Suchergebnisse

Cet article examine quelques-unes des principales conséquences politiques des méthodes de sélection des candidats régionaux en Espagne. Pour ce faire, les hypothèses théoriques sur les modes de sélection des candidats au niveau national sont revisitées et une plus grande attention est portée à l'influence combinée du degré d'inclusivité et de décentralisation. L'article explore les règles de sélection des candidats ainsi que le profil de ces derniers dans trois des principaux partis espagnols (PP, PSOE, IU) au cours des deux dernières décennies. Les résultats montrent de faibles différences entre les méthodes de sélection et les principales caractéristiques sociodémographiques des têtes de listes à l'échelle régionale. En revanche, il semblerait que le sélectorat (en l'occurrence les primaires) ait un impact plus important sur la carrière et l'ancienneté de ces têtes de listes.

During COVID-19 politics was radically transformed. Even though parliaments, parties, and parliamentary groups continued working, they did so mainly through digital means. Our aim is to investigate how political parties and their élites reacted to those changes. For this aim, we launched a pilot survey among party élites in Spain and Italy. We use descriptive statistics and multivariate OLS regressions to answer to our research questions. Our results point out that parties quickly adapted to executive online meetings, but meetings of other (representative) organs were far less frequent. As for the élites' adaptation and in particular privacy concerns, we find that socio-demographic characteristic of the élites matter and being member of a digital party are not crucial determinants, as we expected. Ideology, on the contrary, play a much relevant role, with right-wing élites being more concerned about privacy. Finally, younger and more educated respondents are more favorable toward moving some parties' activities in the on-line sphere.

La competició electoral a la Comunitat Valenciana generalment s'ha articulat amb base en els eixos esquerra-dreta i la identitat nacional (p. ex. Martín Cubas, 2007). Encara que la identitat dels electors ha romàs generalment estable, sí que s'han produït alguns canvis entre 2011 i 2019 que, possiblement, han facilitat l'emergència de partits polítics nous. El propòsit principal del text és mostrar en quina mesura s'han produït canvis en els espais electorals ocupats pels partits nous i vells de la Comunitat Valenciana en els últims cicles electorals autonòmics. Això permet, al seu torn, mostrar l'evolució de les àrees de predomini d'alguns partits, així com aquells espais en els quals la competició electoral ha sigut més intensa. El cas valencià mostra les limitacions d'aquelles teories de la competició basades en l'exclusivitat dels espais electorals.

"Convergencia i Unió (CiU) is an alliance between two moderate Catalan nationalist parties, Convergencia Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) and Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (UDC). CiU was established in 1978, and within two years it became the governing party in Catalonia's autonomous institutions (known as the Generalitat of Catalonia). CiU retained this position until 2003, enjoying absolute majorities from 1984 to 1995. During much of this period, the party also played a key role at the state-level, providing support for Spanish parties lacking a governing majority and extracting policy concessions for Catalonia in return. Between 2003 and 2010, CiU saw a transformation in its status, from being a party of government to a party of Opposition at the regional level, and to a party with considerably less bargaining leverage at the state-level. Only in the most recent regional elections in November 2010 did the party return to government office with a minority government. This chapter outlines and describes the CiU's evolution from being a party in power to a party in opposition, and then government once more. The implications of the party's lifespan for its organisation and goals are then examined, with particular attention paid to the effects of loosing its governing party status in 2003. The chapter also deals with CiU's policy impact as a result of being in regional government for 23 years, and its ability to shape central government policies during the periods when it provided crucial support for left and right-wing state-wide parties." (author's abstract)

Résumé L'objectif de cet article est de montrer le degré de stabilité des leaders des partis politiques espagnols, et de tenter de déterminer le rôle joué par divers facteurs tels que l'accès du parti au gouvernement (national ou régional), la présence du leader du parti dans le gouvernement, la cohésion interne ou la culture du parti. Pour ce faire, nous avons centré notre analyse sur les leaders des partis politiques espagnols ayant fait preuve, tout au long de leur existence, d'une présence constante au Congrès des députés entre 1977 et 2010. Les résultats ont permis de mettre en évidence l'étroite relation entre la présence du leader au gouvernement (national ou régional) et la durée de son mandat, mais ils montrent aussi, entre autres, que la présence du parti au gouvernement n'est pas associée à une plus longue durée du leader que dans le cas où il fait partie de l'opposition.

