Politicians in Hard Times: Spanish and South European MPs Facing Citizens after the Great Recession 3030702413, 9783030702410

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Politicians in Hard Times Spanish and South European MPs Facing Citizens after the Great Recession

Edited by Xavier Coller Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer

Politicians in Hard Times

Xavier Coller  •  Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer Editors

Politicians in Hard Times Spanish and South European MPs Facing Citizens after the Great Recession

Editors Xavier Coller Department of Political Science and Administration Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) Madrid, Spain

Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer School of Law Universidad de Burgos Burgos, Spain

ISBN 978-3-030-70241-0    ISBN 978-3-030-70242-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70242-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of ­ illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and ­transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Alex Linch shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

Developing and producing a book like this generates many debts. The research offices of the editors’ institutions (Universidad Pablo de Olavide [UPO], Universidad de Burgos, and Universidad Nacional Española a Distancia [UNED]) were diligent and highly efficient in responding to all data requests for this research project. We are particularly grateful to the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, which funded the project “Citizens and Parliamentarians in Times of Crisis and Democratic Renewal: The Comparative Case of Spain in the South of Europe” (CIUPARCRI, CSO2016-78016-R). Prof. André Freire gave the final push for the beginning of the project and Prof. Jean Baptiste Harguindéguy led the project during its final months when the first editor moved to a different university, and we would particularly like to thank him for his care in ensuring a seamless transition. The UPO’s research group Democracias y Autonomías: Sociedad y Política (DASP), wisely managed by Prof. Manuel Jiménez-Sánchez, was very generous in covering part of the costs of the necessary linguistic review of most chapters. Our deepest debt is with the authors of the chapters, who diligently responded to our editorial demands with respect and professionalism. Through seminars, Prof. Modesto Escobar (Universidad de Salamanca) helped us to understand the need to calibrate the MPs’ sample to avoid biased estimators and provided the proper statistical Stata language to generate weights for the database. Prof. Leonardo Morlino (Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli, LUISS) kindly enough hosted the first editor at the International Research Centre on Democracies and Democratisations (LUISS, Rome). There, hundreds of v

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

introductory letters were signed and later sent by research assistants in Spain to every elected representative in the 19 parliaments. In this respect, thanks are due to every MP who responded to the survey by devoting time and energy to a task that some see as part of the accountability dimension of representation. Fieldwork began in April 2018. It was a complex task that was efficiently coordinated by Elena González Rojo (substituting Emilio Rodríguez) and a number of research assistants: Manuel Portillo, Pablo Dominguez, Andrés Benítez, Beatriz Carrasco, and Benito Doblado. Without their passion, curiosity, and hard work, this book would have never benefitted from such a wealth of data. Silvia Bravo was particularly instrumental in coordinating with Metroscopia, a Spanish survey research company, to carry out the survey to citizens. We also thank José Juan Toharia, Metroscopia’s President, for his support. We are especially grateful to Paul Rigg, who very efficiently and wisely reviewed most chapters of the book by clarifying linguistic doubts and correcting mistakes. Special thanks are also due to Ambra Finotello, who saw the potential of the book and was particularly understanding about the various problems faced by the editors in the midst of a cruel global pandemic. Also, thanks to Tikoji Rao M., project coordinator at Springer. Thanks are also due to two anonymous referees who kindly reviewed chapters where the editors appeared as co-authors, and to the anonymous reviewers who gave the “green light” to this book. On a personal note, the first editor of the book would like to thank Paula Queraltó and Lucas Coller Queraltó for their care and love in very difficult times; the employees of the Hospital Nuestra Señora de América in Madrid, including doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and assistants (especially to Consuelo González Urbaneja and Jesús Cano); his closest family: Lola Porta, Nacho Coller, Berta Coller, Mateu Coller, Prudencio Coller, and Amparo Soriano, who are always ready to help; the Tourmalet band (Jacinto Merino and Amparo Martínez Simarro); his extended family and friends (especially Jean Baptiste, Elena, Etienne, Chloé, Antonio, Bea, Víctor, and Daniel), including colleagues and the co-editor of this book, who showed concern for his health during a particularly challenging period. The co-­editor, Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer, thanks his wife Carmen Leache and their sons Álvaro and Alberto for their love and continuous support.

Contents

1 Democracy, Politicians and Citizens  1 Xavier Coller and Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer Crises Transforming Democracies   2 Citizens, Parties, and Countries   5 Surveys and Fieldwork   6 Plan of the Book   9 References  17 2 Do MPs Represent Us? 21 Sandra Bermúdez and Inmaculada Serrano Introduction  21 Descriptive Representation  24 Data and Methods  26 Do MPs Resemble Us?  27 Social Class: Where Do Parliamentarians Come From?  33 Conclusions  35 Annex  37 References  40 3 The Personality of MPs and Citizens: Differentiation and Congruence 47 Carol Galais Introduction  47 Personality and Politics  49 vii

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Research Design and Methodology  52 Results  55 Conclusions  63 References  65 4 Political Socialisation 69 Antonio M. Jaime-Castillo and Gloria Martínez-Cousinou Introduction  69 Primary Political Socialisation  72 Socialisation, Political Aspirations and Experiences  74 Parliamentary Socialisation  80 Conclusions  82 References  84 5 New Political Scenario, New Motivations? 89 Manuel Portillo-Pérez and Adrián del Río Introduction  89 The Study of Motivations  91 Motivations for Politics  93 Explaining the Motivations  97 Conclusions 103 References 105 6 Democratic, Yet Representative? Selecting MPs in a Multilevel Polity109 Santiago Pérez-Nievas, Marta Paradés, Guillermo Cordero, and Xavier Coller Introduction 109 Parties Selecting Candidates 111 Goals and Expectations 113 MPs’ Selection in Different Parties 114 Age, Education and Candidate Selection 118 Gender and Candidate Selection 120 Conclusions 125 References 127

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7 Obliged to Respond? MPs’ Modes of Political Representation131 Fabiola Mota and Andrés Benítez Introduction 131 Perceptions of Representative Role 133 Social Links and Opinions About Democracy 138 Different Modes of MPs’ Representation 143 Conclusions 147 References 149 8 Responsiveness Towards Street Protests: MPs’ and citizens’ Normative Views153 Manuel Jiménez-Sánchez and Pablo Domínguez Introduction 153 The Responsiveness Norm and MP-Citizen Congruence 156 Exploring the Gap: Role or Political Culture? 158 Results 161 Conclusions 167 Annex 169 References 177 9 How Democracy Works: Divergent Perspectives of Representatives and Citizens183 Robert M. Fishman and Alejandro Tirado Castro Introduction 183 Satisfaction with Democracy 185 Parliaments and Citizens 190 The Impact of Disparities Between Representatives and the Represented 198 Conclusion: Tying Together the Findings 201 References 202 10 Elite and Citizens’ Attitudes Towards Territorial Organisation205 Sergio Pérez Castaños and Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer Introduction 205 Spanish Territorial Organisation 206 Theory 210

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Data and Results 212 Main Findings and Conclusions 218 References 221 11 Territorial and National Identities in Times of Change227 Adrián del Río and Margarita Gómez-Reino Cachafeiro Introduction 227 Territorial Identities: Continuity or Change? 230 Identities: The Partisan Composition of Parliaments 231 The Social Foundations of Identities 235 Conclusions 242 References 244 12 Euroscepticism in Spain: A Phenomenon of Extremes?249 Beatriz Carrasco, Elena González, and Jean-Baptiste Harguindéguy Introduction 249 The Literature on Euroscepticism 251 Euroscepticism in Spain 253 Methodology 256 Satisfaction with the EU 257 Conclusion 263 References 266 13 Ideological Congruence Following the Great Recession271 Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer and Pablo Domínguez Introduction 271 Theory and Hypothesis 273 Data and Methodology 276 Analysis and Results 278 Conclusions 283 References 286 14 Ideological and Policy Congruence in Italy and Spain291 Andrea Pedrazzani and Paolo Segatti Introduction 291 Representation and Party System Change 294 Two Unusual Elections 296

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Data and Methods 297 Congruence by Party 298 Congruence at the Individual Level 303 Conclusions 307 References 309 15 Ideological Coherence Within Parties: Portugal and Spain313 Marco Lisi and Sofia Serra-Silva Introduction 313 Ideological Coherence and Intra-party Politics 315 Context and Hypotheses 317 Data and Methods 321 Findings 323 Conclusions 327 Appendix 329 References 330 16 Are Challengers Better Representatives? Greece and Spain335 Emmanouil Tsatsanis and Manina Kakepaki Introduction 335 Congruence in Substantive Representation 336 Challengers and Substantive Representation 338 The Rise of Challengers 340 Data and Methodology 344 Findings 346 Conclusions 351 References 353 17 Left-Right Ideological Congruence in Southern Europe357 André Freire, Andrea Pedrazzani, Emmanouil Tsatsanis, Paolo Segatti, and Xavier Coller Introduction 357 Context of Political Change 359 Theoretical Discussion 361 Data and Methods 363 Ideological Congruence 364 Conclusions 376 References 379

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18 Leadership in Hard Times?383 Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer and Xavier Coller New Parties, Enduring Elites 383 A More Responsive Representation? 386 Identities and the Territorial Dimension 388 Ideological Congruence 391 The Quality of Democracy 393 References 396 Index399

Notes on Contributors

Andrés  Benítez is a political scientist and PhD candidate in Social Sciences at the Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain. He is also a fellow researcher at the National Institute of Public Administration (Spain) and a member of the research group “Democracy and Autonomies: Society and Politics” (DASP). His main research areas are political elites, political parties, and parliamentarism. Sandra Bermúdez  is an associate professor (tenure track) at the National Distance Education University (UNED, Madrid, Spain). She completed in 2012  a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the Pompeu Fabra  University (UPF, Barcelona, Spain. She has been a postdoctoral researcher at the UPF  and Université Libre de Bruxelles, and visiting scholar at the Hertie School of Governance and Harvard University. She has participated in different research projects, including “Making Electoral Democracy Work,” “The European Social Survey,” “Pluridisciplinary Analysis of Online Petitions,” and “Electoral Accountability in Multilevel Governance Project.” Her research interests focus on political institutions, political behaviour, public opinion, political parties, internet use and comparative politics. She has published in different peer-reviewed journals such as Politics, Public Opinion Quarterly, Government and Opposition, and Acta Politica. Beatriz  Carrasco  holds a degree in Sociology from Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain and is an agent for equal opportunities between women and men. She has been, over 18 months, Research Assistant at the research group Democracias y Autonomías: Sociedad y Política (DASP) by xiii

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means of the programme of state employment of Juvenile Guarantee. She has competences and capacities in design, planning and management of projects with state and regional funding, and carrying out fieldwork and computer-assisted analysis of results. She is  part of the CIUPARCRI research project  (Citizens and Parliamentarians in Times of Crisis and Democratic Renewal: The Comparative Case of Spain in the South of Europe), whose areas of interest are gender and politics. Xavier Coller  holds a chair in the Department of Political Science and Administration at the National Distance Education University (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia UNED, Madrid, Spain). He is a journalist and sociologist, and holds a PhD in Sociology (Yale University). He has taught in several universities in Europe and the US, and has been a visiting fellow at Warwick University, the University of California (Berkeley), Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Georgetown, the Université de Montpellier 1, and LUISS.  He has been the Seventh Prince of Asturias Chair, Georgetown University (2005–2007) and Professor of Sociology at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide (2008–2018). He has authored over hundred works on social theories, research methods, collective identities, political elites, and complex organizations (parties, multinationals). He is author of Canon sociológico (2003), Análisis de organizaciones (2004, with Roberto Garvía), El poder político en España: Parlamentarios y ciudadanía (2016, edited with Antonio M. Jaime and Fabiola Mota, also published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2018  as Political Power in Spain. The Multiple Divides Between MPs and Citizens), The Selection of Politicians in Times of Crisis (edited with Guillermo Cordero and Antonio M.  Jaime-Castillo, Routledge 2018), and Democratizing Candidate Selection. New Methods, Old Receipts? (edited with Guillermo Cordero, Palgrave Macmillan 2018). More information: https://upo.academia.edu/xavierColler Guillermo  Cordero  is Professor of Political Science and Vice-Dean of Research of the Faculty of Law, at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. Previously he held postdoctoral teaching and research positions at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and pre-doctoral research positions at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (CEACS, Juan March Institute). He has been a visiting fellow at the University of Essex, University of Michigan, University of Montreal, and University of California (Berkeley). His research interests include electoral behaviour, political representation, and the study of political elites. His most recent research on these topics appears in peer-reviewed journals such as American

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Behavioral Scientist, Government and Opposition, Parliamentary Affairs, South European Society and Politics, and West European Politics, among others. Pablo  Domínguez  is a PhD candidate at Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain. His area of research is congruence and divergence between political elites and citizens in Spain and Europe, with a focus on the descriptive dimension of representation (how the representatives are) and the substantive aspect (what they think and what they do). He has degrees in Sociology and Political Science and Administration from the Pablo de Olavide University (UPO), where he received the award for best academic record. He has a master’s degree in Models and Areas of Research in Social Sciences from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). He is also participating in the research project CIUPARCRI, which is the Spanish national case of the Comparative Candidate Survey, and in the project “PROTEiCA,” about the effects of protest in political socialization. Robert Fishman  is Professor CONEX in Sociology and Political Science at the Carlos III University, Madrid, Spain. Previously, he was Professor of Sociology and a Kellogg Institute fellow at the University of Notre Dame and also Associate Professor of Government and of Social Studies at Harvard University. His most recent book, Democratic Practice: Origins of the Iberian Divide in Political Inclusion, was published in 2019. His book Democracy’s Voices (2004) was the winner of an Honorable Mention for Best Book (2005) of the American Sociological Association (ASA)’s section on Political Sociology. He has published articles in the American Sociological Review, Annual Review of Political Science, World Politics, Politics and Society, Comparative Politics, Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, Studies in Comparative International Development, Contributions to Political Economy, and South European Society and Politics as well as in The New York Times. A 2013 article, co-authored with Omar Lizardo, received the Tilly Prize of the ASA’s section on Comparative and Historical Sociology. André  Freire  is Full Professor in Political Science and Director of the Doctoral Programme in Political Science (and International Relations), Department of Political Science & Public Policies—School of Sociology & Public Policies at University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-­IUL, and a senior researcher at Center for Sociological Studies and Research (CIES-­ IUL) both in Portugal. He has researched (in national and international projects) and published widely (books, book chapters, and journal arti-

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cles), in several languages, about political representation, political institutions, ideology, and masses’ and elite’s attitudes and behaviour. Carol Galais  is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Department of Political Science and Public Law at the Autonomous Univesity of Barcelona, Spain. Her doctorate (2008) and BA in Political Science are both from Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University. She was a visiting researcher at Stanford University (2011) and a postdoctoral researcher at the Canadian Research Chair of Electoral Studies at the University of Montreal (2012–2015). Her research revolves principally around two topics: public opinion and political participation in the local arena. Her current research interests include populist attitudes and conspiracy mindsets, and the role of emotions and personality in political participation. She is also interested in methodological aspects such as survey and experiment design. Margarita Gómez-Reino Cachafeiro  is Associate professor of Political Science at the National Distance Education University (UNED), Madrid, Spain. She has a PhD in Political Science (MIT 1999) and is a Marie Curie postdoctoral research fellow (Utrecht University). She has participated in European, international, and national research projects over the past two decades. From 2001 onwards, she has belonged to the research group coordinated by Iván Llamazares at the University of Salamanca. She has been a member of the international network “Teampopulism” since 2014. She is author of the book Nationalisms in the European Arena: Trajectories of Transnational Party Coordination (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Among her most recent publications are “Populist Euroscepticism in Iberian party systems,” with Carolina Plaza Colodro (2018); “¿Condiciona la ideología las actitudes de los partidos populistas hacia la UE? Los vínculos entre populismo y euroescepticismo en el sur de Europa,” with C.  PlazaColodro and H.  Marcos-Marne (Revista Internacional de Sociología, 2018); “Ethnoregionalist Parties,” with Lieven De Winter and Peter Lynch in Detterbeck and Hepburn, eds., Handbook of Territorial Politics (2018), and with I. Llamazares, “Populism in Spain. The Role of Ideational Change in Podemos,” in K.  A. Hawkins, R.  E. Carlin, L.  Littvay, and C. Rovira Kaltwasser, eds., The Ideational Approach to Populism: Concept, Theory, and Method, pp. 294–310 (2018). Elena González  is a sociologist and political scientist, having graduated from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with a Master of Science in Public Health. She was a Talentia scholar through the inter-

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national mobility programme of the Council of Economy, Innovation, Science and Employment of the Regional Government of Andalusia. She managed a portfolio of different projects, publications, advocacy strategies, management of professional social networks, and creation of materials. She is a professor at Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain, and an advanced research support technician in the project “Citizens and Parliamentarians in Times of Crisis and Democratic Renewal: The Comparative Case of Spain in South Europe,” funded by the Minister of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness. Jean-Baptiste  Harguindéguy  is an associate professor, Department of Political Science, at Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain. He holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences (European University Institute of Florence). He has taught in different universities and research centres, such as the Institute for Political Studies in Bordeaux, the Centre for Latin Europe Studies in Montpellier, the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies in Madrid, the University of Valencia, and the autonomous universities of Madrid and Barcelona. His research deals with territorial governance, European integration, and public policy. He has published a number of papers and books on cross-border cooperation, regional language policy, public policy analysis, the effects of the 2008 crisis on regional autonomy in Europe, intergovernmental conflicts in Spain, indexes of decentralization, and the presence and influence of peripheral elites in the central states’ apparatus. Antonio M. Jaime-Castillo  is Associate Professor of Political Science at the National Distance Education University (UNED), Madrid, Spain. He obtained his PhD in Sociology from the University of Granada (2003) and has been a visiting fellow at the Norwegian Social Science Data Services (University of Bergen), the Zentral Archiv (University of Cologne), and the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis (University of Indiana). His research interests include comparative politics, quantitative methods, and welfare state. He is a member of the Spanish National Committee for the European Social Survey (ESS) and a correspondent of the Comparative Candidates Survey (CCS) in Spain. His research has been published, among others, in journals such as the British Journal of Sociology, European Sociological Review, International Political Science Review, Journal of European Social Policy, Social Science and Medicine, Social Science Research, and Southern Economic Journal.

