Germany's Social Democrats in Search of a New Party Programme

This article explores the development of the meaning of social justice in the German Social Democratic Party's (SPD) discourse by juxtaposing the 1989 Berlin Programme with various programmatic initiatives by the party leadership and with the new 2007 Hamburg Programme. In order to understand the context in which the meaning of social justice changed, the article also outlines some of the social policy changes under Gerhard Schröder's SPD-led governments between 1998 and 2005.