The Decline of Traditional Partisanship in Spanish Municipalities:Corruption, Inequality and Territorial Mobilisation

Abstract

Between 2008 and 2014, Spain experienced a severe recession, which had a deep impact on its political system. Scholars have mainly focused on transformations occurred at the national level but have neglected changing equilibria at the local level. This paper shows that in Spain the role of traditional parties as mediators of local interests has declined and suggests that they have to face increasing competition coming from citizens' lists, which label themselves as ‘local' or ‘non-partisan’. By relying on an original dataset and quantitative analysis, this paper aims to understand to what extent these new forces are influenced by other forms of territorial mobilisation represented by regionalist parties and whether corruption and inequality, two factors that are crucial in Southern European societies, may also explain part of their success.