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Manuel Jiménez-Sánchez  is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology, Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain. He holds a PhD in Political Science (Autonomous University of Madrid) and is doctor member of Juan March Institute (Madrid). His research interests focus on political participation and social movements. He is author of the books El impacto político de los movimientos sociales. Un estudio de la protesta ambiental en España (2005), La normalización de la protesta: el caso de las manifestaciones en España (2011), and Protesta y cambio electoral en España (2018). He has published articles in South European Society and Politics (2007, 2015), American Behavioral Scientist (2008), Revista Internacional de Sociología (2010, 2015), the Journal of Civil Society (2016), and Administration & Society (2019). He has recently written two chapters on political elites in books published by Palgrave Macmillan (2019; edited by Cordero & Coller) and Routledge (2020 edited by Freire et al.). He is working on the research project PROTEiCA “Protest, Learning and Political Change.” Manina  Kakepaki is a researcher at the National Centre for Social Research (EKKE)-Institute of Social Research. She studied Political Science and Political Behaviour in Athens and Essex and has a PhD from the University of Athens. She has led and collaborated on a number of national and international research projects on topics related to political elites, political representation, youth political participation, gender, and politics. Her latest work is an edited volume on the socio-political profile of parliamentary representatives in Greece from 1996 to 2015. She codirects the project “YouWho,” which investigates young Greeks’ political identity and orientations with the use of innovative modes of data collection. She is also the principal investigator of the dataset “Members of the Greek Parliament 1989–2019,” available on the socioscope.gr platform, which offers open social data in Greece. Marco Lisi  is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Studies, Nova University of Lisbon and a researcher at the Portuguese Institute for International Relations (IPRI)-Nova. His research interests focus on political parties, electoral behaviour, democratic theory, and political representation. He has published several articles in national and international journals such as International Political Science Review, Party Politics, and West European Politics, among others. He coordinated several national projects and collaborated with a variety of international projects, such as “Member and Activists of Political Parties” (MAPP). He is the lead researcher of the project “From Representation to Legitimacy: Political

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Parties and Interest Groups in Southern Europe,” funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. Gloria Martínez-Cousinou  is Lecturer in Political Science at the Loyola University Andalucía (Spain). She received a PhD in Political Science from National Distance Education University (UNED, 2013) and has been a visiting fellow at international universities of renowned prestige: the Institute for Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon, the School of Politics at the University of Nottingham, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the Department of Government at Georgetown University. Her research interests include good governance, institutional design, and global and active citizenship. She has been involved in different competitive projects ranging from the quality of democracy and the control of corruption to political elites. The results obtained from these research projects have been presented in scientific meetings and published in academic journals and book chapters. Fabiola  Mota is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. Previously she has taught and researched in several academic and scientific Spanish institutions, where she has conducted studies and published on social capital, citizen participation and civil society, territorial politics and devolution, and political representation. She has authored, among others, the article “The Role of Social Capital Within Policy Networks. Evidence from EU Cohesion Policy in Spain” (with Jacint Jordana and Andrea Noferini in International Review of Administrative Science, 78/4, 2012) and “The Role of Political Parties in Shaping Citizens’ Political Preferences for the Territorial Organization of the State: The Spanish Case” (with Mariano Torcal in European Political Science Review, 6/3, 2014). Recently she has co-edited the book Political Power in Spain: The Multiple Divides between MPs and Citizens (with Xavier Coller and Antonio Jaime, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Marta Paradés  is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain, where she works in the Horizon 2020 project “RePast” (Strengthening European Integration Through the Analysis of Conflict Discourses: RePast—Revisiting the Past, Anticipating the Future). She holds a PhD in Political Science (Autonomous University of Madrid), with a dissertation titled “European Identification in Times of Crisis.” She also holds an MA in Democracy and Government from the Autonomous

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University of Madrid and a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Pablo Olavide University. She has been a visiting scholar at Carlos III University and a research fellow at the University of Mannheim and the European University Institute in Florence. Her research interests include political attitudes, political representation, and immigration. Andrea  Pedrazzani  is Assistant Professor of Political Sociology at the Department of Social and Political Science, University of Milan, Italy. He holds a PhD in Political Studies from the University of Milan (2011) and has been a postdoc research fellow at the University of Bologna (2012–2017). His research interests deal with democratic representation and political institutions. He is author of Fare le leggi nella Seconda Repubblica. Come cambia il Parlamento (2017). His work has also appeared in edited books and in journals such as the European Journal of Political Research, Party Politics, Government and Opposition, Political Studies, South European Society and Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Parliamentary Affairs, and the Journal of Legislative Studies. Sergio Pérez Castaños  is an associate professor at University of Burgos, Spain. He holds a PhD in Political Science (University of the Basque Country, Spain) focused on the study of local government and decentralization. He has been a visiting scholar at Federico II University (Naples, Italy), Macerata (Italy), and Essex (United Kingdom). His areas of research are federalism, electoral behaviour, political decentralization, and political communication and campaigns, topics on which he has published various works in the Italian Political Science Review, Revista Española de Ciencia Política, National Identities, and Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, among others, as well as several chapters in different books published by Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, Tirant lo Blanch, or Thompson Reuters. Santiago Pérez-Nievas  is Lecturer in Political Science and International Relations at the Autonomous University of  Madrid (UAM), Spain, and doctor member of Juan March Institute. He has been a visiting scholar at Political Science Department at the University of Birmingham and at Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB) in Berlin. His research interests include political parties and electoral behaviour, with a particular focus on multilevel contexts and the electoral behaviour and political representation of immigrant-origin minorities. He is the principal investigator of a project on the political representation of immigrants at

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the local level in Spain financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Manuel  Portillo-Pérez is a PhD candidate at the Pablo de Olavide Univesrity, Seville, Spain, where he is researching into motivations of politicians in times of crisis. He holds a master’s degree in “Society, Administration, and Politics”, and specializes in political elites and their relations with society. He has been awarded several scholarships, including a pre-doctoral “university staff training” (FPU) scholarship for his PhD dissertation. He is a member of the research group DASP (UPO), has worked on several research projects, presented his main findings in international congresses, and published widely in academic journals and books. Adrián  del  Río  is a visiting professor at Carlos III University, Madrid, Spain. He holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute (EUI). His areas of expertise are comparative government and elite research, with a particular focus on authoritarian politics, coalition building, and regime change. He is the winner of several academic excellence awards and scholarships based on the quality of his career trajectory and research. At the EUI, he has taught undergraduate and graduate-level courses on data management, analysis, and visualization in R, and organized international workshops on political institutions and power-sharing dynamics in dictatorships. Having a BA in Sociology (Pablo de Olavide University), he has authored a peer-reviewed article on the determinants of citizens’ preferences for models of democracy. Leonardo  Sánchez-Ferrer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Burgos. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Autonomous University of Madrid and is a doctor member of the Juan March Institute  in Madrid. He has taught at the Complutense University and the Department of Political Science and Administration at the Autonomous University of Madrid. From 1993 to 1995 he was a European Union fellow (Human Capital and Mobility Programme) at the European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science. His research has focused on the analysis of public policy, especially educational reforms, as well as on the study of political elites and leaders. His publications include La familia española y la educación de sus hijos (with Víctor Pérez-Díaz and Juan Carlos Rodríguez Pérez, 2001); “From Bureaucratic Centralism to Self-­ regulation: The Reform of Higher Education in Spain,” in West European Politics, 1997; “Actores estrategas.

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La política educative,” in Análisis de Políticas Públicas en España: enfoques y casos, Mireia Grau and Araceli Mateos, eds., 2002; “Regional Leaders and Voting in Two-Party Autonomous Communities (2007–2011),” Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 2016, written with Jorge Berzosa; as well as “Ideology: The Reasons Behind Placement on the LeftRight Scale,” in Political Power in Spain: The Multiple Divides Between MPs and Citizens, Xavier Coller, Antonio Jaime and Fabiola Mota, eds., Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Paolo Segatti  has been Professor of Political Sociology at the Department of Social and Political Science of the University of Milan, Italy. His research interests deal with political behaviour, public opinion, national and European identity, and democratic representation. He has authored or edited several books, including L’Apocalisse della Democrazia Italiana (with H. Schadee and C. Vezzoni, 2019), La Rappresentanza Politica alle Elezioni del 2013 (with A.  Di Virgilio, Il Mulino, 2016), and European Identity in the Context of National Identities (with B. Westle, 2016). His work has appeared in the European Journal of Political Research, Italian Political Science Review, Political Psychology, South European Society and Politics, Journal of European Public Policy, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, and Stato e Mercato. Inmaculada  Serrano holds a PhD in Political Science (Autonomous University of Madrid) and an MA in Social Sciences (Juan March Institute). Her research focuses on international and forced migration, as well as on political behaviour. She has worked as a researcher in several international projects at Pompeu Fabra University, Carlos III University, and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), as well as in international organizations, including the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR), and the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). She is a senior researcher at the University Institute of Studies on Migration (IUEM), Pontifical University Comillas, Madrid, Spain. Sofia  Serra-Silva is a researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, and at the Portuguese Institute for International Relations (IPRI)—FCSH, both in Portugal. She holds a PhD in Comparative Politics from the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS—University of Lisbon). Her research interests are representation, parliaments, public engagement, and digital media.

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Alejandro Tirado Castro  is a PhD candidate in Social Sciences at Carlos III University, Madrid, Spain. He obtained a BA in Sociology and a BS in Political Science and Public Administration (Summa Cum Laude) from Pablo Olavide University of Seville and a MA in Research in Social Sciences from the Juan March Institute. During these studies, he also collaborated and worked part time as a research assistant at the DASP (UPO) research group under the supervision of Prof. Coller. He teaches as Assistant Professor of Political Representation and Electoral Analysis at Carlos III University in Madrid and actively collaborates as a research assistant in the project “Global Legislator Dataset,” led by Prof. Miriam Golden. His dissertation research explores the evolution of democratic legitimacy during the Great Recession and the main role of responsiveness as a resilient trait of consolidated democracies which mediated the generalized apathy produced by the economic crisis in Europe. Emmanouil  Tsatsanis is a researcher at the Institute of Political Research—Greek National Centre for Social Research (IPE-EKKE), Athens, Greece. His research and teaching experience is mainly in the subfield of Comparative Politics, with a focus on topics related to electoral behaviour, political identities, political representation, and party systems. His work has been published in edited volumes and peer-reviewed journals such as West European Politics, Party Politics, International Political Science Review, South European Society and Politics, Critical Sociology, the Journal of Political Ideologies, Journal of Elections, and Public Opinion and Parties, among others. He had coordinated, together with André Freire and Marco Lisi, the research project “Crisis, Political Representation and Democratic Renewal: The Portuguese Case in the Southern European Context” (2016–2019) funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Research and Technology (FCT) and is co-editor of the forthcoming volumes Political Representation in Southern Europe and Latin America (Routledge) and Political Representation and Citizenship in Portugal: From Crisis to Renewal (Lexington Books).

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4 Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2 Fig. 8.3 Fig. 8.4 Fig. 8.5 Fig. 8.6 Fig. 8.7 Fig. 8.8

Gender profile by party and distance with their voters (in %) Age profile by party and distance with their voters (in %) Religiosity profile by party and distance with their voters (in %) Overall personality congruence (all citizens vs parties) Personality trait differences per party allegiance Personality congruence, by party Effects of party allegiance and subsample (politicians/citizens) on personality traits. OLS regressions Comparing factors associated with the responsiveness norm among MPs and citizens MPs and citizens’ probabilities of supporting the responsiveness norm across the ideology scale Probabilities of supporting the responsiveness norm across ideology, comparing citizens with positive and negative views of citizens’ political capacity Probabilities of supporting the responsiveness norm across ideology, comparing MPs who endorsed delegate versus trustee models of representation link Gender: statistically significant differences between male and females in both surveys Age: statistically significant differences between along the scale age in both surveys Education: differences among education levels (4) are not statistically significant in neither surveys Satisfaction with Democracy: statistically significant differences along the scale in both surveys

28 29 32 56 57 60 62 162 164 165 166 173 173 174 174 xxv

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List of Figures

Fig. 8.9 Fig. 8.10 Fig. 9.1 Fig. 9.2 Fig. 9.3 Fig. 9.4 Fig. 9.5 Fig. 9.6 Fig. 10.1 Fig. 10.2 Fig. 10.3 Fig. 10.4 Fig. 12.1 Fig. 13.1 Fig. 13.2 Fig. 13.3 Fig. 14.1 Fig. 14.2 Fig. 16.1 Fig. 17.1 Fig. 17.2 Fig. 17.3 Fig. 17.4 Fig. 18.1

Citizens’ political initiative capacity: statistically significant differences along the 0–5 scale only among citizens (and for MPs at a CI of 90%) 175 Representation model: statistically significant differences between delegate and trustee positions among MPs 175 Satisfaction with democracy in Spain (Citizens vs MPs) 185 The parliament should make the final decision on laws 191 The citizenry should be able to initiate a binding referendum193 “Should politicians yield somewhat to the demands of demonstrators?”197 Do Spanish MPs live off politics or for politics? 198 The Government should take measures to reduce income inequality200 Evolution of positions towards the organisation of the State (%) 209 Manifestos Scores for decentralisation (2016) 214 Total and Political Party Congruence and Overlap (2009) 216 Total and Political Party Congruence and Overlap (2018) 217 Spain: evolution of trust in the European Union (%) 256 Left-­right positions of MPs and citizens in 2009 and 2018 278 Left-­right positions of MPs and citizens by parties in 2009 and 2018 280 Preference for level of taxes and public services in 2009 and 2018282 Ideological self-­placement in Spain and Italy (MPs and voters), by party 299 Congruence on specific policy issues, by party 301 Distributions and congruence between voters and representatives by party in Greece (2015) 347 Portugal: Voters’ and MPs’, by party, left-­right ideological congruence, 2008 and 2016 365 Spain: Voters’ and MPs’, by party, left-­right ideological congruence, 2010 and 2018 368 Italy: Voters’ and MPs’, by party, left-­right ideological congruence, 2007 and 2013 369 Greece: Voters’ and MPs’, by party, left-­right ideological congruence, 2007 and 2015 372 WGI 2019. Voice and accountability, and rule of law 394

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 2.4 Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Table 4.4 Table 4.5 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 6.3 Table 6.4

Social mobility according to fathers’ profession (in %) Social mobility by party (in %) Socio-­demographic profile of MPs (in %) Socio-­demographic profile of electors and the difference with the parties they voted for (in %) Distribution of personality traits, by subsample Gains in model fits depending on the addition of party allegiance and “MP” Frequency of political discussion at home while growing up and having a relative in politics (in %) Importance of motives and personal experiences that led into politics (means) Motives and personal experiences that led into politics. Factor analysis Motives and personal experiences that led into politics. OLS Trust of MPs and citizens in others. OLS Why are politicians in politics? (%) Spanish MPs’ motivation across time Explaining motivations for politics. Linear regression Method of selection by party and chamber in Spain, 2018 (%) Method of selection by chamber and MPs’ age, 2018 (%) Method of selection by chamber and MPs’ level of education, 2018 (%) Method of selection by chamber, MPs’ gender and having dependants (children and adults), 2018 (%)

34 35 37 39 55 63 73 75 77 79 82 95 96 98 115 119 121 123

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List of Tables

Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4  Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 9.1 Table 11.1 Table 11.2 Table 11.3 Table 11.4 Table 11.5 Table 12.1 Table 12.2 Table 12.3 Table 12.4 Table 12.5 Table 13.1 Table 14.1 Table 14.2 Table 15.1 Table 15.2 Table 15.3 Table 15.4 Table 15.5

Goals of representation, responsiveness and types of judgement 135 Social ties 140 Opinions about democracy 141 Logistic regression about conception of representation 146 Variable description and bivariate relation with dependent variable (responsiveness norm towards) 169 Support for the responsiveness norm. Logistic regressions for MPs and citizens 172 Satisfaction with democracy of citizens and MPs by Party ID (in %) 188 Dual identity among MPs and citizens (in %) 231 Collective identities by political party (in %) 232 Mean values for the intensity of national identities by political party, the standard deviation in brackets 234 The social foundations of collective identities. Multinomial logit model 236 The social foundations of the degree of nationalism 241 Descriptives of variables 257 Regression test results on opinions about Spain belonging to the EU and satisfaction regarding the functioning of European democracy 258 Opinion of parliamentarians and perception of citizens regarding Spain belonging to the EU (%) 259 Degree of satisfaction of parliamentarians and citizens regarding the functioning of European democracy (%) 261 MPs and citizens on the functioning of European democracy and Spain belonging to the EU (%) 262 Preference for public services or less taxation in 2009 and 2018 282 Sample of voters and MPs in Spain and Italy 298 Determinants of voter-MP incongruence in Spain and Italy 305 Sample descriptive for national parties: Portugal (2016) and Spain (2018) 322 MPs’ ideological incoherence and misfits across parties in Portugal323 MPs’ ideological incoherence and misfits across parties in Spain 324 Explaining variations in the absolute differences in MPs’ ideological incoherence in Portugal—OLS regression 325 Explaining variations in the absolute differences in MPs’ ideological incoherence in Spain—OLS regression 326

  List of Tables 

Table 15.6 Table 16.1 Table 16.2 Table 17.1 Table 17.2 Table 18.1

List of relevant variables Mainstream and Challenger Parties in National Parliaments of Greece and Spain, 2009–2019 (%) Voter-candidate congruence (%) on different issues in Greece (2015) and Spain (2016) Voters’ and MPs’, by party, left-right ideological congruence, before and after the 2008 economic crisis, in Portugal and Spain Voters’ and MPs’, by party, left-right ideological congruence, before and after 2008 economic crisis, in Italy and Greece Democracy index (2019). Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece

xxix 329 341 349 366 367 393

CHAPTER 1

Democracy, Politicians and Citizens Xavier Coller and Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer

There are indications that democracies are entering a critical anomic scenario.1 Przeworski (2019) reviews some of them: electoral volatility and the emergence of new (usually populist) parties; decreasing voter turnout rates; growing disaffection in democracy’s institutions; polarisation; unexpected (and for some, undesirable) outcomes such as growing inequality; and a decline in generalised trust (including in fellow citizens and institutions such as media, banks, business, representative institutions, parties). In the case of Spain, we could add a growing lack of confidence in politicians’ ability to fulfil the representative function (Jiménez-Sánchez et al. 2018; Coller et al. 2020).2 Democracies will not necessarily collapse as the cases Linz (1978) studied; but most likely be transformed or at least eroded, as the 2021 Freedom House report suggests after analyzing a 15 year democratic decline intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic (Repucci & Slipowitz 2021). 

