Is there a Third Way? A response to Giddens's the Third Way

Since the early 1990s, there has been in the United Kingdom and the United States a new political position referred to as the Third Way that claims to be intermediate between neoliberalism and social democracy, transcending b oth. This new position, represented by the Clinton administration in the Un ited States and the Blair Government in the United Kingdom, assumes that bo th social democracy and neoliberalism are obsolete and calls instead for a new set of public policies that are defined as the Third Way. This article analyzes the most detailed account of the Third Way in the English-speaking world, written by Professor Giddens. It shows that Giddens stereotypes bot h the neoliberal and the social democratic positions to an unrecognizable d egree, failing to portray the varieties of social democratic policies in ex istence today in developed capitalist countries. The author shows how the T hird Way is merely a recycling of liberal positions in some social policy a reas and Christian democratic positions in others. Where the Third Way inte nds to be innovative-as in the U.K. New Deal program-the programs are pale copies of successful labor market policies carried out by northern European social democratic parties. The author concludes that the Third Way, with i ts questioning of the universalistic welfare state and its preference for a ssistential and means-tested programs, signifies a break with the social de mocratic tradition, transforming it into a hybrid between Christian democra cy and neoliberalism.