European Journal of Political Research 29: 451-475 (June 1996).

@ 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Political parties in Spain: A review of literature since the

democratic transition

ALBERT PADRO-SOLANET
Universitat Autdnoma de Barcelona, Spain

Introduction

Since the democratic transition in 1976, Spanish politics has attracted the
attention of many scholars. But relatively little has been done in the analysis
of the political parties as a specific object. Monographs on particular political
parties are rare, for a number of reasons.
As is to be expected, the urgency of historical events has influenced the
evolution of this field of study. A first wave of research devoted most atten-
tion to parties’ electoral support bases because electoral behaviour was the
great unknown factor. More recently, even if this emphasis within modem
Spanish political science still remains, efforts have turned to a rethinking of
the institutional settings of the political parties, with a view to analysing the
problems of irregular financing and corruption that have become evident.
The typical information opacity of party organisations contributes to the
paucity of studies of specific parties. While this factor is shared with practical-
ly all political parties in the world, the peculiar characteristics of the Spanish
parties - their high level of centralisation and their low degree of openness to
civil society - make this problem more acute than in other countries. Thus, it
is not surprising that most research efforts have focused on the party system.
This may seem quite surprising, given that these structures tend to crystallise
in time, making persistence with this kind of approach increasingly inap-
propriate or even pointless. But this kind of analysis - which goes hand in
glove with the study of the electoral support bases of the parties - can be
based on data that are both reliable and easy to collect. The widespread use
of mass survey technology has also permitted a characterisation of the social
demands and the politico-ideological space within which electors and parties
communicate.
This article seeks to provide an overview of this literature. It is divided
into four parts. The one which immediately follows this surveys the studies
452
devoted to the social demands of the parties, the politico-ideological space
within which the electorate and the political parties communicate and struc-
ture their strategies and preferences, and the electoral support bases of these
parties. The next part deals with interpretations of the Spanish party system.
It also includes a basic review of the literature on the sub-party systems that
exist as a consequence of the quasi-federal structure of the Spanish state. In
the last two parts, the literature on specific parties and that related to party
affiliation and to party organisation is presented, respectively.

Parties and voters

Foreign observers have marvelled at the political moderation shown by the

general population and party elites in the new Spanish democracy, as reflected
in the configuration of parties that emerged in the mid-1970s. Almost all
studies of these parties have taken into account the social changes that have
conditioned the demands of the Spanish public. As Gunther and his colleagues
commented in their central book on the Spanish democratic transition,
while the economic development of Spain is less than that of other Euro-
pean countries, its social structure has experienced sizeable transforma-
tions in the last thirty years. The reduction of the agrarian sector and the
growth of the tertiary sector had given rise to an increase in the middle
strata . . . In social strata terms, [a study made in the middle of the seven-
ties] indicated that the lower middle class and the middle class represented
more than the fifty per cent of the population. Even more, the diffusion of
homogeneous ways of living among wide social sectors had eroded the
traditional class cleavages (author’s translation; Gunther et al. 1986: 217)

