Spanish politics

In recent years, the restructuring of the party systems in several European countries was accompanied or preceded by massive waves of anti-austerity protests. Although the causal relation between these mobilizations and the rise of new parties has already been assessed, the organizational features remain understudied. To fill this gap, here we analyse the impact of the cycle of anti-austerity and pro-real democracy protests which emerged in 2011 with the birth and organizational development of the Spanish party Podemos. Bridging two subfields of social and political sciences-movement studies and party studies we pay particular attention to the dichotomy between horizontality and verticality within Podemos' organization. In particular, we address the issues of social movement effects as well as party foundation and organizational development. Our main findings suggest that movement mobilization played a large role in shaping Podemos' foundational choices, particularly with reference to the fundamental principles of the party and its strategic positioning. Podemos is also experimenting new democratic methods internally. Nonetheless, empirical analysis shows that, overall, the influence of movements' organizational models on the organizational structure of the party has been limited. Yet, the result is a "hybrid" party that finds a balance between the horizontalism of social movements and the efficiency of parties.

Οι ισπανικές εκλογές της 28ης Απριλίου επιβεβαίωσαν της προβλέψεις για νίκη των Σοσιαλιστών, καταβαράθρωση του Λαϊκού Κόμματος και είσοδο της ακροδεξιάς στη Βουλή. Το κείμενο περιγράφει βασικά εκλογικά συμπεράσματα και δεδομένα του, έτι περαιτέρω, κερματισμένου κομματικού πεδίου εν αναμονή της εντατικοποίησης των συνομιλιών για το σχηματισμό κυβέρνησης, πιθανά και με συμμετοχή των Ποδέμος.

Ante una sociedad cada vez más digitalizada en la que las redes sociales constituyen un elemento fundamental en los procesos de comunicación política, el presente trabajo analizará los efectos del uso de las redes sociales sobre el comportamiento electoral en España. La literatura tiende a mostrar un efecto positivo claro entre uso de las redes sociales y las formas de participación política no convencionales, mientras que a lo que a participación electoral se refiere los resultados de las investigaciones tienden a ser divergentes y no se encuentra una relación positiva evidente. Es por ello que, a partir de las encuestas pre-electorales y post-electorales de las Elecciones Generales del año 2015 (N = 6242), las cuales gozan de un carácter panel, se tratará de comprobar el alcance que tienen estos nuevos medios a la hora de movilizar el voto en nuestro contexto nacional, y si estos efectos se diferencian sustancialmente de los que puedan derivar del uso de medios de comunicación tradicionales como la televisión. Los resultados encontrados nos indican que efectivamente el uso de las redes sociales favorece la movilización electoral, especialmente entre los más jóvenes, aunque no parece ser más importante que la movilización que puede generar un medio como la televisión.

The unexpected success of the Five Stars Movement (M5S) in the 2013 Italian legislative elections and the impressive result of Podemos in the 2014 European elections drew the attention of European public opinion to a different type of anti-establishment party, one that cannot be identified with the radical right party family. The flourishing literature on
Podemos (Kioupkiolis, 2016; Martín, 2015; Orriols & Cordero, 2016; Ramiro &Gomez, 2017; Rodríguez-Teruel, Barrio & Barberà, 2016; Ruiz Jiménez, González-Fernández & Jiménez Sánchez, 2015) and onM5S (Biorcio, 2015; Biorcio &Natale, 2013; Bordignon & Ceccarini, 2013; Corbetta & Gualmini, 2013: Maggini, 2013; Mosca, 2014; Salvati, 2016; Tronconi, 2015) is mainly not comparative (Vittori, 2017a), and addresses different aspects of the parties: the political conditions within which these two movements have arisen, their respective ideologies, the reason behind their electoral breakthroughs and their relative electorates. Less attention has been given thus far to the organization of both parties (for exceptions, see Rodríguez-Teruel et al., 2016; Vignati, 2015). This article aims at clarifying the different paths taken by Podemos andM5S in navigating the institutionalization process: in particular, starting from the movement party's framework of analysis, it will explain to what extent the movement party label fits the empirical evidence in both cases.