Scholars have shown that activists use the Internet for political purposes more often than passive rank-and-file members. Previous research indicates activists engage in different types of activities and with various levels of intensity. However, it is unclear to what extent such modes of party activism are linked to different uses of digital resources. Our paper contributes to the existing research by explaining what drives party website usage as an informational tool among different groups of party activists. Building on survey data from delegates attending party conferences between 2008 and 2017 in Spain, we test three main organisational drivers of party website use: the modes of internal activism, holding party offices, and ideological congruence. Our results confirm that those activists engaging in a wider range of activities, holding a party office, and being more ideologically congruent with their parties are more likely to use the party website frequently than the rest.

The impact of party primaries on turnout at the meso level has been particularly under-researched. Thus, the aim of this paper is to explore the determinants of turnout on party primaries by employing an original dataset comprising over 300 selection processes of candidates and leaders in Spain from 1991 to 2021 at both the national and regional level. One of our main findings suggests, in line with what has been affirmed by previous literature, a positive impact of competitiveness on turnout. We also find some contradictory effects of ideology on turnout: as expected most left-wing parties have better turnout averages than right-wing parties, but turnout is higher in primaries organised by right-wing parties. In addition, the type of primaries and the (online-offline) format of the event also appear to be a relevant factor shaping participation.

This article aims to identify different modes of participation among the more active members within political parties and explore the reasons behind this variation. Previous research has focused on the hierarchical position of members according to their attachment to the organization to explain different types of activism. However, less attention has been paid to the horizontal variation among party activists. Our study employs survey data from delegates attending party conferences between 2008 and 2017 in Spain and applies cluster analysis to identify the presence of different types of activists within parties. We further perform multinomial logistic regression to identify the drivers of the four types of activists (mass party activists, committed activists, canvasser activists, and cheering activists) resulting from the cluster analysis. Our findings show that both individual factors (socioeconomic status and incentives for joining) and party factors (party age, access to institutions, territorial coverage) are relevant for explaining variation in party activism.

The article analyses the evolution of party membership and party activism in Europe in the last twenty years. Our aim is twofold. Firstly, we provide a new typology of different modes of affiliation in political parties. In line with Susan Scarrow's multi-speed membership model, it advocates for a reconceptualisation of party activism disentangling it from formal membership. Based on ESS data, we observe that formal party membership decline is accompanied by stable or even increasing proportions of party activism, suggesting different trends of evolution for different modes of party affiliation. Secondly, we test the mobilising effect of the Great Recession on party activism in European democracies. Using panel-corrected standard error regressions, we find that those countries that implemented hard austerity policies experienced a significant increase of party activism during the years of bailout.

This special issue introduction argues that the study of party activism requires to be extended to new regional areas in order to capture different perspectives of new developments in this topic. The articles included in the volume cover some cases in Southern Europe (Spain, Italy, France) that show a different evolution of what the academic literature had observed in traditional Western democracies. In this respect, our findings suggest two potential contributions. First, newer democracies might have a different structure of incentives for party activism. Second, alternative methodological strategies of party activism research may enlarge our understanding of new forms of party involvement. All in all, the volume shows the need of using different prisms to provide a more comprehensive explanation of how party activism is evolving nowadays.

The article analyses the evolution of party membership and party activism in Europe in the last twenty years. Our aim is twofold. Firstly, we provide a new typology of different modes of affiliation in political parties. In line with Susan Scarrow's multi-speed membership model, it advocates for a reconceptualisation of party activism disentangling it from formal membership. Based on ESS data, we observe that formal party membership decline is accompanied by stable or even increasing proportions of party activism, suggesting different trends of evolution for different modes of party affiliation. Secondly, we test the mobilising effect of the Great Recession on party activism in European democracies. Using panel-corrected standard error regressions, we find that those countries that implemented hard austerity policies experienced a significant increase of party activism during the years of bailout. ; El artículo analiza la evolución de la afiliación y el activismo partidista en Europa en los últimos veinte años. Tenemos dos objetivos principales. En primer lugar, proporcionamos una nueva tipología de los diferentes modos de vinculación a los partidos políticos. De acuerdo con el modelo de afiliaciónmulti-speedde Susan Scarrow, abogamos por una re-conceptualización del activismo de partido que lo separe de la afiliación formal. Basándonos en datos de la ESS, observamos que la disminución formal de la vinculación a los partidos va acompañada de proporciones estables o incluso crecientes de activismo partidista, lo que sugiere diferentes tendencias de evolución para diferentes modos de afiliación partidista. En segundo lugar, analizamos el efecto movilizador de la Gran Recesión sobre el activismo de partido en las democracias europeas. Usando regresiones de error estándar corregidas por panel, nuestros resultados muestran que aquellos países que implementaron políticas de austeridad duras experimentaron un aumento significativo del activismo de partido durante los años de los rescates financieros.