Schooling party life – A frame analysis of Spanish left parties’ intra-party education

ABSTRACT

This article explores how the three Spanish parties that formed a coalition government at the beginning of 2020 – (i) the Spanish Social Democratic Party, (ii) the United Left and (iii) Podemos – organise education for their members. With frame analysis as a theoretical itinerary, the study begins to outline what the parties’ schools are about, how they are organised, and why parties provide education for their members. The analysis reveals that the weekend schools vary between ideological and policy-orientated content. These schools are similar in form, but differ in terms of the student-teacher relationships and whether they focus on theory or practice, implying different pedagogical methods. The motivation for party education is framed as fulfiling participatory functions or providing members with the right to education. Thereby, by identifying frames and uncovering different tendencies for how parties organise their party schools, the descriptive framing perspective allows for a broader discussion of how members are socialised into their parties.

KEYWORDS:

• Adult education
• frame analysis
• left parties
• party education
• Spain

Introduction

How parties organise internal educational activities has received sparse attention in the adult educational field (Nordvall & Pastuhov, 2020). Closely interrelated to party education is the theme of adult education and learning within social movements; a research field with extensive literature (Finger, 1989; Hall et al., 2013; Holst, 2001, 2009, 2010; Welton, 1993) that studies how educational activities may influence individuals in their political engagement and/or give them ideological and practical training. Bearing in mind that education has been recognised as a compelling study object in the context of social movements, this article turns its gaze to the role of education within parties. As an analytical method, a frame analysis is applied to the official party statutes and weekend school materials of three Spanish left-leaning parties – (i) the Spanish Social Democratic Party (PSOE), (ii) the United Left (IU) and (iii) Podemos (P) – to shed light on how intra-party education is organised. The aim of this article is to begin to outline what parties’ schools are about, how they are organised and why parties provide education for their members. The descriptive framing perspective illuminates fundamental pedagogical motivations for how parties reason when planning and designing education, and these motivations must be empirically unfolded before we can dig deeper into a conceptual understanding of parties’ schooling.

The scrutinised parties formed a coalition government on 7 January 2020, with assigned ministers from each party. Considering that The Financial Times ran the headline ‘Spain’s Socialists strike coalition deal with far-left Podemos’ (Financial Times 2020), it is clear that the Spanish government is considered an outlier on the European electoral map in terms of having a left-leaning government. Social scientists such as Birnbaum (2010) and Bailey (2016) have pointed out that left-leaning parties – and perhaps especially social democratic parties – have experienced dramatic declines in several other countries in Europe. Moreover, the relatively new party Podemos has been scrutinised in news media and academia since its formation in 2014 in Spain and elsewhere (e.g. Errejón et al., 2016; Sola & Rendueles, 2018; Kioupkiolis & Pérez, 2019; Flesher Fominaya, 2020). In the most recent national election in 2019, Podemos went to the polls together with the left alliance United Left. Spain is, therefore, an interesting case to study due to the recent success of both its ‘old’ left parties (PSOE and IU), with connections to the workers’ movement, and its ‘new’ left party (P) that has mobilised in relation to popular discontent since the Spanish 2009 financial crisis (Castells, 2012; Sola & Rendueles, 2018). By examining these three identified parties which represent different sections of the organised left and by highlighting their party schools, we can gain knowledge about how members are socialised into their parties’ organisations.

The next section will zoom in on the Spanish context, and will then summarise previous research on intra-party education and account for the use of frame analysis and the method and material. The findings section is divided into three parts that describe (1) what party schools are about, (2) how they are organised and (3) why parties provide education.

Understanding the Spanish political context

According to academic commentators, the Spanish political landscape was redrawn in 2009 as the domestic economy crashed in a housing bubble (Hughes, 2011; Martí & Pérez, 2015). Most notably, Podemos lists the financial crisis as fundamental reason for its existence (Iglesias 2014). The economic crisis of 2009 culminated in rigid austerity measures for all public funding, which resulted in unemployment rising to historically high levels (Gentier, 2012; Royo, 2009). The economic situation created discontent with the political leadership and the existing political parties standing accused of being culpable for the crisis. Since becoming a democracy in 1982, Spanish politics has been dominated by the country’s two largest parties: the People’s Party (PP – a social conservative party) and the Social Democratic Party (PSOE). Both PP and PSOE lost popular support during the economic crisis (Casero-Ripollés & Feenstra, 2012; Romanos, 2016). In 2011, massive protests took place all over the country and several social movements mobilised to engage people in political discontent (Castells, 2012; Romanos, 2016). In relation to these protests, some social movements started to organise themselves politically to instigate systemic change (Kioupkiolis & Pérez, 2019).