Some indicators of the moderate nature of the population’s social expectations

have been found. For instance, political scientists and sociologistshave noted
that, even before the democratic transition, the Spanish electorate has been
able to locate itself and its preferences on the left-right politico-ideological
dimension: ‘the images of the left and right seemed to be for a majority of the
electorate a resource to understand the political world, to relate with it, and
to evaluate political objects’ (Gunther et al. 1986: 315; see also, Linz et al.
1981; Linz & Montero 1986)
’I)lpically, the distribution of the preferences of the Spanish electorate in
this politico-ideological dimension follows the shape of a normal curve,
with the mode located to the left of the centre. The average position of the
electorate has remained fairly stable over the years - around point 4.7 on a
10-point scale where the centre is 5.5 (Linz et al. 1981; Montero 1994). The
 453
distribution of the electorates of the regions tends to follow a similar pattern.
The Basque Country has the most leftist average, which is to be explained by
the tendency of the nationalists to locate themselves on the left. On the other
extreme, with the most rightist average, we find the Balearic Islands, which
have the highest income per capita (Montero & Torcal1990a). Stability in the
ideological preferences of citizens has led to discussion of the phenomenon
of ‘volatile parties versus stable voters’ (Barnes et al. 1986; see also Gunther
1986a).
Certain studies have stressed the symbolic, overarching, and ‘contentless’,
characteristicsof this dimension, allowing it to fit into the structure of political
debate. It has been shown that this dimension is correlated to the basic issues
and cleavages of Spanish politics (Sani 1981; Sani & Sartori 1983). As
Gunther et al. (1986: 3 17) observed, ‘Left-right self-location were related
to different areas: issue positions and cleavages. . . In a certain sense, self
location constituted a summary measure of position with respect the three
main dimensions of conflict of the Spanish politics’- class, centre-periphery,
and religion.
One of the ‘surprises’ of the new Spanish political system has been the
absence of a religious party. Everything seemed to point to the formation of
a strong Christian Democratic party on the Italian model (Linz 1976, 1978;
Sani 1981). The salience of the religious cleavage had historic antecedents
in the Second Spanish Republic that ended after the Civil War with a pro-
nounced polarisation and inter-group hostility based on class, religious and
centre-periphery cleavages. In addition, mass surveys conducted before the
legalisation of political parties showed an important segment of the elec-
torate labelling their ideological preference as Christian Democratic (Linz
et al. 1981). But it has been noted that the thoroughgoing secularisation of
Spanish society and the end of the large landowner system represented the end
of the Catholic Church as a politico-social actor. There was also an internal
political division within the hierarchy (Caciagli 1986). Ail of this impeded
the formation of a clear Church patronised party.
This does not imply that this cleavage has not appeared in Spanish poli-
tics. The right-wing parties, the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) and
Popular Alliance (AP), used issues related to this cleavage in their electoral
strategy in order to win the support of religious elements within the elec-
torate (Gunther et al. 1986: chap 6; Maravall 1984). This factor was also
used to explain certain differences among the elites. In addition, religion (as
measured by church attendance, for instance) is a good indicator of electoral
behaviour (Linz 1986a; Montero 1986b).
Alongside the left-right dimension, the regional or centre-periphery dimen-
sion is the second relevant cleavage in Spain. This can be related to certain
454
rather concrete issues, such as the institutional location of decision making
structures or the multi-linguistic conflict. As in Belgium and Switzerland, this
dimension explains an important part of the preferences of the Spanish elec-
torate. In some autonomous communities, such as Catalonia or the Basque
Country, the two dimensions of politico-ideological space are undoubtedly
necessary if we are to understand how the electorate managed to distinguish
between parties that are perceived in similar locations in the left-right scale,
but which have different positions on the centre-periphery dimension (Shabat
1986; Linz et al. 1986; Llera 1988). The salience of the latter cleavage has
been interpreted as one of the more important destabilising factors in the
Spanish political system. It is noteworthy that all the national parties - except
the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) - have problems in their putting
down roots in the most important regions. This element, in producing tensions
within party elites and in sharpening the demands of electors, makes Spanish
political life more complex (Cotarelo & Bobillo 1991).
In general, though, studies have noted that the moderate tone of Spanish
electoral preferences has provided clear incentives to centripetal competition
among the political parties. A general convergence has been observed in
the programmatic positions and electoral strategies chosen by the parties.
This has been taken as a sign of the modernisation of political debate, with
little ideological confrontation and a substantial measure of inter-class party
appeal, in clear discontinuity with the Second Republic. In general, all parties
may be characterised as electorally-oriented ones with generic programmes
on the model of Kirchheimer’s ‘catch-all-party’.
In the earliest elections after the democratic transition, the salient issues
of the electoral campaigns had been those related to welfare policies, moral-
religious concerns, and law and order. But the extent of electoral consensus
gave a certain degree of unreality to these programmes, and especially to those
of the left (De Blas 1979). In successive elections, after the Socialist victory
of 1982, the salient issues had moved away from those related to the left-
right dimension and had begun to focus on the ability and quality of parties
and politicians: the government record and prospects (and especially the
performance of the economy), for instance, and the reliability and capability
of parties and candidates. This type of issue proved to be more appealing to
the centrist electorate- that large mass of voters which is both least concerned
with politics and indifferent with respect to the issues that define the poles of
the left-right politico-ideological dimension. The Socialist party (PSOE)has
had a certain advantage on these issues (Barnes et al. 1986; Caciagli 1986;
Gunther et al. 1986; Linz & Montero 1986; Gunther & Montero 1994). More
