Search

Despite the apparent familism of Spanish society, family policies have never occupied an important place in the political sphere. However, various issues related to family policy have started to appear in the agenda of Spanish political parties in recent years. This paper analyses family-related issues in the electoral programmes of the five national parties that stood for election on 28 April, 2019, namely, Partido Socialista Obrero Español, Partido Popular, Ciudadanos, Unidas-Podemos, and VOX. A qualitative methodology was used that combined both content and discourse analysis. The results point to important ideological differences between these political parties based on their different conceptualisation of the family, but also to significant similarities on various issues related to "family pragmatics". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effect of candidates on voting behaviour in the regional elections of 2007 and 2011 in a number of Spanish regions (Autonomous Communities) included in the scope of the so-called 'dominant model of competition.' These are characterised by the total predominance of Spain-wide parties—and absence of any relevant nationalist/regionalist parties—in all electoral contests: Castile and León, Castile-La Mancha, Madrid region, Valencia region, Extremadura, La Rioja and Murcia region. Electoral research in Spain has focused mainly on the strong weight of ideology and party identifi cation in terms of voting behaviour, whereas the impact of the regional candidates themselves has not been analysed in so much detail. Using a series of logistic regressions, this study shows that approving of the regional leader is indeed one of the most signifi cant factors regarding voting decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests the equalization hypothesis at the vote level. A good number of studies have examined whether the Internet is levelling the playing field in electoral competition by offering fringe parties opportunities to increase their visibility. To test the influence of use of the Internet in vote choice, we analyze the behaviour of ERC voters. Using survey data, we test whether online exposure to political information affects vote choice among these voters. We find that online exposure to political information increases the probability of voting for Solidaritat Catalana relatively to voting again for ERC. The analysis provides empirical evidence to support the idea that the Internet works as a differentiated media environment in which political messages compete in more equal terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is focused on the nationalization of political parties in Spain understood as the homogeneity of parties' electoral support across constituencies in a national election. The first part of the paper describes the evolution of nationalization from 1977 to the present and shows how the Spanish party system is increasingly nationalized despite the differences across parties. The second part seeks to explain party nationalization determinants. The analysis indicates that the votes received at national level increases party nationalization. The age of the party enhances national parties' nationalization while in subnational parties this variable has a negative effect, pointing to a trade-off between the two groups. Finally, the ideological distance in the left-right axis reduces national parties' homogeneity across districts while founding elections have no effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically reviews the conventional wisdom on the positive relationship between turnout and the electoral results of the PSOE in general elections in Spain. We highlight the existence of three causal mechanisms that give rise to different predictions about this correlation and therefore undermine the existing parsimonious thesis. Some of our arguments are empirically tested with aggregate district-level data corresponding to the ten general elections held to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the shortcomings of the literature on strategic voting is the absence of empirical evidence in proportional representation electoral systems (PR systems). In this paper the existence of strategic voting in the 1996 regional elections in Andalusia is demonstrated using a pooled cross- section regression model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]