Political Parties In Spain Research Articles

Generations of pride? LGBTQ+ rights, sexuality, and voting behaviour in Spain

ABSTRACT This study investigates the enduring presence of a sexuality gap in political behaviour within the unique context of Spain – an early-mover country in the expansion of LGBTQ+ rights. First, analysing supply-side dynamics, we demonstrate that political parties in Spain remain markedly polarised on LGBTQ+ rights. Second, utilising original survey data, we observe a more pronounced sexuality gap among younger generations: the youngest LGB voters demonstrate notably greater support for left-wing parties, particularly emergent progressive parties to the left of the social democrats than their older counterparts, while rejecting right-wing alternatives. These results underscore the enduring significance of sexual identity in shaping political behaviours, even in a nation celebrated for its strides in the advancement LGBTQ+ rights.

Remembering according to national identity and ideology: influences of ideological positioning and national identities on the collective memory of the Civil War and dictatorship in Spain among youths / La memoria en función de la identidad nacional y la ideología: influencias del posicionamiento ideológico y de la identidad nacional en la memoria colectiva de la Guerra Civil y la dictadura

This research aimed to analyse the social representations of the Spanish Civil War and the dictatorship among young people from different autonomous communities in Spain. A free-association exercise elicited by the words ‘Civil War’ and ‘Francoism’ was completed by 477 university students of the Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia and Madrid. Participants were also asked about their national identity and ideological orientation. Lexical analysis was used to analyse their responses, and the results revealed that there is no shared narrative among participants. The results show that most of the discourses constructed for these times go hand in hand with the discourses of the current political parties in Spain, which seek to satisfy the basic needs of the groups and justify their decisions and goals. However, the intergenerational voice also appears in the results showing alternatives to the political and hegemonic narratives of the state. This has significant implications for future research and memory policies.

Between Spanish Language and Multilingualism in Spain: The Radical Right Placement

Abstract Since its irruption in Spanish public institutions in 2018, a new right-wing political party, Vox, has challenged the electoral spectrum of other parties under a nationalist form. This work justifies the classification of Vox within the so-called radical right based on the components of the party’s nativist and authoritarian positions. These premises are deployed in discourses on the Spanish language as the only linguistic axis capable of structuring the nation. Although similar arguments can be found in other right-wing, center-right, or center-left political parties in Spain, Vox explicitly shows its placement. Language policy in Spain fluctuates around two positions related to the legal nature of the official languages. On the one hand, Spanish is the official language of the State and is widely known by the population; on the other hand, linguistic officiality is shared with other languages in several regions. This legal and social situation implies that measures for the protection and promotion of regional languages are perceived as an attack on the vitality of Spanish. We propose an analysis of Vox’s discourse through three channels: first, the organic party documents, as the statutes or the electoral program; second, institutional and journalistic interventions of members with social significance; and third, the publications on Twitter of six relevant components of the party. This material reveals an attack on the linguistic policies of bilingual territories under the premise of Spanish as the common language that balances all citizens. Far from assuming a mere conjunction of particular political phenomena, Vox’s discourse articulates social loyalties, with a direct impact on the coexistence of people from different territories and speakers of different languages. Our purpose is, therefore, to unravel the ideological orientation and tone with which Vox transmits its discourse regarding the social relationship of minoritized languages in Spain with the most widespread language, Spanish.

Political advertising on social media: Issues sponsored on Facebook ads during the 2019 General Elections in Spain

Facebook’s advertising platform provides political parties with an electoral tool that enables them to reach an extremely detailed audience. Unlike television, the sponsored content on Facebook is seen only by the targeted users. This opacity was an obstacle to political communications research until Facebook released advertiser-sponsored content in 2018. The company’s new transparent policy included sharing metadata related to the cost and number of impressions the ads received. This research studies the content sponsored on Facebook by the five main national political parties in Spain during the two General Elections held in 2019. The research corpus consists of 14,684 Facebook ads. An extraction algorithm detected the key terms in the text-based messages conveyed in the ad. The prominence of these topics was estimated from the aggregate number of impressions accumulated by each term. Different content patterns were assessed following three categories: user mobilization, candidate presence, and ideological issues. PSOE and PP positioned themselves more toward calls to action. Podemos had the greater number of issues related to policy among the most salient topics in its advertising. Ciudadanos’ strategy focused more on its candidate and mobilization. Vox sponsored few Facebook ads, and they barely included policy issues. Spain was a highly prominent term in all parties’ campaigns. Ciudadanos shared the middle ground on the ideological axis: they promoted social issues more aligned with left-wing parties as well as economic topics usually advocated by the right-wing. Overall, our results point to a greater emphasis on candidates rather than issues.