Spanish politics is still strongly affected by the country’s civil war of 1936–39 and the dictatorship that followed until the death of General Francisco Franco in 1975. The transition to democracy between 1975 and 1982 has been highlighted as a successful political process by liberal commentators (Bonime-Blanc, 2019; Colomer, 1995). However, in recent years the constitution that was negotiated and adopted in 1978 has been subject to political debate and critique, mainly due to the precepts about territory that impede regional independence. Regardless of the constitutional obstacles, Catalonia has pursued independence since the economic crisis of 2009. The issue of Catalonia and regional independence has heavily affected Spanish politics in recent years (Colomer, 2017; Serrano 2013). Apart from being influenced by war, dictatorship and conflicts, Spanish voting behaviour is – just as before the civil war – clearly divided into left-right ideology. Fraile and Lewis-Beck (2012) even suggest that Spanish voters are less influenced by their economic situation than voters in other western countries, and are more inclined to vote for a party for ideological reasons. In the most recent election in 2019, PSOE received 28% voter support while IU and P, which formed a united election platform, received 12.9% of the votes. Corresponding to international trends of falling membership figures (Biezen et al., 2012), membership of political parties is tending to decline in Spain (Baras et al., 2015), even though the country long constituted an exception with rising party and union membership from the transition to democracy until the 2010s (Biezen & Poguntke, 2014). How many members the parties have is difficult to estimate since the parties have different organisational structures determining whether members should pay an annual fee or register, or can simply attend party events as sympathisers. PSOE states that it has 161,706 affiliates (PSOE website 2022) and IU has indicated that it has 22,000 affiliates and 60,000 sympathisers (Llamazares, 2020). Baras and colleagues in a study from 2014 found that both PSOE and IU in general have more men that become active as members, and that PSOE’s member mean age is 46.2 and IU’s 43.7. Moreover, PSOE has the highest levels of members with higher education of all Spanish parties. Podemos, which was established in 2014 was not included in the data set that Baras and colleagues analysed and has an entirely different membership system where they do not take membership fees but let members register online. This has resulted in that they count 455,932 affiliates, which makes them the second largest Spanish party in number of members after the conservative Popular Party (Gomez & Ramiro, 2019). In a study that examine the difference between the old and new left in Spain, Ramiro and Gomez (2017) however suggest that Podemos members in general are younger and inclined to care for feminism, environmentalism and pacifism.

As a result of the Spanish political map being redrawn in recent years, a difficult electoral situation has arisen. Between 2015 and 2020, no party managed to form a government with a majority in the national parliament. This led to Spain holding four elections in four years. At the beginning of 2020, the Social Democratic Party (PSOE) managed to build an alliance, including the Left Alliance (IU), Podemos and several regional parties, after almost half a year of negotiations – not only with this left-leaning alliance, but also with centre and right parties. The parties analysed in this article (PSOE, IU and P) have formed a government that deviates from most European countries in terms of being left-leaning. Chantal Mouffe (2005) has described the European left as being merely in a position to react to the recent success of movements on the political right, but the Spanish situation offers an opportunity to study the opposite: left-leaning parties that have succeeded in mobilising voters and that are in a governing position. Therefore, this article aims to construct new knowledge about the contemporary European left, while also contributing to the adult educational field by analysing the organisation of education within parties.

Intra-party education

Political parties play an important role in the way we govern in most parts of the world, so it is natural that there will be an extensive research body on parties and different aspects of their organisation (e.g. Diamond & Gunther, 2001; Scarrow et al., 2017; Ware, 1996). Nevertheless, inconsiderable scholarly thought has intersected political parties and education. Few have studied intra-party education in the Spanish context. A notable exception is Andrade Blanco (2012), in a study of the Spanish left’s ideological development during the transition to democracy. When analysing the Social Democratic Party (PSOE) and the Communist Party (PCE) (which are part of IU), he pays attention to how education is implemented within the party structure to ‘teach’ members useful practical and theoretical knowledge. He also discusses the influence of leading intellectuals and the formative role that intra-party education has played within the parties. Closely related to the theme of providing education to members for teaching useful skills and creating a collective identity is trade union education; the training provided by unions resembles party education, since trade unions are also organisations that pursue political interests and are based on membership. In a case study by Roca (2016) on union recruitment in the Spanish radical union CNT, he claims that part of the union’s renewal process was intense union training, but never explains how the training is organised. Similar to research about party education, how and why trade union education is organised in certain ways is also scarcely researched. However, when looking at European countries other than Spain, Jansson (2016) has compared Swedish and British union education historically and notes differences in terms of ideological schooling and how centrally organised the education was, which she argues played an important role in the formation of the labour movements in these two countries.