recently, Torcal & Chhibber (1 995) have argued that, after the 1989 general
elections, the party strategies of the Popular Party (PP; the Conservative
 455
party that was a product of the refoundation of the AP in 1989) and the policy
activity of the Socialist party have increased the weight of the social class
cleavage in the priorities of the Spanish electorate.
A party’s electoral support base reflects, of course, the strategies of the
party elites. Gunther et al. (1986: 220-21) found that there was a relation-
ship between employment status and party choice. But this relationship was
rather weak, and was only one among other relevant factors: ‘no party held
the electoral support monopoly of any social group’. The electoral profiles
of the larger parties are very similar to those of the other great European
political parties. In fact, the two parties that have governed in Spain since
the democratic transition, the UCD and the Spanish Socialist Workers Party
(PSOE), have been characterised by a highly heterogeneous social basis in
terms of their electoral support (Caciagli 1986; Puhle 1986; Tezanos 1989).
In addition to electoral incentives, the process of democratic transition
affected party strategies. For the political class one of the big problems was
the lack of consolidation of the political system. The political parties were
seen as privileged channels of communication and transmission of social
demands and conflicting interests of the diverse social groups, and in filling
this role, becoming the central tool of legitimisation of the democratic system.
However, the effectiveness of the parties in this respect is open to question.
They did not have a stable and clearly defined social basis, they lacked
solid and well developed internal structures, and they were characterised
by a general absence of militancy. This situation led to a concern with the
institutionalisation of the political parties. This process was conducted by
the political elites through the construction of a juridical-political framework
that put them in an advantageous position and provided them with certain
privileges to facilitate the attainment of their goals and their consolidation
(L6pez Guerra 1984; Blanco 1990; Rodriguez Diaz 1989; De Otto 1977).
One element introduced to reinforce the consolidation of the political parties
was the construction of a system of public financing. This provided the parties
with an incentive to engage in an intense and costly activity, despite their
lack of internal resources. As this system is based mainly in the proportion of
seats that a party wins in parliament (rather than on the share of votes actually
obtained), it punishes small parties in favour of the larger ones; see the major
study on this issues by Del Castillo (1985); see also Blanco (1990, 1995).
The other institutional element was the electoral system. In the democrat-
ic transition period, certain basic criteria of electoral representation were
established and were consolidated later. The criterion of proportional repre-
sentation was chosen for the lower house. But the reformist rulers wished
to grant some advantage to the government party, the UCD (see Caciagli
1986). Consequently, they introduced an over-representation of rural zones,
and mechanisms of deviation from proportionality. First, the size of the lower
house is rather small; the seats are distributed according to the d’Hondt rule,
with an electoral barrier of the 3% of the votes. Second, district magnitude is
not helpful to smaller parties. In 34 districts (out of 52) there are fewer than
seven seats; since these choose more than 40% of the deputies, there is a clear
bias in favour of the major parties. This tendency to reinforce the existence of
a two-party system is to some extent balanced in the other 18 districts, with
seven seats or more, which choose the remaining 60% of deputies. The latter
allow for some multi-partism, especially in the Basque provinces, where the
centre- periphery cleavage is especially salient.
Again, the effect of these rules is to favour the two big parties and to punish
the middle sized and small parties that have electoral bases spread all over
Spanish territory. On the other h,and, these same rules are relatively neutral
with respect to the big regional parties, or, which is essentially the same,
to the small parties with electoral bases that are territorially concentrated.
Beside the ‘mechanical’ effects of the electoral system, we may detect traces
of Duverger’s ‘psychological’ effect of these rules on the electorate. In Spain
it is usual in electoral campaigns to hear the candidates of the big parties
using the argument of the ‘wasted vote’. Ecological and survey based studies
seem to prove the existence of ’strategic’voting among the Spanish electorate
(Gunther 1989; Nohlen & Schultze 1985; Rae & Ranirez 1993). In addition,
the form of the vote, a closed and blocked list of candidates, has also con-
tributed to weaken the relationship between representatives and citizens, and
gives an extra strength to the inner circles within the party organisations.
The conjoint effect of the institutional incentives in the Spanish parties
explains their strategic independence from the resources given by their social
bases; consequently, a major oligarchisation of the parties and, probably, an
incapacity to channel effectively the increasing demands of modem society
may have developed (Gunther et al. 1986; Sani & Gunther 1986; Cazorla et
al. 1981). However, as Gunther and Montero (1994) observe, the objective
of peacefully overcoming a long and repressive dictatorship was attained
through the demobilisation and the institutionalisation of political life. But
the main by-product of this process led to a lack of credibility of the political
parties, to the weak articulation of their social bases, and to their internal
crises, phenomena that have been referred to as the ‘syndrome of apathy and
internal crisis’ (Claudin 1980); the ‘historical disappointment’of the parties
of the left (Capo 1981).
Survey based data show a nearly unanimous acceptance of the democratic
system and of the role of the parties but, at the same time, this perception
has been modified by a detached and cynical perception that has sharpened
further since the democratic transition (Maravall 1984; Montero & Torcal
 457
1990b; Gunther & Montero 1994). This attitude towards the political parties
may be attributed in part to the anti-party socialisation during the francoist
period, but it is also a clear reflection of the problems generated by the sudden
institutionalisation of the political parties. Three indicators show the social
rootlessness of the Spanish parties: the low level of party identification of
the Spanish electorate (Del Castillo 1990; Morlino 1992), the low number
of party members (Montero 1981; Gunther & Montero 1994), and the weak
relationship between parties and secondary organisations.

