1
Measuring Populism in Spain
Content and discourse analysis of Spanish political parties
This is an original manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in
Journal of Contemporary European Studies on 22nd October 2018, available
online: https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2018.1536603
Pablo Ribera Payá*
Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
2
Abstract
The rise of populist parties across Europe is shaking the foundations of Representative
Democracy, of which Spain is a particular example: decades of bipartisanship have been
broken amidst a territorial, economic, and social crisis, with new parties rising on the left
and the right side of the spectrum. The aim of this paper is to analyse the Spanish political
scenario and find which (if any) parties classify as populist and what are the other
ideological traits of this (or these) parties, by means of both content and discourse
analysis.
Keywords
Spain, Populism, Democracy, Content Analysis, Discourse Analysis.
3
Introduction
This paper aims to provide insight into the political scene of Spain and particularly in the
degree and type of populism in political parties in the country, in order to find if there are
any populist political parties with relevance in the country, and to what extent.
The concept of populism has become increasingly popular globally, and particularly in
the US with the Trump phenomenon, as well as in Europe (Bröning 2016; Europe 2016;
Grabbe & Lehne 2016; Mount 2016). However, the word is used mostly as a political
weapon in the public sphere; often an insult (Taguieff 2002), and many times a proxy for
demagogy (Gianolla 2017), which does not provide much aid in using this category for
analysis (Hubé & Truan 2016).
Between 2011 and 2016, the political landscape of Spain has completely changed, with
the traditional, unchallenged majority of either PP or PSOE disrupted (Solá & Rendueles
2017) with the emergence of Ciudadanos on the centre-right and Podemos on the left
(Lavezzolo 2017), due mostly to the concurrence of economic crisis, soaring
unemployment, lack of trust in political parties, and corruption (Solá & Rendueles 2017).
In the light of these changes, the word ‘populism’ has been a constant, sometimes as a
self-described strategy (Iglesias Turrión 2015), but more often in the media and through
political accusations (de Santiago Guervós 2015; Fernández-Llébrez 2016; Casquete
2016).
The academic analysis has had similar results in terms of political analysis and lack of
systematic measurement. This paper aims to cover that gap in the field by providing a
characterisation of the political landscape of Spain, identifying (if present) the populist
parties, and so aims to answer the question are there any populist parties in Spain? And,
if so, to what degree? Together with these two main questions, the research expects that
newcomer parties will have higher populistic scores than established parties, as populism
was not a discussed subject in Spain before the irruption of the two new relevant political
parties in the national arena (Podemos and Ciudadanos).
The paper, therefore, proceeds to set the theoretical definition of Populism, followed by
an explanation on methodology, and afterwards the analysis and conclusions.
4
Populism
The study of populism in academic terms has had several perspectives, both in defining
the term itself (Deegan-Krause & Haughton 2009; Havlík & Pinková 2012; Školkay
2009; Taggart 1995) and in studying it from a comparative perspective, taking into
account factors such as the welfare state and globalisation (Swank & Betz 2003), voting
behaviour and dissatisfaction with institutions (Pauwels 2014) and Identity (Betz 1993),
in many cases exclusively one side of populism (Mammone 2009). These many
perspectives have been narrowed down to three: populism as an organisational form,
populism as a political style, and populism as an ideology (Pauwels 2011). As an
organisational form, populism is analysed based on a hierarchical structure (with the
leader at the apex), but the same authors using this approach admit that there are populist
parties that do not have this organisation (Jaggers & Walgrave 2007) or that there are
organisations whose hierarchical structure cannot be classified as populist (Taggart
2000). As for political style, it implies the use of simplistic and direct language, akin to
demagogy, to host mediatic, spectacular rallies and events that breach social taboos and
refer constantly to the people (Heinisch 2003; Jaggers & Walgrave 2007). However, it is
argued that populism hosts more than a mere style in communication, it has a normative
dimension that makes it more similar to an ideology (together with ideology’s ability to
offer a view of the world and an action repertoire for mobilisation).