Considering research on countries other than Spain, there are various studies on parties and their member education. Most of these studies have focused on communist parties and their educational practices; these studies include conflicting perspectives where education is considered an instrument for steering, or more favourable perspectives that credit party education as being emancipatory (e.g. Boughton, 1997; Flowers, 2005; Holford, 1994; Shambaugh, 2008). Boughton (1997) adheres to the more favourable perspectives in his study of how the communist party in Australia has implemented educational activities in what he labels vulnerable Australian communities. Shambaugh (2008) has studied the Communist Party in China and its rigid party schools that target not only party members but also businessmen and military personnel. It is, however, difficult to compare the Chinese Communist Party school with other countries or parties due to its sheer scope, but also because the formal character of its education makes it difficult to distinguish it from formal education.

Other studies address the purpose of intra-party education. Sirivunnabood (2016) has compared two parties in Thailand with different ideological beliefs, and observes that party education has many functions, such as socialising members into democratic practices, fostering future leaders and mobilising members. She concludes that parties’ member education methods differ, partly due to the object of their education. Gökçe et al. (2015) have analysed the implications of party education, and note that even if the purpose of education is to foster future leaders and socialise members, it also has other positive effects on member participation since the inclusive methods ‘trickle down’ to members who do not become leaders or party officials. Özbudun (2006) has studied the Justice Party in Turkey, and concludes that party education reinforces a member collective and creates emotional ties to a party. Similarly, in the Swedish political context, studies on left-leaning parties show disparate functions of party education. For example, party education can introduce members to a party collective and help them align their individual identity with a party identity (Arriaza Hult, 2020). Nordvall and Pastuhov (2020) also find that intra-party education within Swedish parties has both knowledge-oriented and relationship-oriented roles, while members acquire practical and ideological knowledge and create social networks that are important for political work.

Thus, previous literature has focused on what the purpose of party education is, and has asked whether educational activities can create emotional ties to a party. This article will touch upon these themes while analysing party statutes and material used by the three Spanish parties PSOE, IU and P.

Frame analysis

This study is guided by frame analysis as a theoretical approach, and analyses three parties’ party statutes and study materials for their party schools with the aim of interpreting what the party schools are about, how they are organised and why parties provide member education. Since frame analysis is often applied in social movement studies in order to understand how a group assigns meaning to events and occurrences in order to mobilise support and initiate collective action, the theoretical approach is considered fruitful in this study for understanding how the three parties make use of their member education and why they organise their education in certain ways. When using the theoretical apparatus of the framing perspective, there is an underlying assumption – that depending on how the parties frame content in and for their member education – the different framings will discern something about the parties’ perceptions of their members. According to the frame theorists Snow et al. (1986), a frame is defined as ‘“a schemata of interpretation” that enables individuals to “locate, perceive, identify, and label” occurrences within their life space and the world at large’ (1986: 464). Snow and Benford (1988) explain that groups ‘frame, or assign meaning to and interpret relevant events and conditions in ways that are intended to mobilise potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support, and to demobilize antagonists’ (p. 198). For example, in interviews with aid workers from 25 civil organisations that helped to rebuild communities in New Orleans post-Katrina, Pyles and Harding (2012) found that the interviewees presented their issues and organisation in relation to three frames: Restoration (restore communities to pre-Katrina status), Reform (make communities better) and Radical Social Change (radical systemic change in communities and the country). Thus, categorising the civil organisations’ work in different frames reveals how meaning is constructed differently within organisations or movements, and helps to identify different tendencies in the restoration work. Benford and Snow (2000) even argue that framing is one of the mechanisms that align personal and collective identities, since framing can help to align the individual’s motivations with those of the collective, which further shows how influential the understanding of framing can be, if it manages to create relevant and successful frames that garner support and feelings of identification.

