Who Represents the Poor? The Corrective Potential of Populism in Spain

Abstract

Scholarly research assumes populism enhances democratic inclusion by giving voice to groups that are not represented by political elites and by obliging them to be more attentive to their preferences. Empirical studies have focused on this dynamic more indirectly looking at the emergence of new conflict dimensions, leaving the representation of marginalised groups underexplored. This article contributes to filling this gap by analysing party competition over poverty responsiveness at the regional level in Spain during the Great Recession. Combining Regional Manifestos Project data with issue sub-categorisation, the article shows that populist parties, which emerged during the economic crisis, represent the poor to a greater degree in their political agenda than establishment parties. At the same time, the latter have reacted to new competitors by being more attentive to the poor in their political discourse. As a result, supply-side adaption to include proposals tackling poverty and social exclusion increased the representation of the poor in regional spaces of political competition.

Dual voting and second-order effects in the quasi-simultaneous 2019 Spanish regional and national elections

“…Spain's two-party system began to shatter in 2014 with the rise of two new parties on the left and center-right, Podemos and Ciudadanos. The emergence of these parties conferred an exceptional character to the 2015 regional elections, which marked the starting point of a new electoral cycle in Spain (Lagares Diez et al, 2019;Scantamburlo 2019). Yet, the newest arrival has been the radical right party Vox, that in December 2018 secured 12 seats in the Andalusian Parliament and five months later entered the national parliament for the first time.…”

A Tale of Populism? The Determinants of Voting for Left-Wing Populist Parties in Spain

“…Its remarkable electoral outbreak in the European elections was later confirmed in the 2015 and 2016 general elections, when it came third with more than 5 million votes (Rodríguez-Teruel et al, 2016). The electoral platform of Podemos has been characterized by two main elements: a strong anti-mainstream politics stance and a set of policy proposals identified with “classical left-wing socialism” (Polk et al, 2017; Ramiro and Gomez, 2016; Scantamburlo, 2019). 4 This has been so even if the leaders of the party, especially in the beginning, have often claimed that a “people-elite” division of the political space was preferred over a more classical left–right one (Ramiro and Gomez, 2016).…”

Cure, Poison or Placebo? The Consequences of Populist and Radical Party Success for Representative Democracy

“…Indeed, previous research has shown that those who are termed 'losers of globalisation' have a higher tendency to vote for and, thus, seek representation from radical right populist parties (Kriesi et al, 2012). Where mainstream governments tend to adopt the discourse of the wealthy (Elsässer, Hense, & Schäfer, 2018), populist parties can fill the representational gap by focusing on the interests of the poor (Scantamburlo, 2019). However, representation does not end with policy offers during electoral campaigns.…”