Transparency of Political Parties in Spain and e-Accesibility for People with Disabilities

This article analyses the transparency webs of Spanish political parties in order to verify whether they are accessible to people with disabilities (hearing, visual, motor or cognitive) and also to establish which elements determine or condition, to a greater or lesser extent, the level of accessibility of these spaces. To this end, an evaluation model was generated (4 criteria, 10 variables and 31 indicators) inspired by the guidelines for the development of e-accessibility of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which was applied through the use of automatic and manual techniques for the web pages’ review. In addition, the Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used to determine the relationship between the degree of incidence or relationship of a series of factors (active transparency index, seniority, number of votes and number of deputies) on the level of accessibility of the transparency portals of the political parties. The research provides novel results, which will allow us to verify whether political parties manage inclusive transparency. That is, whether the websites, generated to comply with their legal obligations in terms of active advertising, favour the access of all people to e-information, including people with disabilities so that they can exercise their political citizenship on an equal footing with the rest.

National Projects and Feminism: The Construction of Welfare States through the Analysis of the 8M Manifestos of Progressive and Conservative Political Parties in Spain

This paper studies the national projects defended by Spanish political parties on the basis of the image they project in relation to women’s roles. To do so, we start with a critical review of nations and welfare states as masculinized projects, and from this we design a strategy based on the analysis of the manifestos issued by each political party in 2020 on International Women’s Day. The results obtained reflect the existence of three different ways of understanding the nation from a gender perspective: the first bloc, formed by the two conservative parties, PP and VOX, reproduces the nation by basing their discourse on gender inequalities, with a great weight of care for women; the second, formed by the most progressive parties (IU and Podemos), is situated in a clearly feminist perspective; the third, formed by the PSOE, shows a mixture of ideas that is reflected in considering both sexes as political subjects of feminism, and in presenting a discourse of the liberal and socialist current.

La transparencia de las formaciones políticas españolas: un estudio empírico

La Ley 19/2013 de transparencia, acceso a la información pública y buen gobierno tiene como objetivo primordial la puesta en práctica del derecho de acceso de los ciudadanos a la información, para conocer los criterios bajo los que se adoptan las decisiones dirigidas a la aplicación de los recursos públicos, de manera que la ciudadanía pueda fiscalizar de forma directa la actuación de los organismos públicos y privados que quedan bajo el ámbito de la legislación citada, al que también pertenecen los partidos políticos. En el contexto descrito, el objetivo del presente trabajo es evaluar el nivel de transparencia alcanzado por las formaciones políticas en España, a través de la información que facilitan en sus respectivas páginas web oficiales. A tal efecto, se diseñaron sendos índices de transparencia desde la perspectiva organizativa y económica sobre una muestra de partidos políticos con representación parlamentaria desde la instauración de la democracia en España, con el fin de conocer sus puntuaciones de transparencia, así como la relación entre ambos índices a través de la aplicación de un modelo econométrico. Los resultados revelan un escaso nivel de transparencia de la mayoría de las formaciones políticas analizadas, tanto en el ámbito organizativo como económico, detectándose una relación positiva entre los índices de transparencia organizativa y económica, especialmente influenciada por la funcionalidad de las páginas web de dichos entes.

Direct and Indirect Measures of Political Distances Between Parties on Twitter. An Application of the RON and DRON Methods to the Activity of Spanish Deputies.

Social media have been extensively used for political communication during the last decade. Research has shown that data from these platforms can help understand the process of interaction between politicians and the audiences and provide relevant information about how political information is spread and communities structured. In particular, the Retweet Overlap Network method (Guerrero-Sole, 2017) has shown how indirect relationships between users can help uncovering the community structure of political conversations. This research uses RON and a new version of the method, the Direct RON to show the community structure coming from the analysis of the activity of 295 deputies of the Spanish Congress. Results show that both methods are useful to uncover the underlying structure of the network, as well as to calculate the distances between the main political parties in Spain. This work adds new methods and knowledge about the information that can be obtained from politicians retweeting behavior.