Party system and subsystems

All of the factors presented in the previous section have contributed to the
most striking trait of the Spanish party system: its lack of consolidation. Effec-
tively, the relative independence of party leaders from internal restrictions has
maximised the capacity of the leaders to change or adapt new strategies. This
has led to the rise and decline of a great number of political forces. The
UCD, the major party in the two first general elections held in 1977 and
1979, suffered an impressive defeat in the third election and disappeared a
few months afterwards. This is certainly a case with little precedent in recent
European political history. An apparently consolidated parliamentary party
system without a dominant party became completely transformed within the
space of three legislatures into one with a clearly dominant party. Indeed,
after the decline of the Socialist vote and the growth of the voting appeal of
the Conservative alternative after 1993, it seems that a new period has begun.
But we must also note that, except for the ‘big’ centrist nationalist parties of
Catalonia and the Basque Country, Convergence and Union (CiU) and the
Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), the representation of the regional parties has
shown great discontinuity. We need, therefore, to look at the party system at
two levels.

The general party system

Before the general election of 1977, the abrupt legalisation of political parties
led to a period of confusion, the amazing ‘alphabet soup’ where it was difficult
to know who was who. However, the elections drastically reduced the level
of competition and inaugurated the first party system: a multi-party one with
some coherence and with certain expectations of consolidation. The structure
was quite simple and had an appealing symmetry. n o major parties competed
for the electorate of the centre. To the right of centre was formed the UCD, a
coalition of small parties covering a wide political spectrum - from reformist
Francoists to Christian Democrats, and from Liberals to Social Democrats -
that afterwards was restructured as a party (with 35% of the votes). To the
45 8
left of centre appeared the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) (with
30% of the votes). Two other minor parties were located at either extreme
of these parties - the Conservative AP to the right of the UCD, and the
Spanish Communist Party (PCE) to the left of the PSOE. Both of these got
less than 10% of the popular vote. Each ideological block, AP and UCD on
the right and PCE and PSOE on the left, aggregated almost the same number
of votes. At the same time, certain regional and nationalist parties attained a
level of parliamentary representation that by 1979 was sizeable. Within this
configuration, the UCD could easily form a minority government. Depending
on the issues, the governments presided over by Mr Suiirez and Mr Calvo-
Sotelo found parliamentary support from different parties: from the AP,from
the Catalan nationalists of the CiU, from other regional groups, and even
from the PSOE on constitutional issues and on those pertaining to regional
autonomy.
Some scholars labelled this first period as one of ‘polarised pluralism’.
Maravall (1984) notes the existence of many parties, bilateral oppositions,
anti-system parties, and a risk of political polarisation. Linz (1978) charac-
terised it as a polarised multi-party system, stressing the existence of ‘seg-
mented pluralism’ due to the weight of the nationalist parties. Against these
arguments, Caciagli (1986: 34ff) notes that anti-system parties do not have
the potential for coalition and blackmail. In fact, no centrifugal movements
made an appearance; instead, we can observe clear centripetal movements
among the main parties. On the one hand, the principal polemical effort of the
extreme parties was directed against their ideologically moderate partners, in
an effort to compete with them for a bigger share of the same segment of the
voting electorate (Gunther et al. 1986). It seems clear that the fear expressed
by Linz (1978) of anti-system behaviour on the part of both the PCE and the
AP did note materialise. On the other hand, the major nationalist parties had a
centrist ideology, predisposing them to support the existing consensus except
on issues relating to the regions.
Thus, despite the large number of parliamentary political parties (12 in 1977
and 17 in 1979). the level of fragmentation of the party system in this period
was fairly moderate because of the concentration of the vote around the two
principal party options. In addition, the ideological distance between these
two political options was short. Finally, party volatility (and, by extension,
block volatility) between the two elections was very low (Montero 1992,
1994).
Martinez Cuadrado (1980) labelled this configurationa ‘two-party system’.
But Caciagli (1986) notes that this does not take into account the fact that
a two party system format exists only when minor parties have potential
neither for coalition nor for blackmail. But in the UCD period this condition
 459
was not present (Ranirez 1991; Bar 1985).This led to a characterisationof the
structure of this period as a multi-party system of ‘moderate plurarisation and
not very polarised’ (Ranirez 1991: 116). But it seems that the most reasonable
position is to interpret the system as rather indefinable (Caciagli 1986).
Despite the expectations of consolidation, this system exploded after the
1982 general election. There had been warnings; but Capo (1981: 166) had
characterised it as a ‘fluid party system: because of the lack of party identifica-
tion of the electorate’. The 1982 election shows a realignment of the choices
of the electorate so dramatic that it has been labelled ‘cataclysmic’ (Caciagli
1986). Essentially, this is to be attributed to crises within certain parties. The
government party, the UCD, suffered a process of self-destruction,beginning
with successive defeats in the 1979 local elections and in the four regional
elections held in 1980-1981 (the Basque Country, Catatonia, Galicia, and
Andalucia). After losing more than the 90% of its deputies, it dissolved a
few months after the calling of the election. The internal crisis of the PCE
contributed to the electoral attractiveness of the Socialist Party, which almost
reached a majority of the popular vote. Linz & Montero (1986) show that
the PSOE was perceived by an important sector of the electorate as the best
option to give stability to the democratic regime, whose vulnerability had
been exposed by failed army coups, and notably by the episode of Febru-
ary 1981 in which a right-wing army officer led an attempt to procure the
overthrow of the democratic system.
Two features characterised the new party system. On the one hand, this peri-
od was defined by the dominant role played by the PSOE, which obtained three
consecutive absolute parliamentary majorities (Gunther et al. 1986; Caciagli
1986; Rodriguez Aguilera de Prat 1988). All of the majoritarian potential
of the political system had been reinforced. The party system experienced
reduced fragmentation, as minority options disappeared (the fragmentation
figures were comparable with the European average). In addition, the level
of ideological polarisation remained moderate. After the extinction of the
centrist option it had increased, but the conflict between the two big parties
for the centre produced a clear moderation in political options.
On the other hand, this period can be seen as a reinforcement of the tendency
towards a two-party system, though within a moderate multi-party context
(Cotarelo 1992; Cotarelo & Bobillo 1991). The most salient trait of the
Spanish party system is the existenceof multiple segmented party sub-systems
that introduce a certain degree of pluralism and a high degree of complexity
in inter-party relationships (Caciagli 1986; De Blas 1993). Nevertheless,
Spanish party competition is characterised by a basic consensus and strong
centripetal tendencies, induced both by the electorate and by the electoral
rules; for all of these reasons, the Spanish party system has been characterised
460
as one of ‘moderate pluralism’ (Maravall 1984; Bar 1982, 1985; Ranirez
1991).
After the 1993general election a new party system period began. The PP has
almost completed a slow process of absorption and concentration of the right-
of-centre votes (which are effectively disputed only by the big nationalists
parties, CiU and PNV). At the same time, the coalition Unity of the Left (IU)
(product of a coalition of left forces headed by the PCE, organised in 1986 to
fight against the permanence of Spain in NATO) regained an electoral basis
similar to that formerly held by the PCE, but more concentrated around its
ideological area of attraction. Consequently, in 1993 the PSOE obtained only
a parliamentary plurality, with 39% of the votes, against 35% for the Popular
Party; but the sum of the votes for the left block remained almost constant
between 1982 and 1993. This makes it clear that the dominant party system
has been replaced by a party system of moderate pluralism, with strong party
competitiveness (Gunther & Montero 1994; Montero 1994). All of these
changes make it difficult to consider the party system as being in equilibrium.

