Summary: Since the 2015 victory of the Syriza government in Greece, the rise of a new European radical left has shown the promise and the challenges of confronting austerity. Social democratic parties have long abandon their working-class followers, but Syriza's betrayal of its anti-austerity platform only goes to show that winning elections is not enough to confront the combined powers of the continental ruling class and its constellation of state apparatuses. This session will ask how left-wing electoral party formations such as Podemos in Spain, the Left Bloc in Portugal, Left Unity in Greece, Die Linke in Germany, among others, organize in order to strengthen social movements and the class struggle in place of coopting them.
