Abstract
This article examines the organisation of VOX, a new radical right party in Spain. It shows that the party has taken early and uneven steps to build a mass organisation and initially opted for open membership recruitment with participatory organisational elements. Also, the party’s rapid growth and quick entrance into political institutions at different state levels led the party leadership to establish more centralised control and limit members’ prerogatives, though recruitment continued. Centralisation in part responds to organisational needs given the party’s quickly acquired political relevance, but also to the desire of the central party leadership to forestall the articulation of territorial interests, or prevent them from escaping their control. Today, VOX exhibits elements of mass party organisation and highly centralised decision-making in the hands of national party leaders.
Highlights
For several decades, Spain was one of the countries that stood out from European trends due to the absence of a relevant radical right party (Alonso & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2015)
This article examines VOX, a party that has developed through territorial penetration, directed by the central party leadership, and without external institutional spon‐ sorship or charismatic leadership (Eliassen & Svaasand, 1975; Panebianco, 1988)
Based on the April 2019 national elections, VOX sup‐ porters tended to be at the higher end of the income and education scales and urban residents, unlike many European populist radical right voters (Turnbull‐Dugarte et al, 2020)
Summary
Spain was one of the countries that stood out from European trends due to the absence of a relevant radical right party (Alonso & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2015). This article examines VOX, a party that has developed through territorial penetration, directed by the central party leadership, and without external institutional spon‐ sorship (such as from a union or confessional group) or charismatic leadership (Eliassen & Svaasand, 1975; Panebianco, 1988). We pay particular attention to VOX’s territorial penetration, membership recruitment, the role of social media in creating collective identity and activists, and the degree to which decision‐making in the party is centralised. Many new parties have a political renewal agenda that encourages them to adopt a more participatory organisational model (Müller‐Rommel, 1990), this is not necessarily the case for populist radical right parties (Heinisch & Mazzoleni, 2016). VOX exhibits elements of mass party organisation and highly cen‐ tralised decision‐making in the hands of national party leaders in Madrid. The article draws on party documents, media coverage, interviews with five VOX leaders at the regional and national level (see Supplementary File), and the secondary literature
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