Party sub-systems
As has been seen, the main trait that allows us to characterisethe Spanishparty
system as a multi-party one is the existence of numerous regional parties.
These parties can be distinguished as either ‘nationalist’ or ‘particularist’
(HemAndez Bravo 1989). The party system at the level of the Spanish state
is adapted and modified in the Autonomous Communities. First, the regional
parties render the simple left-right dimension inadequate in summarising
their policy positions. The other dimension that must be added is called
centre-periphery one in the political sociology literature, and in Spain it has
been called the nationalist-centralist one. Most of the regional parties are
not oriented towards participation in government, but rather act as ‘pressure
parties’ (Molas 1977) and seek to influence the shape of government policy
(GonzBlez Encinar 1984).
The party system in 11 of the 17 Autonomous Communities can be labelled
an ‘imperfect two-party system’. Even if the two biggest parties succeed in
winning more than 80% of the votes between them, in all these Communities
we can find small or regional parties that get some representation in the
Autonomous Parliaments (for the electoral support of the regional parties
see Linz 1981; Buse 1984; Pallar&s 1991; for Andalusia see Montabe &
FernAndez LlCbrez 1994; Jerez 1985; for Valencia see Aguil6 1987).
In another four of the Communities there exists a moderate multi-party
system. In Catalonia, the two main parties are the Socialist Party of Catalo-
nia (PSC, federated with the PSOE; see ColomC 1989) and the centre-right
nationalist coalition Convergence and Union (CiU; Marcet 1987), which are
 461
outflanked by the left wing coalition Initiative for Catalonia (IC, federated
with IU), and the Conservative PP. Thanks to the centre-periphery dimension,
there is place for a fifth party, the radical nationalist Republican Left of Cat-
alonia (ERC), that in the left-right dimension is usually located between the
PSC and IC, but whose parliamentary strategies locate it between the PSC
and CiU. (Botella 1984; Buse 1984; Gunther et al. 1986). The bidimension-
ality of the politico-ideological space is shown in the ‘differential abstention’
phenomenon. It has been noted that turnout in general elections has been sig-
nificantly higher than in regional parliament elections. This difference is due
mainly to the abstention of certain groups of Catalan citizens: those groups
characterised by a national identification more Spanish than Catalan, and
those groups less bilingual than the average of the population. This absten-
tion works against the left wing parties, the PSC and IC, whose primary social
basis lies among the immigrant workers of the region (Shabat 1986; Montero
& Font 1991;Padr6-Solanet & Colomer 1992; Riba 1995). In the other three
Autonomous Communities there is a system based in three parties: the PSOE,
PP, and a regional party. The ideological position of this regional party is cen-
trist in Canurias (HernAndez Bravo 1987, 1989); in Arugbn, it is located at
the right side; while in Galicia it is a left wing party (GonzAlez Encinar 1982;
W a s Nogueira 1992).
Finally, the two remaining Communities, the Basque Country and Navar-
ra, show a high level of fragmentation (similar to that of Switzerland, the
Netherlands or Finland), multi-partism, a strong degree of polarisation, and
a high level of volatility, even in general elections. Like Catalonia, these
are highly industrialised regions that had attracted a massive immigration
from the rest of Spain; yet, unlike the position in Catalonia, there is a highly
salient centre-periphery dimension, embracing issues of the legitimacy of the
political system, superimposing itself over a salient social-class cleavage.
Thus, the party system in these regions has been placed in Sartori’s category
of ‘polarised pluralism’ (Linz et al. 1986; Gunther et al. 1986). This multi-
dimensional political space corresponds with a high mobilisation of social
demands, leading to an increase in dissatisfaction and violence (Llera 1988).
The two major parties account for only 50% of the votes. The location
of the parties in the centre-periphery dimension shows, on the one side, the
Socialist Party of Euskadi (federated with the PSOE) and the PP (in Navarra,
the space is occupied by the Union of the Navarra People, UPN); on the other
side are located the nationalist parties, the PNV and the Basque Nationalists
(EA). The complexity of the party system is increased by the existence of an
anti-system party, the radical nationalist party Herri Batasuna (HB), which is
the political branch of the terrorist organisation Basque Country and Freedom
(ETA).
462
The PNV, the traditional Basque nationalist party with one hundred years of
history, hegemonised and predominated in the first period of the Basque party
system. After an internal crisis in the PNV, the system changed towards one
dominated by party pacts (Llera 1988). The strategy of governmentformation
in the Basque Country reveals a centrist connection between the PSOE and the
PNV, as well as a certain similarity in the positions of the PP and PNV (though
not to the exclusion of conflict between them), making more plausible the
notion of a two-dimensional space for the party system. In fact, one important
element of stability in the party system comes from the centrist position of
the PNV in terms of both dimensions (Llera 1979, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1988,
1994a, 1994h Corcuera & Garcia 1980; Linz et al. 1986).

Political parties

A party system is, of course, much more than the sum of its parts. Nevertheless,
it is impossible to understand party system change without examining the
process of change within parties, and without analysing the organisational
basis, support structure and ideological leaning of the major components of
the party system. In the Spanish case, it is important to look at five parties in
seeking to understand the evolution of the party system: the four major blocs
that have been discussed already, ranging ideologically from left through
left-centre and right-centre to right, together with the most important of the
regional parties.

The UCD: The rise and fall of a conservativeparty

One of the great unsolved mysteries of Spanish politics is the UCD crisis. It
has no parallel in any other country. The ‘hegemonic’ party of the transition,
the party above all associated with government, passed from 35% of the vote,
in 1977 and 1979 to 7% in 1982. This is all the more extraordinary given
the fact that it controlled all the major power centres, it was not confronted
by a particularly strong opposition, and did not face any economic crisis or
unbearable level of terrorism. A range of explanations has been adduced for
this rise and dramatic fall.
The tactical errors committed by the centrist leaders are clear. In the early
1980s, they took an ambiguous ideological position, oscillating between the
options of consolidation in a pivotal position slightly in the right of centre,
near the median preferences of the electorate, and the temptation of building
a so-called ‘natural majority’ with the forces of the right. This hesitation led
ultimately to the dissolution of the UCD. This is all the more astounding
given that - despite the realignment of voters favouring the PSOE and AP
 463
- an electoral alliance of the two centrist parties, the UCD and CDS, would
have doubled their collective number of seats (Sani and Gunther 1986).
Some interpretations have focused on the lack of cohesion in the party
organisation. In part, this organisational weakness stemmed from the fact that
the party was constructed from within the government. For De Esteban &
L6pez Guerra (1982) the UCD lay within the tradition of the Spanish right-
wing parties: it was a mere coalition of notables linked to power, without
a national organisation, and without either a local network or a coherent
ideology. Its crisis lay in the failure of ‘the party of the government’ to
became ‘a party of government’. The leaders of the party were never forced
to establish a resource infrastructure based on their own efforts. Had they
done so, this would have led to an internal strengthening of the party. This
explanation is linked to another factor adduced to explain the weakness of the
party organisation: a high level of competitiveness among the barones (the
leaders of the small political parties that had contributed to the formation of
the UCD).
The party’s lack of ideological consistency has been identified as another
source of instability (Amodia 1983). Emilo Attard (1983), in a book that
provides an insider’s insight into the crisis that is a very important source
of information, observes that the origin of the party from within the govern-
ing power structure impeded a real confrontation of ideological and policy
positions. Undoubtedly, the political ideologies of the founders of the party
were varied, extending from Conservatives to Christian Democrats, and from
Liberals to Social Democrats. As was commonly observed at the time, it
amounted ideologically to the equivalent of almost all the German Bundestag
inside a single party! This wide heterogeneity produced internal dissent on
concrete policies and on the building of parliamentary coalition strategies.
These conflicts were specially strong with respect to the building of the con-
stitutional consensus and the approval of the regional statutes of autonomy.
For Caciagli (1986, 1989), the reasons for the crisis of the UCD are not
to be found in the internal incongruity of the party. He talks of a ‘normal
coexistence of Social Democrats, Liberals,and Catholics’,typical of a modem
conservativeparty. For him, the ideological conflict disguised the much more
significant internal battle for power, based on the existence of factions and
tendencies. He thus identifies as a crucial reason for the party’s collapse,
defects in the internal system of articulation and a failure in the political
culture of the elites - the absence of a sense of common enterprise and the lack
of a connective web. In this context he also draws attention to the leadership
factor. As Mr SuArez was an insider who was very well acquainted with
the State apparatus, he was in a position to introduce a successful, peaceful
transformation of the authoritarian regime. After this achievement, however,
464

