Macronism, Corbynism,....huh? Electoral strategies of progressive political parties in Europe

Four main strategies of social democratic competition can be distinguished when the official party positions on salient political issues are compared with the positions of core voter groups on the same issues: 1) Corbynism (Left-wing economic polarisation); 2) Macronism (pro-market economic polarisation coupled with culturally progressive/libertarian stances); 3) Progressive-libertarian distancing (the adoption of moderate economic stances with culturally progressive policies) and 4) Catch-all (traditional social democratic centrism). The results from the European countries included in the study show that, with regard to the relative positioning of social democratic parties visà-vis their core voter groups, the most beneficial strategies, in terms of electoral appeal, are the traditional social-democratic catch-all strategy of moderation along both the economic and cultural dimensions, as well as the Corbynist strategy of polarisation along the economic dimension.