When applying the frame analysis to empirical data, it is possible to study how movements (in this study: parties) i) identify problems, solutions and relevant actors (diagnostic framing); ii) find strategies and goals (prognostic framing); and iii) formulate emotional and logical motives that make adherents act collectively (motivational framing). Therefore, a framing perspective is applied in this study in order to identify how political problems are framed within the content of the party schools, and to understand how and why these schools are organised in certain ways. In order to be transparent about how the framing perspective has been applied to the empirical data, the three different levels of framing (diagnostic, prognostic and motivational) have been shaped into three contiguous research questions: (1) What are the party schools about? (2) How are the party schools organised? (3) Why do parties provide education for their members? Being guided by these questions when reading the empirical material acknowledges the usefulness of the theorical approach, but at the same time allows for a freer analysis adapted to the phenomenon of party education. Accordingly, how frame analysis is used in this study contrives to distinguish between different pedagogical tendencies and shows descriptively how and why parties organise educational activities for their members, which could stimulate a broader discussion about the opportunities for mobilisation offered within party education.

Method and material

The analysis draws on PSOE’s, IU’s and P’s official party statutes, as well as materials developed for three of the parties’ summer or autumn schools between 2017 and 2020 (see, Table 1). Given the existing research gap on party education, this study intends to provide an introduction to the analysed parties’ education for their members. To begin this mapping process, the materials used in the study have been chosen after gaining a sense of the organisation of education within the parties by interviewing party officials in Madrid, observing educational activities (for example, seminars with invited speakers, talks and circles organised by Podemos’ members) and reading study materials. Engaging in the parties’ training schools in this way has facilitated the process of choosing materials that descriptively illustrate what the education is about, how it is organised and why parties provide education.

Table 1. The parties’ weekend schools.

Theme for weekend school
	PSOE	IU	Podemos
2017		No overall theme. Instead, the following sessions are listed: To debate and understand a country’s project // Why Marx was right* // The lies of Spanish capitalism // Feminism with class // Europe from the south* // Creating alliances // Radical democracy* // Lessons from Latin America (15–17 September) *Book titles	Communication, power and democracy (6–9 July)
2018	Youth: challenges and opportunities (9–13 July)	The new working class in Spain (and Europe): configuration, conflicts and political behaviour (21–22 April)	We’re doing the change (12–14 October)
2019	Philosophy, technology and media: political information in the age of global communication (8–12 July)	Three social concepts: social class, state theory and ecofeminism (13–15 September)	Permanent school for public work (online course)
2020	Women and leadership in times of crisis: the impact of gender, leadership and management before, during and after Covid (27–29 July)

All parties in Spain organise intra-party education for members or individuals with positions of trust within the party. All three of the analysed parties provide national courses at least once a year. These party schools often take the form of weekend courses or summer schools, and members from local chapters all over the country can apply to participate. These schools have different organisers. PSOE’s summer school is arranged in partnership with Complutense University (the largest public university in Spain, located in Madrid) and the Pablo Iglesias Foundation (an organisation that arranges courses, seminars and different cultural events, and maintains an archive of PSOE’s history). IU’s summer school is arranged together with the Federation for European Citizens (FEC, an organisation for IU members that arranges political education, seminars, talks and cultural events). Podemos’ autumn school is arranged in collaboration with 25 M (an organisation and think tank that provides political education and cultural spaces in Madrid and Bilbao, and publishes journals). Thus, all parties cooperate with organisations that arranges political education and cultural events in different forms. The schools give the parties’ members opportunities for political training. The text material for the parties’ summer or autumn schools differs in terms of form and content. Academics, politicians and experts are invited to discuss different themes connected to the overall theme of the weekend school.

While answering the first and second research questions, the parties’ weekend schools are analysed. The parties’ three most recent schools have been chosen: PSOE’s weekend schools of 2018, 2019 and 2020, IU’s weekend schools of 2017, 2018 and 2019, and Podemos’ weekend schools of 2017, 2018 and 2019. Several of IU’s and Podemos’ educational sessions are available on the websites of the organisations they cooperate with (https://lafec.org/, https://instituto25m.info/ and their YouTube channels).

While answering the third and last research question, the parties’ official statutes are analysed. I have read the statutes and identified where the texts deal with questions and activities concerning party education. Considering that curriculums are studied within educational sciences when trying to understand why and how education is structured in a specific way (Griffin, 2018), party statutes are interpreted in a similar manner here and are used to understand how education is motivated.

The analysis consists of quotations from the parties’ official statutes and the study material. All the translations from Spanish into English were produced by the author unless otherwise stated.