X. Coller (*) Department of Political Science and Administration, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] L. Sánchez-Ferrer Political Science, University of Burgos, Burgos, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 X. Coller, L. Sánchez-Ferrer (eds.), Politicians in Hard Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70242-7_1

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Crises Transforming Democracies The 2019 Democracy Index of The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) highlights a global ‘democratic regression’ caused, among other things, by “a widening gap between political elites and parties on the one hand and national electorates on the other” (EIU 2019: 6).3 The 2019 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) report suggests that although democracy is globally on the rise, there are substantial problems corroding its quality to the point that “[…] the value, viability and future of democracy are more contested now than ever before in modern history or at least since the 1930s” (IDEA 2019: iii). There are a number of causes that explain this democratic regression and one, the report indicates, is the failure of governments (or by extension, we could say, political representatives), “to substantially reduce corruption, advance gender equality, reduce social, political and economic inequalities or produce employment and economic growth” (IDEA 2019: iv).4 Additionally, the Covid pandemic has worsened the spread and quality of democracies (EIU 2021, Freedom House 2021). Political elites serving in representative institutions are not the only cause of this observed global decline in the quality of democracy, but some sort of consensus can be built around the idea that the quality of political leadership deployed by elected representatives may be associated, at least partially, to it. As Fishman (2019) argues, it seems that an elected political elite nurtured by people who rarely listen to or interact with citizens or their organisations beyond elections will produce a deficient democracy (see Chaps. 8 and 9 in this volume). Similarly, political leaders who ignore the reality of a global pandemic and the advice of scientists and health international organisations will fail to meet the needs of the population, and most likely generate discontent or distrust and erode the quality of democracy. Politicians, especially those who are members of the executive or legislative, are key actors for the healthy functioning of democracies. The growing scholarly interest generated by political elites5 complements the academic focus on social movements and civic organisations in the study of democracy. Following Higley and Burton (2006: 10), in this book we understand that political elites are ‘persons who are able, by virtue of their strategic positions in powerful organizations and movements, to affect political outcomes regularly and substantially’. Alcántara (2012: 83–84) suggests that this group is composed of people holding an elected position, those who have been appointed to temporarily work for (or advise) the State or any of its concomitant arenas (i.e. publicly owned

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companies), those that occupy a leadership position in parties or similar organisations, and those that after being in any of the previous positions still influence public affairs. For research purposes, this group of people is usually identified using the positional method explained by Putnam (1976, p. 15–19).6 Since political elites have some degree of internal heterogeneity according to the different positions they can occupy (executive, legislative, mayors, etc.), it is appropriate to state from the beginning that this book focuses on the segment of the political elite that has been elected to represent citizens in any of the 19 legislative chambers in Spain—Congress, Senate and 17 regional parliaments. The importance of this ‘parliamentary’ or ‘representative’ elite rest upon its responsibility in producing governments, its  capability to shape society through the passing of bills in representative institutions, and its ability to ‘function as the political representation of salient ideological and material interests present in their societies’ (Best and Vogel 2018: 340). By analysing who they are, how they think, and how they compare with citizens and MPs from other Southern European countries, this book empirically contributes to a better knowledge of the representative elite of one of the 22 fully consolidated democracies in the world. Although positions in rankings may change over time, Spain, according to the 2019 EIU’s Democracy Index, ranks 16 (equal with Austria), just above neighbouring France and Portugal, and just below Germany and the UK (ranked 13 and 14, respectively). The IDEA report  (2019: 26)  based on the Varieties of Democracy project, places Spain in the group of the 21st democracies scoring among the highest on the five dimensions of participation, impartial administration, checks and balances on government, fundamental rights, and representative government. Thus, this book deals with the politicians of a democracy that may not be ideal—as it has problems including those commonly associated with inequality, territorial and intergovernmental tensions (Colino 2021), corruption (Villoria 2015), and disaffection (Torcal 2014)—but it is usually considered an advanced and fully consolidated democracy.7 Consequently, the analysis deployed in this book may be useful for other democracies that experience a political crisis in the form of disaffection and political mistrust, among others. The Great Recession generated challenges that led to political transformations in Spain, as in many other European countries (Hoffman-Lange and Kuklys 2019). The national party system was considered stable, insofar as two nationwide parties alternated in power, sometimes with the support of centre-to-right regional nationalist parties.8 This ambiguous

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case—floating between the consensus and majoritarian types of democracy, as Lijphart (1999: 248–249) characterises it—experienced profound change in 2014 when Podemos (Ps) and Ciudadanos (Cs) obtained five and two seats respectively, following the European elections. These were two new parties—Ps was created a few months before the European elections and Cs political foundations go back to 2005  in Catalonia, but expanded nationwide for the 2014 European elections.9 These parties channelled citizens’ discontent over the impact of the economic crisis, the perceived political corruption, and the uncertainties generated by the challenge of Catalan independentist parties. The emergence of these new parties was the organisational response to what Bosco and Verney (2012) called a ‘general crisis of representation’, and inaugurated the Spanish version of what Morlino and Raniolo (2017) referred to as ‘old versus new’ politics. The emergence and consolidation of these ‘challenger parties’ (by 2020 they were already active in different governments) indicated the discontent with the established political elites and their respective parties after a long period of economic crisis (Urquizu 2016; Cordero and Christmann 2018). Consequently, they helped to build the state-wide multiparty system that was already a political feature of a number of regions.10 Among other innovations, the new parties brought with them ‘new ways of doing politics’, originally more horizontal, such as Intra-Party Democracy (IPD) mechanisms. Although other parties, like the PSOE (socialist) and some other regional formations, had already partially implemented IPD, the established parties began to incorporate IPD practices in the selection of politicians, like in other democracies (Cordero and Coller 2018; Coller et al. 2018). One of the consequences of this organisational isomorphism has been a more diverse political elite (MPs) as Chaps. 2 and 6 show. Recent developments indicate that some new parties are either cancelling primaries (as in the case of Vox, a far-right party) or readjusting them (like Cs or Ps). This is the backdrop against which many chapters of this book are written—the Great Recession and subsequent political transformations. However, taking an overview at the end of 2020, this context may also have been affected by the global pandemic caused by Covid-19. We are confident that new studies will focus on the political effects of the pandemic, but this is not the topic of this book. Although the multi-dimensional crisis generated by Covid-19 may make the Great Recession look smaller by comparison, the consequences of the latter may be longer-lasting and have transformed the political landscape in Spain.

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Citizens, Parties, and Countries Following the Great Recession new politicians entered Spanish institutions of representation and brought new concerns, different political styles, and a diversity of beliefs and attitudes that are ripe for study. This book contributes to the growing literature about MPs beliefs and attitudes, and shares with the studies of Italy (Di Virgilio and Segatti 2016), Portugal and Greece (Freire et al. 2016a), and Belgium (Vandeleene et al. 2018) similar but not identical concerns. For instance, since the ‘personalisation’ of politics is low in Spain (see Chap. 3), it did not make much sense to deal with issues such as the ‘personalisation’ of campaigns like our colleagues from Italy and Belgium did. However, as in the study of these other countries, this book is partially based on the Comparative Candidates Survey (CCS) project,11 although a number of issues have been added so that the Spanish political elites can be studied both comprehensively but also comparatively. The book is based on the results of the second survey to MPs at national (Senate, Congress) and regional (17 parliaments) level. The first survey was carried out in 2009 with a longer but similar questionnaire (Coller et al. 2016, 2018). Since it was impossible to gather data in Spain on non-­ elected candidates due to legal (data protection) constraints, and contrary to most countries in the CCS project, the survey was addressed only to MPs. Therefore, we study state and sub-state representative elites, following the remarks of Tronconi (2018), but not the executive or the appointed regional elites studied by Botella et  al. (2010). Whenever possible, the book includes a systematic comparison with the population by using a shortened version of the MPs questionnaire on a representative sample of citizens. Thus, the book offers a snapshot of who MPs are, what they think, and how distant (or close) they are to citizens. Five dimensions are analysed in detail. Firstly, the book covers areas such as: social profile, selection, political motivations, perception of the representative function, political socialisation, territorial organisation of the state, national and regional identities, responsiveness, quality of democracy, perceptions about the European Union (EU), personalities and ideological congruence. The chapters in this book analyse these topics by engaging with academic debates in the international literature. Secondly, most chapters of the book compare MPs and citizens’ beliefs, opinions and attitudes, and provide evidence of the (growing) distance between citizens and parliamentary elites. Thirdly, the

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majority of chapters in the first part of the book, which focuses on Spain, also draw on data from a survey to MPs a decade ago. Thus, the book comparatively analyses the changes taking place among MPs before and after the Great Recession. Fourthly, chapters in this book use ‘party’ as a key variable to establish comparisons among groups of MPs and, sometimes, with citizens. Fifthly, using the Comparative Candidates Survey and the synergies established between different research projects, the book compares Spain and other Southern European countries, mostly focusing on ideological and issue congruence between MPs and citizens. This book deals with politicians in a modern democracy in times of transformation following the Great Recession. Although it is mostly about a single country, the authors analyse evidence in the context of scholarly debates in the literature. Thus, seen through the lens of international academic debates, it becomes an empirical contribution to a number of relevant topics for the functioning of democracies.

Surveys and Fieldwork Most data in this book are drawn from a survey to a sample of Spanish MPs partially replicated in a representative sample of the population. Both were made possible thanks to a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness to the project “Citizens and parliamentarians in times of crisis and democratic renewal: The comparative case of Spain in the South of Europe” (CIUPARCRI, CSO2016-78016-R). Fieldwork for the MPs’ survey was carried out in 2018, and fieldwork for the sample of citizens was carried out in February 2019. To make longitudinal comparisons, some chapters use data from a previous similar survey to MPs carried out in 2009–2010 whose results are found in the work edited by Coller et  al. (2016, 2018). This survey involved face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of 580 MPs from Congress, Senate and the 17 regional parliamentary chambers. The second survey carried out in 2018 involved interviews with 452 MPs. Since this sample was not random, we faced the challenge of dealing with external validity. Contrary to the 2009 first wave, lack of sufficient resources in 2018 led us to contact all 1813 MPs by mail, email or visiting chambers and leaving the questionnaires in their mailboxes. 452 responded by mail or used an Internet platform to complete the questionnaire. That means a response rate of 25%. Contrary to other countries participating in the CCS project, we contacted only MPs and not candidates. In Spain,

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there are strict data protection laws impeding researchers accessing emails or personal data of candidates on party lists. The 25% of MPs who answered were not randomly chosen and therefore, beyond non-responses affecting the representation of some groups, some self-selection bias might be expected. Bias affects estimators when performing statistical analyses and consequently the results may be distorted. To avoid biased estimators, a logistic calibration was applied, using the Stata’s statistical command—calibrate. Calibration is a method of adjusting the weights of a sample when the totals of a population are known on a number of relevant variables.12 The goal is to obtain non-biased estimators caused by non-responses (or self-­ selection) so that external validity can be accomplished more efficiently. In the 2018 MPs survey calibration was achieved thanks to the data gathered for the ©Bapolau and ©Bapolcon databases. ©Bapolau contains 2437 cases as of 2020 and ©Bapolcon contains 6449 cases as of December 2018. Both databases contain basic information on each and every person occupying a seat in any of the 19 representative chambers between 1977 and 2018; specifically on: gender, age, place of birth, education level attained, profession, party, terms served, chamber (territory), chamber responsibility, and local office. The latter two variables are not fully completed. We used information contained on gender, party, and territory to calibrate the sample after the 452 questionnaires were answered. Fieldwork began in April 2018 when letters of introduction were sent to the bureau of parliaments and leaders of parliamentary groups. Few days later, similar letters were sent to the 1813 MPs. The idea was to introduce them to the platform created to answer the questionnaire and to reinforce the idea of anonymity and confidentiality. Immediately after, biweekly reminders were sent via email to all of them. For this, the research team built a database with most of the MPs’ emails (some do not use the new technologies and some parliaments do not offer this information, so we had to contact them many times using social networks like Facebook or Twitter). We found the level of response unsatisfactory and subsequently questioned the use of Internet to survey MPs, which is a task that requires researchers to overcome a number of difficulties (Coller et  al. 2018: 323). First, MPs usually have very busy diaries that are usually managed by the staff of the parliamentary group, who are the ‘true gatekeepers’. Second, interviews have to take into account the fact that MPs generally know about how democratic institutions function, so questions require particularly careful consideration and some verstehen to anticipate

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possible answers. Third, MPs may be reluctant to answer due to concerns about anonymity, distrust, or lack of interest. As insistence paid off little, we decided to use more traditional means: first, we sent the questionnaire by ‘snail mail’; and, second, we travelled to several chambers to gain direct access to MPs or to the staff of the parliamentary groups. With this ‘mixed method’ approach, we achieved a response rate of 25%. The questionnaire of the survey to MPs was based on the Comparative Candidates Survey project (CCS, http://www.comparativecandidates. org/). It was conveniently adapted and expanded to allow for comparisons with the first 2009 survey and to capture specificities of the case of Spain. This is why in some respects this book differs from those devoted to Italy, Portugal and Greece, or Belgium. The questionnaire of the survey to citizens was a shortened replica of the MPs questionnaire. Fieldwork was carried out by Metroscopia (a Spanish survey company) in February 2019 using phone interviews. Each MP’s questionnaire mailed to us or completed in person was transferred to the Internet platform so that all information was centralised on a single database and double-checked. As promised in our commitment to respondents, data treatment uses aggregated data, never individual data. Also, to guarantee anonymity and confidentiality, each researcher signed a commitment to never publicly disclose individual information contained in the database, so that MPs cannot be identified with their responses. Unfortunately, the timing of the fieldwork did not allow us to interview members of Vox, the newest party in Spain, which first entered the Andalusian chamber following the December 2018 elections, and then into Congress after the April 2019 elections. As it usually happens, fieldwork took longer than expected. Insistence and distrust created some curious situations. An MP from Congress, for example, sent an anonymous note indicating that she or he was a social scientist and since she or he did not believe in the guarantees we gave over anonymity, she or he decided not to answer the questionnaire. However, the note included the name of the party and the small electoral district she or he was elected to. We hope this book contributes to changing his or her mind. In another example, a leader of a new party in a regional parliament (who happens to be a sociologist) interpreted our biweekly reminder reporting on the evolution of the answers as a pressure to MPs of his group. He complained in an informal email warning that we could be breaking a professional code of conduct. After reviewing the code of ethics of the European Sociological Association and the American Sociological

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Association, he was invited to find any word or expression, any evidence, supporting the perception of ‘pressure’ in our communications with MPs so that he could go and report the case to the courts or to the professional association of Spanish or Andalusian social scientists.13 We never heard back from him. In other cases, we had to send the questionnaire to a prison since various MPs were in pre-trial detention for participating in the organisation of the illegal referendum for the independence of Catalonia. Additionally, we received a number of informal complaints from MPs stating that the questionnaire was too long and that they took longer than expected to complete it. It was a reasonable complaint, in part based on the organisation of the Internet platform and in part due to the number of topics covered in the questionnaire. We learned the lessons, though, for the third survey to MPs (operative in September 2021).

Plan of the Book This book’s general approach is based on a descriptive and analytical study of selected topics with a twofold objective. On the one hand, it aims to contribute to international academic debates by providing the main findings of the second survey to a sample of Spanish MPs and, on the other, it intends to make appropriate comparisons between MPs and citizens in terms of attitudes and values. Additionally, the book pursues the goal of comparing Spain with Italy, Greece, and Portugal on the specific topic of ideological congruence between citizens and their elected representatives. This book has two parts, with the first focusing on the Spanish case. Readers will not only learn more about Spanish MPs and how they differ from the population, but will also acquire knowledge about political elites and the democratic institutions they work in through the connection between international debates and the evidence used to facilitate both description and analysis. The second part of the book offers an international comparative dimension on a single topic of growing intellectual (academic) relevance: the ideological congruence between MPs and voters. This second part covers Spain (which is used as the reference case against which other countries are individually compared), Italy, Portugal, and Greece and a comparison among the four countries. Analysis of ideological congruence (complemented in these chapters with policy congruence) shows whether MPs are close to their electors or, as we contend, that there is growing distance between citizens and their representatives.

