019, considered low points for Labour. The Conservative victory has largely been attributed to large numbers of former Brexit Party and UKIP supporters switching to the Conservatives - rather than the 'successor' to the Brexit Party, the 'Reform' party - as well as many Labour supporters supporting third-party or independent candidates.[35]
Following a scandal known as 'Partygate' as well as a range of sleaze scandals, Boris Johnson stepped down as prime minister in 2022, marking the first UK government crisis of2022. He was succeeded by Liz Truss who won out in a crowded field to succeed Johnson. Truss's libertarian economic policy set out in theSeptember 2022 mini-budget was perceived to be quite radical. The budget was widely attributed as the cause for a subsequent significant rise in mortgage rates, and caused Liz Truss toleave her post after just 49 days in office. By this time, Labour had overtaken the Conservatives in polling quite dramatically,[36] but this did not lead to an immediate election.
Truss's successor and main competitor in the previous leadership election, Rishi Sunak, was selected by the1922 Committee as prime minister and held out until July 2024 to call the by-then expected election, in which Labour were anticipated to win a very large majority. In that2024 General Election, Labour did not significantly increase their vote share across the country as a whole, but they benefitted from two unusual factors which played in their favour: 1. more conservative stances from some Labour politicians relocated the vote towards rural and town areas which Labour struggled in beforehand, slightly increasing their vote share, 2. Nigel Farage rejoined and led the Reform Party, which subsequently won 14.2% (but just 5 seats) of the vote nationally (concentrated in rural and coastal areas), gifting many previously uncompetitive seats to Labour in England due to the SMDP electoral system. The result was a significant Labour Parliamentary victory all three British nations, winning 411 seats (63.23%), while the Conservatives held just 123 seats (18.2%).
While Labour currently hold a very large majority in Parliament, this does not mean that they are electorally secure or that they are immune from Pasokification in future. Labour won just 33.7% of votes in the 2024 election, while the Liberal Democrats won 12.2% (and won 72 seats), the Greens won 6.7% (and won 4 seats) and a range of Independent candidates won rhetorically significant races against Labour candidates. This included the victory of 4 candidates who campaigned heavily around the Israeli invasion of Gaza and Palestinian solidarity. The most notable of these wasShockat Adam, who unseated senior Labour spokespersonJonathan Ashworth. Additionally, Wes Streeting was nearly unseated by Independent candidateLeane Mohamad, Independent Ahmed Yakoob won a significant vote share against now Justice SecretaryShabana Mahmood, and LSE economistFaiza Shaheen - who was previously a Labour candidate but was controversially deselected at the last minute - won a similar number of votes againstIain Duncan Smith as an Independent candidate to the 'parachuted-in' Labour candidate Shama Tatler.Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the Labour Party, also won a significant victory against the opposing Labour candidate in Islington North. It has been floated that a group containing these five Independents could form in order to deploy a stronger voice in Parliament. During the King's Speech, the SNP also tabled an amendment demanding Labour repeal the two-child benefit cap (a policy widely acknowledged to be inevitable under a Labour government, but not included in initial proposals). Starmer's whipping team made this an unprecedented three-line whip and withdrew the whip from 7 elected Labour MPs who were associated with the left of the party. It has been theorised that this group could also comprise a left-wing nucleus of opposition against Labour.
Scotland
Scottish Labour held the majority of Scotland's Westminster seats from the1964 United Kingdom general election until the2015 United Kingdom general election in Scotland, where theScottish National Party (SNP) won 56 of the 59 available seats. The SNP then fell to 35 seats at the2017 general election in Scotland and rose to 48 in the2019 general election in Scotland. Scottish Labour had lost support since the creation of theScottish Parliament. The party got 33.6% of the votes in the1999 Scottish Parliament election and 19.1% of the votes in the2016 Scottish Parliament election. This allowed the SNP to overtake Scottish Labour by 2015. Labour won the majority of Scottish Westminster seats in 2024, winning 35% of the vote compared to the SNP's 30%.[37]
Wales
Pasokification has not taken place in Wales, whereWelsh Labour have consistently held theWelsh devolved government derived from theSenedd (Welsh Assembly/Parliament) from when it was first established in 1999. It is practically impossible for any one party to win an outright majority in the Welsh electoral system - a combination ofSMDP and an adjusted regional list vote known asAMS. However, Welsh Labour have won a working-majority (30/60 seats) a number of times, including in theMay 2021 Senedd elections where their English and Scottish equivalents underperformed in local and national elections.[38] Though Welsh Labour has successfully retained control of the devolved administration, theshare of Labour seats from Wales in the Westminster House of Commons has slightly declined since 1945. Labour lost some vote share in Wales in 2024, but gained 9 seats, mostly due to the Conservative-Reform split.[39]
Northern Ireland
TheSocial Democratic and Labour Party inNorthern Ireland consistently lost votes between 1998 and 2022.
