A Better and More Organized World

Abstract

Since their inception in the latter half of the nineteenth century, social democratic parties and trade unions have formed a movement which, to a large extent, has been both international in scope and internationalist in outlook. It is an international movement because it believes that its most basic ideas and demands are of a universal nature, and that these values therefore ought to be equally appreciated across the globe. It is an internationalist movement because it believes that solidarity across borders, and between different peoples and cultures, is a necessary precondition for the development of a better and more peaceful world. That is why the social democratic movement traditionally has preferred both supranational and intergovernmental cooperation. As we saw in Chapter 3, however, social democrats have also – both in Scandinavia and elsewhere – accepted and adopted the nation state as a useful and indeed necessary arena for the exercise of democracy in the modern world. ‘International in inspiration, national in implementation’ is perhaps as succinct description of social democratic strategy as any.