Spain's New Left Turn: Society Driven or Party Instigated?

Abstract

This essay explains the rise of ‘new-leftist’ policies in Spain as part of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's ‘second transition’, including gay marriage, gender parity, and reparation for the victims of the Spanish civil war. Setting aside society-centred explanations, such as the advent of post-material values and the strength of civil society, this essay relies upon a party-centric explanation. It emphasises a process of self-renovation within the Spanish Socialist Party triggered by a deep party crisis and intended to rebrand socialism and incorporate new constituencies. This approach highlights the overlooked role of parties in charting their own political course.

Keywords:

• Zapatero
• PSOE
• New Left
• Post-materialism
• Civil Society

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the comments on earlier versions of this essay from Sheri Berman, Richard Gunther, David Kettler, Stephanie Golob, Diego Muro, Bonnie Field, and the anonymous reviewers.

Notes

 [1] From a summary of Libération's article ‘Viva España’ that appeared in El Pais.com on 3 March 2008.

 [2] Spain's post-materialism index is listed as 25, versus 13 for Poland, 17 for Portugal, 22 for Ireland, 27 for Italy and France, 32 for the Netherlands, and 33 for Finland, the survey's leader. This score represents the mean percentage of respondents giving their first choice out of four to each of the five post-materialist values (Inglehart 1997, p. 359).

 [3] Numerous explanations have been offered for the extraordinary weakness of civil society in Spain, including the demobilisation of the masses that took place during the democratic transition, which was anchored upon intra-elite political pacts (McDonough et al 1998; Gunther 2007); the attempt by the Franco regime to corporatise societal actors, such as employers, unions, and students (Encarnación 2001); and the cynicism of the Spanish public, which includes a marked apathy toward all kinds of associations, political and otherwise, another legacy of the Francoist era (Morlino 1998). This cynicism about politics is best suggested by the Eurobarometer data on the subject of ‘interest in politics’, generally defined as ‘how frequently people discuss political matters with their friends’. Between 1985 and 2004, the percentage of Spaniards professing to have an interest in politics rarely exceeded 25 per cent versus the EU average of above 40 per cent (Encarnación 2008b, p. 47).

 [4] ‘PSOE: A New Generation in Command’, International Viewpoint Online Magazine, February 2001, < http://www.internationalviewpoint.org>.

 [5] ‘González reprocha a Zapatero: falta de projecto e ideas en el nuevo PSOE que dirige’, El Mundo, 8 May 2002.

 [6] ‘Cambio histórico en el PSOE’, El Mundo, 20 July 2000.

 [7] ‘Cambio histórico en el PSOE’, El Mundo, 20 July 2000

 [8] ‘Zapatero planea una sucesión natural’, El Pais.com, 5 May 2008.

 [9] Zapatero's 2004 inauguration speech is available at < http://www.la-moncloa.es/Presidente/Discursodeinvestidura/default.htm>.

[10] Pettit has acted as an informal evaluator of the government's performance. In 2008 he issued a glowing report on Zapatero's progress in advancing social change in Spain (Pettit 2008).

[11] ‘Immigrants welcome: how Spain's open-border polity is driving economic and social revival’, Business Week, 21 May 2007.

[12] Election results are from the Spanish Ministry of Interior ( < www.mir.es>).

[13] ‘Las estatuas como cortina de humo’, ABC, 15 August 2006.