| The aim of this thesis is a comprehensive study of successful and unsuccessful democratic socialist experiences. Among the first ones we consider the reality of Western European socialism, based on the study of three cases: the German Social-Democratic Party (SPD), the French Socialist Party (PSF), and the Italian Communist Party (PCI). In all three cases, and coming from different traditions of the European left, we find a common convergence in the direction of a formal commitment to political democracy.;The unsuccessful case I consider is Chilean socialism, especially in the period prior to the 1973 military coup. My central hypothesis, in this case, is that the failure of "Allende's Road to Socialism", built through "democracy, pluralism, and freedom", is to be explained by the absence within the left, and particularly in the Socialist Party (PSCH), of a well established democratic socialism.;However, starting in 1973, a new democratic socialism emerges within a significant sector of the Chilean left, whose main feature is a new appreciation of political democracy. I propose that this is to be explained by the traumatic impact of the dictatorship, which led to a radical rethinking of democracy, leading to a new appreciation for its institutions. In this new phase, European socialism becomes the most significant external influence. This convergence between European and Chilean socialism around a democratic understanding merits special attention, concentrating on elements of continuity and discontinuity in both.;My central hypothesis, in the first part of this thesis, is that the commitment to political democracy emerging in European socialism is a result of four basic factors: the contradictions between the premises of Marxism and the reality of European capitalist development; the impact of dictatorships and the fear of return to authoritarianism; the dynamics of party and electoral competition and the need to adhere to certain "rules of the game"; and, finally, the international context, in which the crisis of the socialist bloc of Eastern Communism is especially to be considered. |
