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ABSTRACT
Voters in many advanced democracies increasingly dislike their political opponents, a phenomenon that is known as affective polarisation. The growing animosity between electorates is particularly challenging in multiparty systems, where ruling is more dependent on cross-party alliances. In this work, we examine the case of Spain, a multiparty democracy that exhibits one of the highest levels of affective polarisation among advanced democracies. Using public opinion databases as well as extensive qualitative evidence, we operationalise and explore the evolution of affective polarisation in the Spanish electorate and its main drivers, with a particular focus on the competition for the left–wing electorate between the PSOE and Podemos during the 2015–2020 period.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Supplementary material
Supplementary data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2021.1911440.
Notes
1. Podemos was created in January 2014 by some activists of far-left organisations (Rodríguez-Teruel, Barrio & Barberá Citation2016). The initial aim of this organisation was the creation of a coalition for the 2014 EP election that represented citizens’ political disaffection and rejection of the PP-PSOE old bipartisan politics (Podemos Citation2014). According to the literature the determinants of Podemos’ voting have been the voters’ populist attitudes (Anduiza, Guinjoan & Rico Citation2018); the perception of political corruption (Orriols & Cordero Citation2016); dissatisfaction with the political situation and mainstream parties (Ramiro & Gómez Citation2017). Unidos Podemos is an electoral coalition created in May 2016 between Podemos and the extreme-left Izquierda Unida (United Left, IU), a political force leaded by the Spanish communist party. The coalition was renamed as Unidas Podemos (using the feminine conjugation) in March 2019 as a way to connect with the feminist movement.
2. The traditional bipartisan politics in Spain previous to 2015 was based on two main parties – the PSOE and the conservative Partido Popular (Popular Party, PP) – a few minor state-wide parties and several regionalist and nationalist parties.
3. See Fiorina, Abrams and Pope (Citation2005) on the ideological polarisation of the American voters and elites. Interestingly, ideological polarisation of political parties and its electoral consequences have also been studied outside the US (Knutsen Citation1998; Lachat Citation2008), including Spain (Orriols & Balcells Citation2012).
4. As McCoy, Rahman & Somer (Citation2019, p. 23) suggest, ‘The rhetoric and symbols used in the politics of polarisation create the sense of an “us” versus “them” conflict’.
5. Hobolt, Leeper and Tilley (Citation2020) show that the emergence of affective polarisation may result from new lines of divisions that are not based on party ideologies but on new opinion-based groups (such as pro and anti-Brexit).
6. In leaders’ evaluations, there is a break in the series from February 2019, when the CIS switched to a 1 to 10 scale.
7. In Figure A1 of the online Appendix we compare our affective polarisation measures using leader evaluations and PTVs with a measure that uses the like-dislike thermometer provided by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). Unfortunately, CSES surveys only cover the 2000–2008 period and with only four data points. However, the evolution of affective polarisation using the like-dislike CSES thermometer shows a positive correlation with our PTVs measure, as both measures increase between 2000 and 2008. CSES surveys include both party like-dislike and leader evaluation (on an 11-point like-dislike scale). The correlation between the two former variables at the individual level is high: 0.85 for PSOE and 0.89 for PP.
8. We use vote intention in a general election and party preference (‘simpatía’) among undecided voters.
9. The overall Affective Polarisation Index (API) summarises individuals’ feelings towards all relevant out-parties of the system and measures ‘the average divergence of partisan affective evaluations between in-party and out-parties, weighted by the electoral size (vote share) of the parties’ (Reiljan Citation2020, p. 380).
10. The first mandate of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (2004–2008) was marked by high levels of confrontation between government and opposition parties especially around the terrorist ETA peace agreement and the reform of the Catalan Autonomy Statute (Estefanía, Citation2008).
11. The average evaluation which individuals made of Podemos was 2.4 on the 1 to 10 left-right scale according to the CIS surveys. This value was similar to the position assigned to IU, a coalition that included the Spanish communist party.
12. In Figure A1 of the online Appendix, we show the evolution of PSOE and Podemos vote intention in the 2014–2020 period among the extreme-left, centre-left and centrist electorates.
14. Yet after the elections, cooperation prevailed, and Podemos helped PSOE win several regional governments that were previously in the hands of the PP (Correa, Barberá & Rodríguez-Teruel Citation2018).
15. The Gürtel case investigated several businessmen with close ties to the PP, who were accused of paying bribes to party officials between 1999 and 2006 in return for contracts to carry out public works and to organise events (Falcó-Gimeno Citation2018).
16. Some of the political parties that had supported Mariano Rajoy’s budget a few days before the vote of no-confidence was presented – namely Partido Nacionalista Vasco (Basque Nationalist Party, PNV) and Nueva Canarias (New Canarian Islands, NC)– finally voted against the continuation of the government.
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Notes on contributors
Lluís Orriols
Lluís Orriols is an Associate Professor at the University Carlos III of Madrid. His research interests are in the area of public opinion, political and electoral behaviour. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as European Union Politics, Electoral Studies, European Journal of Political Research, among others.
Sandra León
Sandra León is a Senior Talento Fellow at the University Carlos III of Madrid. Her research interests are in the area of federalism, comparative institutions, distributive politics, intergovernmental relations, party system nationalisation and economic voting and her works have been published in journals such as British Journal of Political Science, European Journal of Political Research, Governance and Party Politics, among others.