In this sense, the third perspective categorises populism as a thin centred ideology, thin
meaning here the lack of a complete ‘world-view’ of other ideologies, and therefore its
likeness to pair with other sets of ideas (Pauwels 2011). Therefore, populism by itself
would only suggest part of the identity and activity of the party, in need of a ‘surname’
that could be of social, nationalistic, or other type. Parties normally classified as populistic
are found attached to one of these additional dimensions. From this perspective, Mudde
(2004), defined populism as a strategy of both communication and reality-shaping: the
existence of two homogenous units (people and elite), the antagonism between the two,
the ‘pure’ sovereignty of the people (and unmediated leadership of it by the personal
leader), and the simplistic characterisation of the people (the ‘common man’) as
inherently good and the elite as inherently bad. This perspective has been widely used in
academic literature afterwards (Stanley 2008; Albertazzi & McDonnel 2007; Ruzza &
Fella 2009).
The advantage of the 4-item definition proposed by Mudde and explained in the paragraph
above is that it provides a first step towards an analytical breakdown of Laclau’s classical
definition of contemporary discursive populism, which ‘consists in the presentation of
popular-democratic interpellations as a synthetic-antagonistic complex with respect to the
dominant ideology’ (Laclau 1977) wherein the people, an ‘empty significant’ is therefore
defined in discursive terms to gather heterogeneous social demands. Its strength relies on
the lack of definition itself of the terms ‘elite’ and ‘people’ (and the rest), which are
constructed one against the other without precisely defining what they include and what
they do noti
. Laclau’s definition of populism, within a radical concept of democracy,
highlights the tense relationship between populism and liberal democracy. Liberal
democracy, in one of its most accepted denominations, unites the participation of people
through fair and free elections (majority rule) with the constitutional protection of
minority rights. (Mudde & Kaltwasser 2012). Populism, understood in Laclau’s terms
expressed above, is certainly linked to the first element (majority rule), along the lines of
a radical democracy, where the plurality of demands over which liberal institutions rule
are discarded in favour of an encompassing notion of ‘people’s will’, of which the
populist party would be the sole interpreter. Given the impossibility of a ‘resolution’ for
the contradiction between majority rule and minority rights, populism seems to cyclically
5
appear within liberal democratic systems (Arditi 2004). The consequences of populism
are in any case under discussion: for some authors, it would depend on the strength of the
democratic system (that is, how consolidated are its institutions), and the position of the
populists (if the hold government or not) (Mudde & Kaltwasser 2012). Others (Arroyas
Langa & Pérez Díaz 2016; Hernández & Hurtado 2010) argue that populism, regardless
of its pro or anti-democratic initial components, is always detrimental to democracy due
to the verticality of its power structure, and to the fact that it mimics the representative
system, albeit not including real participation in it (as also argued by Pauwels (2014).
Populist party analysis has been dealt with for the Spanish case, from the point of view
of discourse analysis, using Laclau’s perspective of discursive setting of the political
arena (Villacañas J. L. 2015; Ahedo Rodrígez 2015), and also with other working
definitions of Populism such as the ‘us v. them’ (Moriche de la Cruz 2016), which
interestingly have all concluded that Podemos is a populist party in Spain. Particularly
relevant is the paper by (Solá & Rendueles 2017), which analyses the conditions that gave
rise to the political opportunity of Podemos along its characteristics, and the work of
Arroyas Langa & Pérez Díaz (2016), which follows the same conception of populism,
analysing Podemos’ discourse on twitter. Based on it, they find the party to be populist,
yet they note an important difference in the role of leadership, it being depicted as
collective, rather than focused on the figure of Pablo Iglesias as leader. However, most of
the existing literature on the topic assumes that Podemos is a populist party and attempts
to explain it or its success without questioning this status (Figeroa & Thielemann 2016;
Javier Damin & Petersen 2016; Fernández-Llébrez 2016) or assumes the party’s own
declarations as populist together with a few media comments (del Río 2015). Recently,
as well, the political developments have produced a number of research pieces on the
theoretical side of populism, such as (Fernández Liria, 2016; Villacañas J. L. 2015), all
of them drawing on Laclau’s theoretical framework.
One particular interesting dimension of Spanish politics introduced by the literature is the
three cleavages of discourse management for parties: the left-right one, the radicalmoderate,
and the new-old, as in (del Río 2015) (Fernández-Llébrez 2016), in which
parties such as Podemos (and Ciudadanos) attempt to be included in the last cleavage
(new-old) and insist on the surpass of the traditional left-right divide (MacMillan 2017).
