Bonnie N. Field

CANDIDATE SELECTION PROCEDURES IN TRANSITIONAL POLITIES A Research Note

This research note summarizes initial research from a wider project on the determinants of candidate selection procedures. It seeks to contribute to the growing literature on candidate selection by distinguishing transitional and institutionalized democracies. First, it provides a review of the existing literature, with particular emphasis placed on identifying the existing hypotheses on the determinants of candidate selection procedures. Second, it elucidates why transitional polities differently constrain the choice of legislative candidate selection procedures compared to institutionalized democracies. Third, several hypotheses derived from the literature indicate that the barriers to adopting inclusive legislative candidate selection procedures are higher in transitional than in institutionalized democracies.

Minority Government and Legislative Politics in a Multilevel State: Spain under Zapatero

What explains minority government performance? An analysis of Spanish governments (1979–2008) finds mixed support for the importance of parliamentary procedural mechanisms. Yet an analysis of the Zapatero government (2004–8) reveals that a governing party with a central position in the party system can indeed shift alliances, which is consistent with the hypothesis that shifting facilitates effective governance. Additionally, the evidence indicates that minority governments may also or instead rely on alliances across governmental levels in a multilevel system. Regional parties with representation in the national parliament and sub-national governing responsibilities provide the critical link between governmental levels.

De-Thawing Democracy: The Decline of Political Party Collaboration in Spain (1977 to 2004)

Do transitions by pact necessarily depress the level of competition or contestation (substantively and behaviorally) across political parties in the subsequent democracy? This article demonstrates—through a study of deputy votes in the Spanish Congress of Deputies between 1977 and 2004—that the Spanish transition by pact initially depressed the degree of competition across political parties, as democratization literature hypothesizes. However, it also shows that collaboration precipitously declined within 5 years of the transition and aside from a one-time increase, progressively declined during the 27-year period. The data also demonstrate that substantive policy received significantly less cross-party support than legislation on the “rules of the game” after 1993. These findings provide the foundation for the argument that transitions by pact do not necessarily preclude more competitive and representative democratic politics as initially feared.

A 'Second Transition' in Spain? Policy, Institutions and Interparty Politics under Zapatero (2004-8)

This work analyses whether the first government of Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (2004–8) represents a ‘second transition’ in relation to the transition to democracy that occurred in Spain in the mid-1970s. After reviewing the concept of a second transition and the electoral context, the work analyses the patterns of change and continuity in the areas of public policy, political institutions and interparty politics. It concludes that while there were significant changes during the Zapatero government, they do not amount to a second transition.

Resolute Leaders and ‘Cardboard Deputies’: Parliamentary Party Unity in the New Spanish Democracy

This study puts forward a leadership-centred explanation of parliamentary party unity in new democracies, which departs from more common approaches that emphasise the effects of exogenous variables on rank-and-file legislator behaviour. By analysing party unity in the first two legislative sessions (1977–79, 1979–82) of Spains nascent democracy, the study demonstrates that the Spanish parties manifested very high levels of voting unity. It argues that in order to understand party unity it is critical to examine party leadership goals and incentives; and it places leadership choices at the centre of the analysis.

Framing legislative bills in parliament Regional-nationalist parties’ strategies in Spain’s multinational democracy

This article analyzes the strategies parties employ during the inter-electoral phase of party competition. It focuses on Spain’s multi-national democracy and how regional-nationalist parties frame their policy proposals in the statewide parliament (Congress of Deputies) for the period 1979–2011. Using the Catalan Convergence and Union (CiU) and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), it examines how frequently the parties rhetorically connect their bill proposals to the center-periphery dimension of party competition, and their justifications of these proposals in parliamentary debate. Challenging the niche party thesis, our findings indicate that the parties frame a small share of bills in center-periphery terms. They most frequently justify their center-periphery bills with reference to legal-constitutional compliance and administrative efficiency and less frequently with reference to culture, citizen rights, and economic performance. This can in part be explained by the fact that these parties are mainstream parties within their regions and operate in a clearly demarcated two-dimensional space in a multilevel state.

Interparty Politics in Spain: The Role of Informal Institutions

One of the most striking differences between contemporary Spanish politics and the transition politics of 30 years ago is the style of interparty relations. If consensus politics was the catch phrase of the transition years, polarized politics best captures today’s interparty relations. One cannot pick up a Spanish newspaper without noticing the extremely acrimonious political atmosphere. In fact, Whitehead (2007, p. 19) asserts “the political climate is as polarized and embittered as at any time since the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.” While there are divisions among all the political parties, the most venomous division is between the conservative Partido Popular (PP) and the rest of the parties, and the PP’s opposition to the Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol (PSOE) government of Prime Minister Jos Luis Rodr guez Zapatero (2004–08) was fierce.

Transition modes and post-transition inter-party politics: Evidence from Spain (1977–82) and Argentina (1983–89)

This article tests whether the mode of transition from authoritarian rule affects the competitiveness of inter-party politics in the post-transition democratic regime. It draws on a six-year study of the degree of cross-party collaboration in the legislative arena immediately following the Spanish (1976/77) transition by pact and the Argentine (1982/83) transition by collapse. The study finds that the nascent democracy in Spain experienced more collaborative inter-party politics than the new Argentine democracy, which is consistent with the democratization literature. After discussing the constitutional structure and gravity of economic crisis as alternative explanations of the degree of inter-party competitiveness, the study concludes that the mode of transition is an essential explanatory variable. It also identifies the causal mechanisms that may explain the link between the mode of transition and post-transition inter-party competitiveness, namely the opportunities for political learning, the patterns of political elite continuity and the militarys role in the transition process.

The push for independence in Catalonia

In 2017, Catalonia unilaterally declared independence from Spain. The independence push was not simply a bottom-up process wherein citizens increasingly demanded independence. Catalan political elites were more radical than voters and competitive outbidding to win hegemony in the pro-independence camp fuelled the independence push.

The Presidentialization of Parties in Chile

A central premise of this volume and the work on which it is based is that institutions and regime structure have a deep influence on party organization and behavior (Samuels and Shugart, 2010a). Because Chile is routinely characterized as one of the most presidential systems in the world (Shugart and Carey, 1992; Siavelis, 2000) it is especially appropriate to analyze the phenomena of the presidentialization of politics and parties in the country. The presidentialization of parties, in large part, is explained by Chile’s constitutional structure combined with endogenous party factors, a reality stressed repeatedly in the other chapters of this volume. In this sense, this chapter follows Samuels and Shugart (2010a) to argue that an extraordinarily strong presidential system sets the base for a trend of presidentialization parties. It also draws on Poguntke and Webb (2005) to underscore that, with the passage of time, party leadership autonomy has increased and the personalization of politics has magnified. This volume’s stated purpose, however, is also to enrich this literature on the presidentialization of parties by including an analysis of endogenous party factors. Along these lines, this chapter carries these arguments a step further to argue that the party dynamics of the democratic transition and its intersection of the country’s legislative election system have reinforced the presidentialization of parties.