This paper offers an account of the co-constitutive interaction between spatial and discursive dynamics in present-day politics. I focus on Podemos, a recently established party in Spain that was able to secure 20% of votes in the 2016 general election. Building on critical geography’s political understanding of space, together with cultural and discourse studies’ insights on place representation, formulation, and embodiment, I examine Podemos’ parliamentary performances, as well as their different moral evaluations by opposing parties. Throughout my analysis, I show, first, that the transgressive nature of certain acts is intrinsically linked to the particular spatial relations enforced in institutional contexts, and second, how, in their discursive struggles over common sense, different actors consistently mobilize space as a moralizing agent. The different strategies adopted reveal a tension between dominant and emergent ways of ‘doing politics’ that parallels competing visions of the relationship, in contemporary Spain, between civic and institutional spaces.

Engaging debates within cultural studies, media and communication studies, and critical theory, this book addresses whether Gramscian thought continues to be relevant for social and cultural analysis, in particular when examining times of crisis. The book is motivated by two intertwined but distinct purposes: first, to show the privileged and fruitful link between a Gramscian theory of communication and a communicative theory of Gramsci; second, to explore the ways in which such an “integral” perspective can help us interpret and explain different forms of political activism in the twenty-first century, such as Occupy Wall Street in the US, Indignados and Podemos in Spain, or Movimento Cinque Stelle in Italy.

This article focuses on the practice of gaining visibility of Southern European grassroots organisations. By applying a media in practice approach, I ground my theoretical foundations on the notion of constitutive entanglement, which is based on the idea that each practice is inextricably composed of three defining pillars: the social, the material and the symbolic. Drawing on this theoretical framework, the article aims to answer the following three research questions: What are the main traits that characterise the practice of gaining visibility of grassroots political actors in Southern European countries? Do extraordinary events alter the practice of gaining visibility performed in ordinary times, and if so, how? Are there any differences across countries? Data comprise 45 qualitative interviews conducted with some of the main Greek, Italian and Spanish grassroots organisations that are engaged in two contentious issues: political corruption and temporary employment. By using a new method for data collection, namely «media in practices maps interviews», my findings denote that: i) Southern European activists make use of an assorted array of media-related devices, services and actions; ii) it is precisely during ordinary times that political actors learn how to conceive and perform the practice of gaining visibility, thus understanding how to put it in practice during extraordinary events; iii) activists of Southern European countries are reacting differently to digital media innovations.

Spain was highly affected by the 2008 global financial crisis, which had dreadful and devastating consequences for the population. The political and the social scene was in constant change. The agitation provoked a drastic rise in social movements in the country (Vicenç Navarro, 2013). The two-party political system active in Spain during its democratic period couldn’t resist this agitational climate and deep suffering that was changing the political climate for the first time since the end of the dictatorship in 1978.

Therefore, this time the demonstrations and social anger provoked a breakdown in Spanish politics and gave birth to new political parties which tried to attract all the discontent and skeptical voters. The first one of them was Podemos, born directly from the 15-M movement and founded in January 2014 by a group of left-wing scholars. As kind of response to it, the Catalonian platform founded in 2006 Ciudadanos burst strongly in the political scene as right-wing alternative to Podemos, presenting themselves as “the sensible change”. (Orriols and Cordero, 2016).

Both parties quickly changed completely the Spanish political landscape. In the 2015 general elections Podemos and Ciudadanos achieved 42 and 40 seats in the Parliament and occupied most of the media attention (La Información, 2015).