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This distance has apparently widened since the EU’s economic crisis. Perhaps the global pandemic caused by Covid-19 may reinforce this distance insofar as politicians are perceived to have failed to meet people’s needs. The case of Spain shows how MPs’ values, opinions and attitudes can conflict with those of citizens, and show a sharp divide in terms of party, gender and in some respects, territory. Through a systematic comparison between MPs and citizens (in those aspects that can be compared), the book deals with topics that are key to understanding the functioning of democracies and the role of MPs in it. The first part of the book covers from Chaps. 2–12 and deals with different aspects directly related to MPs. Each chapter seeks to respond to a general question: who they are (socially and psychologically), how they have been socialised, what their motivation was to enter politics, how have they been recruited, how they understand their role as representatives, their degree of responsiveness to social demands and how it affects the quality of democracy, and their stance on three crucial topics for Spain— collective identities, the territorial organisation of the State, and perceptions about Europe. The second part undertakes a comparative analysis and places ideological congruence between MPs and citizens at the centre of each chapter. To facilitate reading, each chapter has adopted a similar internal structure: introduction, discussion of key works, expectations (or hypothesis), methods used, data analysis, and conclusion or discussion of results. Next follows a brief summary of each chapter. The second chapter deals with the social profile of MPs and establishes that, although there are some differences between old and new parties (also known as “challenger parties” in other chapters), the divide between left and right remains in terms of professions, religiosity or social class, with educational credentials being similar across parties. However, it seems that while new parties have incorporated younger politicians into institutions, traditional parties have made progress in including women and working class representatives. Following a historical trend (Gaxie 2018; Gaxie and Godmer 2007), more social diversity is found in parliaments largely because of the combined effect of two factors—the incorporation of new parties to institutional politics and the internal adjustment of the type of candidates selected in traditional parties for their electoral lists (see Chap. 6). Chapter 3 expands the social profile of MPs by presenting original and unique data on the personality of politicians; focusing on the degree of

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differentiation across MPs’ parties and the level of congruence with citizens. The author argues that MPs reflect quite well the distribution of the population in terms of their personality traits, although some patterns emerge (e.g. right-wing and large parties are more different to the population as a whole and different from their respective electorates). The chapter draws on the OCEAN model (also known as the ‘Big Five’ model) in which interviewees place themselves on a scale measuring Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Personality differences between both subpopulations (politicians and citizens) are better explained by the representative/represented divide than by party allegiance. The most important difference regarding personality traits between MPs and citizens is that the former score higher on Openness (imagination) and Extraversion (sociability), and lower on Neuroticism (calmness), everything else being equal. These differences may be due to the selection process and related to motivations for public service. Beyond personalities, there are social factors that explain political careers. Chapter 4 explores how the socialisation process impacts on some people who end up becoming politicians and how institutions shape MPs’ socialisation process. Comparing citizens and MPs, the authors conclude that the family is key to people’s decision to enter politics. MPs have been raised in much more politicised environments than the rest of the population: their families talked more about politics and more frequently had other members of the family who were already involved in politics. Compared to ten years ago, the authors of this chapter found that there are proportionally less MPs emanating from political families. This opens the door to the idea that political elites are more open to new members now, which coincides, as well, with the emergence and consolidation of new parties incorporating different forms of intra-party democracy. Three elements are salient in this chapter: family, political discussions (which seem more important for left-wing MPs), and personal experiences (which are associated with MPs from the centre and centre right). Finally, the authors find evidence to support the parliamentary socialisation hypothesis. MPs adapt their views as a consequence of their working environment and thereby increase their levels of generalised trust in comparison with the rest of the population. Chapter 5 expands on the motivations behind becoming a politician and closely examines the factors that explain why some people decide to devote time and energies to politics. The question becomes of the utmost

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importance if the Great Recession becomes the backdrop against which data on motivations are analysed. This backdrop is characterised by growing political disaffection and intense criticism towards politicians, which, other things being equal, could lead towards fewer political vocations (or, at the extreme, to a low quality representative function via adverse selection). The authors argue that motivations relating to ideology are the most important (e.g. public service, influencing society and/or representing a particular social group), while the least valued (for both MPs and citizens) are those usually associated with personal ambitions (e.g. professional career, prestige). However, the chapter finds that at the top of the list of motivations (associated with younger left-wing MPs and with MPs from new parties) is ‘the need for political change’, an indication that vocations also emerge in the context of critical junctures such as that caused by the Great Recession. Chapter 6 throws light on a key element of the political dynamics—the selection of politicians. Taking advantage of multilevel Spain, the chapter compares local, regional, and national politics to show how parties behave in the selection of those who will later represent citizens. The authors find that IPD practices are becoming more common, although the divide between old and new politics is still present in candidate selection mechanisms. The new methods introduce greater social diversity, especially with respect to age and education. However, selection mechanisms such as primaries can work against certain groups (like women, especially with family dependents, and elderly candidates) who may benefit more from exclusive methods of selection. Also, differences in terms of age, gender, and education seem to fade away at the local level, when parties achieve lists that are more balanced and lists that reflect better the social structure of societies. Chapter 7 focuses on the conception MPs have of their roles as representatives: that is, how they think they should represent citizens, an aspect that seems crucial for the theories of representation (Daloz 2019: 33, 37). The authors show that representation is increasingly tilted towards the ‘delegate’ model, with MPs becoming more dependent on the judgement of and relationships with different actors. In this respect, it seems that MPs are more responsive to their environment, because they take into account their parties and other organisations. It seems that left-wing MPs care more about representing specific societal groups than Spanish society as a whole, which is more common among the centre and centre-right MPs. Independently of party and ideology, most MPs consider that they are more responsive to their parties than to electors, or to their own

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judgements and beliefs. As suggested in Chap. 6, parties are key actors insofar as their leaders still have the last word about who goes on the electoral list and in what position. However, there is little difference between old and new parties; suggesting that either ‘new politics’ incorporate old practices and perceptions or that ‘old parties’ or their MPs have adopted the stance defended by challenger parties. The authors in Chap. 8 touch upon a key element of democracies—the degree of responsiveness of MPs. Do they respond to the voice of protest? The large majority of Spaniards (93%) and MPs (75%) think they should, although there are marked differences based on a number of factors— among which ideology is crucial. This ‘procedural congruence’ is more common in people positioned on the left of the ideological scale than among conservatives. The authors argue that there is a conservative political culture of particular political elites (not so in the population) that conceive protests more as an instrument than as something to be responded to, for example, by reinforcing the representative bond. Chapter 9 explores the quality of democracy and democratic depth by emphasising the responsiveness dimension and citizens’ participatory role in politics. The authors argue that there is an important gap between MPs and citizens regarding satisfaction with democracy and perceptions about how democracy works. Insofar as MPs perceive that their role should be more pre-eminent than that of citizens, they diminish the public’s desire for participation. This, the authors suggest, erodes the legitimacy of democracy and generates dissatisfaction with democracy among citizens. MPs are far more satisfied with how democracy works than citizens; reinforcing the idea that there is room for improvement in terms of democratic depth. In many respects, ideology is a powerful explanatory factor of different situations, as several chapters in this book reflect. However, Chap. 10, which focuses on the territorial structure of Spain, contends that the growing gap between citizens and MPs is not affected by ideology or at least, not clearly. The chapter shows that MPs are more in favour of decentralisation than the citizens are, although the challenger parties seem to be more in tune with their voters than the mainstream parties. That fact suggests that either voters are becoming more distant from traditional parties in this respect or MPs from traditional parties are alienating voters. The ‘old and new politics divide’ seems to be in play here, although the authors find that level of congruence seems to be mildly higher among left-wing parties.

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Rather than focusing on the ‘old versus new’ politics cleavage, Chap. 11 highlights the ideological and gender divide in territorial collective identities. The authors contend that given its territorial configuration and multilevel institutional nature, Spain constitutes a unique scenario to observe the evolution of collective identities. Although dual identities (feeling Spanish and Catalan, or Basque or Andalusian, or from any other region) are very frequent among MPs and citizens, regional identities usually decline while the Spanish ‘pole of identity’ grows. Apart from the expected regional variations, there are ideological (and party) differences. Left-wing MPs (and nationalist representatives) seem to be closer to the pole of regional identities than MPs from conservative parties, who are closer to the Spanish pole of identity. The chapter also addresses gender as a factor associated with collective identities; although female MPs more frequently embrace Spanish nationalism, they also more often have dual collective identities. Chapter 12 focuses on Euroscepticism and perceptions about Europe among citizens and MPs. The authors show that ideology again plays a crucial role and indicates that far-left and far-right politicians (those at the extremes) tend to be more sceptical about the EU than more moderate MPs. 90% of MPs and 80% of citizens are highly satisfied with Spain’s membership of the EU (which is also associated with gender), but half of both groups show low levels of satisfaction with the functioning of democracy in the EU. There are differences among parties, with left-wing MPs and citizens being the most dissatisfied. Chapter 13 highlights the key role of ideology and explores changes to MPs and citizens in this realm. Comparing 2018 data with the 2010 MPs and citizen survey, the authors conclude that levels of ideological congruence are lower following the Great Recession. An easy explanation might rely on the emergence of new parties (Podemos, Ciudadanos, and later Vox), although data show that lower congruence is the partial effect of the ‘radicalisation’ of the traditional mainstream parties (the PP, which is the right-wing Partido Popular, and PSOE) and the subsequent ideological polarisation following the Great Recession. As can be seen in Chaps. 16 and 17, when focusing on specific issues, congruence grows, especially regarding taxation and public services. Since the economic crisis, voters have become more supportive of taxation and, in this respect, voters have drawn closer to MPs’ overall position. This chapter opens the door to the block of chapters that compare Spain with Italy, Greece, and Portugal (and then, together). The predominant focus of the following four

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chapters is to explore congruence between voters and MPs using ideology and/or specific policy issues. The comparison between Italy and Spain in Chap. 14 highlights a common feature of both political systems—although challenger parties in both countries grow by appealing to their closeness to ‘the people’, the truth is that, as the authors contend, ideological congruence between MPs and voters of traditional parties is no different from that of challengers; something like that also occurs in Greece. This is so when using the 0–10 ideological scale, although the authors identify a higher level of incongruence on the left. When substantive issues are at stake, only immigration provides the grounds for lack of congruence (as Przeworski 2019: 97 also acknowledges as a general trend). Economic issues do not generate an ideological gap between MPs and voters, which lead the authors to argue that traditional parties are not that distant from electors, and therefore challenger parties’ growth may not be contingent upon responsiveness to economic issues. The chapter reveals that ideology, as measured on the 0–10 scale, may have a symbolic dimension that is not captured by particular positions on substantive policy issues. Comparing Portugal and Spain, Chap. 15 deals with ‘political misfits’; that is, MPs who show little ideological congruence with their own party. This phenomenon is as relevant as it is little-studied. The authors find that Spain displays a lower level of intra-party ideological coherence than Portugal. Large parties show significant levels of misfits, as might be expected under the hypothesis of the ‘catch-all’ party. Even in the new parties (only in the case of Spain), the level of misfits is low except in Unidas Podemos, whose coalitional nature explains its saliency. Contrary to expectations, party-level factors such as the method of selecting MPs seem to have no effect on internal ideological coherence. Chapter 16 compares ideological congruence in Greece and Spain. It analyses whether representatives (and candidates in the case of Greece) of challenger parties have greater ideological congruence than those of mainstream parties. It is found that this is not the case, especially when using the policy issue indicator, rather than the ideological scale. The authors show that levels of congruence are high, especially in Greece. This in some ways contradicts the findings of Chap. 16, although the difference is explained by the type of measure used—whether policy issues or self-­ placement on the ideological scale. Chapter 17 focuses on the four largest Southern European countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece), and establishes a comparison of

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ideological congruence between MPs and voters before and after the Great Recession. The author argues that one of the political consequences of the economic crisis is a reduction in the level of congruence, which is more intense in Greece, although new political parties show more congruence than traditional ones. However, diversity is the norm. The chapter also describes patterns of ‘bottom up’ and ‘top-down’ types of representation. The editors of this book have put a great deal of effort into producing internally coherent chapters that have a similar expositive line, supported by proper evidence. However, only the authors are responsible for each chapter’s contents.

Notes 1. See, for instance, Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018), Runciman (2018), and Foa and Mounk (2017). 2. Preston (2019: 18) captures this idea with the label ‘incompetence’, which he attributes to political elites of modern Spain (1874–2014) as a cause of the ‘treason’ perpetrated against ‘the people’. 3. Additional factors include: the growing importance of technocrats, experts or unaccountable people and institutions in the governance of societies; the low value placed on people’s participation; poorer public debate in which key political issues are excluded from discussion and decided by elites; and a noticeable “decline in civil liberties, including media freedom and freedom of speech” (EIU 2019: 6). 4. Additional factors include legislative and constitutional reforms, the rise of populist parties and politicians, a decline in liberties and public debate, and erosion of the rule of law. The IDEA index is based in large part on the Varieties of Democracy project (IDEA 2019: 2). 5. See, for instance, Best and Higley (2018) or Vogel et al. (2019) 6. See as well Hoffman-Lange (2018) and Semenova (2018). See Blondel (2018, especially, p.  640), though, for the complementary approaches between the study of political elites and/or political leadership. 7. The 2020  report about democracy in Spain issued by the Fundación Alternativas shows as well a growing positive perception about the quality of democracy in different realms (Escobar 2020).  The EUI Democracy Index published in 2021 shows that Spain ranks 22 in the group of full democracies, several positions below the 2019 ranking, just between Japan and South Corea and above France and the USA (EUI 2021: 9)

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8. Among them, the Catalan coalition CiU (Convergència i Unió), the Basque PNV (Partido Nacionalista Vasco), and the Canary CC (Coalición Canaria). 9. Before these two parties were created, there was Unión Progreso y Democracia (UPyD), which unsuccessfully competed with Cs and lost a large part of its voters and representatives in 2015. Since 2019, UPyD supports Cs electoral lists at regional, state and European levels. Furthermore, although created in 2013, Vox did not obtain any seat until the 2018 regional elections in Andalusia (they achieved a minor presence in 22 local councils in 2015). However, in the national elections of November 2019 the party obtained 52 seats. 10. Namely, Catalonia, the Basque Country, the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands, and Navarre; and sometimes Valencia, Cantabria, and Galicia. All of them, at some point, or since the federalisation of Spain (with the creation of the Estado de las Autonomías), have had a more or less active multiparty system, not just a bipartisan one albeit imperfect. For instance, in the 2011–2015 term, although there were 14 parties present, the Effective Number of Parties in Congress was 2.77 (4.1 in 2017 and 4.6 in 2020, as Chap. 5 shows); while in Catalonia it was 4.6 (eight parties), in Navarre 4.3 (six parties), in the Basque Country 3.68 (five parties) and in Andalusia 3.27 (five parties). 11. A list of publications plus an explanation of the whole project can be found at http://www.comparativecandidates.org/. Unfortunately, we could not incorporate the reflections contained in the collective book edited by De Winter et al. (2021). 12. A full explanation of the calibration method can be obtained in the Stata manual at https://www.stata.com/manuals/svycalibration.pdf.  See also Kott (2016). 13. ESA Ethical guidelines can be found at https://www.europeansociology. org/about-­esa/governance/ethical-­guidelines, while the ASA code of ethics can be found at https://www.asanet.org/about/governance-­and-­ leadership/code-­ethics.

References Alcántara, M. (2012). El oficio de político. Madrid: Tecnos. Best, H., & Higley, J. (Eds.). (2018). The Palgrave Handbook of Political Elites. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Best, H., & Vogel, L. (2018). Representative Elites. In H. Best & J. Higley (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Political Elites (pp.  339–362). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Blondel, J. (2018). Elites or Leadership? Opposite or Complementary Paradigms? In H.  Best & J.  Higley (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Political Elites (pp. 625–642). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bosco, A., & Verney, S. (2012). Electoral Epidemic: The Political Cost of Economic Crisis in Southern Europe, 2010–11. South European Society and Politics, 17(2), 129–154. Botella, J., Rodríguez, J., Barberá, O., & Barrio, A. (2010). A New Political Elite in Western Europe? The Political Careers of Regional Prime Ministers in Newly Decentralized Countries. French Politics, 8(1), 42–61. Colino, C. (2021). Democracy and Federalism in Spain: Interactions, Tensions, and Compatibilities. In A. Benz & J. Sonnicksen (Eds.), Federal Democracies at Work. Varieties of Complex Government  (pp. 197–217). Toronto: Toronto University Press. Coller, X., Cordero, G., & Jaime-Castillo, A. (Eds.). (2018). The Selection of Politicians in Times of Crisis. London: Routledge. Coller, X., Jaime-Castillo, A., & Mota, F. (Eds.). (2016). El poder político en España: parlamentarios y ciudadanía. Madrid: CIS. Coller, X., Jaime-Castillo, A., & Mota, F. (Eds.). (2018). Political Power in Spain: The Multiple Divides between Politicians and Citizens. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Coller, X., Jiménez, M., & Portillo-Pérez, M. (2020). It Is Not the Economy: How Spanish Established Political Elites Understand the (Political) Crisis and Its Effects. In A. Freire, M. Barragán, X. Coller, M. Lisi, & E. Tsatsanis (Eds.), Political Representation in Southern Europe and Latin America Before and After the Great Recession and Commodity Crisis (pp.  85–101). London: Routledge. Cordero, G., & Christmann, P. (2018). ¿Podemos? Crónica de un éxito inesperado en las elecciones europeas de 2014. In M. Torcal (Ed.), Opinión Pública y Cambio Electoral en España: Claves ante el Reto Europeo y la Crisis Política y Económica (pp. 153–172). Madrid: CIS. Cordero, G., & Coller, X. (Eds.). (2018). Democratizing Candidates Selection. New Methods, Old Receipts? London: Palgrave Macmillan. Daloz, J. P. (2019). On the (Lack of) Autonomy of Political Elites as Representatives. In L. Vogel, R. Gebauer, & A. Salheiser (Eds.), The Contested Status of Political Elites (pp. 33–43). London: Routledge. De Winter, L., Karlsen, R., & Schmitt, H. (2021). Parliamentary Candidates Between Voters and Parties. A Comparative Perspective. London: Routledge. Di Virgilio, A., & Segatti, P. (2016). La rapresentanza politica in Italia. Bolonia: Il Mulino. EIU (The Economist Intelligence Unit). (2019). Democracy Index.  A Year of Democratic Setbacks and Popular Protest. London: The Economist. Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://www.eiu.com/topic/democracy-­index.