6
Methodology: Populist measurement
Case selection
Due to the elevate number of parties present at some level of representation in Spain
(Local, Regional, National and European parliaments), presence in the National
Parliament at the current term of the paper (2016-2020) will be the threshold to take the
party into account. This gives 14 different political parties that represent ca 97% of the
valid votes in the 2016 elections (the other 3% going to another 40 political parties
without representation that ran for the elections as well). Out of the 14 parties, the main
4 are ‘national’, being elected in all the country, while the other 9 are only represented in
certain regions and hold nationalist or regionalist interest of some degree: Asturias (FAC),
Canarias (CCa, NCa), Navarra (UPN), Catalonia (ERC, PDeCat), Valencia (Compromis),
and the Basque Country (Bildu, PNV).
Measuring Populism
This article proposes to analyse the levels of populism (and other attached items to the
parties), departing from the proposition of the 4 items and the thin-centred ideology,
through an exercise of content analysis, ‘making replicable and valid inference from data
to their context’ (Krippendorf 1989) and quantifying ‘what’ the message communicates
by re-connecting the symbol with its contextual meaning. The analysis is carried out in
two stages: computerised content analysis, and discourse analysis. The computerised
content analysis explained below finds high degrees of populism: populism here would
mean a high level of usage of certain words during speeches (such as the people, the elite,
the caste, below, above, and so on) that refer to the 4 items proposed, which would be
consistent with the evidence that ‘if a word appears once, it is much more likely that it
will re-appear again [..], despite the fact that, due to the number of words of a language,
the vast majority of them don’t’ (Brier & Hopp 2011). While these would be more reliable
with a classical content analysis following, e.g. Rooduijn’s example (2009), the process
is time and resource-intensive, and results would lose objectivity.bTherefore, it is argued
that a computerised content analysis is the most practical, systematic, and comparable
technique to initially measure populism across the spectrum, while allowing as well to
measure other attached characteristics of parties than populism. The repetition of words
mentioned above, particularly related to ‘average and rare words [which] carry the
information on a text’ (Brier & Hopp 2011), allow, along with this content analysis
method, to find the marked words and their concordance within the larger text. As
limitations and complexities of this approach are known (as many parties might use a
word, not necessarily to oppose or support the concept), and generally speaking there are
validity issues with computerised content analysis (Grimmer & Stewart 2013), a
preliminary review of the concordance has been conducted with the dictionary. This has
been to ensure not only the theoretical relevance of the words to the categories, but also
false positives.
Secondly, to overcome the validity limitations of the first stage outlined above, discourse
analysis of selected party material, from the parties which surpassed the threshold of the
first stage, are considered to effectively find the relevant 4 items or lack thereof. This
double-tier system aims to ensure that computer analysis provides the necessary
validation of results (Grimmer & Stewart 2013). Thus, before the second stage of
discourse analysis is executed, a systematic validation by the coder is undertaken to
ensure that the appearance of populist keywords is meaningful, as ‘For dictionary
methods to work well, the scores attached to words must closely align with how the words
are used in a particular context’ (Grimmer & Stewart 2013).
7
The second stage is particularly relevant given the measurement problems of some of the
4 items of populism in computer analysis: while the existence of the two homogeneous
social groups, their inherent good and evil nature, and the antagonism between them is
relatively accessible through the analysis, problems arise with the pure sovereignty of the
people. The existence of the two groups can be directly related to certain word usage in
the dictionary, as well as the antagonism by the type of words to describe them: the people
is described in positive connotations, which also overlap with the notion of the ‘good
people’, and the same logic inversely applies for the elite. The pure sovereignty and
unmediated leadership are harder to grasp with words as unit of analysis, and thus they
are considered grey tones of the other items.
For the purpose of this study, the timeframe chosen goes from the European Elections of
2009 (including the political programs and material devised for that election before that
date) to the national ones of 2016/2017. This is so as the major political shift in electoral
terms has happened during this period of time, with two new major nation-wide political
parties being born at the left and right side of the political spectrum.
In terms of selected texts for discourse analysis, however, focus has been placed in 2015
and 2016, particularly for discourse analysis, as it is this period that offers more study
material (given the non-existence of Podemos before 2014 and the small and regional
character of Ciudadanos before 2015).
