Case notes
Podemos/ We Can
Podemos (“We can”) originated from of the indignados anti-corruption and anti-austerity mass protests (Ramiro y Gomez 2017, 111). In 2014, a group of university lecturers with no previous political experience led by leftist Pablo Iglesias created the party (INSIDER = 1). As part of its territorial conception of Spain, Podemos engaged in coalitions together with other regional parties and developed regional versions of itself (Rodríguez-Teruel, Barrio, y Barberà 2016). Sometimes, these regional coalitions ran parallel to Podemos but under a different legal political organization. For the sake of simplicity and following the tradition of political analysis in Spain, Podemos and its coalitions are considered as just one party in the database.
Podemos is a classic case of radical-left populism as recognized by the literature (Barrio 2017; Briziarelli 2016; Lavezzolo y Ramiro 2018; Ramiro y Gomez 2017; Zarzalejos 2016). Both Pablo Iglesias and Iñigo Errejón are academic followers of the work of populist theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and they very explicitly applied their approach to their political platform (Iglesias 2014). They aim to substitute the “right vs left” divide for a new divide between “people vs. elite” (Ramiro y Gomez 2017, 111). They employ the term “la casta” to refer to political and economic elites (Briziarelli 2016, 292). La casta is “a fundamental component of the political class that runs the country. This is people not representing the citizens but butlers of financial capital. La casta is a minority that rules against the majority’s interests, living in a shameful condition of privilege” (Iglesias 2014a). Against la casta, Podemos wishes to transform the country by redrafting the Constitution in order to establish a real democracy and give power to the people (Briziarelli 2016). As Iglesias stated:
There are two groups, the ones above us who live in prosperity and the one below. The one below needs to be aware of its condition, otherwise we are all screwed. Democracy cannot be exercised only every 4 years, with a voting slip [. . .] That is not democracy. Democracy depends on the people, you, going on the streets defending your political power against them. The power is in the people’s hands. If we the people do not exercise it, they will exercise it for us and there is no democracy (Iglesias 2014a)
In addition to identifying political and economic elites as part of la casta (OTH_POLCLASS and OTH_ECONOMIC = 3), Podemos has also been a harsh critic of the austerity measures imposed by the EU leaders and has claimed that Spanish politicians are being controlled by foreign powers. For instance, on one occasion he said that “Merkel is very happy with viceroy Mariano Rajoy [President of Spain at the time] who does not obey his citizens but who obeys her. We are going to work to have a government that represents the interests of the citizens and not those of a foreign country” (Iglesias 2015) (OTH_FOREIGN = 3).
The party is very inclusive of immigrants within “the people” supporting universal health coverage for all immigrants and including in their party lists the first Afro-Spanish women to have a seat in parliament (Fernández 2015). Moreover, although the party defends a united Spain, it supports holding a referendum of independence in Catalonia and changing the constitution in order to declare Spain “plurinational” (Puente 2016) (OTH_IMMIGRANTS and OTH_ETHNIC = 1).
In relation to the army, although Iglesias declared that “the military sometimes defends interests they should not defend” he also claimed that “they are an essential component of a democracy and are needed in order to defend the independence and social rights of a country” (Iglesias 2014b). Moreover, Podemos included a former Chief of the Defense Staff among his most prominent electoral candidates (OTH_MILITARY = 1).
Podemos could not have been born without the figure of Pablo Iglesias. At the time of the creation of the party, he was a well-known TV guest in political debates and used that popularity in order to launch Podemos by adding his face to the voting list of the party. However, as the party has become more institutionalized over the years and has suffered several divisions within the core group, Iglesias has lost his relevance in favour of other figures such as Irene Montero. We have therefore coded 3 on CHARISMA in the 2015 and 2016 elections but only 2 in the 2019 elections.
Although Podemos has been a powerful critic of the Spanish media, the party has always defended democratic procedures. The party holds extensive primary elections to select candidates and consults its members to make important choices such as entering in government coalitions or not (Monrosi y Ortiz 2023). Podemos also has a strong anti-corruption program and is highly transparent in its proceedings (Podemos s. f.). Moreover, in relation to the conflict in Catalonia, Podemos has always defended dialogue and criticized both the use of force and the suspension of autonomy of the region (Domínguez y Marcos 2017) (LIBDEMNORMS = 1).
VOX
VOX was formed in 2014 from former members of the Popular Party who were dissatisfied with what they perceived as that party’s lack of ideological definition. The party, led by Santiago Abascal, remained unsuccessful in elections until the 2018 regional elections in Andalucía, when it entered into the regional parliament and enabled a Right-wing government for the first time ever in the region. The party then ran for the 2019 elections in April and again in the repetition of elections in November. According to Turnbull-Dugarte:
VOX is a party with a political ideology firmly grounded in authoritarian conservatism and nationalism. Far from being a single-issue anti-immigrant party (Art, 2011), it advocates policy positions including opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion, gender quotas, gender violence protection ordinances, and general social welfare provision, marking the party’s ideological parity with other Western European radical right-wing parties (Art, 2011; Mudde, 2004, 2007; Norris, 2005). Indeed, its populist approach of promising to “make Spain great again” alongside its nativist authoritarianism signal its fulfilment of Mudde’s (2004) classification as a populist radical right party. Of note in the specific case of Vox, however, is the addition of a strong anti-feminist message (Simón 2019) brought about in response to recent waves of feminist advancement in Spain as evidenced by the historical 8M demonstrations in 2018. (Turnbull-Dugarte 2019, 2).
