![]() The vote for the Western European Radical Right: The Spanish case in comparative perspective The final two sections present the analysis and results, as well as a final discussion of how the interpretation of the Spanish case fits into the analysis on the Western European Radical Right. This is followed by a brief description of the context surrounding the election analysed, and then an explanation of the data and methods used in the article. The following section examines what we know on the subject in comparative perspective, helping us to develop our hypotheses. As mentioned, this is something that can’t be done using CIS post-election surveys because they lack variables that contribute to explain the vote for individual parties, particularly the most recent ones such as VOX. Second, by being able to model the different factors in the same dataset, we can rank them according to their relevance explaining the vote for VOX in that particular election. First, our analysis provides empirical evidence on the importance of some factors for which there were limited data in Spain: authoritarian attitudes and opposition to feminism, with the latter showing an important explanatory power of support for VOX, even after controlling for other alternative factors. ![]() Our main contribution to this strand of research is twofold. The results–using two alternative measures of support for VOX–show that the preferences and attitudes related to the territorial conflict do matter, but their relevance is clearly reduced when we add alternative explanations. To do this, we use an original dataset, specifically designed to test if the main explanatory factors for the rise of other Western European radical right-wing parties apply to the election where VOX got represented in a parliament for the first time in Spain: the 2018 Andalusian regional election. Its interpretation is therefore much more complex–and, at the same time, less unique in a comparative perspective–than it might seem. Our analysis shows that other common explanations of the Western European Radical Right (authoritarianism, the rejection of immigration and the reaction against cultural liberalism) are also an essential part of VOX’s electoral success since its onset. This led to the idea that the Catalan conflict was almost the only relevant explanatory factor for its rise. However, its questionnaires lack important variables that would allow testing some of the alternative explanations for VOX’s electoral support. Many empirical analyses on VOX’s electoral surge are based on survey data from “Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas” (CIS), which is the main source of information on voting behaviour in Spain. Our argument focuses on the fact that this explanation is incomplete. Even the book of Rama et al –the most comprehensive account of VOX to date–continue to attribute VOX’s electoral emergence mainly to the Catalan conflict. According to this, VOX’s electoral surge was in its beginnings mainly the product of a reaction of Spanish nationalism towards the independence threat that emerged in Catalonia. However, in the Spanish case, most of the existing literature on VOX seems to point towards a considerable singularity. ![]() Much of the international analysis of the radical right emphasises a broad range of explanations, including the “losers of globalisation” and economic insecurity thesis, grievances and negative feelings towards immigration or the rejection of cultural change. Today, although this singularity has disappeared and VOX has established itself with a strong parliamentary presence at all territorial levels, certain exceptionalism appears to remain when we try to understand and place this party and its electorate in comparative perspective. ![]() Until 2018, Spain was one of the few countries in the European context in which there was no relevant political party on the radical right.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |