The Incumbent Electoral Defeat in the 2011 Spanish National Elections: The Effect of the Economic Crisis in an Ideological Polarized Party System

The Breakdown of the Spanish Two-Party System: The Upsurge of Podemos and Ciudadanos in the 2015 General Election

“…According to Torcal andMontero (2006, 2016), political disaffection is a concept with two dimensions: institutional disaffection and political disengagement. The former is related to voters' lack of confidence in political actors and institutions and the latter to voters' lack of interest in politics.…”

“…In fact, although the 2015 general election represented a fundamental break with the traditional two-party system, in the previous election held in 2011 there were already some signs that Spanish politics was entering a new era. In this election, the total vote of the two dominant parties declined for the first time in more than two decades 2 and the PSOE scored its worst electoral results since the restoration of democracy (Torcal 2014). Moreover, political trust and the prime minister's approval rates (then the socialist José Luis rodríguez Zapatero) reached their lowest levels since 1979 .…”

Radical-Left Populism during the Great Recession: Podemos and Its Competition with the Established Radical Left

“…In the first elections after the start of the crisis, the 2011 general elections, the incumbent social democrats, PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, Partido Socialista Obrero Español), were severely punished (Torcal, 2014). The conservative PP (People's Party, Partido Popular) won office with a large majority, and the radical-left IU improved its results from a very weak position to 7% of the national vote.…”

The 2014 European Parliament Elections in Southern Europe: Second-Order or Critical Elections?

“…In Spain, party system fragmentation remained largely unchanged after the national election of November 2011, even though the incumbent PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español; Spanish Socialist Worker's Party) suffered massive losses. The disappointment of left and centre-left voters was expressed mainly through switching their allegiance to smaller parties (Torcal 2014). The Cypriot national election of May 2011 was held when Cyprus had lost access to international capital markets, but this led neither to an open banking crisis nor to discussions on a bailout programme.…”