The content of the party schools

Since there are few studies that have emphasised Spanish parties’ education, it is difficult to grasp how the parties have used educational efforts historically. Nevertheless, Andrade Blanco (2012), who has studied the inner workings of PSOE and PCE (part of IU) during the democratic transition process, notes a shift during the transition period where both parties’ schools progressed from having overwhelmingly theoretical content to include more practical training. He suggests that this shift occurred when the parties were forced to reformulate according to a new political reality at the end of the dictatorship, first of all as legal political parties in a parliamentary democracy, and in PSOE’s case as a likely governing party. This argument of different roles within the democratic system is useful to apply in order to understand the different tendencies that can be seen when analysing the parties’ most recent party schools. All schools but one have an overall theme for the weekend (Table 1). The only exception is IU’s summer school for 2017, which instead listed some of the main sessions (IU invitation 2017). However, just by looking at the names of IU’s sessions in 2017, one can detect a rather ideological focus with titles that emphasise theoretical concepts.

When considering the themes for the rest of the weekend schools, some differences are detected. PSOE has concrete subjects that could be understood almost as policy themes: ‘Youth: challenges and opportunities’, ‘Political information in the age of global communication’ and ‘Women and leadership’. Compared with IU’s schools, its themes are considerably more theoretical, discussing analytical notions such as ‘The new working class’ and ‘Three social concepts: social class, state theory and ecofeminism’. Podemos has overlying themes with a theoretical character – ‘Communication, power and democracy’ and ‘We are doing the change’ – but also includes practical elements, especially in its school for 2019: ‘Permanent school for public work’. Thereby, when framing what the schools are about, there are already tendencies that could be used to analyse how the parties see their members and what they think their members need to know. The fact that the content of the party schools differs in terms of what the members are expected to learn could be seen in relation to Sirivunnabood’s (2016) study of party education in Thailand; depending on the parties’ political interests, the education and its content will be adapted to reach the parties’ goals.

PSOE’s school for 2020 emphasises women’s issues and leadership. At that school, all invited speakers were female politicians, academics or journalists. IU emphasises ecofeminism as one of the social concepts that the 2019 school focused on, alongside class and state theory. Podemos does not have a theme that explicitly highlights women, gender or feminism. However, all its schools had several sessions about feminism, and if they held parallel sessions one of them touched in some way upon feminist politics. At its permanent school for those in political office, the first session is called ‘How to do feminist politics’ (https://escuelapermanente.instituto25m.info/). In fact, Podemos is the only party to have stated in its statutes that all its representatives should undergo gender training (Podemos, statutes: 18). Podemos could therefore be interpreted as having another strategy with its feminist approach and integrates feminist politics into all its education, which could be seen as analogous to its member and voter base which has a large share of young, academic and female voters.

From the perspective of framing theory, what is learnt at party schools influences how members understand political occurrences and identify causal relationships. Since this study scrutinises political parties that are founded on political ideologies with inherent diagnostic relationships, the focus is on how these diagnostics are articulated in the parties’ education. Andrade Blanco (2012) stresses that the party schools ‘were a fundamental socialisation space in the life of a party, one of the places where its collective identity could most intensely be forged’ (p. 247). Similarly, Arriaza Hult (2020) notes that party education can help to consolidate the members’ individual identities with the party’s collective identity. In order for parties to create a collective identity through education, the diagnostic relationships have to be clear and framed in such a way that they initiate feelings of belonging and a will to work for the party. Simply by analysing the content of the parties’ schools, it is impossible to say anything about how the members actually learn or if the framing of the content is successful in connecting them to the parties in question. Nevertheless, on comparing the content of the education, it is implied that members should gain strategies or knowledge that are useful when working for the parties, rather than being useful to them as individuals. Most notably, the schools’ content ranges from ideological to policy-oriented training, where IU focuses on ideology, PSOE focuses on policy and Podemos is somewhere between the two. The reason for having these different educational aims could probably be read in relation to Andrade Blanco’s (2012) claim about their different roles in the democratic system and the assumed tasks of their members.

The form of the party schools

When it comes to how the parties structure their member education, all parties’ weekend schools have a similar design consisting of two to five days of lectures, round table discussions and workshops, ending with social and cultural elements. Even if the weekend school design is fairly similar, Podemos’ schools differ by having several sessions at the same time, allowing members to choose what they want to learn. IU has the same structure on the last day, providing several sessions and often in freer learning forms, such as workshops or ‘talks’. PSOE does not structure its schools in different blocks but offers one session at a time, in the form of a lecture or a panel discussion.