Content Analysis
For the content analysis a dictionary has been defined, largely drawing from Pauwels
(2011), but adapted to the Spanish context: a first stage of exploratory party literature has
been undertaken to estimate the most commonly used words, both in Spanish and Catalan,
grouped in several categories. This revision was particularly important due to the
problems that these dictionaries present when applied to different contexts that the one
originally intended for (Grimmer & Stewart 2013) However, in this case the original
dictionary was also thought for populism, which should improve accuracy and validity.
Populism itself is a category that groups, on the first side, the continuous reference to the
people, which in the Spanish case can be directly by the word pueblo, but also la gente.
Together with this, comes the rejection of the elite, which is often depicted as elite iself,
casta (caste), and los de arriba (the ones above), which serves as an obvious comparison
with los de abajo (the ones bellow, identified with el pueblo or the people). Following
the literature (Pauwels, 2011), words such as corruption, two-party system and
establishment refer to populism, and are therefore included.
During this analysis, a general study of other categories has been undertaken (such as
social or nationalistic discourse), which allow to characterise the type of ‘filler’ in the
thin-centred populism, whose delimitation has been taken from (Pauwels, 2011) with the
national adaptation.
Using all these dimensions, texts are analysed to observe the appearance of any of these
dimensions, and concordance is analysed to ensure the validity of the results. The absolute
appearance of words in the text is then presented relative to the remaining dimensions,
therefore giving a visual and quantified image of how these occupy the meaningful parts
of the texts.
For the first stage, party programmes and other party material (Manifestos, internal
magazines, speeches in selected sessions of the Spanish Parliament, as well as small
declarations) have been analysed, including the texts that will be subject to discourse
analysis (political speeches). The separation in the two categories is due to the different
8
nature of the texts: party programmes tend to be more detailed and potentially less
‘populistic’, while more literary material has a bigger potential of using rhetoric figures
appealing to the people or the elites (Pauwels, 2011). Available material greatly varies
from party to party, and thus these differentiations aims to provide a comparable scheme
between the parties. The sources analysed (and compared) are in table 1 below. Some
degree of populism is expected to appear in all parties due to the quantitative nature of
the analysis (and the fact that parties might use the same terminology to reply some to
others), and therefore only the highest scorers will be selected for the discourse analysis
step.
Discourse Analysis
The selected parties for the second stage are afterwards analysed by means of an equal
type of text sources, to assure the strongest comparability possible. During the second
stage, appearance of populism’s 4 items is required to accept the party as truly populistic.
Nevertheless, populism in political parties is a matter of degree, and some appearance of
the items will also be noted down.
Discourse analysis has the advantage of ensuring validity of results, argued with explicit
text references in the analysis chapter. Instead of taking single words as the computerised
content analysis stage, or sentences or paragraphs in classic content analysis, discourse
analysis is flexible the unit of measure and allows for a deeper insight into the meaning
conveyed by the text. This can be seen in the role of grammar, which allows to create
closeness or distance to certain interlocutors by shifts in the language usage. Another
interesting language issue that discourse analysis allows to grasp is the usage of quotes:
others are cited to reinforce the speech (whether in favour or against), is a common tool
to manipulate the public (Reyes, 2011).
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Analysis
This chapter contains the two-tier analysis of the party literature to determine the populist
nature of the parties selected for study. The annexes provide a comprehensive overview
of the materials analysed in the two stages:
Content Analysis
For this article, it is assumed that parties which have never held office, and particularly,
the ones that are newcomers, are expected to have a higher degree of populism than
established ones. The literature available has been split in two groups: party programmes,
and other literature. This is because party programmes show a wide range of issues
concerning the parties’ position and can provide broader insight into other defining
factors of the parties. However, populist levels are expected to be low in the program, as
it is usually based on concrete policies rather than vague political statements. For this
purpose, the ‘other literature’ category gathers party manifestos, public speeches, key
political interventions in the parliament, and ‘internal party literature’, such as magazines
for internal formation, when available. Another purpose of these additions is to obtain a
sufficient number of words to prevent content analysis result from being extreme and
unrepresentative due to small samples.