he was badly placed to lead and to unite the diverse groups of notables and
individual personalities that saw him without empathy, as a parvenu devoid
alike of personal fortune and of academic qualification.
It has been observed that the internal conflicts were also stirred up by
strong pressure from certain interest groups. Richard Gunther (1986b), who
based his interpretation on in-depth interviews with party leaders, found a
lack of agreement on the party model. For some leaders the UCD had to be
a ‘catch-all-party’; for others, it has to be a ‘holding company’, a channel
for the expression of different interest groups. On the one hand, for example,
the Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organisations (CEOE)pressed it
against fiscal reform; on the other hand, the Catholic Church mobilised itself
with respect to moral issues or issues that threatened its status, thus lobbying
against the legalisation of divorce and against reform of the school system
(which affected the network of confessional schools) (Huneeus 1985; Hopkin
1993).
Remarkably, then, from a comparative perspective, this great party disap-
peared without trace. Its fictionalisation led to many defections to the Popular
Alliance and to the Socialist Party. Its former leader, Adolfo Suiirez, founded
a new small party, the Social and Democratic Centre (CDS), but this vanished
in the early 1990s.

The APIPP: The difJiculty of gaining the centre

The history of the AP/PP has been acknowledged as ‘a history of frustrated
ambitions and intentions’ (Gunther et al. 1986: 91). After the 1982 general
elections, the AP obtained a portion of the former votes of the UCD. Con-
sequently, and rather unexpectedly, a party characterised in the period of the
democratic transition by its links with the past and its rightist policy support
orientation (that is, as being the voice of those nostalgic for the francoist
regime and as giving parliamentary support to conservative policies), had
to adapt itself to become the principal party of the opposition. L6pez Nieto
(1988) found that the dense organisational network constructed by its leader,
Manuel Fraga, helped the party to survive electoral failure in 1979, and per-
mitted it to profit from the loss of credibility of the UCD in the 1982 election.
But, at the same time, this relatively strong party organisation has been seen
as a source of its inability to modify its image with a view to gaining the
centre of the ideological space (Beltran 1992). Since its formation, the AP
suffered among the electorate from its image as a neo-francoist party, and,
indeed, its electoral lists were full of collaborators with the dictatorship (Linz
et al. 1981; L6pez Nieto 1988; Buse 1984).
Since 1982, all the political strategies of the AP/PP have been directed
towards rebuilding its attractiveness to the centrist electorate lost by the
 465

UCD on its self-destruction. But this path may be characterised as one of

‘resistance to failure’ (Montero 1987, 1986a). This interpretation explains
the refoundation of the Popular Aliance (AP), in January 1989, as the Popular
Party (PP), in an effort to overcome its ‘democratic legitimacy deficit’, as
well as its official affiliation with the Christian Democratic international. To
underline further this shift, Mr Manuel Fraga - familiar to many electors as
a former minister in the Franco cabinets - leader and founding father of the
party, resigned in 1989 in favour of the younger Mr Jose Maria Aznar. The
party also opted to form pre-electoral coalitions with some of the smaller
centrist and regionalist parties. It has furthermore been noted that the party
began to shift its emphasis in election campaigns, focusing on the corruption
of Government officials and of the PSOE. But the Conservative party had
structural difficulties. First of all, the ideological space of the right was
fragmented. Second, the kinds of issues that favoured right wing parties in
other European countries were lacking: the welfare state was underdeveloped,
for instance, the anti-communist tradition was weak, and there was no salient
religious cleavage. Overall, the party was hindered by the equation of the right
with francoism, conservatism and authoritarianism (Linz 1986b; Montero
1987,1989).

The PSOE: The ideological evolution of a ruling party

According to Caciagli (1986), the success of the PSOE in the first general
election of 1977 was the biggest surprise in recent Spanish electoral history.
Despite its weak internal organisation, the PSOE became the major party
of the left, easily eclipsing the Communist Party, which had been the main
bulwark of opposition to the repressive dictatorship for almost 40 years.
Following this surprise, the party leadership first absorbed the competition
within its ideological space, and then began a movement in the direction of
ideological moderation. In 1979, after the false dawn of the general election
in which the party did not experience its expected electoral advancement, the
PSOE renounced its identification with the ‘Marxist’ components of the party
statutes. This process created problems. Caciagli (1986) detected a conflict of
personalities between the long-established members from Madrid, including
those coming from the newly integrated groups, such as the Popular Socialist
Party (PSP), and the new electoral leaders that came from Seville. But these
leaders, Felipe Gonzdlez and Alfonso Guerra, were able to manage the party
quite well, and to enforce effective internal discipline and control (Diaz 1982;
Julia 1989).
In the 1982 general election, the PSOE attracted a wide spectrum of centre-
and left-wing voters - an important part of whom were former supporters
of the UCD and the PCE - and it was able to gain 48% of the vote and a
466
substantialmajority of the seats in parliament, 202 deputies. It won more than
12 percentage points more than the second party, the AP.
Since 1982, when the PSOE become the government, it maintained its
attractive position in the centre of the ideological space, thanks to a moderate
economic policy, oriented more towards growth than towards redistribution.
This has provoked a certain degree of internal conflict within a ‘heteroge-
neous’ party, one reality of whose position requires it to satisfy a leftist
membership and a centrist voting public (Puhle 1986). But the continuous
victories of the party allowed it to place one fourth of its membership in public
office by 1982. These payoffs account for the internal discipline of the party
and, the relative ability of its leaders to overcome internal problems. Never-
theless, the moderation of the policies of the Socialistparty in governmenthas
provoked tensions within some of its nuclear voters on the left. In particular,
the socialist General Workers’ Union (UGT)has had a bitter quarrel with the
government concerning its economic policies. Some groups within the party
had begun to oppose each other, and to oppose the government. The defection
of militants to the left party coalition, United Left (N), was also important
(JuliA 1989). The most complete work on the evolution of the ideology and
of the organisation of the party, and on its electoral support, can be found in
Tezanos (1979,1983,1989).
The long-standing electoral success of the Socialist party may also be
explained by the personality of its chief figure, Mr Felipe GonzBlez, a charis-
matic individual with natural qualities of leadership. The PSOE has benefited
also from the ‘fear of the right’ of many electors, which is associated with the
authoritarian past.