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EIU (The Economist Intelligence Unit). (2021). Democracy Index. In Sickness and in Health? London: The Economist. Retrieved March 2, 2021, from https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-­index-­2020/. Escobar, M. (2020). Índice de calidad de la democracia. Leve mejora de la calidad democrática en año electoral: 6,1. In A.  Penadés (Dtor), Informe sobre la democracia en España 2019 (pp. 203–231). Madrid: Fundación Alternativas. Fishman, R.  M. (2019). Democratic Practice: Origins of the Iberian Divide in Political Inclusion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foa, R. S., & Mounk, Y. (2017). The Signs of Deconsolidation. The Journal of Democracy, 28(1), 5–16. Freire, A., Lisi, M., Andreadis, I., & Viegas, J. M. (2016a). Political Representation in Times of Bailout. Evidence from Greece and Portugal. London: Routledge. Freire, A., Lisi, M., & Viegas, J. M. (2016b). Participaçao e Representaçao políticas na Europa em Crise. Lisboa: Assembleia da República. Gaxie, D. (2018). Political and Social Backgrounds of Political Elites. In H. Best & J. Higley (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Political Elites (pp. 489–506). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Gaxie, D., & Godmer, L. (2007). Cultural Capital and Political Selection: Educational Background of Parliamentarians. In M. Cotta & H. Best (Eds.), Democratic Representation in Europe: Diversity, Change and Convergence (pp. 106–135). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Higley, J., & Burton, M. (2006). Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Hoffman-Lange, U. (2018). Methods of Elite Identification. In H.  Best & J. Higley (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Political Elites (pp. 79–92). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hoffman-Lange, U., & Kuklys, M. (2019). European Citizens and Elites in Times of Economic Crisis and Citizen Unrest. In L. Vogel, R. Gebauer, & A. Salheiser (Eds.), The Contested Status of Political Elites (pp. 58–83). London: Routledge. IDEA (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance). (2019). The Global State of Democracy 2019. Addressing the Ills, Reviving the Promise. Stockholm: IDEA. Retrieved October 21, 2020, from http://www.eiu.com/ Handlers/WhitepaperHandler.ashx?fi=Democracy-­Index-­2019.pdf&mode=w p&campaignid=democracyindex2019. Jiménez, F., & Villoria, M. (2012). Political Finance, Urban Development and Political Corruption in Spain. In J.  Mendilow (Ed.), Money, Corruption and Competition in Established and Emerging Democracies (pp.  115–136). Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books. Jiménez-Sánchez, M., Coller, X., & Portillo-Pérez, M. (2018). MPs of Traditional Parties’ Perceptions on Candidate Selection in Times of Political Crisis and Reform. In G. Cordero & X. Coller (Eds.), Democratizing Candidates Selection. New Methods, Old Receipts? (pp. 147–171). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Kott, P. S. (2016). Calibration weighting in survey sampling. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Computational Statistics, 8(1), 39–53. Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How Democracies Die. New  York: Penguin Random House. Lijphart, A. (1999). Patterns of Democracy. Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven: Yale University Press. Linz, J. J. (1978). The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes. Crisis, Breakdown and Re-equilibration. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. Morlino, L., & Raniolo, F. (2017). The Impact of the Economic Crisis on South European Democracies. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Preston, P. (2019). Un pueblo traicionado. España de 1874 a nuestros días. Corrupción, incompetencia política y división social. Madrid: Debate. Przeworski, A. (2019). Crises of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Putnam, R. (1976). The Comparative Study of Political Elites. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Repucci, S., & Slipowitz, A. (2021). Freedom in the World 2021. Democracy under Siege, Washington: Freedom House. Retrieved March 4, 2021, from www.freedomhouse.org. Runciman, D. (2018). How Democracies Die. New York: Basic Books. Semenova, E. (2018). Research Methods for Studying Elites. In H.  Best & J. Higley (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Political Elites (pp. 71–78). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Torcal, M. (2014). The Decline of Political Trust in Spain and Portugal: Economic Performance or Political Responsiveness? American Behavioral Scientist, 58(12), 1542–1567. Tronconi, F. (2018). Sub-national Political Elites. In H. Best & J. Higley (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Political Elites (pp.  611–624). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Urquizu, I. (2016). La crisis de la representación en España. Madrid: Catarata. Vandeleene, A., De Winter, L., & Baudewyn, P. (Eds.). (2018). Candidates, Parties and Voters in the Belgian Partitocracy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Villoria, M. (2015). La corrupción en España: rasgos y causas esenciales”, Cahiers de civilisation espagnole contemporaine [online] 15, https://doi.org/10.4000/ ccec.5949. Accessed January 20, 2021. Vogel, L., Gebauer, R., & Salheiser, A. (Eds.). (2019). The Contested Status of Political Elites. London: Routledge.

CHAPTER 2

Do MPs Represent Us? Sandra Bermúdez and Inmaculada Serrano

Introduction The wake of the Great Recession has had significant political impacts in Southern European countries including changes in the channels and intensity of political participation (Freire et al. 2014); the emergence and success of new parties (Morlino and Raniolo 2017a; Hernández and Kriesi 2016; Kriesi 2012); and increased volatility and party fragmentation (Morlino and Raniolo 2017b). All of these changes have significantly altered the composition and functioning of party systems, parliaments and governments (Bosco and Verney 2016). In particular, the Spanish political landscape has been profoundly transformed since 2008. In a historical shift, the 2015 general election ended the ‘imperfect bipartisan’ system that had characterised the country since the democratic transition in 1977.

S. Bermúdez (*) Department of Political Science and Administration, National Distance Education University (UNED), Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] I. Serrano University Institute of Studies on Migration (IUEM). Comillas Pontifical University, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 X. Coller, L. Sánchez-Ferrer (eds.), Politicians in Hard Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70242-7_2

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The two traditional parties that alternated in government since the 1980s—the conservative Partido Popular (PP) and the social democratic Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE)—took only 50% of the vote; a dramatic drop from historical percentages of around 80%. A large part of the ‘lost votes’ and of the new voters were not captured by the official opposition and existing smaller parties, but by two new state-wide parties—the left-wing Podemos and centre (or centre-right) party Ciudadanos—which received over 34.5% of the votes (Orriols and Cordero 2016). Scholars agree that these transformations respond to a representation crisis that was exposed and amplified by the Great Recession (Coller et al. 2020; Morlino and Raniolo 2017b; Hobolt and de Vries 2016; Bosco and Verney 2012), with remarkable negative trends in satisfaction levels towards democracy, distrust towards institutions and political disaffection (Orriols and Cordero 2016; Sanz et al. 2015; Torcal 2014; Freire et al. 2014). The roots of this crisis can be found in the diminished capacity of governments to respond to citizen demands in a context of globalisation, among other factors (Marx and Nguyen 2018; Mair 2013). In the case of Spain, as in other Southern European countries, the financial crisis led to the adoption of dramatic and unpopular austerity measures overseen by European institutions, which fuelled widespread public protests (the Indignados movement) against austerity, the bailout of banks, and demands for ‘real democracy’ (Orriols and Cordero 2016). But more specifically, there is clear evidence of a ‘startling delegitimation of parties’ (Bosco and Verney 2012: 151), with sharp increases in distrust towards representatives (Portillo and Dominguez, 2020; Freire et al. 2017; Orriols and Cordero 2016; Torcal 2014), deepening a trend that was already established before the crisis (Dalton 1999; Holmberg 1999; Klingemann 1999). Scholars have highlighted a progressive weakening of the linkage between representatives and society, particularly since the emergence of cartel parties, with an increase in the professionalization of politics, ideological convergence and corruption levels (Mair 2013; Torcal 2014; Katz and Mair 1995; Pinto and Verzichelli 2016). In Spain, the Indignados most repeated slogan was in fact: ‘They don’t represent us!’ in reference to the PP and PSOE, which are the mainstream parties that have dominated politics since the transition. The question now is whether changes in attitudes as well as protest and voting behaviour are having impacts on the political system and political leadership that may help address this crisis of representation. In this

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chapter, we ask whether these social and political changes have impacted the socio-demographic profile of MPs in terms of their social diversity and social distance with their voters and citizens. Empirical research has found that men above 40, and university trained liberal professionals, from the middle-upper strata of society, have dominated Western parliaments for decades (Cotta and Best 2007; Best and Cotta 2000). This has meant the systematic underrepresentation of women, younger citizens and the working class, although differences exist across parties, particularly along the left-right axis (Kakepaki et  al. 2018; Norris and Lovenduski 1994; Aberbach et al. 1981). The importance of the social profile of parliamentarians has been emphasised by elite studies, as it may have implications for the type of laws introduced in parliament or the resulting public policies (Best 2007; Best and Cotta 2000; Norris and Lovenduski 1994; Bottomore 1993; Aberbach et al. 1981). We know, for instance, that having a higher proportion of women MPs promotes social, health care and/or environmental issues in parliament (Ramstetter and Habersack 2019; Osborn and Kreitzer 2014; Wängnerud 2009). As a result, the systematic exclusion or underrepresentation of certain social profiles in the exercise of the representational function may also constitute an important aspect of citizens’ assessment of representation, which may have implications for the current crisis of legitimacy (Vivyan et al. 2020; Castiglione 2012; Celis and Mazur 2012; Urbinati and Warren 2008). We hypothesise that increased heterogeneity and decreased distance with society can happen through two main mechanisms: at the level of parliament, by changes in the party composition of parliaments through the entry of new parties; and at party level, by adjustments in the social profile of parliamentarians from old parties. Using original survey data collected from all national and regional chambers in Spain in 2010 and 2018 we find that the new parties have contributed to diminishing the underrepresentation of younger cohorts, while gender parity has improved overall and across parties, with mixed contributions from the new parties. On the other hand, the predominance of educational and liberal professions, as well as a remarkable religiosity gap between parties and voters, remain or have been intensified. On these dimensions, the new parties have simply helped to reproduce the traditional left-right wing patterns. Defined by their professions, parliamentarians overwhelmingly belong to the higher strata of society, but over half of them have had upward mobility trajectories, mostly originating in working-class families. This is unequally divided between left-right and old-new parties, with the PSOE

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including the largest amount  of working-class origins, followed by Podemos and PP, and finally Ciudadanos (Cs). Considering the variable ‘distance with voters’, Podemos is the party closest to its voters on most dimensions (age, educational level, religiosity) and the only one that over represents women. This chapter first discusses the relevance of descriptive representation (Pitkin 1967) and the main variables we analyse (gender, age, education, profession, place of residence, religiosity and class) in the context of the crisis of representation in Spain (2010–2018). We then proceed to analyse the socio-demographic characteristics of Spanish MPs, focusing on the evolution of the PP and PSOE during the observed period, and a comparison with Podemos and Ciudadanos. We consider both the parties’ profiles and the distance with their voters, and focus on their overall evolution along the new-old and left-right axis. Next, we similarly analyse the social class and social origins of parliamentarians.

Descriptive Representation Pitkin’s (1967) seminal work established widespread scepticism about the importance of descriptive representation (i.e. whether parliamentarians resemble society), as this was considered unnecessary for attaining substantive representation (i.e. whether parliamentarians’ decisions and actions reflect the preferences and best interest of their constituents) and only the latter was considered quintessential for good representation (Freire et al. 2014). However, these two assumptions remain disputed. On one hand, there are empirical and theoretical arguments that emphasise the importance of descriptive representation for attaining substantive representation (Minta 2012; Phillips 2012; Mansbridge 1999). In particular, deliberative approaches to representation (Manin 1997; Habermas 1996) consider that parties and parliaments not only reflect but also construct interests through the formation of public opinion and judgement (Castiglione 2012; Urbinati and Warren 2008). In this view, the presence of relevant social diversity, including specific shared experiences, perspectives and sensibilities, is crucial for shaping such deliberative process and any judgement of substantive representation (Minta 2012; Phillips 1995, 2012; Mansbridge 1999, 2003). On the other hand, descriptive representation is  determinant on its own when considering equality and inclusion as a sine qua non for democratic representation (Celis and Mazur 2012). From this perspective, fair descriptive

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representation matters, in particular or at least, when tackling pervasive social hierarchies and political inequalities, as it serves to signal the openness of the socio-political system (Dodeigne and Teuber 2018; Phillips 2012) and the full citizenship status of disadvantaged groups (Celis and Mazur 2012). This has been shown to improve feelings of being represented, as well as levels of trust and participation (Celis and Mazur 2012; Minta 2012). Opportunities to serve in elected institutions are in fact not equally distributed (Dodeigne and Teuber 2018). For instance, holding a university degree has become a near universal entry characteristic among parliamentarians (Gaxie and Godmer 2007; Keller 1963). However, although access to higher education has been greatly expanded, it is still greatly influenced by social status (as mediated, among others, by family’s cultural capital) (e.g. Aakvik et al. 2005). Unequal probabilities to serve in parliament also respond to long-term recruitment patterns (Dodeigne and Teuber 2018). With the professionalization of parties, recruitment is mostly based on expertise, which is acquired through education but also by career development and experience in the political party or public positions (Hoffmann-Lange 2020; Dodeigne and Teuber 2018; Cotta and Best 2007). MPs’ careers are frequently defined (even in their totality) by their integration into the structures of political parties, and they therefore miss the experience of practising other professions, which further distances them from ordinary citizens. Thus, in Spain, as in other Southern European countries, the Indignados movement and the new parties protested against mainstream parties’ representatives—Podemos referred to them as ‘la casta’ (Kioupkiolis 2016)—depicting them as dependent on party careers and state resources, with little understanding and responsiveness to citizens’ circumstances, and as largely corrupt. To the extent that some social characteristics are preferred over others (experience, gender, education or religiosity), candidate selection also contributes to some social bias (Norris and Lovenduski 1994). The social inequalities underlying some of these characteristics erect additional barriers, for instance, for women, and young people (Stirbu et al. 2018; Uriarte and Ruiz 1999). In turn, younger generations, which have also been severely affected by the economic crisis in Spain, have been particularly critical of the political system (depicted by some leftist groups as ‘the 1978 regime’) and supportive of the protests and new parties (Vidal 2018; Orriols and Cordero 2016). The feminist movement has also constantly grown, since the Indignados movement from which Podemos blossomed

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S. BERMÚDEZ AND I. SERRANO

(della Porta et al. 2017; Rodon and Hierro 2016), into a massive organisation that reached critical momentum in 2018 (Campillo 2019) and with specific weight within the party. Therefore, we expect that the new parties (Podemos and Ciudadanos), which have voiced and embodied the concerns and grievances of the crisis of representation (Vidal 2018; Orriols and Cordero 2016; Rodon and Hierro 2016) will be more socially diverse and less biased than the old mainstream parties in terms of the basic dimensions discussed (gender, age, education, profession, place of residence, religiosity and class). This we believe would be the result of two effects: the attraction of candidates with underrepresented social characteristics, and the active recruitment and selective promotion of such candidates by the new parties, including the extensive use of horizontal mechanisms (Kakepaki et al. 2018; Pérez-­ Nievas et al. 2018; Rodon and Hierro 2016). We also expect that the old mainstream parties (the PSOE and PP) will adjust the social characteristics of their parliamentarians as a response. This could occur either by introducing changes in the party organisation (Cordero and Coller 2018)—for instance, making it less hierarchical or democratising selection procedures of party candidates—or at the level of the substantive decision of picking candidates. We nonetheless expect these latter adjustments to be more limited, as a result of organisational inertia (Jiménez-Sánchez et al. 2018).

Data and Methods In the next sections, we analyse the socio-demographic characteristics of Spanish MPs, using survey data collected from all national and regional chambers in 2010 and 2018. For 2018, we draw on the parliamentarians survey under the CIUPARCRI study  (2018), which is part of the Comparative Candidates Survey. For the 2010 party comparison, we employ the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas study (CIS 2827). Both are considered as the first (2009/10) and the second wave (2018) of the same study, following similar questionnaires and methodology. We also compare the voters’ socio-demographic distribution to that of each party’s representatives using the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas 2016 post-­ electoral survey (CIS 3145). In this study, we find the recalled vote in the 2016 national election; the main election through which the parliamentarians that participated in the MPs 2018 study were elected. After comparing the percentages of parties’ social characteristics with their voter’s percentages, we find positive and negative differences. A positive difference means that the characteristic considered is overrepresented among

2  DO MPS REPRESENT US? 

27

parliamentarians with respect to their voters, and a negative value means that it is underrepresented. In the reported data, tables and figures, all the descriptive characteristics as well as the social distance, the total proportions include the whole sample of parties/voters, and not only the four parties/electors shown.1

Do MPs Resemble Us? The accession of women to political power has been a constant historical demand, with the corollary of gender parity in parliaments seen as necessary because of its impact on both legislative agendas and ways of exercising politics. This discussion guided the introduction in Spain of the Organic Law 3/2007 (also known as the Gender Equality law) which modified, among others, Spanish electoral law, and meant the introduction of gender quotas: every party list must include between 40 and 60% of candidates of either of the two sexes; meaning that female or male candidates have to represent at least 40% of the candidates on each party list. Since then, the incorporation of women in Spanish parliaments has increased notably, placing the country in the leading group among European countries, just behind the Scandinavian countries (Verge and Wiesehomeier 2019; Coller et al. 2018). For this reason, the two main traditional parties already displayed high percentages of female representation in 2010: 43% in the case of the left-­ wing PSOE and 38% in the case of the conservative PP (see Fig. 2.1). This trend has accentuated in the wake of the crisis, with both parties increasing female representation (by 2% in the former party and 4% in the latter case). In 2018, the differences between these two traditional parties were unremarkable. However, we find clear differences among the new political parties: while left-wing Podemos (UPs) stands out for having the highest female rate in parliament (57%), centre-right Ciudadanos (Cs) stands out for having the lowest (35%) of all four parties. As a result, these are the parties with the largest differences with their electorates: Cs underrepresents their female voters the most (-18 percentage points), even more than traditional parties (−11 on average) while UPs is the only party that over-­ represents them (+11 percentage points). The notable female representation among UPs’ representatives can be linked to the roots of the party at the Indignados movement (Kioupkiolis 2016; Rodon and Hierro 2016), which incorporated and boosted feminist demands and the movement in the country (Campillo 2019), whereas this connection did not exist in the founding of centre-right Cs.