Annex IV contains the complete list of material used for the content analysis. Table 1
shows the specific case of populism, how many words within the dimensions were found
of the text, out of total ‘relevant’ words (belonging to one of the dimensions)
Table 1: Material for content analysis and wordcount
Party Populist Wordcount Total Relevant
Words
Total wordcount
Podemos 474,00 2274,00 179097,00
Ciudadanos 151,00 1097,00 65638,00
Bildu 23,00 446,00 15121,00
Coalición Canaria 33,00 1390,00 45800,00
Compromis 61,00 1475,00 100057,00
ERC 109,00 2391,00 117478,00
Foro 9,00 1760,00 98234,00
NCa 20,00 1125,00 45005,00
PdCat 54,00 2334,00 133995,00
PNV 16,00 1050,00 51479,00
PP 123,00 2104,00 129815,00
PSOE 29,00 2639,00 161829,00
UPN 7,00 612,00 50081,00
While the number of total wordcount varies wildly, this is mostly due to available sources,
and to the fact that the main amount of ‘word analysis’ comes from the parliament diaries,
in which the speaking time is greatly affected by the seat power in the house.
10
From the analysis of all available party literature, Figure 1 shows the levels of Populism
present in the two types of literature and in the global calculation. According to the party
programs, Podemos and Ciudadanos (in that order) are the most populist parties, with
17% and 12% of presence of the populist dimension in texts on average. However, in
non-program literature, the most populist party is by far Podemos, with 32%, followed
by Ciudadanos with 18%, and by the Popular Party with 15%.
Figure 1: Populism Level by Party and literature type
Podemos and Ciudadanos analysed by dimension
The different dimensions of the two most populist parties can be seen in figures 2, 3, and
4 for Podemos and 5, 6, 7 for ciudadanos:
0,00
5,00
10,00
15,00
20,00
25,00
30,00
35,00
Populism by party
Electoral Programmes Other Material Average Total
11
Figure 2: Podemos dimensions in all texts
Figure 3: Podemos dimensions in other party text (no programs)
Figure 4: Podemos dimensions in party programmes
Conservatism
5%
Environment
2%
Immigration
3%Law and order
6%
Liberalism
8%
national identity
21%
neoliberalism
5%
Populism
18%
Progressive
3%
Social
29%
PODEMOS - TOTAL
Conservatism
2%
Environment
1%
Immigration
2%Law and order
3%Liberalism
6%
national identity
22%
neoliberalism
3%
Populism
33%
Progressive
4%
Social
24%
PODEMOS - NO PROGRAM
12
Aside from populism, Podemos has a sizeable amount of content in its political
programmes related to the social dimension, 34% (something expected of a party selfidentified
as leftist) and national identity, 20%, mostly devoted to the territorial
configuration of Spain and the different ‘nations’ that compose the Spanish State. The
proportions between dimensions are relatively held when compared to the rest of party
materials, with the exception of populism itself, soaring from 2 to 33%. Topics more
related in theory with conservative parties, such as law and order, immigration, and
conservatism, only add together up to 12% of the wordcount, while another 12% is shared
by liberal and neoliberal dimensions. In party programmes, however, this occupies 21%
and 19% of the wordcount respectively.
Interestingly enough, progressive and environmental issues play a small role in the
discourse configuration, with a share in total of 3% and 2% respectively.
Conservatism
7%
Environment
2%
Immigration
5%
Law and order
9%
Liberalism
11%
National Identity
20%
neoliberalism
8%
Populism
2%
Progressive
2%
Social
34%
PODEMOS - PROGRAM
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Figure 5: Ciudadanos Dimensions (total)
Figure 6: Ciudadanos Dimensions (No program)
Figure 7: Ciudadanos Dimensions (Program)
Conservatism
13% Environment
2%
Immigration
2%
Law and order
7%
Liberalism
11%
national identity
17%
neoliberalism
5%
Populism
11%
Progressive
3%
Social
29%
CIUDADANOS -TOTAL
Conservatism
6%
Environment
0%
Immigration
1%
Law and order
4%Liberalism
9%
national identity
19%
neoliberalism
4%
Populism
19%
Progressive
3%
Social
35%
CIUDADANOS - NO PROGRAM
14
Likewise, Ciudadanos devotes little role for populist language in programmes, while
conservative issues (Conservatism, Immigration, and Law and Order) add up to 32% of
the wordcount. Social topics cover a fourth of the speech, fitting into a centred, liberalconservative
and social-liberal political party (Mateo, 2017). National identity issues
appear less salient than in Podemos, yet nevertheless relevant with a fourth of the share
in non-programme materials. In this category, social issues also occupy a third of the
wordcount.
