Looking at others in national policy-making: the construction of reference groups in Portugal and Spain from 2008 to 2013

ABSTRACT

Why is it that when debating the economic crisis, actors in the Portuguese parliament invoke more frequently countries affected by the crisis, whereas actors in the Spanish parliament invoke economically well-off countries more often? This article explores this mystery by studying how and why certain countries are evoked in the decision-making process. The analysis reveals that the actors mention different countries to contextualize the nation. We argue the actors in these two countries resort to different reference groups to identify or distance the nation in this concrete period even if they present similar challenges.

KEYWORDS:

• Reference group
• epistemic governance
• parliamentary debates
• economic crisis
• Portugal
• Spain

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge members of the Tampere Research Group for Cultural and Political Sociology for comments on earlier versions.

ORCID

Laia Pi Ferrer http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8655-591X

Pertti Alasuutari http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4111-9641

Notes

1 The World Bank, Data Base. GDP per capita (current US$) in Portugal and Spain. Available online at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=PT-ES&view=chart.

2 Both newspapers are about general information and they have a great rank in readers. El País is the most widely read general newspaper in Spain with 1.851.000 readers per day [Data from the Asociación para la Investigación de Medios de Comunicación (Association for the research around media communication) from October 2012 to May 2013]. Correio da Manhã is the most widely read general newspaper in Portugal with 1.206.000 reader per day [Data from Barem Imprensa from 2014].

3 Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra. Observatório Sobre Crises e Alternativas. Available online at: http://www.ces.uc.pt/observatorios/crisalt/cronologia.php.

4 All data excerpts are translated from Spanish and Portuguese by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was made possible by financial support from the Academy of Finland [grant number 276076] and [grant number 294183] and Emil Aaltonen Foundation whose assistance is appreciated.