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S. BERMÚDEZ AND I. SERRANO

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 PP 2018

PP 2010

PSOE 2018 PSOE 2010 Men

Cs 2018

Ups 2018

Total 2018 Total 2010

Women

20 15 10 5 0 -5 -10 -15 -20

Dif PP

Dif PSOE

Dif Cs Men

Dif Ups

Dif Total

Women

Fig. 2.1  Gender profile by party (top) and distance with their voters (bottom) (in %). (Source: Own elaboration with CIUPARCRI (2018), CIS 2827 (2010) and CIS 3145 (2016) datasets)

Age is another basic socio-demographic dimension with long-standing biases in parliamentary representation, specifically by underrepresenting the youth (under 35s). Spanish parliamentarians stood out as relatively young in comparative perspective following the transition to democracy in 1978, but their age increased over time as a result of parliamentarians’ continuity in the different chambers (Coller 2008: 139–140). In 2018,

2  DO MPS REPRESENT US? 

29

the average age of MPs had increased (from 49.3 to 50.2) (see Table 2.3 in the annex) and was already in line with other European parliaments in which the average age is around 50 years old (Audickas and Cracknell 2020; Kountouri 2018). Throughout the crisis, the age profiles of the two main parties have evolved in opposite directions: while the PSOE has increased the proportion of parliamentarians under 45 (from 28% to almost 33%), the PP has diminished it (from 35% to 20%) (see Fig. 2.2). Cs and UPs have, in contrast and as expected, a larger proportion of young

50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 PP 2018

PP 2010

PSOE 2018 PSOE 2010 18-34

35-44

Cs 2018 45-54

Ups 2018 55-64

Total 2018 Total 2010

65+

20 10 0 -10 -20 -30 -40

Dif PP

Dif PSOE 18-34

Dif Cs 35-44

45-54

Dif Ups 55-64

Dif Total

65+

Fig. 2.2  Age profile by party (top) and distance with their voters (bottom) (in %). (Source: Own elaboration with CIUPARCRI (2018), CIS 2827 (2010) and CIS 3145 (2016) datasets)

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S. BERMÚDEZ AND I. SERRANO

MPs (51% and 44% respectively). Still, all parties underrepresent their voters under 35 (see Table 2.4 in the annex): since Cs and UPs are the most successful among this group (29% and 32% of their voters) they both underrepresent this age cohort the most (−15 and −23 percentage points in the case of UPs and Cs, respectively) (see Fig. 2.2). Traditional parties have now fewer young voters and consequently underrepresent this group to a lesser extent (−11% for the PP and −7% for the PSOE). The dominance of higher education among parliamentarians is intense, with 86% being university graduates (see Table  2.3 in the annex). This percentage has not changed in the years of the crisis, and there has been an increase in representatives with postgraduate studies (more than 25 percentage points) in both the PP and PSOE.  In 2018, all parties had similar educational levels. Exceptionally, UPs stands out with the highest education credentials: more than 50% of its parliamentarians interviewed hold a Master or a PhD degree. As a result, the differences between parties in relation to educational distance with voters are a reflection of their voters’ profiles. UPs and Cs are the parties closest to their electorates, in particular UPs, since their electorates have a higher educational level than the rest (around 30% hold a university degree). The majority of MPs are either teaching professionals (22%), lawyers (17%), or managers, either in the public or in the private sector (15%) (see Table 2.3 in the annex). These educational and liberal professions stand out in almost all Western parliaments (Coller et al. 2018; Best and Cotta 2000; Norris and Lovenduski 1994). Two factors can explain the predominance of these occupations among parliamentarians. First, the affinity of these professions with the legislative process can facilitate parliamentarians’ professional work—in terms of the similar speaking and writing skills. Second, these professions are ‘dispensable’ in the sense that they are highly flexible as there is the possibility of returning to these jobs once a political career is over. This fact facilitates MPs going ‘back and forth’ from politics (Weber 1981). But there is a clear division between left-wing and centre or right-wing parties, which is reproduced before and after the crisis: both left-wing PSOE and UPs have more teachers among their parliamentarians, while Cs and the PP have more lawyers and managers. It is striking that UPs, with the highest educational rate, is also the party that contains representatives with the largest proportion of medium and low-qualified occupations. This can be explained by the young age of its parliamentarians, which is the population group that is characterised for being the most educated, but having the most precarious employment status.

2  DO MPS REPRESENT US? 

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The place of residence is another differentiating feature between new and traditional parties (see Table  2.3 in the annex). Podemos and Ciudadanos clearly stand out for having representatives that live mainly in cities (around 70% of their MPs) in contrast with the mainstream parties (around 50%). This indicates that PP and PSOE parliamentarians usually live in rural areas and small municipalities, in higher proportions than those of the new parties do. The electoral system and its majoritarian bias in small districts (that mostly include rural districts) make Ps and Cs, and the small parties in general, have difficulties in achieving representation in these territories. Religiosity is an important dimension of representation across the one-­ dimensional ideological spectrum in Spain, which is nonetheless frequently overlooked.2 Following a common historical pattern in comparative perspective (Norris and Lovenduski 1994: 88), MPs of the conservative PP have been significantly more religious than MPs of the  left-wing PSOE (54% of practising Catholics vs 3% in 2010). This pattern has accentuated during the crisis, as can be seen in Fig. 2.3: PP’s share of practitioners has increased to 63%, whereas that of the PSOE has fallen further to 2%, with a majority still declaring themselves agnostics or atheists (66%). UPs replicates the PSOE pattern, only intensified (85% share of non-Catholics), whereas Cs, a centre-right party, occupies an intermediate position, with 50% of its representatives declaring themselves agnostics or atheists. Overall, religiosity levels remain constant across-time. The distance between parties and electorates in terms of religiosity has been and remains significant, with opposite signs for left and right-wing parties: MPs from the conservative party are more religious than their voters, while MPs from left-wing and centre parties (PSOE, UPs and Cs) are less religious than their voters. More specifically, a majority of PSOE or Cs representatives declare themselves agnostics or atheists, whereas a majority of their voters declare themselves simply non-practising Catholics. This pattern can also be observed in the case of UPs but the distance is less pronounced, making the party closest to its electorate. In the case of the PP, the most relevant difference lies in the level of religious practice: PP representatives declare themselves practising Catholics to a larger extent than their voters, who register a higher proportion of non-practising Catholics. In sum, the PSOE is the party that registers the largest differences with their voters in terms of religiosity. To conclude, the findings confirm the continued underrepresentation of females, youth and non-graduates, but with important exceptions and

32 

S. BERMÚDEZ AND I. SERRANO

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

PP 2018

PP 2010

PSOE 2018 PSOE 2010

Practising catholic

Cs 2018

Non-practising catholic

Ups 2018

Total 2018 Total 2010

Agnostic or atheist

Other religions

50 40 30 20 10 0 -10 -20 -30 -40

Dif PP Practising catholic

Dif PSOE

Dif Cs

Non-practising catholic

Dif Ups Agnostic or atheist

Dif Total Other religions

Fig. 2.3  Religiosity profile by party (up) and distance with their voters (down) (in %). (Source: Own elaboration with CIUPARCRI (2018), CIS 2827 (2010) and CIS 3145 (2016) datasets)

caveats. All parties, and parliamentarians overall, are now closer to gender parity, with a particularly remarkable contribution from UPs. The new parties have particularly contributed to improving the representation of younger age cohorts, particularly UPs. In contrast, the educational credentials of all parties have only increased during the crisis, and are now

2  DO MPS REPRESENT US? 

33

very similar. Findings also show the overrepresentation of some professions, while the distance with voters in terms of religiosity has continued, replicating the traditional patterns of the left-right division.

Social Class: Where Do Parliamentarians Come From? Social class represents a classical structural cleavage in industrial societies that continues to explain individuals’ social attitudes and voting behaviour (Henjak 2010; Kriesi 2010). As a nuclear social feature, it is important to explore how parliaments mirror social strata and class mobility. The underrepresentation of the working class in parliaments nowadays is largely connected to the increasing prevalence of advanced education and liberal professions, as discussed above. Considering that the overwhelming majority of parliamentarians pertain to the most privileged occupations, it is important to also assess the dimension of class origin by family background (or intergenerational class mobility): first, to assess whether class biases in parliaments are the result of social reproduction or whether parliaments are open to existing processes of social mobility. And second, if parliamentarians’ class origins is diverse, this might serve to mitigate dissatisfaction with class representation, as exemplified by recent evidence from Germany and Britain, which shows that working-class voters value politicians’ humble origins as a result of class-affinity bias (Vivyan et  al. 2020). That is, the class distribution of MPs may be less of an issue as long as intergenerational class mobility is substantial among them (Ibid. 2020). Using the classical scheme by Goldthorpe and Erikson (1993),3 we confirm that an overwhelming majority of MPs (95%) belong to the higher strata of society—defined by the status of their main professions. However, MPs’ social origins are not necessarily privileged4: as Table  2.1 shows, more than half of MPs (54%) have experienced upward intergenerational mobility and come from working-class (36%) or middle-class families (18%). Less than half of MPs (42%) were born into families from the most privileged groups. The extent of upward mobility among MPs in fact increased during the crisis (by 7 percentage points), with a larger increase of working-class origins (around 17 points) and a decrease in middle-class families (around 10 points). The representation of working-class origins follows a classic left-right axis divide (see Table 2.2). In 2010, the left-wing PSOE included 57% of

Father’s social class 2010

37.6 (134)

0.6

34.3 2.8

100 (356)

1.1 (4)

94.7 (337) 4.2 (15)

Note: The shading indicates the degree of upward social mobility

Source: Own elaboration from CIUPARCRI (2018) and CIS 2827 (2010) datasets.

18.3 (65)

–

17.7 0.6

47 (234)

–

44 3

33 (168)

1

28 4

20 (102)

1

17 2

Service class Intermediate class Working class Total MPs (N) Service class Intermediate class Working class

Father’s social class 2018

Service class 42.7 Intermediate 0.8 class Working 0.6 class Total fathers 44.1 (157) (N)

MPs’ social class 2018/2010

Table 2.1  Social mobility according to fathers’ profession (in %)

100 (504)

2 (10)

89 (449) 9 (45)

Total MPs (N)

34  S. BERMÚDEZ AND I. SERRANO

2  DO MPS REPRESENT US? 

35

Table 2.2  Social mobility by party (in %)

Social reproduction Upward mobility Downward mobility Total (N)

PP

PSOE

Cs

UPs

Total

46 53 1 100 (131)

27 72 1 100 (93)

60 40 – 100 (25)

43 53 4 100 (53)

44 55 1 100 (357)

Source: Own elaboration from CIUPARCRI (2018) and CIS 2827 (2010) datasets

representatives with upwardly mobile trajectories among their MPs, mostly with working-class origins, compared to only 37% in the conservative PP.  During the crisis, both parties have increased the representation of these upwardly mobile trajectories by 15%; still leaving the PSOE with a higher proportion (70% vs 53% in the PP). The new parties follow a similar pattern, since centre-right Cs has a lower presence of upward trajectories than the left-wing UPs (40% vs 53%, respectively). But, notably, both parties include fewer upward trajectories than their old parties’ counterparts on the left-right dimension do. Cs is in fact the only party with a larger proportion of class reproduction (60%) than upward mobility (40%). And UPs is not only clearly behind the PSOE in terms of upward mobility, but it registers similar levels to those of the conservative PP.

Conclusions The Great Recession exposed and expanded the crisis of representation, which was reflected in distance and distrust towards parties and their representatives (Portillo and Dominguez 2020; Freire et  al. 2017; Orriols and Cordero 2016; Torcal 2014). This was exemplified in the Indignados’ ‘They don’t represent us!’ slogan with reference to the PP and PSOE, the mainstream parties that had dominated Spanish politics since the transition. However, the 2015 national elections inaugurated a new multi-party system with the entry of two new state-level parties, left-wing Podemos and centre-right Ciudadanos. In this chapter, we have asked whether these social and political changes have affected the socio-demographic profile of MPs, in particular improving the descriptive representation of certain historically underrepresented groups. We found that the new parties have contributed in particular to reducing youth underrepresentation, while gender parity has improved overall

36 

S. BERMÚDEZ AND I. SERRANO

and across parties, with mixed contributions from the new parties. Podemos stands out as the party with the highest rates of young  and female parliamentarians (it actually over-represents the latter). This closer MPs’ descriptive representation can be explained by changes in party recruitment processes and electoral competition. Both Podemos and Ciudadanos introduced primaries as a response to the lack of intra-party democracy among established parties (Jaime-Castillo et al. 2018). In this regard, inclusive recruitment dynamics has helped incorporate more varied profiles into their party ranks, as well as initially attract them; in opposition or protest at old parties’ biases. In fact, Podemos’ party primaries and horizontal structure seem to have contributed in particular to reducing the distance with their party base and voters across the board. Traditional parties, both the PP and the PSOE, have recently modified their party recruitment mechanisms towards more participative processes; although they still have exclusive systems (see Jaime-Castillo et al. 2018), which might explain the evolution of MPs profiles. Additionally, mainstream traditional parties may also increase the presence of traditionally underrepresented profiles in their party lists to prevent the loss of votes and counteract the ‘old versus new’ representation narrative. In this regard, we have seen that the PSOE has younger MPs, and that both the PP and PSOE have particularly improved the representation of women and underprivileged social groups, which can help anchor these types of voters and reduce the perception of social distance of these traditional parties more generally. In all other dimensions, the new parties have simply helped reproduce the traditional left-right wing patterns in terms of dominant professions, extent and direction of the religiosity gap, and most importantly, class status and class origins. Defined by their professions, parliamentarians overwhelmingly belong to the higher strata of society, but over half have had upward mobility trajectories, mostly originating in working-class families. The presence of these latter profiles has increased during the crisis, not as a result of the new parties’ contributions, but rather of the improved representation of these trajectories by the old parties (both the PSOE and PP). The general pattern of class origins continues to respond largely to the left-right axis, with the PSOE including the largest amount of upward trajectories, followed by Podemos and PP, and finally Cs. In contrast, education credentials have increased in all parties, and Podemos displays the highest level, breaking a historical pattern of dominance of centre-right and right wing parties on this dimension.

2  DO MPS REPRESENT US? 

37

These trends are different in other similar European counterparts. In Italy, the Partito Democratico (PD) and the Popolo delle Libertà (PdL) mainstream parties have younger and more female  MPs after the emergence of Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) and the Lega Norte, while in Greece and Portugal the differences are not evident on these dimensions (Freire and Coller 2019; Kakepaki et al. 2018). However, MPs’ education status has increased in all cases; confirming that educational qualifications are an indispensable attribute of political entry that cannot be explained in terms of the left-right divide. In sum, in Spain the economic crisis has contributed to improve the descriptive representation of traditionally underrepresented groups: females, younger cohorts and the working class, although it has intensified that of the lower-educated. The new parties have particularly contributed to improving the representation of the younger generation, while all parties (with the possible caveat of Ciudadanos) have helped advance towards gender parity, and old parties have improved the representation of the working-class. The overrepresentation of some professions and the distance with voters in terms of religiosity has also continued after the crisis, replicating the traditional patterns of the left-right division.

Annex Table 2.3  Socio-demographic profile of MPs (in %) (Source: Own elaboration with CIUPARCRI (2018) and CIS 2827 (2010) datasets) PP

Gender Men Women Total N Age (mean) 18–34 35–44 45–54 55–64 65+ Total N

PP

PSOE PSOE Cs

Ups

Total Total

2018 2010 2018

2010

2018 2018 2018 2010

58 42 100 163 52.9 2 18 39 36 4 100 161

57 43 100 239 49.9 11 18 36 34 1 100 204

65 35 100 34 46.6 6 46 31 14 3 100 35

63 38 100 248 49.5 7 28 39 18 8 100 206

55 45 100 114 50.4 7 26 33 30 4 100 114

43 57 100 68 48.1 18 26 19 32 4 100 68

57 43 100 451 50.2 8 25 34 28 4 100 450

61 39 100 581 49.3 10 23 38 25 4 100 494

(continued)

38 

S. BERMÚDEZ AND I. SERRANO

Table 2.3 (continued) PP

Education Primary and Secondary University Master and PhD Total N Occupation Directors and/or managers Engineers and/or architects Doctors Journalists, translators and writers Teachers and/or teaching professionals Consultants and/or advisors Lawyers and related Other high graduated occupations Other mid-level occupations Other non-qualified occupations Unemployed, retired or students Housewives or related Total N Place of residence Rural area or town Small or mid-size municipality In the suburbs In the city Total N Religiosity Practising catholic Non-practising catholic Agnostic or atheist Other religions Total N

PP

PSOE PSOE Cs

Ups

Total Total

2018 2010 2018

2010

2018 2018 2018 2010

17 53 30 100 162

11 85 5 100 246

14 53 33 100 114

19 70 11 100 239

15 47 38 100 34

9 38 53 100 68

14 51 35 100 451

14 78 8 100 579

18 6 7 1 19

12 5 7 2 12

14 2 5 3 30

6 3 7 − 28

19 6 3 6 14

11 3 5 5 24

15 5 5 4 22

9 4 6 2 20

3 23 8 8 6 − − 100 154

− 20 8 20 5 9 − 100 241

6 13 15 8 4 1 − 100 109

− 10 12 22 6 7 − 100 240

6 14 14 6 6 8 − 100 36

3 11 15 12 11 2 − 100 66

5 17 12 8 5 2 0 100 436

− 14 10 21 5 7 − 100 574

19 21 7 53 100 156

− − − − − −

13 30 5 53 100 111

− − − − − −

9 12 6 73 100 33

13 10 5 72 100 68

15 24 6 55 100 437

− − − − − −

63 32 5 − 100 157

54 41 5 − 100 244

2 32 66 − 100 110

3 26 69 1 100 234

15 35 50 − 100 34

3 10 85 1 100 68

27 30 42 1 100 440

27 33 39 1 100 570

2  DO MPS REPRESENT US? 

39

Table 2.4  Socio-demographic profile of electors and the difference with the parties they voted for (in %) (Source: Own elaboration with CIUPARCRI (2018) and CIS 3145 (2016) datasets)