The PCE: A long tale of internal crises

Since the adoption of the constitution, the Communist Party has suffered a
prolonged internal crisis. This party had played a dominant role in the anti-
francoistclandestinemovement.This had endowed the party with an abundant
and highly ideological militancy, especially compared with other parties at
that time. The fact that it was by far the best organised militant movement
of the democratic pre-transition period, with a strong public presence, raised
very optimistic electoral expectations regarding its future. The old leader
Santiago Carrillo returned from exile, believing that the party could reach
the same share of the vote as the Italian Communist Party which, by this
time, had surpassed 30%. The party’s moderate electoral strategy was very
clear: in exile, Carrillo had defended a policy of national reconciliationpolicy
and Euro-Communism. Following his return and the legalisation of the party,
there was a further move in the direction of moderation: the party accepted
 467
the monarchy, the economic and social system, and the notion that officers of
the previous regime be absolved of responsibility.
The electoral failure of the first elections awoke the classical conflict
between strongly ideologised militants and an electorally oriented leadership.
It eroded the legitimacy and authority of the top level of the party organi-
sation, which had conducted electoral strategy on the basis of ‘democratic
centralism’ In addition, intellectual circles associated with the party promot-
ed a critical revision of Communist ideology. This led to internal conflicts
that ended in numerous expulsions, some defections to the PSOE, and the
ephemeral formation of other Communist groups (Gunther 1986c; GonzAlez
Hernandez 1989) Paul Heywood (1987) argues that, by comparison with the
PSOE, the PCE was, ironically, a victim of its own strong organisation, which
had allowed it to do fairly well under the Franco regime, and which also per-
mitted the return of old leaders with little electoral appeal, many of whom
evoked unwelcome memories of the Civil War.
Since 1980, the PCE has lost both leaders and supporters. At the tenth
Congress of the party held in July 1981, Santiago Carrillo had to fight against
‘renovators, and ‘Eurocommunists’, Leninists and pro-soviets. In fact, for
Gunther et al. (1986). the key point in the internal conflicts was the hetero-
geneity of party composition - the diverging tactical and strategic preferences
of its different sections. In October 1981,the Basque Communist Party seced-
ed and joined Euskadiko Esquerra (the Basque Country Left), to the relief of
certain members of the Central Committee and of the Federation of Madrid.
In March 1982, the long crisis of the traditional Catalan communist party,
the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC) matured, and the pro-soviet
faction left to create a new party, the Catalan Communist Party (PCC); a
detailed account of these facts can be found in Vega and Erroteta (1982)
and in Azchate (1982). Following this breakdown in internal consensus and
party divisions, the PCE took refuge in an electoral platform called United
Left (IU) before the general elections of June 1986.

The CDC: The case of a nationalist party

Marcet (1987) has written one of the few studies of an important regional
party, it eschewing risky hypotheses and interpretations in favour of a factual
account of its a factual account of its years of formation and consolida-
tion. Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC) is one of the members of
the electoral coalition Convergbncia i Uni6 (CiU) and has governed in the
Autonomous region of Catalonia since the first regional elections in 1980.
The party had begun with the intention of building a united front for the
centre and centre left Catalan forces. After its relative success in the first
general election in 1977, (when it was the third Catalan force, after the
468
Socialists and Communists), CDC defined itself as nationalist, progressive,
and left of centre, united behind the leadership of Jordi Pujol. Renouncing the
status of a centrist party allied with the Spanish centrists, CDC made a pact
with an historical regional party, the Christian democrats of the Democratic
Union of Catalonia (UDC), with a view to forming a stable electoral coalition,
Convergence and Union (CiU) and becoming the major Catalan nationalist
party. The key step in the development of the party was its victory in the
autonomous or regional elections of 1980. This victory was attributed to a
strategy that stressed the ‘propensity to form pacts’, moderate reformism,
and defence of the reconstruction of Catalonia. Having obtained office, the
influence of Mr Pujol in the party increased, and permitted also the social
penetration of the organisation, which became a ‘social integration party’.