In a clear reference to Donald Trump, their 2016 electoral manifesto was titled “Make Spain great again” (Vox 2016). The main enemy of VOX is the current politicians of Spain, as it is clearly stated in their website’s self-description:
VOX […] born to put the institutions at the service of the Spanish, in contrast to the current model that puts the Spanish at the service of politicians. VOX is the commonsense party, which gives voice to what millions of Spaniards think in their homes; the only one that fights against suffocating political correctness. In VOX we do not tell the Spaniards how they have to think, speak or feel, we tell the media and the parties to stop imposing their beliefs on society. Our project is summed up in the defense of Spain, of family and of life; in reducing the size of the State, guaranteeing equality between the Spaniards and expelling the Government from your private life. (Vox 2013).
VOX, however, does not extend its criticism of the political elites (OTH_POLCLASS = 3) to the economic ones. In fact, VOX defends a very liberal program in economic terms. One of the leaders of VOX said that “we don’t want a large state, the less state, the more freedom for the citizens” (quoted in Antón-Mellón (2019) and on their website it was possible to read that VOX “believes in a system based on liberty where all taxes are as reduced as possible or even eliminated. Less taxes, more jobs. Less state, more freedom” (quoted in Antón-Mellón (2019) (OTH_ECONOMIC = 1).
VOX also strongly defends Spanish sovereignty against “globalists” and criticizes the rest of the parties for following the dictates of the EU instead of those of the Spanish people (Abascal 2019). Moreover, Abascal wishes to make Gibraltar part of Spain, attacks the “international oligarchies” and insults Ciudadanos for being “cosmopaletos” or “stupid cosmopolitans” (Abascal 2019) (OTH_FOREIGN = 3). Abascal has proposed to increase the army’s budget and has included several soldiers as candidates of VOX (Araluce 2019) (OTH_MILITARY = 1).
Santiago Abascal was a low-level politician of the Popular Party in the Basque Country before he decided to leave the party (INSIDER = 1). He was not well-known outside the Basque Country and he was not even elected first president of VOX. He assumed the role after the first 2014 disastrous elections and the party became relevant through regional elections in Andalucía, in which he was not even a candidate. Therefore, although he is the face of the party, VOX would also have existed without Abascal and its current popularity can hardly be attributed to him (CHARISMA = 1).
VOX displays a very strong Spanish nationalism whose main enemy is the pro-independence parties in Catalonia. VOX proposes not only to recentralize the state and eliminate all autonomous regions and their parliaments but also argues for the illegalization of any party that does not defend the unity of Spain (Vox 2019, 2). Their nationalism is not only about territorial integrity but has an important ethnic component as well. VOX stresses the defence of the Spanish language and wishes to implement a “comprehensive plan for the knowledge, dissemination and protection of national identity and the contribution of Spain to civilization and universal history, with special attention to the deeds and feats of our national heroes” (Vox 2019, 3).
In relation to migration, VOX advocates for the deportation of all illegal immigrants in Spain and of those that are legally in the territory but have committed a felony (Vox 2019, 5). The party also wishes to “stop the invitation effect” (Vox 2019, 5) and has repeatedly condemned “multiculturalism” (Abascal 2019). This anti-immigrant stance is particularly harsh against Muslims:
One of the party’s earliest promotional videos was a spoof news broadcast depicting a veiled woman reporting from outside the mosque-cathedral of Cordoba after an imagined consecration to Islam by a fictional left-wing government (the building was erected during Spain’s Moorish era and was turned into a cathedral in the 13th century). The video ends with the words: ‘Do you want a future like this?’ and doomy music. (Loucaides 2018).
Thus, we have coded 3 for OTH_ETHNIC and OTH_IMMIGRANTS.
VOX’s ethnonationalism and proposals to make illegal all parties that do not agree with principles in the Constitution (such as the unity of Spain) are clear violations of existing liberal democratic norms. VOX also argues for the elimination of the Law against gender violence present in Spain since 2004 and to eliminate “radical feminist organisms” (Vox 2019, 17). However, VOX has not incited violence, nor attacked freedom of the press, nor threatened democratic institutions beyond its ethnonationalism (LIBDEMNORMS = 2).
Not included
Mas País / SUMAR (More Country) was created from a division within Unidas Podemos led by Íñigo Errejón, former leader of Podemos. Errejón created the party Mas Madrid to ran for president of the regional area of Madrid in April 2019 and, although he was unsuccessful, he decided to form Mas País in order to compete in the national elections in November 2019. Errejón is a scholar on populism and explicitly employs populist rhetoric in his politics, however, he wishes to distinguish himself from the hard-left image of Podemos and he also stresses the green ideology of the party. The party did not achieve the threshold of 5% of the share of the vote to be included in the dataset.