Gender Men Women Total N Age 18–34 35–44 45–54 55–64 65+ Total N Education Primary and Secondary University Master or PhD. Total N Religiosity Practising catholic Non-­ practising catholic Agnostic or atheist Other religions Total N

PP voters

PSOE voters

Cs voters

UPs voters

Total voters

Dif PP

Dif PSOE

Dif Cs

Dif Ups

Dif Total

46 54 100 1196

45 55 100 1089

47 53 100 518

54 46 100 1012

48 52 100 4240

11 −11

10 −10

18 −18

−11 11

18 −18

14 14 17 16 39 100 1196

14 16 17 22 31 100 1089

29 24 25 13 10 100 518

33 24 19 14 10 100 1012

21 19 19 16 25 100 4240

−11 4 22 20 −35

−7 10 16 8 −27

−23 22 7 2 −7

−15 2 0 18 −6

−21 −19 −19 −16 −25

80

84

68

69

76

−63

−70

−53

−61

−76

19 1

15 1

30 2

30 1

23 1

34 30

37 33

17 36

9 52

−22 −1

100 1139

100 1017

100 511

100 996

100 4081

37

13

13

2

18

26

−11

2

0

−18

56

67

65

35

53

−24

−34

−30

−25

−53

5

18

21

61

28

0

47

29

24

−27

2

2

1

1

1

0

0

0

0

−1

100 1188

100 1072

100 509

100 969

100 4148

40 

S. BERMÚDEZ AND I. SERRANO

Notes 1. In the following section, we include the figures representing the main social characteristics. For the sake of space, we do not provide graphical representations of MPs’ educational level, professions or place of residence. Tables reporting the proportions of these characteristics can be seen in the annex. 2. The question on religiosity was posed differently in 2010 than in the 2018 parliamentarian studies. In 2010 parliamentarians were asked to report directly if they feel: practising catholic, non-practising catholic, indifferent, agnostic, atheist or other religion. Given the need to homogenise questions with the Comparative Candidate Survey, in 2018, parliamentarians were asked two questions to capture level of religiosity. The first sought to capture the specific religion, and if the parliamentarian is catholic, other religion, agnostic or atheist. The latter captures the frequency of religious service attendance, excluding social ceremonies like weddings, communions or baptisms (from at least once a week… to never). Considering both questions we have categorised as ‘practising catholic’ those that feel catholic and attend religious services once a month or more. We have considered ‘non-­ practising catholic’ those who declare themselves as catholic but only attend church a few times a year, once a year, less than once a year or never. The remaining categories—other religions, agnostics and atheists—have been taken directly from the first specific religion question (and are individuals who rarely attend religious services). 3. The definition of social class is based on economic and social status derived from different occupational groupings, which for the purposes of this study is divided into three main categories: the service class (including professionals, administrators, managers and large employers); the intermediate class (composed of non-manual employees or service workers); and the working class (made up of manual and agrarian workers). 4. Social mobility considers the MP’s occupation before becoming an MP and father’s occupation.

References Aakvik, A., Vaage, K., & Salvanes, K.  G. (2005). Educational Attainment and Family Background. German Economic Review, 6(3), 377–394. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1468-­0475.2005.00138.x. Aberbach, J.  D., Putnam, R.  D., & Rockman, B.  A. (1981). Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Audickas, L., & Cracknell, R. (2020). Social Background of MPs 1979–2019 (Briefing Paper No. Number CBP 7483). London. Retrieved from https:// researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-­7483/CBP-­7483.pdf.

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Best, H. (2007). New Challenges, New Elites? Changes in the Recruitment and Career Patterns of European Representative Elites. Comparative Sociology, 6(1–2), 85–113. Best, H., & Cotta, M. (2000). Parliamentary Representatives in Europe 1848–2000. Legislative recruitments and Careers in Eleven European Countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bosco, A., & Verney, S. (2012). Electoral Epidemic: The Political Cost of Economic Crisis in Southern Europe, 2010–11. South European Society and Politics, 17(2), 129–154. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360874 6.2012.747272. Bosco, A., & Verney, S. (2016). From Electoral Epidemic to Government Epidemic: The Next Level of the Crisis in Southern Europe. South European Society and Politics, 21(4), 383–406. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360874 6.2017.1303866. Bottomore, T. (1993). Elites and Society (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Campillo, I. (2019). ‘If we stop, the world stops’: The 2018 Feminist Strike in Spain. Social Movement Studies, 18(2), 252–258. https://doi.org/10.108 0/14742837.2018.1556092. Castiglione, D. (2012). A New Agenda for Democratic Representation? Politics and Gender, 8(4), 518–523. Celis, K., & Mazur, A. G. (2012). Hanna Pitkin’s “Concept of Representation” Revisited. Introduction. Politics and Gender, 8(4), 508–512. CIUPARCRI. (2018). Ciudadanía y parlamentarios en tiempos de crisis y renovación democrática: el caso comparado de España en el contexto del sur de Europa. Research Project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (CSO2016-78016-R). Coller, X. (2008). El sesgo social de las élites políticas. El caso de la España de las Autonomías (1980–2005). Revista de Estudios Politicos, 141, 135–159. Coller, X., Domínguez, P., Portillo M., & Escobar, M. (2018). Elites políticas en España. ¿Convergencia o divergencia con la sociedad? In B. Pendás, E. González and R. Rubio (Eds.), España constitucional (1978–2018). Trayectorias y perspectivas, (tomo IV) (pp.  3363–3385). Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales. Coller, X., Jiménez-Sánchez, M., & Portillo, M. (2020). It is Not Just the Economy: How Spanish Established Political Elites Understand the (Political) Crisis and Its Effects. In A.  Freire, M.  Barragán, X.  Coller, M.  Lisi, & E.  Tsatsanis (Eds.), Political Representation in Southern Europe and Latin America Before and After the Great Recession and the Commodity Crisis (pp. 85–101). London: Routledge. Cordero, G., & Coller, X. (2018). Democratizing Candidate Selection: New Methods, Old Receipts? London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Cotta, M., & Best, H. (2007). Parliamentary Representatives from Early Democratization to the Age of Consolidated Democracy: National Variations and International Convergence in a Long-term Perspective. In M.  Cotta & H.  Best (Eds.), Democratic Representation in Europe: Diversity, Change, and Convergence (pp. 1–26). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dalton, R.  J. (1999). Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies. In P. Norris (Ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government (pp.  57–77). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.109 3/0198295685.003.0003. della Porta, D., Fernandez, J., Kouki, H., & Mosca, L. (2017). Movement Parties against Austerity. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Retrieved from https://www. wiley.com/en-­es/Movement+Parties+Against+Austerity-­p-­9781509511457. Dodeigne, J., & Teuber, F. (2018). The Effects of the Political Parties’ Selective Bias on Descriptive Representation: Analysis of the Candidates’ Sociological and Political Background. In A. Vandeleene, L. De Winter, & P. Baudewyns (Eds.), Candidates, Parties and Voters in the Belgian Partitocracy (pp. 47–76). Springer International Publishing. Freire, A., & Coller, X. (2019). Social Distance and Ideological Congruence between MPs and Citizens: Iberian Legislatures Before and After the Great Recession. In J.  M. Fernandes & C.  Leston-Bandeira (Eds.), The Iberian Legislatures in Comparative Perspective (pp. 91–110). London: Routledge. Freire, A., Lisi, M., Andreadis, I., & Viegas, J. M. L. (2017). Political Representation in Times of Bailout: Evidence from Greece and Portugal. London: Routledge. Freire, A., Lisi, M., Andreadis, I., & Leite Viegas, J.  M. (2014). Political Representation in Bailed-Out Southern Europe: Greece and Portugal Compared. South European Society and Politics, 19(4), 413–433. https://doi. org/10.1080/13608746.2014.984381. Gaxie, D., & Godmer, L. (2007). Cultural Capital and Political Selection: Educational Backgrounds of Parliamentarians. In M. Cotta & H. Best (Eds.), Democratic Representation in Europe: Diversity, Change, and Convergence (pp. 106–135). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goldthorpe, J.  H., & Erikson, R. (1993). The Constant Flux: A Study of Class Mobility in Industrial Societies. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Habermas, J. (1996). Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Henjak, A. (2010). Political Cleavages and Socio-Economic Context: How Welfare Regimes and Historical Divisions Shape Political Cleavages. West European Politics, 33(3), 474–504. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402381003654528. Hernández, E., & Kriesi, H. (2016). The Electoral Consequences of the Financial and Economic Crisis in Europe. European Journal of Political Research, 55(2), 203–224. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-­6765.12122.

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Hobolt, S.  B., & de Vries, C. (2016). Turning against the Union? The Impact of the Crisis on the Eurosceptic Vote in the 2014 European Parliament Elections. Electoral Studies, 44, 504–514. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. electstud.2016.05.006. Hoffmann-Lange, U. (2020). Elites. In D. Berg-Schlosser, B. Badie, & L. Morlino (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Political Science (Vol. 2, pp. 499–516). Sage. Holmberg, S. (1999). Down and Down We Go: Political Trust in Sweden. In P. Norris (Ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government Abstract and Keywords Consequences for Conventional Political Participation (pp.  103–122). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.109 3/0198295685.003.0005. Jaime-Castillo, A., Coller, X., & Cordero, G. (2018). New Parties and New Ways of Candidate Selection in Spain. In X.  Coller, G.  Cordero, & A.  M. Jaime-­ Castillo (Eds.), The Selection of Politicians in Times of Crisis (pp.  226–242). London: Routledge. Jiménez-Sánchez, M., Coller, X., & Portillo-Pérez, M. (2018). MPs of Traditional Parties’ Perceptions on Candidate Selection in Times of Political Crisis and Reform. In G. Cordero & X. Coller (Eds.), Democratizing Candidates Selection. New Methods, Old Receipts? (pp. 147–173). Springer. Kakepaki, M., Kountouri, F., Verzichelli, L., & Coller, X. (2018). The Sociopolitical Profile of Parliamentary Representatives in Greece, Italy and Spain Before and After the Eurocrisis. A Comparative Empirical Assessment. In G. Cordero & X.  Coller (Eds.), Democratizing Candidates Selection. New Methods, Old Receipts? (pp. 175–200). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Katz, R.  S., & Mair, P. (1995). Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy. Party Politics, 1(1), 5–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1354068895001001001. Keller, S.  I. (1963). Beyond the Ruling Class: Strategic Elites in Modern Society. New York: Random House. Kioupkiolis, A. (2016). Podemos: The Ambiguous Promises of Left-Wing Populism in Contemporary Spain. Journal of Political Ideologies, 21(2), 99–120. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2016.1150136. Klingemann, H. (1999). Mapping Political Support in the 1990s: A Global Analysis. In P.  Norris (Ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government (pp.  31–56). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.109 3/0198295685.003.0002. Kountouri, F. (2018). Patterns of Renewal and Continuity in Parliamentary Elites. The Greek MPs from 1996 to 2015. Journal of Legislative Studies, 24(4), 568–586. https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2018.1547947. Kriesi, H. (2010). Restructuration of Partisan Politics and the Emergence of a New Cleavage Based on Values. West European Politics, 33(3), 673–685. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402381003654726.

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Kriesi, H. (2012). The Political Consequences of the Financial and Economic Crisis in Europe: Electoral Punishment and Popular Protest. Swiss Political Science Review, 18(4), 518–522. https://doi.org/10.1111/spsr.12006. Mair, P. (2013). Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. London and New York: Verso. Manin, B. (1997). The Principles of Representative Government. The Principles of Representative Government. Cambridge University Press. https://doi. org/10.1017/cbo9780511659935. Mansbridge, J. (1999). Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women? A Contingent “yes”. Journal of Politics, 61(3), 628–657. https://doi. org/10.2307/2647821. Mansbridge, J. (2003). Rethinking Representation. American Political Science Review, 97(4), 515–528. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055403000856. Marx, P., & Nguyen, C. (2018). Anti-elite Parties and Political Inequality: How Challenges to the Political Mainstream Reduce Income Gaps in Internal Efficacy. European Journal of Political Research, 57(4), 919–940. https://doi. org/10.1111/1475-­6765.12258. Minta, M. D. (2012). Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Political Representation in the United States. Politics and Gender, 8(4), 541–547. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S1743923X12000578. Morlino, L., & Raniolo, F. (2017a). The New Protest Parties. In L. Morlino and F.  Raniolo (Eds.), The Impact of the Economic Crisis on South European Democracies (pp.  49–82). Springer International Publishing. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­3-­319-­52371-­2_4. Morlino, L., & Raniolo, F. (2017b). The Impact of the Economic Crisis on South European Democracies. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­3-­319-­52371-­2. Norris, P., & Lovenduski, J. (1994). Political Recruitment: Gender, Race and Class in the British Parliament. New York: Cambridge University Press. Orriols, L., & Cordero, G. (2016). The Breakdown of the Spanish Two-Party System: The Upsurge of Podemos and Ciudadanos in the 2015 General Election. South European Society and Politics, 21(4), 469–492. https://doi. org/10.1080/13608746.2016.1198454. Osborn, T., & Kreitzer, R. (2014). Women State Legislators: Women’s Issues in Partisan Environments. In S. Thomas & C. Wilcox, (eds.). Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future (pp. 181–198). Oxford University Press. Pérez-Nievas, S., Rama-Caamaño, J., & Fernández-Esquer, C. (2018). New Wine in Old Bottles? The Selection of Electoral Candidates in General Elections in Podemos. In G.  Cordero & X.  Coller (Eds.), Democratizing Candidates Selection. New Methods, Old Receipts? (pp. 123–146). London: Springer. Phillips, A. (1995). The Politics of Presence. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Phillips, A. (2012). Representation and Inclusion. Politics and Gender, 8(4), 512–518. Pinto, L., & Verzichelli, L. (2016). La scelta prima della scelta: profilo dei candidati, selezione e percorsi di carriera política. In Di Virgilio, A. & Segatti, P. (Eds.), La rappresentanza política in Italia (pp. 61–90) Bolonia: Il Mulino. Pitkin, H.  F. (1967). The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Portillo, M., & Dominguez, P. (2020). The Social Profile of the New Political Elites in Spain. In A. Freire, M. Barragán, X. Coller, M. Lisi, & E. Tsatsanis (Eds.), Political Representation in Southern Europe and Latin America (pp. 102–119). London: Routledge. Ramstetter, L., & Habersack, F. (2019). Do Women Make a Difference? Analysing Environmental Attitudes and Actions of Members of the European Parliament. Environmental Politics, 29(4), 1–22. Rodon, T., & Hierro, M.  J. (2016). Podemos and Ciudadanos Shake up the Spanish Party System: The 2015 Local and Regional Elections. South European Society and Politics, 21(3), 339–357. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360874 6.2016.1151127. Sanz, A., Navarrete, R. M., & Montero, J. R. (2015). Democracy and Economic Crisis in Spain: Support, Dissatisfaction, and Disaffection. Paper presented at ECPR Joint Sessions. Warsaw, Poland. Stirbu, D., Larner, J., & McAllister, L. (2018). Gender Representation in Wales: New Approaches to Candidate Selection in UK’s Devolved Legislatures and Beyond. In G. Cordero & X. Coller (Eds.), Democratizing Candidates Selection. New Methods, Old Receipts? (pp. 201–230). London: Springer. Torcal, M. (2014). The Decline of Political Trust in Spain and Portugal. American Behavioral Scientist, 58(12), 1542–1567. https://doi. org/10.1177/0002764214534662. Urbinati, N., & Warren, M.  E. (2008). The Concept of Representation in Contemporary Democratic Theory. Annual Review of Political Science, 11(1), 387–412. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.11.053006.190533. Uriarte, E., & Ruiz, C. (1999). Mujeres y hombres en las élites políticas españolas: ¿diferencias o similitudes? Reis: Revista española de investigaciones sociológicas, 88, 207–232. Verge, T., & Wiesehomeier, N. (2019). Parties, Candidates, and Gendered Political Recruitment in Closed-List Proportional Representation Systems: The Case of Spain. Political Research Quarterly, 72(4), 805–820. Vidal, G. (2018). Challenging Business as Usual? The Rise of New Parties in Spain in Times of Crisis. West European Politics, 41(2), 261–286. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/01402382.2017.1376272.