“Backstage moments during the campaign”: The interactive use of Instagram by Spanish political leaders

The political use of social media is a well-established field of research. We perform a content analysis of the messages posted on Instagram—one of the fastest growing social networking sites—by the leaders of the four main political parties in Spain, with special emphasis on the interactive use of this platform and the functions played by the posts. The sample of Instagram posts includes a non-election period and a period of regional elections. The results point to a practically irrelevant use of interactive tools, and an emphasis on the self-promotion of leaders and their parties. Accordingly, the data show that Instagram is basically used by Spanish leaders as a supplement to their campaign efforts and strategic objectives. These findings are discussed and linked to broader theoretical issues such as the hypothesis of normalization and the use of the Internet for broadcasting.

La difícil confección del encasillado en la Restauración

Desde el restablecimiento del sufragio universal masculino en 1890 hasta las elecciones a de 1923, las últimas de Diputados a Cortes de la Restauración, los partidos políticos dominantes en la España de la época continuaron asegurándose el reparto del poder por medio del encasillado. La práctica, aunque no era nueva, se había institucionalizado de tal manera al principio de este periodo, que su confección prácticamente reflejaba el futuro retrato del parlamento antes incluso de los comicios. Aquellos cuyo nombre apareciera en las listas del gobierno representarían con probabilidad a los distritos que, en teoría, les habrían respaldado. Ahora bien, ¿eran los candidatos encasillados aquellos a los que apoyaban y escogían las fuerzas políticas y sociales locales, y por tanto los legítimos representantes del distrito, o no? Basado el análisis en la provincial de Valencia, se procura aquí dilucidar esta cuestión de vital importancia, por cuanto que su respuesta refleja la extensión de la representatividad del parlamento durante la Restauración.

“L’estaca:” Transnational Trajectories of a Catalan Antifascist Song

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the song “L’estaca,” which was composed in 1968 by Catalan songwriter Lluís Llach and became emblematic of the struggle against the Francoist dictatorship. I trace the ways in which the song has been reused and assigned new valence in a variety of cultural and political contexts, including the 1980s Solidarność movement in Poland and the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia. I interrogate how this anti-Francoist song has been recently recaptured by leftist social movements and political parties in Spain, as well as by the Catalan separatist movement.

Estudi comparat de les posicions a Twitter dels polítics espanyols sobre el feminisme

This research analyses feminism-related tweets produced over a period of two months by both a male representative and a female representative of each of the four principal political parties in Spain (PP, PSOE, Ciudadanos and Podemos). Although their behaviour on Twitter is similar, the differences found are more marked by ideology than by gender. A content analysis shows that the parties tend to reinforce their ideological programme on Twitter, which is corroborated as a space for disseminating topics related to feminism, but not as a space for debate. Men tend to publish more than women and on less controversial topics, which allows us to observe the reproduction of patriarchal roles in the net.

Who votes for new parties? Economic voting, political ideology and populist attitudes

Beginning with the economic crisis in 2008, a number of European societies witnessed the emergence of ‘new parties’. Most authors explain their electoral appeal by focusing on how the perceived state of the economy influences individuals’ voting decisions. This article determines the extent to which political attitudes can also explain voting for new political parties born in the heat of the economic crisis. Specifically, it explores the link between populist attitudes, in contrast to pluralist and elitist attitudes, and voting for two new political parties in Spain (Ciudadanos; Podemos), which are noticeably different in their ideological positions, programmatic proposals and populist discourses. The results show that stronger populist attitudes increase the likelihood of voting for new parties as dissimilar as Podemos and Ciudadanos. Overall, the findings suggest that voting for new parties cannot be understood as a mere economic response. Rather, political factors, and especially populist attitudes, matter too.

La comunicación de los partidos políticos en España tras el bipartidismo

Reseña:
 La comunicación de los partidos políticos en España tras el bipartidismo.Eva Aladro Vico y Paula Requeijo Rey (Coords.).Editorial Pearson, Madrid, 2018.

Does local corruption punish national parties votes?