Ciudadanos (Citizens) was formed in 2006 in Catalonia, and was seen by many as an alternative to the growing Catalan nationalist movements – so much that it was originally seen as a single-issue movement. In later years it has become something very similar to Macron’s En Marche in France – a pro-European, liberal, pro-entrepreneur, anti-corruption, reformist and revival party attracting the attention of the Centre right. The party has been a critic of “bipartidismo” and of the corruption affecting PSOE and PP and is entirely dependent on its charismatic and (very) young leader Albert Rivera.
Nevertheless, the party is not considered populist by any scholar on the topic (Lluis Orriols y Cordero 2016; Rodon y Hierro 2016; Rodríguez-Teruel, Barrio, y Barberà 2016). Comparing Podemos and Citizens, Lavezzolo y Ramiro (2018, 268) argue that “although both Podemos and Ciudadanos are new parties […] and present themselves as political reformers in clear contrast to the mainstream parties, Podemos is a radical-left populist pro-participatory democracy party […] while Ciudadanos is a centrist one aiming for much more moderate political reforms”. Although the party’s success is the result of the political crisis and the lack of trust in political parties, Ciudadanos’ response can hardly be considered populist.
Due to the crisis in Catalonia, Ciudadanos has been focusing more on the nationalist elements of its discourse, however, political scientist Lluís Orriols (Lluís Orriols 2018) has argued forcefully against considering this a move towards populist positions. He rejects that Citizens frames politics as elite vs people and argues instead that
Citizens is a party that broke into Spanish politics to offer a technocratic response to the political crisis. The proposal of Citizens is not to articulate their discourse around returning power to the people but to empower a government of experts in order to achieve the effective and efficient policies that Spaniards (without distinctions) need. With this pedigree of technocratic cut on its backs, it is highly unlikely that Citizens will end up becoming a populist party of the extreme Spanish right. (Lluís Orriols 2018)
Although Ciudadanos expounds a criticism of corruption and renewal of politics, this is not enough based on our definition to qualify as populist given that we do not find a “discourse asserting that political power has been monopolised by an elite estranged from ordinary people, and that salient grievances of ordinary people can be attributed to the self-serving decisions of that elite.” Their anti-elitism is not framed in moral as well as programmatic but simply as a democratic renewal. Therefore, we have decided to follow the secondary literature on the subject and not include it in the data.
During the last elections, Catalan nationalist parties have displayed an anti-establishment and confrontational rhetoric with the Spanish state in which they have combined nationalist claims with populist ones defining ‘the people’ as the Catalan nation (Barrio 2017). However, despite their importance in number of seats in the parliament, they do not reach the 5% relevance threshold at the national level.
References
Abascal, Santiago. 2019. «Santiago Abascal contra el consenso globalista». https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWuWp609OMI (30 de octubre de 2023).
Antón-Mellón, Joan. 2019. «Vox, del nacional-catolicismo al ultranacionalismo neoliberal». Agenda Pública. https://agendapublica.elpais.com/noticia/14284/vox-nacional-catolicismo-al-ultranacionalismo-neoliberal (30 de octubre de 2023).
Araluce, Gonzalo. 2019. «¿Qué dicen PSOE, PP, Cs, Podemos y Vox sobre el Ejército? Sus medidas para atraer 130.000 votos». El Español. https://www.elespanol.com/espana/20190421/psoe-pp-cs-podemos-vox-ejercito-medidas/391461739_0.html (30 de octubre de 2023).
Barrio, Astrid. 2017. «El populismo y la excepcionalidad española». Quaderni di Diritto e Politica Ecclesiastica 2: 263-76.
Briziarelli, Marco. 2016. «To “Feel” and to “Understand” Political Struggle: The National-Popular Rhetoric of Podemos». Journal of Communication Inquiry 40(3): 287-304.
Domínguez, Íñigo, y José Marcos. 2017. «Podemos recurre al Constitucional la aplicación del 155». El País. https://elpais.com/politica/2017/11/30/actualidad/1512037930_126186.html (26 de septiembre de 2023).
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———. 2014a. «La casta ha arruinado este país». Podemos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ3yYa_z2QM (30 de octubre de 2023).
———. 2014b. «Pablo Iglesias: “Necesitamos al Ejército, el problema es que, a veces, defiende intereses contrarios a los de la gente”». La Sexta. https://www.lasexta.com/programas/salvados/mejores-momentos/pablo-iglesias-necesitamos-ejercito-problemas-que-veces-defiende-intereses-contrarios-gente_201410265725c2784beb28d44601a9d1.html (30 de octubre de 2023).
———. 2015. «Pablo Iglesias: “Merkel está muy contenta con un virrey que se llama Mariano Rajoy”». cerestv. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M34oyV4bR4 (30 de octubre de 2023).
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———. 2016. «Manifesto - 26th of June 2016 Elections». https://davidperalta.es/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Programa-electoral-VOX-26-J.pdf.
———. 2019. «100 medidas para la España Viva». https://www.voxespana.es/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/100medidasngal_101319181010040327.pdf (30 de octubre de 2023).
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