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CHAPTER 3

The Personality of MPs and Citizens: Differentiation and Congruence Carol Galais

Introduction Leadership studies have revolved around the organisational or societal context in which leaders interact, their agenda of problems, the techniques used to mobilise support and their followers; but one primary question still captivates the imagination of scholars: the character of the leaders (Peele 2005).1 Certainly, leaders’ personalities can be highly consequential for foreign policy, internal party cohesion, and general events in society (Gherghina 2020). Furthermore, the so-called personalisation of politics implies that politicians’ personal attributes are increasingly important when it comes to citizens’ deciding their vote (McAllister 2007; Adam and Maier 2010). The Spanish Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) asked Spaniards for their reasons in choosing a particular option in the 2009 European election.2 The results revealed that, for 24% of Spaniards, a candidate’s personality is an important cue (the first or second reason to decide their vote). Although Spain does not feature a presidential, majoritarian

C. Galais (*) Department of Political Science and Public Law, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 X. Coller, L. Sánchez-Ferrer (eds.), Politicians in Hard Times, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70242-7_3

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system—unlike some of the most personalistic countries in the world— this figure is in line with the personalisation of politics. Yet we do not know much about Spanish politicians’ personalities. Elite studies are typically structured around two axes: research concerned with elite integration and studies addressing elite-citizen links. While elite integration refers to the degree of consensus among elite members, the elite-citizen link can be defined as the extent to which citizens are represented in and by the political elite (Hoffmann-Lange 2017). Previous studies adopting this perspective to address politicians’ personalities have named these axes elite differentiation and elite-voter congruence (Nørgaard and Klemmensen 2019). These are also the primary research objects addressed in this chapter. A certain degree of elite differentiation is deemed to be positive for democracy, as it denotes multiple and autonomous elite groups that limit the power of a monolithic governing group, by checking and balancing each other (Higley and Lengyel 2000).3 Applying this rationale to the study of politicians’ personalities, a reasonable degree of differentiation within the elite would hamper excessive complicity between fellow politicians, making their different interests, ideologies and policy preferences salient conflict divides. On the other hand, elite-citizen links refer to vertical connections or similarities between citizens and politicians, which talk about the inclusiveness of the latter. Such similarities are considered a symptom of successful descriptive representation, that is, “the extent to which major segments of a population are represented in the political elite, the openness of elite recruitment, and the congruence of value orientations and issue attitudes between elites and citizens” (Hoffmann-Lange 2017: 61). The central tenet of descriptive representation is that elected officials should be as similar as possible to citizens in order to represent them better (Norris and Krook 2009). The extent to which citizens and politicians differ regarding their personality traits has been referred to as “congruence” in the literature (Caprara and Zimbardo 2004), and such congruence can be highly consequential for political behaviour because it might affect voters’ evaluations of the leaders (Klingler et  al. 2019) and even their electoral choices (Caprara and Silvester 2018). The extant evidence suggests a considerable amount of congruence, particularly within party lines. However, this evidence is mostly confined to a handful of frontrunners, relies on citizens’ appraisals of leaders’ personality traits, and/or focuses on countries with

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highly personalised politics (e.g. Italy, the US). By focusing on Spain, we will be able to assess if personality congruence is also found in a multiparty, multi-­district, proportional system and hence, a country that does not feature many of the traits that are typical of highly personalised systems. In sum, whether Spanish representatives exhibit high or low degrees of differentiation across party lines regarding their personality, and whether they resemble their constituents in this respect are the two research questions addressed in this chapter.

Personality and Politics Personality can be understood as the tendency to show consistent patterns of thought, feelings and actions (McCrae and Costa 2008; Caprara and Cervone 2000), which are normally distributed among the population (Caprara and Silvester 2018), and constitute a dynamic system of psychological structures and processes that affect how individuals perceive the environment. Among the different approaches to this phenomenon, the five-factor model of personality has become hegemonic given its parsimony (Wiggins 1996). The model is also known as the “Big five” model or OCEAN, an acronym which stands for the five main personality dimensions: Openness (which characterises creative, curious, tolerant individuals); Conscientiousness (typical of well-organised, dutiful individuals); Extraversion (high for energetic, outgoing, sociable people); Agreeableness (which taps into interpersonal trust, sensitivity, warmth, collaboration and care); and Neuroticism (this is, lack of emotional stability, see Funder and Fast 2010; Mondak 2010). These five traits have consistently been related to ideology. On the citizen’s side, Conscientiousness (e.g. precision, persistence) is linked with right-wing vote—which is consistent with conservative orientations. Centre-right voters also present traits related to the energy/extraversion dimension, whereas Agreeableness and Openness are related to voting for left-wing parties, which is consistent with a communitarian and pluralistic orientation (Caprara et  al. 1999, 2003; Chirumbolo and Leone 2010). The use of models alternative to the Big Five (e.g. the HEXACO model) has found that right-wing voters (at least in Denmark) report higher levels of Honesty-Humility (Schumacher and Zettler 2019). Politicians’ differentiation in terms of their personality would imply a less monolithic political elite and possibly a more diverse one that might

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increase the chances of mirroring the distribution of personality traits among citizens. Research on candidates’ personalities suggests that this is the case, as both Extraversion and Conscientiousness seem to be more intense among right-wing politicians, just like it is also the case for citizens (Caprara and Zimbardo 2004). Also mimicking citizens, Openness to Experience appears as the best correlate of ideology, with more politicians who are open being more likely to belong to left-wing parties (Joly et al. 2018). In the United States, Republicans have been found to score higher on traits within the Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability domains and, to a lesser extent, Extraversion. On the other hand, Democrats stand out for their high scores on Openness and Agreeableness (Costantini and Craik 1980; Hanania 2017). Despite consistencies in this literature, the empirical evidence does not always confirm that a certain personality pattern overlaps with ideological leanings. Best (2011), for instance, failed to find significant differences among German politicians related to their ideology, and noticed that elite personality traits differed surprisingly little across party lines. This evidence suggests that, in some cases, politicians might have a distinctive, “corporate” personality that differentiates them from regular citizens. Similarities between citizens’ and politicians’ personalities can be understood as an aspect of representative democracy. According to the literature, legislators should reflect the characteristics of the electorate, in terms of policy preferences (Uslaner and Weber 1983), issue attitudes (Dolezal et al. 2013) and, foremost, socio-demographic characteristics (Norris and Krook 2009). Some authors posit that where congruence exists, democracy works better because it facilitates the emergence of links between politicians and citizens, to make the former accountable (Kitschelt 1999); and because citizens are more likely to pursue and achieve their interests (Rueschemeyer et al. 1992), which in turn positively affects citizens’ levels of support for democracy (Luna and Zechmeister 2005: 392). Much less is known about the role of “personality representation” in decision-­ making, although if elites are influenced by consistent and inadvertent individual differences and, furthermore, voters are able to perceive such differences and react accordingly, it seems appropriate to incorporate them into the study of elite representation. Accepting this challenge, Caprara and Zimbardo (2004) put forward the congruency principle, according to which citizens are more likely to support politicians and parties if politicians’ personalities are consistent with citizens’ own self-images, particularly if politicians belonged to their

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preferred coalition (Caprara et al. 2002). Personality congruence acts as a glue, linking affect, cognition, and action underlying other similar values and preferences, while accentuating the contrast with opponents. Caprara et  al. (2010) compared self-reported personality traits from Italian and European parliamentarians with the general population, and found that politicians scored higher than voters on traits related to Energy/Extraversion, Agreeableness, Emotional stability and Openness, even after controlling for ideology. As for Spain, Vecchione et al. (2011) compared Spaniards’ appraisals of the personality of two frontrunners (Mariano Rajoy and José L. Rodríguez Zapatero) with citizens’ personality traits. The results indicated that both assessments tended to converge when citizens had voted for the party of each frontrunner, particularly on the marker of Agreeableness. Congruence is also apparently found for populist parties, as populist candidates score “lower in agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability (…) than ‘mainstream’ candidates” (Nai 2019: 309), and populist voters also stand out for their low Agreeableness in the United States, the Netherlands and Germany (Bakker et al. 2016). Personality similarities between the elected and the electors have also been examined outside of the domain of the Big Five model, finding that citizens with “Dark” personality traits (Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, Narcissism), who associate politicians with the same dark personality traits, found them more relatable and fit for office (Hart et al. 2018). As for the HEXACO model, Danish politicians score higher than citizens in the domains of Honesty-Humility, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience, and lower when it comes to emotionality (Schumacher and Zettler 2019). Elite-voter congruence and elite differentiation with regards to personality have rarely been examined for other countries without majoritarian (hence more personalistic) systems. One exception is Denmark. Nørgaard and Klemmensen (2019) analysed the extent to which Danish MPs’ personality traits were different from voters, and how different MPs’ personalities were from one another, controlling for ideology and partisanship. In terms of the former, they found that politicians were more extroverted, conscientious, and open than the average Danish citizen. As for elite differentiation, they found that liberal politicians scored higher in Agreeableness, while centre politicians were more ambitious, less agreeable, more extroverted, assertive, and enthusiastic than the rest. Most importantly, Nørgaard and Klemmensen rely on aspect-level

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measurements to explain their null findings for the relationship between ideology, Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness for politicians, which differ from previous studies. As the authors note, the combination of primary elections and single-member districts may explain the congruence found in other cases (e.g. the US), and taking a closer look across all the items (usually merged to tap the Big Five domains) might help us understand what underlies the differences across countries. In sum, the scarce empirical evidence suggests that a sort of “politician’s personality” exists (higher in extraversion, agreeableness, openness and, according to some accounts, more conscientious and emotionally stable), and that ‘corporate personality’ undermines congruence, although similarities between politicians and citizens might still be higher if party support or membership coincides. As Caprara and Silvester put it: “despite an abundance of literature, we doubt it is possible to come to firm conclusions about what political elites’ personalities have in common or about what distinguishes their personalities from the personalities of others holding other types of leadership positions in society” (Caprara and Silvester 2018: 481). This chapter tackles the challenge to explore elites’ differentiation and elite-­citizen links with regards to personality in the case of Spain.

Research Design and Methodology Spain is a democracy with a proportional representation system in which the role of parties is key to determining who ends up obtaining a seat in its representative chambers. Nevertheless, the newest parties (Podemos, Ciudadanos, and, later, Vox) have recently introduced innovative, more inclusive mechanisms (e.g. primaries at different levels) in the selection of candidates (Jaime-Castillo et al. 2018; Coller et al. 2018). Such innovations have generated a mild isomorphic effect among older and more established parties that have brought some “personalistic” elements to politics. Nonetheless, in sum, Spain should be a “low-personalised country” where leaders’ characters are not yet an issue or an aspect that contributes significantly to characterise politicians and electorates. In terms of elite differentiation and elite-citizen linkage, this should translate into a low degree of differentiation between politicians across parties (except for, maybe, the newest parties in town: Podemos, Ciudadanos and Vox) and a low degree of congruence between politicians and citizens. Empirical evidence relies on two surveys (one sampling Spanish elected MPs, the other sampling citizens) conducted in the framework of the

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“Citizens and parliamentarians in times of crisis and democratic renewal” research project. Both surveys were conducted between November 2018 and January 2019. The MP’s survey achieved 452 responses, which represents a response rate of 26% for the autonomic and 20.13% for the Congress and Senate MPs’ populations. For the citizens’ survey, 1,600 telephone surveys were carried out by Metroscopia, a specialised company. The MPs’ survey included the party the respondents belong to, while the citizens’ survey asked for respondents’ voting intention in the forthcoming 2019 general election and for their preferred party in case they did not manifest a clear voting intention. This yielded a total of 844 respondents for which such information is available. Although imperfect, this measure allows us to classify citizens into different political groupings to establish comparisons with MPs. In order to guarantee comparability and statistical meaning, we will deal only with the six largest political parties and groups in Spain—PSOE, PP, Podemos, Ciudadanos, other left-wing parties and other right-wing parties (the two last groups mostly consisting of small and regionally based parties). The base questionnaires for both politicians and citizens were the same. The two surveys employed measures for the “Big five” or OCEAN personality traits (McCrae and Costa 2008): Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. The TIPI (Ten Item Personality Measure; see Gosling et al. 2003) inventory was selected for measuring purposes. The inventory starts with a brief introduction asking the respondents to indicate to what extent 10 statements about their personality apply to them. The items are measured on a 1 to 5 agreement scale (1 = completely disagree, 5 = completely agree), and each OCEAN trait is measured using a straightforward and a reversed item. The exact wording of the questions asked in both surveys is the following: Finally, we would like to ask you to indicate your degree of agreement with these social features. “I see myself as someone who…” Please state how much you agree with each of them, using a scale from 1 to 5, as in: 1. Strongly disagree, 2. Disagree, 3. Neither agree nor disagree, 4. Agree and 5. Strongly agree. Check “N” for Don’t know/No answer.

(a) is reserved (b) tends to be lazy (c) can be trusted (d) is relaxed, and manages stress well (e) has some artistic interests

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(f) is sociable (g) tends to see fault in others (h) is thorough (i) gets nervous easily (j) has an active imagination

Previous research has tended to consider: an active imagination and having artistic interests as indicators of Openness; being nervous and not relaxed are used to tap Neuroticism (e.g. low emotional stability); working conscientiously and not being lazy are deemed to measure Conscientiousness; being sociable and not seeing fault in others are commonly used indicators for Agreeableness; and not being reserved but trustworthy tap into Extraversion. However, as some works have recently cautioned, the TIPI inventory can be problematic (Ludeke and Larsen 2017). In this particular case, the Big Five dimensions weren’t built because previous exploratory analyses did not suggest that the aforementioned pairs of indicators tap the Big Five traits.4 Note, however, that previous research advises in favour or using the original traits—and not only the summary five measures—to better grasp politicians’ differentiation, congruence between politicians and citizens, and understand the diversity of findings across countries (Nørgaard and Klemmensen 2019). To begin, average personality trait scores will be compared across samples (politicians vs citizens) to see if some general differences become apparent and respond to the question about which of the two populations is more cohesive (less diverse regarding personality). If politicians are more cohesive than citizens are, this will point to a low differentiation situation. Second, we will analyse how different each party is (averaging the personality traits for all the respondents included in our politicians’ dataset) from the general Spanish population, without considering citizens’ allegiances. This will give us a first picture regarding congruency, and will allow us to respond to which party best represents Spaniards with regards to personality traits. Third, we will focus on personality differences across parties for both citizens and politicians, which approximates the relationship between ideology (and more specifically, partisanship) and personality; and addresses elite differentiation, respectively. Next, a more detailed overview of congruency is given, by comparing politicians’ and citizens’ personality scores for every party (as congruency is expected to be greater within a particular party). Finally, a multivariate analysis compares the explanatory power of party allegiance and the ­representative/represented divide when it comes to understanding individual differences regarding personality traits.

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Results Table 3.1 presents the distribution of personality traits ranging from 1 to 5 over the two samples. At first sight, citizens are simply “more intense” than politicians, with higher scores for most personality traits. On the other hand, politicians are more sociable, imaginative, and trustworthy than citizens. How diverse are these two populations? If we compute the average of the standard deviations for politicians and citizens, we get the value 0.94 for politicians, and 1.1 for citizens. This is a rough but suggestive figure about their internal diversity or cohesion: two randomly selected Spanish politicians are probably more similar between them than two randomly selected Spanish citizens. To inspect overall differences between citizens and politicians, average distances between both populations for each party were computed. More precisely, we have first calculated the average score for each personality trait and party in the politicians’ sample. Next, we have subtracted for every citizen (whole sample, N = 1,600) the average score of each party, for every personality trait, which gives (10 personality traits * six political groups analysed) 60 variables that contain all the possible differences, for every individual. Finally, we have averaged all the possible differences within political allegiance. This gives six variables, one per party or political group, tapping overall differences with Spaniards. In other words, each one of these variables tells us how much the average politician from each Table 3.1  Distribution of personality traits, by subsample Politicians (N = 452)

Reserved Lazy Relaxed Artistic Sociable Fault-Finder Conscientious Nervous Imaginative Trustworthy

Citizens (N = 1,600)

Mean

Std. Dev.

2.7 1.7 3.4 2.9 4.6 2.9 4.3 2.3 4.1 4.7

1.3 0.8 0.9 1.2 0.7 0.9 0.7 0.8 0.7 0.6

Source: Ciuparcri (2018)

Reserved Lazy Relaxed Artistic Sociable Fault-Finder Conscientious Nervous Imaginative Trustworthy

Mean

Std. Dev.

3.1 2 3.5 3.1 4.3 3.4 4.3 2.8 4 4.6

1.2 1.2 1.3 1 0.9 1.13 0.8 1.3 1 0.7

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political party or group differs from the citizens’ sample as a whole (without considering citizens’ political preferences). This overall difference measure ranges in theory from 0 to 4 (the minimum and maximum differences, taking into account that personality traits are measured on a 1 to 5 scale). Nevertheless, the actual descriptive tells us that the minimum value is 0.27 (“others left”) and the maximum value is 2.46 (PP). The distribution of overall differences, for each political group, is presented in Fig.  3.1. The dotted vertical line represents the theoretical median value of the distribution (2), although in all cases actual values are closer to 1. Hence, we observe a right-skewed distribution for the PSOE, the PP, and Ciudadanos, a more symmetrical distribution for Podemos, and left-skewed distributions for other small parties. This suggests that politicians from small parties and, to a lesser extent, Podemos, present smaller differences with Spaniards’ personalities than the other large parties do.

Fig. 3.1  Overall personality congruence (all citizens vs parties). (Source: Ciuparcri 2018)

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Small left-wing parties are those presenting a lower mean value for this variable (0.89), while the PP exhibits the highest mean value (1.17), followed by the PSOE and Ciudadanos (both scoring 1.15). This is how different are average politicians from each party from the Spanish population regarding their personality traits. The figure provides a first, rough approximation of citizen-politician linkage regarding personality. But, how different are parties from each other, regardless of citizens? And what happens if we also take into account citizens’ political allegiance when it comes to congruence? In order to answer the first of these questions, Fig. 3.2 displays differences for every personality trait as a function of party allegiance, for politicians (panel a) and citizens (panel b). For politicians, the line corresponding with the PSOE is always buried under other parties’ scores, mostly the PP.  This means that the average PSOE MP does not stand for particularly high or low scores on any personality trait. Contrarily, PP politicians are less artistic and less moralistic (they tend to find fault in others less as compared to politicians from other parties). Podemos’ politicians are the laziest, if we believe their high score on the “lazy” trait. Ciudadanos’ MPs are particularly cold-blooded, judging by their low score on the “nervous” trait. They are also the more relaxed politicians. MPs from the small left-wing parties are the most nervous and reserved; they are—along with politicians from small right-­wing parties—the most fault-finders. Finally, politicians from small right-­wing parties are the most artistic. ANOVA analyses reveal that differences across a) politicians

trustworthy imaginative

b) citizens

reserved 4 3 2 1 0

trustworthy

lazy

nervous

relaxed

artistic

conscientious

imaginative

reserved 4 3 2 1 0

relaxed

nervous

artistic

conscientious

sociable

lazy

sociable see fault

see fault PSOE

PP

PODEMOS

PSOE

PP

PODEMOS

CIUDADANOS

Others left

Others right

CIUDADANOS

Others left

Others right

Fig. 3.2  Personality trait differences per party allegiance. (Source: Ciuparcri 2018)

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party lines are only significant for “lazy” and “nervous” at the p