Membership and organisation

One of the prominent features of the Spanish political system is the surpris-
ingly low level of party membership. Caciagli (1986) characterisesthe parties
of the consensusperiod as lacking in recruitment capacity, which contributed
to a lack of democratic integration of the parties within Spanish society. Some
explanations of distrust in the political parties have been proposed: the influ-
ence of francoist propaganda; the memory of the civil war; the individualistic
culture; and a low level of membership in the Republic. Montero (1981)
remarked that the francoist single party, the Movimiento Nacional, was very
different from Italian Fascism, because it did not try to mobilise the masses.
The general trend in membership in the democratic transition has been in
the direction of the demobilisation of citizens and of declining importance
in resources derived from members; consequently, party organisations made
little effort to provide a service to their members. For instance, Buse (1984)
estimated that less than 4 per cent of the electorate were party members in
1982. This contributed to a perception that the more important party resource
was leadership (Montero 1981; Tezanos 1989). Naturally this trend is not
absolute; the UCD and PSOE,for instance, registered an increase in mem-
bership after they entered government (Huneuus 1985; Tezanos 1989). More
recently, Morlino (1992) produced data showing a minuscule increase in party
membership in Spain, from a ratio of 1.7% of the electorate in 1985 to 2.0%
in 1990.
Party organisation is thus highly centralised. This is a product of two
factors. First, the democratic transition and the consolidation of democracy
were brought about by a negotiation process between the political elites. This
led to great public prominence of the party leaders, who in turn became one
of the main cues for the voting public. Thus, the decision-making power of
 469
the leaders in the political process helped them to maintain rigid control of
the parties’ internal decision-making processes; it was they, for instance, who
controlled the nomination of electoral candidates. The second factor was the
set of institutional rules that maintain strong barriers to the entry of electoral
competition and that also eradicate internal party competition for the citizens’
votes - the electoral law establishes a form of voting with closed and blocked
lists of candidates to the Congreso de Zos Diputados.
The low membership level of the Spanish parties makes them a group clear-
ly distinct from the rest of the population. vpically, the party members come
from the middle class, civil servant and professional groupings, making it dif-
ficult for the parties to represent interclass interests. This is a special problem
for the left wing parties, which have to appeal to the working class (Tezanos
1983; Gunther et al. 1986). An example is the rather strained relationship
between the PSOE and the socialist trade union UGT (Puhle 1986; Tezanos
1989).
Within this general framework different organisational and functional party
models have been distinguished. In the main parties of the left - the PSOE
and IU - the activities of members are realised in the form of local groups,
and of congresses which are usually conducted in the manner of an assembly,
with little specialisation between the members but nevertheless allowing for
their fuller formal participation (De Esteban & L6pez Guerra 1982; L6pez
Guerra 1984; Tezanos 1985, 1989). In the major right-wing party, some
parts of the organisation are conducted with quasi-private sector management
style: functional division of labour, hierarchical relationships, and stress on
efficiency (L6pez Nieto 1988; Montero 1987). In the nationalist parties -
such as the CiU and the PNV - there is a clear division of labour between
professional politicians and other members (Marcet 1987;Pitarch et al. 1980).
The great bulk of activities in these parties are conducted in the manner of a
social or cultural club (Cotarelo 1992).
Without doubt, the party structures and their relationship with the public
has been influenced decisively by the existence of a well-developed mass
communications network. This factor has been vigorously used by the Spanish
political parties in the a relative absence of restrictions comparablewith those
imposed on the political parties of more developed democracies, where pre-
existent organisation, large memberships and long-standing traditions and
habits curtail the freedom of action of the leadership (Barnes et al. 1986). The
major Spanish parties can be distinguished from the big mass parties of the
rest of Europe. First, the percentage of members who are public officers and
public office-seekers is higher than in other countries. Second, the core of
the party leadership maintains strict discipline over elected representatives.
Rather paradoxically, this strong control has on occasion pushed disagreement
470
into open conflict, and resulted in parliamentary desertions (Perez-Serrano
1989; Morales 1990).
The system of public financing has reinforced these tendencies. On the
one hand, it reduces the leaders’ subjective evaluation of the importance of
members’ contributions (which, in fact, represent no more than the 5% of the
party resources; see Buse 1984). On the other hand, the prohibition on private
financing, the weak judicial control of the party finances and the absence of
information about many aspects of the internal life of the parties have led
to a great deal of irregularities. These irregularities have produced a number
of corruption scandals that have dominated recent Spanish political debate.
Some irregularities are particularly significant: First, the great level of debt
of the parties to the banks has led the latter to concede loans on the basis of
expected public financing. Second,parties have shown a remarkable tendency
to expand their expenses, especially for purposes of electoral campaigning.
Third, private firms have acted as hidden suppliers of funds for the parties in
return for concessions,contracts, and licenses within the public administration
sector controlled by these parties. Finally, the creation of fictitious firms as
party tools for obtaining contributions has been noted (Blanco 1995; Del
Castillo 1985).

Conclusion

The literature on political parties in Spain emphasises two features as affecting

the predominant party type. First, the newness of the democratic system and
therefore of the party organisations, the public financing of parties, and the
institutional rules that affect the electoral and parliamentaq process, allow
great freedom of manoeuvre to the party elites. The second feature is the
quasi-federalism of the Spanish state. This has affected the construction of
state-wide political alternatives and has given a considerableamount of power
to the nationalist parties. This has been a source of intense political conflict.
The absence of restrictions on the party leaders has its positive conse-
quences. The most important have been the stabilisation of Spanish political
life. But such benefits have also incurred a cost; they have produced a number
of shortcomings. The first is a general feature of Spanish political culture -
a detachment of citizens from the parties, and a tendency to view them cyn-
ically as selfish, and as little interested in people’s problems. This has led to
office- and vote-seeking parties. Second, this has led to party instability as
well as party system instability.This is not a problem per se, but it weakens the
foundations of the democratic system. Finally, the recent wave of scandals in
Spanish politics can be explained in part by the absence of constraints on the
 47 1
parties and the opportunities that are available to pure office seekers among
their ranks.
The literature on political parties in Spain draws our attention, then to a
paradox: in a short period of time, the institutional strategy adopted for the
successful democratic transition has led the Spanish parties from a hesitant
beginning to a strange mixture of strength and weakness - strength because
they dominate political life, but weakness because their legitimacy among
citizens is questionable.

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Address for correspondence: Albert Padr6-Solanet,Department de Cibncia Polftica i de Dret

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