Talk:List of democratic socialist parties and organizations

Where is the New Democratic Party of Canada

Last time I checked Canada had a political party, which is now the official opposition with 103 seats out of 308 that is constitutionally committed to "democratic socialism". Why is the NDP not on this list? Could someone with the ability to edit please rectify this error, they're certainly further to the Left than the Parti Quebecois!!

Added! Ghostofnemo (talk) 08:28, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Sinn Fein

I would personally oppose the inclusion of the Sinn Fein party in this list: whilst their rhetoric is often left-wing, their supporters could often be associated with the new right - see for example the violence against asians in Dublin during the Sinn Fein supporters' riots earlier this year. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 136.206.1.17 (talk • contribs) 18:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

This may be a discussion that should take place on the Sinn Fein talk page -- that article currently describes it as a democratic socialist party, so it makes sense to include it here for the time being. -David Schaich ^Talk/_Cont 19:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Despite some of the foolish actions taken by their members, the party's leadership does support a multicultural and racial policy of immigration for Ireland! - Chris Gilmore —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.115.97.190 (talk • contribs) 02:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

They also support a policy of redistribution of wealth, public ownership of utilities and a very active social safety net. They do have a very socialist economic agenda. Sinn Fein did not start off that way when it was founded by middle class nationalists such as Arthur Griffith in 1905, but it certainly did evolve that way during the 1950s and 60s as it became the party of Northern Ireland's discriminated Catholic working class. Even after the split with their Marxist leadership from Dublin in 1969, the northern base still remained committed towards socialism. I think that the party will always remain a socialist party as Northern Ireland's very leftwing Catholic community will always be it's strongest base of support. I think a smarter question to ask would be whether or not the British Labour Party, Parti Quebecois or Bloc Quebecois belong on this list. Originally Labour was very socialist ideoligically, however under Blair they have definately broken with that trend. Still a very strong socialist faction exists within the party. The PQ on the other hand shifted so far to the Right under former Tory Lucien Bouchard; it would be hard to identify them as "socialists" or anything remotely similar. They advocate economic integration with the U.S. (the only way Quebec sovereignty could be economically viable) and they were responsible for the largest cuts to social programs in Quebec's history during the 1990s. the Bloc on the other hand is more a loose alliance of sovereigntists from all walks of life in Quebec. Officially they adhere to "social democracy", but they have opposed social investments such as the previous Liberal government's national child care program and many of their members (including their former leader and founder, Bouchard) hold fairly rightwing views. I personally am a staunch Canadian federalist, I only included the PQ because of their socialist history and I only included the Bloc because they do CLAIM to be social democratic and there are members within the party who have leftwing views. But again I would hardly say that a party which has worked against almost every federal initiative in the last ten years, can claim that it is attempting to build a social democratic or democratic socialist society. - Chris Gilmore

Factionalism in centrist parties.

I don't think this section belongs in a "List of democratic socialist parties and organizations" article. While there are democratic socialist organizations working within centrist parties (Democratic Socialists of America comes to mind), there is no reason these cannot be included in the actual list. The current section seems argumentative and POV, and I don't think lists of left-wing individuals belong in this article. Anyone care to write in its defense? -David Schaich ^Talk/_Cont 00:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah sorry about that, I think you are right. I added in that section but I agree that it should be removed. I just thought that democratic socialists within centrist parties should be included, because there are leftists within liberal and progressive centrist parties who have agendas which are further to the Left of those from self described socialist and social democratic political parties. - Chris Gilmore

Alphabetize list?

I don't know how to automagically alphabetize a wiki list; I hope someone who does, will do so to this one. --Davecampbell 02:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Or alphabetize by country? These are English translations of many of the party names. Ghostofnemo (talk) 08:31, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

They already have a list!

Why does this list list social democratic parties when they already have a list? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ghostbear616 (talk • contribs) 00:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC).

Well, the intro says that some social democratic parties are listed since they "include significant numbers of democratic socialist members". Are there any in particular that you think don't belong in this list? -David Schaich ^Talk/_Cont 02:22, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Thats a tricky question, I wasn't quite sure if they should be included either. The only problem is there tends to be alot of overlapping between social democrats and democratic socialists within left-of-centre parties, especially in the west. Take for example the British Labour Party you have some who would like to see massive nationalization and a comprehensive social safety net, while there are others in the same party who would like to see greater trade liberalization and even the selling off of the National Health Service. Many now adhere to Tony Blair's ideology of reformist capitalism, obviously staunch differences have existed over the last 80 years in regards to the policies of various Labour leaders. The same contrast exists within the New Democratic Party of my country and in many other political parties. For example where would you put a party like British Labour which on paper is committed to socialism but has followed some fairly centre-right policies while in office during the last ten years? Or a party like the NDP which again is socialist on paper and has led some very socialist administrations, but on the other hand has also campaigned on moderate or "mushy middle" platforms in the past and led extremely centrist administrations also (such as that of Bob Rae in Ontario and Roy Romanow in Saskatchewan)? Where would you put parties such as the Worker's Party of Brazil where numerous platforms exist, some being very far to the left such as the Trotskyites while others are openly social democratic? - Chris Gilmore —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.115.98.253 (talk • contribs) 19:41, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that as long as they have significant social democratic and democratic socialist membership and positions (or paper or in practice, or both), there's little problem with keeping them in both lists. In some cases might it be worth adding a footnote with some more information? -David Schaich ^Talk/_Cont 23:09, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

At the Social Democratic Party of America there is proof of a type of duel schools of thought on their "Join Us" page oath at bottom. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.122.45.99 (talk) 00:59, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposing name change

I personally believe the title should be renamed "List of socialist parties and organisations" instead of "list of democratic socialist parties and organisations" as it would be open to inclusion of other socialist or leftist currents, I have examined the article and it appears we have eco-socialist, revolutionary socialist, and even Trotskyist political parties and/or groups in here. It just makes sense to re-title the article, which will also allow us to expand it, past its current expansion. Renaming using the generic term "socialism" makes the article much wider in scope. It can allow us to include, liberal socialist, market socialist, religious socialist, libertarian socialist, eco-socialist, and utopian socialist political parties or groups, of course half of the socialist currents listed are rarely practiced in the modern world, but democratic socialism, eco-socialism, and market socialism seem to be still widely accepted ideologies within the socialist movement. B. M. L. Peters (talk) 22:59, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Changing the title would lead to it becoming so big as to be useless (there are so many Trotskyist parties out there...) and would open up new areas of contention (are Communist parties socialist? are Ba'athist parties? "national socialist" parties?). I'm not really sure what the purpose of such a big list would be, when we have categories for that sort of thing. We also have an even more exhaustive list: List of left-wing political parties. Other list pages include: List of communist parties, List of Labour parties, List of social democratic parties, List of Trotskyist organizations by country, and a page Socialist Party which lists all the parties called Socialist Party. So I think I'd go for specific rather than general. By the way, if we do keep it democratic socialist, the following are borderline cases that we might need to discuss, as they don't have reliable sources on their pages indicating they are demsoc: Sandinista National Liberation Front, Patriots of Russia, Estonian United Left Party, Fatah, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, Left Party (Sweden), Working Families Party, Peace and Freedom Party, United Socialist Party of Venezuela.BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:08, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I'd say that every entry in this list is a borderline case. There is no universally accepted definition of democratic socialism, the term has been used by different tendencies to imply different things over time. Notably it largely overlaps with social democracy, and the better option would be to merge this article in the list of social democratic parties. --Soman (talk) 10:59, 16 September 2020 (UTC)