Both parties and specially their leaders: Pablo Iglesias in Podemos and Albert Rivera in Ciudadanos can be defined as populist (Mudde, 2004). In this paper we will aim to analyze their populist discourse through specific fragments and literature which define this label, in the context of the rise of populist parties in the European politics. However, we will light the peculiarity of this case of populism, since these political actors lack the typical bad manners, bad behavior, trickster traits and colorful language that are common among the most well-known populist politicians like Trump, Hugo Chávez and Poujade (Willefordd, 1969).

Despite this change of the political Spanish landscape since the birth of these two parties, the discontent of the people towards the political elites is still ongoing, and the climate of twitching and polarized attitude among the Spanish citizens is maybe even in its highest level since the beginning of the financial crisis. This situation, along with the Catalonian crisis in the last two years has facilitated the growth of VOX, a far-right party which is getting stronger every day.

Former research from Catherine MacMillan have argued that the leader of Podemos is a charismatic leader (MacMillan, 2017). His appearance makes him populistic, a revolutionary, a man of the people, a godlike persona and carnivalesque (MacMillan, 2017). MacMillan in her paper also argues that Podemos have trades of populism, which shown by Cash Mudde´s research, such as his populist zeitgeist (Macmillan, 2017) (Mudde, 2004).

We will therefore be using MacMillan research for a criticism towards her argumentation of Pablo Iglesias charismatic trades and we will also be criticizing her description of Podemos political strategies as carnivalistic. Although we agree with her on the line that Podemos is populist political party and uses populist rhetoric which can be supported by Cas Mudde´s Research and his theories.

We will also try to explain how this populist discourse lacked the traditional trickster behavior could be the reason of the failure of Podemos and Ciudadanos in their aim of attracting the discontent citizens. We will also try to answer the question about if there is any reason which explains that this isolated case of populism has been born specifically in Spain, and if this fact has anything to do with the Spanish political and historical background.

On April 28, Spain held parliamentary elections. But as yet, the parties haven't agreed on a new government. This Monday and Tuesday, a fragmented parliament is set to debate and then vote on the candidate for prime minister, the incumbent Pedro Sánchez of the Socialist Party. So far, the candidate does not have the votes to win, although of course something could still change. Do Spain's political leaders have a cultural aversion to dealmaking? Not really. But since its return to democracy in the 1970s, Spain has not had a national coalition government. Political parties therefore lack experience in using the tools for building coalitions, such as sharing power. But Spain's parties have built plenty of governing coalitions regionally and locally. What's more, most of its national governments have governed in minority. All that requires striking deals. So what's the problem? Spain's current difficulty in electing a new government has more to do with political polarization and the parties' calculations about the governing formula that will best serve their interests. Let me explain.

El presente estudio tiene como objeto una revisión de la literatura sobre la emergencia de nuevos partidos y la transformación de los sistemas de partidos. Reconociendo la importancia de los determinantes institucionales, se propone un modelo explicativo alternativo para el análisis descriptivo del caso español en el que se priorizan las explicaciones de carácter sociológico vinculadas a la Gran Recesión como potencial escenario de coyuntura crítica. Este modelo pone el foco sobre tres aspectos, dos en el lado de la oferta: (i) agenda/capacidad programática; (ii) modelos organizativos u otras variables de carácter interno; y uno en el de la demanda (iii) comportamiento social desde la perspectiva de la protesta y descontento social. Todos ellos operarían como molde estructural de la nueva competencia partidista española. Entre las conclusiones, examinamos la posibilidad de concreción de nuevos ejes o fracturas de la mano de los competidores políticos emergentes, las excepciones a las tendencias centrípetas, o cómo afectan las estrategias para alcanzar alianzas viables en un multipartidismo en consolidación.

The way Spanish judiciary system is constantly in the news and not for the best is somehow extraordinary in Europe. Examining a few of the recent topics (from feminism to real estate taxes and rap), we focus on the Catalan crisis where Spanish authorities chose to let the Justice handle the very complex and crucial case of the Autumn 2017 events. A choice which broadened the fame of the "judiciarization" concept.