‘We are Different': do Anti-establishment Parties Promote Distinctive Elites? An Analysis of the Spanish Case

Abstract

Since the Great Recession, new parties challenged the pre-eminence of mainstream parties in many European democracies. In this paper we wonder to what extent this challenge translates in the representative politics. This paper aims to evaluate whether a) in terms of descriptive representation, the new challenger parties renewed the composition of the Parliaments; b) new challenger parties belonging to different ideological families elect different élites. The analysis focuses on two new successful antiestablishment parties: Podemos and Ciudadanos. Podemos belongs to the radical left family while Ciudadanos is a centre-right liberal party. We have built a dataset of the representatives of these two parties and the two other mainstream parties (PP and PSOE) in the Congress (2016), in the Autonomous Communities (2015) and in the Party in Central Office. Our findings suggest that Podemos and C's elites are younger and better educated compared to mainstream parties. Yet, we found that beyond their common anti-establishment background, different core ideologies matter when it comes to other aspects of the descriptive representation: in terms of education and working background, Podemos and C's élites are more similar to their ideologically closer parties, rather than among each other, thus highlighting the irrelevance of the shared anti-establishment rhetoric.

Enacting Candor

“…Whether this symbolic performance of difference and similarity coincides with an analysis of descriptive representation based on socio-economic characteristics is a different question. Tarditi and Vittori (2021) present mixed results but, on the whole, tend to reject both a qualitative difference between Podemos' leaders and the previously hegemonic socialist party's elite as well as a greater similarity between Podemos and its electorate in comparison to the socialist party. 21.…”

What has become of Podemos? The elites of a radical left party and their evolving dynamics of recruitment

“…members of parliament or political staffers). In 2014, these two types of occupation both accounted for only 8% of CCE members, an extremely low figure if compared to mainstream Spanish parties' central offices (Tarditi and Vittori 2021), not to mention the 0% remunerated politicians in the 2014 CC. This was obviously linked to Podemos' novelty: with few elected MPs or MEPs, the low proportion of professional politicians is not surprising.…”

“…More broadly, there was a strong presence of "knowledge workers" among CCE members, if we consider academics together with teachers (in primary or secondary schools or in other types of institutions) and students (42% in the CCE, 69% in the CC). This figure is particularly interesting if compared to two other types of professional profiles that are traditionally dominant within party elites in general, and in Spain in particular (Tarditi and Vittori 2021): legal professionals (e.g. lawyers) and remunerated politicians (e.g.…”

Unequal Democracies

“…We know of just two studies that present positive evidence to support an individual-level explanation about resource constraints (Carnes 2018;Hemingway 2020) and just a few that test party-level explanations (Carnes 2016;Hemingway 2020;Norris and Lovenduski 1995). Some studies note that certain types of parties appear more likely to recruit working-class candidates (Best and Cotta 2000;Joshi 2015;Matthews and Kerevel 2022;Tarditi and Vittori 2021). In particular, leftist parties typically have less affluent core constituencies (Garrett 1998;Huber and Stephens 2001;Korpi and Palme 2003), so their voters may prefer working-class candidates, or these parties may be more likely to recruit workers as candidates.…”