Spanish Politics and Society
Hispanic & European Studies Program
Fall 2009
Raimundo Viejo Viñas
Office 20.182
www.raimundoviejo.info
raimundo.viejo@upf.edu
Institutions of Spanish
Democracy, 1
Political parties and party system
What’s a political party?
 A political party is a group of people that is organised
for the purpose of winning government power by
electoral (or other) means.
 Political parties as such:

… aim to exercise government power by winning
political office

… are organised bodies with a formal membership

… adopt a broad issue focus, addressing each area of
government policy

… are united by shared political preferences
Main functions of political parties
 Representation
 Elite formation and recruitment
 Goal formulation
 Interest articulation and aggregation
 Socialization and mobilization
 Organization of government
Types of political parties
 Caucus parties (elite parties) and mass
parties
 Catch-all parties and electoral-professional
parties
 Media parties and Cartel parties
 Post-materialist parties (green parties,
animal rights parties, etc)
Government Formation:
Parliamentary Systems
Party system
Assembly
Government
One-party
Dominant
One-party majority
Dominant party
government – Japan,
Sweden, South Africa
Two-party system
One-party majority or
near-majority
One-party
government with
swings between the
two main parties –
Greece, Norway,
Spain, UK.
Multi-party systems
Multi-party assemblies Coalition government
Spanish Political Parties
 Left-right cleavage (socio-economic dimension)



Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE (center-left wing
party)
Partido Popular, PP (right-wing party)
Izquierda Unida, IU (federation of left-wing parties)
 Centre-periphery cleavage (territorial dimension)





Convergència i Unió (Catalan liberal and christiandemocratic coalition)
Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea (Basque christian-democratic party)
Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Catalan proindependence party)
Bloque Nacionalista Galego (Galician nationalist coalition)
Coalición Canaria, Chunta Aragonesista, and others.
Centre-right party positions
Party
1979
1982
1986
1989
1993
1996
2000
2004
AP/PP
7.92
8.50
8.47
8.20
8.23
7.94
7.43
7.77
PSOE
3.90
3.56
3.78
4.29
4.17
4.52
4.28
4.27
PCE/IU
2.50
1.87
2.08
2.26
2.37
2.52
2.45
2.43
Spanish party system, 1
 Spanish democratic elections can be
separated in four different phases:
 1977 and 1979 founding elections (UCD
governments)
 1982-1989 Socialist absolute majorities
(sudden disappearance of the UCD)
 1993-2008 Conservatives and Socialists
alternating majorities
Spanish Party system
 Main features of Spanish party
system




Electoral volatility
Party-system fragmentation
Governability and competitiveness
Moderation
Electoral volatility
Electoral Volatility
Years
Total Volatility
Intrabloc
Volatility
Interbloc
Volatility
1977-1979
10.8
8.6
2.2
1979-1982
42.3
35.6
6.7
1982-1986
11.9
9.5
2.4
1986-1989
8.9
7.2
1.7
1989-1993
9.5
7.8
1.7
1993-1996
4.4
2.7
1.7
1996-2000
10.1
2.7
7.4
Party-system fragmentation
Effective Number of Parties
Years
Electoral
Parliamentary
1977
4.45
2.89
1979
4.29
2.81
1982
3.20
2.33
1986
3.59
2.68
1989
4.09
2.85
1993
3.47
2.67
1996
3.21
2.72
2000
3.02
2.48
Governability and competitiveness
Electoral and Parliamentary Competitiveness
Years
Electoral
Parliamentary
Parties
1977
5.2
13.9
UCD-PSOE
1979
4.5
13.4
UCD-PSOE
1982
21.9
27.1
PSOE-AP
1986
18.3
22.6
PSOE-AP
1989
14.0
19.4
PSOE-PP
1993
4.0
5.1
PSOE-PP
1996
1.3
4.3
PP-PSOE
2000
10.5
16.6
PP-PSOE