Since 1978, an important process of decentralization in terms of regional competences has been taking place in Spain. In consequence, the behaviour of the regional and local administration has obtained an increasing relevant role. This process has a direct impact on the performance of politicians both at local and regional level, and on the results of elections. Recent data on elections show that national parties have lost the voting race at local elections. Moreover, at the same time as the economic boom in this country in the 2000s, there was also a boom in political corruption at the local level. Using a database that includes municipal data from 2004 to 2011 in Spain, this paper evaluates whether national parties lose votes at national elections due to the wrongdoing of their local candidates. Moreover, we focus on partisan effects, splitting the analysis according to the two main political parties in Spain. Our study resembles an experimental design, which yields two main conclusions. First, local corruption affects significantly the parties’ votes at national level, being the magnitude of the effect around one percentage point in absolute values. Second and interestingly, the sign of the results also depends on whether the corruption is on the right or the left wing.

The framing of Muslims on the Spanish Internet

AbstractIn this work we study the representation of Muslims on the Internet in Spain. After the terrorist attacks in Europe, Islamophobia and Muslimophobia have grown considerably in our society. There is a strong rejection of Muslim groups and individuals, they are perceived not only as different, but also as dangerous and violent. We follow a cognitive linguistics approach using corpus linguistics as a methodology in order to know which concepts are related to Muslims in discourse. We have used three corpora: the Spanish part of the esTenTen corpus, which is a large web corpus intended to give a picture of the Spanish language on the Internet; a Twitter corpus encompassing tweets published by five main political parties in Spain and their candidates in 2015-2016; and a third corpus of articles on the topic “Muslims” from four important digital newspapers (

Narrativas digitales de los principales partidos políticos de España, Francia, Portugal y Estados Unidos

The digital narratives employed by political parties in Spain, France, Portugal, and the United States are analyzed with particular attention paid to transmedia. We perform a content analysis of the parties’ webpages and online platforms, and the messages referenced therein, and survey the organizations’ online communication directors. The results show that, instead of adapting messages to specific platforms, political parties tend to disseminate overlapping content, publish the same messages on multiple platforms, and underutilize mobile strategies in political communication. The data show Spanish political parties to be at the forefront of innovation in narratives, as seen in their search for narratives created by non-partisan citizens and their commitment to innovation in transmedia and 360º video narratives.

From participation to confinement: challenges for immigrants’ incorporation in political parties in Spain

ABSTRACTThe question of the democratic participation of immigrants has been the object of an extensive, theoretical and empirical literature. Nevertheless, we still lack detailed information on those internal dynamics of political parties which shape patterns of participation and representation of immigrants and their descendants, especially in Spain. We focus on how immigrants incorporate political parties in Spain and how this mode of incorporation influences the opportunities for immigrants to access elite positions and candidacies. On the one hand we examine individual trajectories in accessing and evolving in parties and, on the other hand, party strategies to reach out and include immigrants. We acknowledge a persisting gap between the access and participation in political parties, which has been facilitated over recent years, and the many obstacles in accessing elite and candidate positions in Spain.

From the Street to Institutions through the App: Digitally Enabled Political Outcomes of the Spanish Indignados Movement

This article examines the relationship between social movements’ digital democratic innovations and political parties through a case study based on the involvement of 15M activists in the creation and development of new political parties in Spain. By analyzing the impact of certain technological activist groups on the implementation of the movement’s demands in terms of mechanisms of participation and deliberation in the new parties through the use of digital technologies, we aim to evaluate the activists’ contribution to the transformation of formal politics and the deepening of democracy. In this sense, we explore the role of so-called ‘tech activists’ as mediators of political participation, and the digital repertoire of action they use. Sources used include various documents and websites as well as interviews with key informants and notes from participant observation in meetings and assemblies.

The banning of political parties in Spain (the Batasuna case)

This article analyzes the constitutional and legal limits in Spain applicable to the creation and maintenance of political parties. The focus is on the case of two parties, Batasuna and Sortu, the first banished due to its connections with the terrorist group ETA, and the second the target of accusations of merely being a successor of the first. The article also examines the decisions of the Spanish Supreme Court that banished parties connected to the Basque Nation and the judgment of the legality of the Sortu party. ---------------- Este artigo fara uma analise dos limites constitucionais e legais na Espanha para a criacao e manutencao de partidos politicos. O foco sera o caso de dois partidos: Batasuna e Sortu. O primeiro, banido por conta de suas conexoes com o grupo terrorista ETA e o segundo, alvo de acusacoes de ser mero sucessor do primeiro. O artigo tambem examinara as decisoes tomadas pela Corte Suprema Espanhola que levaram ao banimento de partidos ligados a Nacao Basca e a legalidade do partido Sortu.