As difference with Podemos, where dimensions held the proportions between
programmes and the rest of the materials, in the Ciudadanos case the situation changes:
the rest of materials show an increase of share for national identity and social issues, at
expense of conservative and liberal issues. Progressive and environmental dimensions are
as small as in the Podemos case.
Podemos and Ciudadanos comparison. The overview of both parties offers an interesting
insight: while their ideologies are evidently different in the party programmes, where
Ciudadanos is clearly more leaning towards liberalism and conservatism, social and
national identity issues are both of the utmost relevance. This would be consistent with
the two main issues at stake in Spain: the territorial challenge (focused now on Catalonia)
and the economic crisis and unemployment levels.
More interesting is how both parties converge when they leave the content of programmes
and the speeches, manifestos and other materials are analysed. Social, national, and
populistic dimensions are then prevalent. This is an interesting phenomenon that could be
linked to the fact that both parties are trying to attract, to some extent, the same electorate,
and/or to the salience of these two topics in the media. In this sense, constant mention to
national and social issues can be merely profitable politically.
Podemos and Ciudadanos share, with the rest of the analysed parties, the lack of relevance
of environmental or immigration issues, as can be seen in figure 8:
Conservatism
20%
Environment
3%
Immigration
3%
Law and order
9%
Liberalism
12%National Identity
15%
neoliberalism
6%
Populism
5%
Progressive
2%
Social
25%
CIUDADANOS PROGRAM
15
Figure 8: Environmental and Immigration dimensions in Party Programmes
The party that mentions more often immigration topics is Podemos, with almost 5%, and
the average stays around 2.5%. Environment is equally irrelevant in general terms, with
figures as low as 0.5% in CCA or Foro and only up to 4% in Compromis (the highest).
Immigration, after the economic crisis, has apparently ceased to be a main issue among
the population, while the lack of interest in environment might be explained by the lack
of a relevant ‘Green Party’ in Spain akin to its European counterparts. Particularly
interesting is the case of ERC, which is integrated in the Greens/European Free Alliance
group in the European Parliament, yet has barely 0.3% of share for environment in the
wordcount.
Discourse Analysis
The content analysis has provided two parties that score particularly high in populism
levels: Podemos, and Ciudadanos, that stay within an average of 7-8% of populist
wordcount. These two parties are analysed in its discourse, by means of two comparable
sources: the main speech of the central act for the elections’ campaign in 2015, for both
parties.
Podemos
The present analysis covers the first speech of Podemos (before the elections of 20th
December 2015), by Pablo Iglesias during the main campaign rally in Madrid (full text
provided in annex III), quotes literally extracted from (Iglesias, 2015) in italics, indented;
and translated to English below in each case.
Frist of all, the differentiation between the ‘people’ and the ‘elite’ is found in different
forms. Gramatically speaking, the speech uses two different forms: vosotros (you,
informally) when the ‘people’ is addressed, and ustedes (you in the formal fashion) when
the ‘elite’ is interpellated, together with the terminology (people v lords)
‘Sonreíd, sonreíd porque estáis haciendo historia. Y cuando se hace historia,
hay algo que Juan Andrade llama excedente democrático, que vuelve.
Cuando la gente hace historia en este país […] Estamos orgullosos de
vosotros y vosotras, y queremos estar a vuestra altura’
0,00
0,50
1,00
1,50
2,00
2,50
3,00
3,50
4,00
4,50
5,00
Programmes
immigration environment
16
(Smile, smile because you’re making history. And when history is made,
there’s something that Juan Andrade calls democratic excess, that comes
back. When the people make history in this country […], and we are proud of
you, and we want to be at your same level)
And the elite, on the other hand:
‘Señores, de los partidos del turno. Señores del pasado, no solamente hemos
demostrado que les podemos ganar las elecciones, hemos demostrado que
podemos gobernar mejor’
(Lords, from the parties of the Turno. Lords of the past, not only have we
demonstrated that we can defeat you in elections, we have proved that we can
rule better)
Neither the people nor the elite are clearly defined, but an outline of what the elite is about
is given in excerpts such as the ‘lords of the old’ and ‘lords from the parties of the Turno’ii
,
as well as with ‘decir las verdades a la cara a los corruptos’ (tell the truth straight at the
face of the the corrupt people), or ‘patrimonio de señores con trajes caros que
convirtieron la constitución en papel mojado , (patrimony of gentlemen with expensive
suits that left the constitution without meaning). This is, old, corrupt people who betrayed
