This incisive volume examines the rise to power of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party and the dilemmas it faced once in power. Unlike any other work in print, it deals with the Spanish Socialist Party exclusively and focuses on some of the problems facing all socialist parties in advanced capitalist democracies. Share’s introduction discusses the combined crises of advanced capitalism and social democracy and provides an informative overview of the complex dilemmas facing sound democratic future in the 1980s. Dilemmas of Social Democracy examines in depth how the economic, electoral, ideological, and internal organizational crises have compounded each other, how the European social democratic parties have responded to those crises, and focuses extensively on Spain in the 1980s. This important work investigates the historical emergence of socialism in Spain, the transition to democracy, the reemergence of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, the ideological crisis, and the socialist experience in government. There are chapters explaining the Socialists’ behavior in government and evaluating the past and prospects for the future. A selected bibliography is included.

This exhaustive study will be of great importance to scholars of socialism and social democracy, political science, and Spanish government, and will be read with interest by those engaged in graduate programs in comparative European politics and political economy.