Pasokification

Pasokification is the decline of centre-left social-democratic political parties in European and other Western countries during the 2010s, often accompanied by the rise of nationalist, left-wing and right-wing populist alternatives. In Europe, the share of votes for such parties was at its 70-year lowest in 2015.

The term originates from the Greek party PASOK, which saw a declining share of the vote in national elections — from 43.9% in 2009 to 13.2% in May 2012, to 12.3% in June 2012 and 4.7% in 2015 — due to its poor handling of the Greek government-debt crisis and implementation of harsh austerity measures. Simultaneously, the left-wing anti-austerity Syriza party saw a growth in vote share and influence. Since PASOK's decline, the term has been applied to similar declines for other social-democratic and Third Way parties.

In the early 2020s, the SPD won the 2021 German federal election, and the Labour Party and PASOK-KINAL performed well in the polls for the upcoming United Kingdom and Greek elections respectively, leading to discussions about the possibility of "De-Pasokification", "reverse pasokification", "kinalification."