One clear difference between the parties is how much emphasis they place on who is teaching whom. When studying the total of nine weekend schools, the invited speakers are almost exclusively politicians, academics or professionals. PSOE, for example, invited representatives from student and youth organisations when talking about Spanish youth, journalists when talking about the media, and female politicians when talking about gender and leadership. In its 2020 school on women and leadership, all the invited speakers were women. In the programme for its 2019 school, PSOE writes: ‘These and other questions will be answered by academics, journalists and policymakers.’ (PSOE programme for summer school 2019: 1.) The invited ‘experts’ who run the sessions can either use literature or talk freely about their knowledge or expertise, and it is up to them to invite the participants to a mutual learning process. The framing that these ‘experts’ will provide the members with answers tends to emphasise a hierarchical educational situation, where the members should simply listen and learn, rather than bringing their experiences and knowledge to the educational situation. IU – similar to PSOE – mostly has politicians and academics as invited speakers. Podemos has speakers from civil society, protest movements and foreign organisations to a greater extent. Furthermore, all parties have one or more sessions with the party leader, which illustrates the value and priority invested in these schools. In relation to the rest of the speakers, it should be observed that the leaders of all three parties have PhDs. The party leaders’ educational backgrounds and the question of who is teaching whom could be seen in relation to a wider discussion about political representation in Spanish parties and Spanish society more generally. Political representation became a core issue in Spanish politics after the economic crisis and the protests that followed (Feenstra et al. 2017), whereas the difference between how, for example, PSOE and Podemos frame who they are inviting to lead the learning sessions could be explained to some extent by Podemos basing its identity on being different to the old established parties. Still, this has not changed the educational background of those who pursue top political positions.

Similar to the topic of ‘the teacher’ who is sharing their knowledge, there is the question of whom the education targets. The weekend schools are open to anyone, and participants do not even have to be party members. However, as Andrade Blanco (2012) has emphasised, the ones who participate are often very active in the party movements. He writes: ‘It should be noted that not all, not even the majority of party members, passed through training schools, and that those who did were generally those who had a closer commitment to the organization.’ (p. 248.) Podemos’ 2019 school is a notable example. This is a permanent school for public officers, and is available online (https://escuelapermanente.instituto25m.info/). Podemos calls this its ‘school of government’, offering technical-political training ‘which includes topics such as political communication and public speaking, municipalism, multi-nationality, programmatic development, feminisms, the rural world, policies against corruption and so on’ (Podemos, invitation, 2019). One explanation for this school for public officers is the party’s rapid success, having entered the national parliament, the European parliament and municipal authorities across the country in a matter of just a few years. This has probably created an urgency to train public officers in crucial technical-political knowledge in a short space of time.

When it comes to the actual learning sessions and how they are organised, the Spanish parties tend not to have developed study material for the party schools, as seen in the Swedish context (Arriaza Hult, 2020), for example, where parties develop study material centrally for different educational situations. In terms of study material, IU stands out with its theoretically-driven schools that have rather advanced ideological texts, and assumes that members are familiar with academic literature and Marxist theory. IU frames the model for its weekend school as follows:

In this school we propose a change to the UI training model. Along with activities with a more traditional character, three plenaries will be implemented around three central concepts: social class, theory of the state and ecofeminism. Participants will be sent a compilation of classic texts on the three concepts, with the aim that they will arrive at the plenaries having read the texts. An exhibition summary of the texts will be held, and the debate will revolve around the different theoretical models that are presented to the attendees. (IU programme for summer school 2019: 1)

IU thus concentrated its 2019 summer school on theoretical concepts, and assumed that participants had read a ‘compilation of classic texts’ and were familiar with the three concepts – social class, theory of the state and ecofeminism – before attending the seminars. Even though the schools are open to all, it is implied that the ones that actually attend are well educated ideologically, whereas the educational situation is focused on developing members’ theoretical knowledge.

To a greater extent than the other two parties, Podemos emphasises another form of pedagogical strategy that highlights participation in what the party calls ‘circles’ – local or digital groups that discuss political questions. In its statutes, these are described as follows: ‘The circle, the EMU and the aforementioned coordinators are the tools with which Podemos promotes participation, debate and an active relationship with society.’ (Podemos’ statutes: 7.) Members are invited to take part in and decide on the content of these circles. Framing the relationship between the party and the members as a collective learning process emphasises a vertical learning situation, where members are included in forming the party.

When studying how education is organised in the text materials, it becomes apparent that the parties highlight different values that are important to them. Moreover, the form of education, the teacher-student relationships and what the members learn imply underlying assumptions about different pedagogical methods, but neither the party statutes nor the materials for the party’s schools explicitly discuss pedagogical standpoints in terms of how participants should learn.

Motivating party education

Studies on party education from countries other than Spain suggest that political education in parties has several purposes that are difficult to consolidate into one single motive. Nordvall and Pastuhov (2020) have deemed the party education in Swedish left parties to fulfil knowledge-oriented purposes and/or relationship-oriented purposes. Similarly, Shambaugh (2008) has implied that the education provided by the Chinese communist party is designed to give theoretical (and ideological) as well as practical knowledge. When the three scrutinised Spanish parties describe why they are obliged to provide their members with political education in the party statutes, they tend to emphasise something particular and stick with that motivation throughout the text. Why the parties frame one motivation behind party education can be merely communicative, for example, in order to make the statutes coherent and easy to use as policy documents. PSOE and IU have similar motivational framings in their statutes, stressing that education should be offered to their members simply because education should be considered a political right. Framing education as a political right and a means for change can be related to popular education, emancipatory education or learning within social movements. From this perspective, oppressed groups educate themselves and take power into their own hands (Holst, 2001, 2009). For example, PSOE refers to: ‘The right to receive the political or technical training from the organisation that best allows its members to collaborate in the struggle for socialism and to ensure success in the tasks entrusted to the organisation.’ (PSOE, statutes, 9.) IU includes the following in its statutes: ‘To receive training on a regular basis so that militants – regardless of their experience or studies – have the ability to analyse reality and participate in collective development, one of the guiding principles of this organisation.’ (IU, statutes, 23.) Both these framings of an emancipatory task that the parties should provide to their members could be linked to the parties’ socialist project of reducing social inequality and to their historical memory of resistance during the Spanish Civil War and dictatorship. Gongaware (2003) argues that a collective memory is created in conjunction with the process of constructing a collective identity, and helps to create unity for a movement. Historians such as Andrade Blanco (2005) and Pérez Serrano (2013) have pointed out that PSOE’s and PCE’s identities have been shaped by the experience of resistance during the civil war, which has formed a solid collective identity centred around the socialist project.

Furthermore, IU – more specifically than PSOE – frames the need for education for those with little formal education in particular: ‘To receive duly explained and easy-to-read training on a regular basis so that, regardless of their experience or studies, they have the ability to analyse reality and participate in collective elaboration and articulation of conflicts.’ (IU, statutes, 32.) This framing could be interpreted either as highlighting an emancipatory ideal, similar to the ideal behind emancipatory education, or in line with the critique directed by Rancière (2012), for example. Rancière discusses whether ‘educating the people’ entails an elitist perception of those being educated, where the intellectual or the one providing the education (in this case, the party) takes upon itself to decide what and how someone else should learn. This framing reveals the need for parties to have consistency between content and form, and to actively contemplate pedagogical questions such as what, how and why. If they are not ‘educating the people’ but want to offer an alternative for those who have not received formal education, asking these pedagogical questions and adapting the educational situation to the learners would be in alignment with the ideals of emancipatory and popular education.

In contrast to PSOE and IU, Podemos does not describe party education as a right for its members. In its statutes, Podemos frames practical and theoretical training as being important for elected individuals. It also explains that it uses political circles that allow members to discuss political questions, and that the participants themselves decide on the content and can influence how the circle is organised. These circles can be understood as a sort of learning platform, where members learn but also have the opportunity to influence the party. Being flexible in terms of their form and organisation, Podemos highlights that ‘the main function of the circle is to serve as the connection between society and the party, acting as a gateway for social concerns towards the organs of Podemos and their institutional representatives’. (Podemos, statutes, 44.) If the other two parties could be interpreted as having explicit policies to ensure that they provide members with education, Podemos frames a more flexible approach where its members can influence the party organisation. Still, in this framing, educational activities and the circles are implied to be used as tools for change and are offered to the members so that they can do the party’s work, which is similar to how PSOE and IU frame education as a political right.

Thus, the framing of why party education is needed has implications for how the parties structure their education in terms of content and form. All three parties use normative arguments that can be interpreted in line with ideals for emancipatory education to frame how they should provide education and/or platforms for their members to be socialised within the party structure. PSOE’s and IU’s statutes are argumentative and concrete in terms of what this education should consist of: parties should provide equal education that is accessible to all members, regardless of their educational background. Podemos instead highlights the participation of members and a more open dialogue about how party education can be structured, which creates a framing within which members are invited to participate actively.

Summary

Concluding remarks

This article aims to contribute knowledge about how three Spanish parties organise intra-party education for their members and adherents. The applied framing perspective uncovers different tendencies for the parties’ schools, whereas the findings of this study provide new insights into how parties could mobilise members through education and embed the field of adult education with new questions that need to be answered to achieve a conceptual understanding of parties’ education. Hence, after examining how parties structure their party schools, this concluding discussion will address three topics.