Non-standard territories
TheManx Labour Party has been in decline since 2001, and even lost their representation in theHouse of Keys in2016. It gained two seats in the 2021 elections. Most candidates on the Isle of Man are Independents.
Gibraltar has not undergone a process of Pasokification. The long-term alliance of theGibraltar Socialist Labour Party and theGibraltar Liberal Party has persisted since 2003. The GSLP was only founded in 1980, making it a relatively young social democratic party in Western Europe.
Few overseas British territories have active social democratic or labour movements. This may be because there are few distinct social cleavages among islanders for them to campaign on.
The social-democraticAustralian Labor Party in the2022 Australian federal election recorded its lowest primary vote (at 32.58%) since either1903 or1934, depending on whether theLang Labor vote is included.[40] However, they would go on to win a plurality of seats, forming the subsequent government.
Since the formation of the Labor government,opinion polling for the next Australian federal election has shown the Labor party polling even lower.
TheIsraeli Labor Party and its predecessorMapai were dominant in Israeli politics from the founding of the nation in 1948 to 1977. Since then, its popularity has been gradually decreasing, especiallysince the start of the 21st century. Inthe 2020 election the party only gained 3 seats as part ofLabor-Gesher-Meretz coalition, being in acute danger of altogether disappearing, but slightly rebounded and got 7 seats in the2021 election, which allowed it to jointhe multi-party government.
In 2022, the party barely passed theelectoral threshold of 3.25% and gained 4 seats. The party would be dissolved by 2024, merging withMeretz to formThe Democrats.
The social-democraticSri Lanka Freedom Party lost the2015 Sri Lankan presidential election to party defectorMaithripala Sirisena, who campaigned on a broad alliance led by theUnited National Party against the decade-long rule of the Freedom Party's leaderMahinda Rajapaksa, who faced allegations of corruption and nepotism. The following2015 Sri Lankan parliamentary election saw the formation of a national government, which soon faced major infighting. Rajapaksa went on to form a new party,Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), and successfully contested several local government elections. gaining 40.47% of the votes; the Sri Lanka Freedom Party only gained 12.10%, while the United National Party gained 29.42%.
The SLPP nominated Rajapaksa's younger brotherGotabaya Rajapaksa for the2019 Sri Lankan presidential election, who gained 52.25% against the United National Party candidateSajith Premadasa (who gained 41.99%). Gotabaya Rajapaksa contested on a pro-nationalistic, economic development and national security platform. Sri Lanka Freedom Party had hoped to have its own candidate for the presidential election, but eventually opted to support the SLPP.[41]
South Africa is considered adominant-party state, with thecenter-leftAfrican National Congress providing all of South Africa's presidents since 1994. However, the ANC's electoral majority has declined consistently since 2004, and in the2021 local elections, its share of the national vote dropped below 50% for the first time ever.[42] The party has been embroiled in a number of controversies, particularly relating to widespread allegations ofpolitical corruption among its members. Following the2024 general election, the ANC lost its majority in parliament for the first time in South Africa's democratic history. It still remains the largest party, with under 41% of the vote.[43] The party also lost its majority in Kwa-Zulu Natal, Gauteng and Northern Cape.
Following thepink tide, whereleft wing andcenter-left wing parties In Latin America were successful, aconservative wave happened from mid-2010s to the early 2020s as a direct reaction to the pink tide. Although the extent to which the Latin American leftist parties which have also suffered setbacks are located in the social democratic tradition is contested.[44]
