Interrogating regional territorial representation in post-democratic Spain

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, we examine the function of territorial representation by national cabinet ministers in multi-ethnic democracies. In particular, we observe whether ministers from regions with a specific identity shape a distinctive sense of representation in the national executive, and whether this depends on how political parties and the party system articulate it. Borrowing from Pitkin’s four dimensions of political representation, we investigate the recruitment and role of ministers from the three distinct Spanish regions of the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia. This paper stresses that these ministers have played a distinctly territorial representative role in the national cabinet quite unlike that of ministers from other Spanish regions. Nevertheless, it is worth noting the poorest performance of Catalan ministers in relation to their Basque and Galician counterparts in terms of descriptive representation, levels of partisanship, survival rates and appointment to certain portfolios.