First, the framing perspective allows for different pedagogical tendencies to be unfolded, which are summarised in Table 2 and categorised into the frames of schooling for becoming a politician (PSOE), schooling for becoming a Marxist (IU) and schooling for becoming a new type of politician (P). Categorising the parties’ education into different frames contrives to identify and label how the parties structure their schools differently and their different motives for having member education, similar to how Pyles and Harding (2012) identified tendencies in civil organisations’ restoration work post-Katerina. Here, the frames accentuate the focus of the weekend schools. By emphasising these different tendencies, it could be assumed that the parties have a picture of who their members are and what they need to learn. The weekend schools are designed with this in mind, as a way to prepare members for the assumed tasks that they will pursue. Considering the empirical material, consisting of texts materials, these frames exist on a descriptive level; they give a broad and general picture of the content and organisation of weekend schools and why parties provide education, whereas they cannot scrutinise how the design of the schools is decided on or what role education plays in a party. Yet, this study has started to ask these important questions, which points to the need for further research that goes deeper into these educational situations and study the education from the members’ points of view.

Table 2. The organisation of the party schools.

	PSOE	IU	Podemos
(1) What are the schools about?	Policy issues (youth, new technology, women and leadership)	Theory/ideology Marxism (the new working class, concepts such as the social class, state theory and ecofeminism)	Theory/ideology and practice (communication, power and democracy, we are doing the change, permanent school for public officers)
(2) How are the schools organised? Form Teacher/student relationship Theory/practice	Round-table discussions, seminars ‘Experts’ = politicians and academics -> members Policy-oriented Practical/technical	Round-table discussions, seminars, workshops, talks Politicians and academics -> members Ideological focus Practical elements	Round-table discussions, seminars, workshops, talks, circles (parallel sessions) Politicians, academics and representatives from civil society -> members and public officers Ideological content Practical/technical focus
(3) Why do parties provide education for their members?	To provide members with their educational right	To provide members with their educational right, especially those with little education	Education as a platform for influencing the party + education for public officers
Frame	Schooling for becoming a politician	Schooling for becoming a Marxist	Schooling for becoming a new type of politician

Second, in the analysis of why and how the parties organise their education, a dividing line runs between the two older parties (PSOE and IU) and the newer party (Podemos). This dividing line validates the streamlined understanding of old and new movements, where old movements are more hierarchically organised and new movements are more vertically organised (e.g. Finger, 1989; Laclau & Mouffe, 1985; Welton, 1993). How the parties frame the need for and structure of party education suggests that the older parties frame a more hierarchical educational situation, whereas Podemos frames values related to a more vertical educational situation. This may show that party education is strongly connected to party culture (Sirivunnabood, 2016) and relates to the discussion about party types that characterises our understanding of parties (see, Duverger, 1954; Katz & Mair, 1995; Kirchheimer, 1966; Panebianco, 1988). The parties’ organisations are shaped by their history, their members, their leaders and the societal context, demonstrating the difficulty in freeing oneself from continual structures. The differences between the parties’ intra-party education are probably dependent on other aspects of their party organisation, for example, which party type the party could be defined as, which explains why Podemos structures its education differently to PSOE and IU.

Third and lastly, when analysing the parties’ education, a dissonance appears between the ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions, which – within the frame perspective – could be understood as a frame dispute. Similar to Sirivunnabood’s (2016) findings in her study of party education in Thailand, the differences are conditional on how the purpose of the education has been defined. The text materials demonstrate underlying assumptions about what and how the members should be taught. What is peculiar here is that the parties are not consistent in how they frame the need for education and how they then structure their education. For example, when IU frames the motivations for its party education, it highlights that members have a right to receive accessible education ‘regardless of their experiences or studies’ (IU, statutes, 23). However, when organising weekend schools, the party relies on theoretical concepts and advanced Marxist literature. The conflict between motivation and implementation that can be assumed when reading the text materials raises questions about how intra-party education is designed and prepared for, and highlights the need for further research that digs deeper into how members become socialised in party movements. For example, qualitative studies that observe educational situations and interview party officials who design education, as well as members, would help to answer a few of the most crucial questions. This study has begun to put the first pieces of the puzzle in place; it is important that this work continues, in order to gain knowledge about this previously unobserved educational situation that has such significance for democratic participation.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maria Arriaza Hult

Maria Arriaza Hult is a PhD candidate of Adult Education at Linköping University, Sweden. Her research focuses on party education, popular education and political mobilisation.