the spirit of the constitution and its people. Together with this, the ‘political elite’ is
blurrily linked with the ‘economic elite’, namely the big companies:
‘Cuando un exministro, cuando un exdiputado, utiliza los conocimientos que
ha adquirido en una posición pública, que dependían de la gente le hubiera
votado, para vendérselo a red eléctrica, para vendérselo a gas natural, para
vendérselo a telefónica: eso es corrupción estructural’
(when a former minister, when a former member of parliament uses the
knowledge acquired in a public position, depending from the people who
voted for him, to sell it to Red Eléctrica, to sell it to Gas Natural, to sell it to
Telefónica, that is structural corruption)
The people, on the other hand, is characterised as honest, working population who
brought all that is good to the country
‘Tiene que ver con los que peináis canas, con las abuelas y abuelos […]
Estamos orgullosos de todas esas mujeres y de todos esos hombres, que
soñaron que España sería un país mejor [...] muchas gracias a las clases
populares de este país, estamos orgullosos de vosotros y vosotras, y los
avances sociales que se han producido, nos producen honor cuando miramos
a la gente humilde’
(It has to do with those of you with years behind you, with grandparents […],
we are proud of all those women and men who dreamt that Spain would be a
better country […], thanks to the popular classes from this country, we are
proud of all of you, and the achievements accomplished, it honours us when
we stare at the humble).
Under these two concepts, the dichotomy between the two, is presented, as:
‘Muchos tardaron en entender, lo que significaba el movimiento 15M. no era
sólo lo que se veía en las plazas, el movimiento 15M era la sangre que corría
por las venas de España […]. Las banderas tienen que servir para avanzar,
17
estamos orgullosos de España, porque España dijo a las viejas élites: adiós,
no nos representáis, nunca más, una España sin su gente. […] Este país ha
empezado a cambiar, ha empezado a entrar gente corriente en las
instituciones, haciendo lo mejor, quien podía imaginar, después de escuchar
a esa activista que demostró su ternura con los de abajo y su firmeza con los
de arriba’
(Many took their time to understand, what 15M meant [the citizen
movement]. It wasn’t only what you could see on the squares, the 15M
movement was the blood flowing through Spain’s veins […] Flags must serve
be to advance, we are proud of Spain, because Spain told the old elites: good
bye, you don’t represent us, never again, a Spain without its people […] This
country has started to change, normal people have entered the institutions,
doing their best. Who could have imagined, after listening to that activist, that
showed her kindness with the ones below and her firm hand with the ones
above)
And the link between the ‘leader’ and the wise knowledge of the people to know and rule
is presented as well:
‘Nunca más un jefe de gobierno que sea el jefe de los Españoles. Yo quiero
ser el empleado, el trabajador, de los españoles. El presidente está al servicio
de la gente, y tiene que trabajar para la gente, y tiene que dar la cara ante la
gente […] Quien forma el poder judicial. Puede que los ciudadanos se
equivoquen, pero yo me fío más de los ciudadanos que de los partidos’
(Never again a head of government that is the boss of all Spaniards. I want to
be the employee, the worker, of Spaniards. The president serves the people,
and must work for the people, and accept responsibilities before the people.
Who is part of the judicial power [defending the power of citizens to elect
judges]. Citizens might get something wrong, but I trust citizens more than I
do parties)
In the case of Podemos, the 4 items are encountered. However, while the differentiation
between people and elite is evident, repeated, and vertebrates the whole discourse, the
unmediated leadership is less evident in the language used.
With respect to the comparison with content analysis, the findings seem consistent, with
a high degree of populism and the rest devoted to social issues and the national
configuration of the country, without any mention whatsoever for environment or
immigration and very few to progressive topics.
Ciudadanos
The speech of Ciudadanos is also held a few days before the elections of December 20th
,
and here the main part of it (the speech of the party leader, Albert Rivera) is analysed
(Full Transcript provided in Annex III), quotes literally extracted from (Rivera, 2015),
indented, in italics for the original and translated in each case.
The identification of people and elite is contradictory in the speech, with no grammatical
indicator: the speaker uses the formal ‘ustedes’ to address the public and does not
interpellate. It identifies partially the people as the ‘normal people’, that do not want
anything but to be left alone, and now they are going into power through Ciudadanos:
‘Y gente normal haciendo cosas extraordinarias, la gente normal es la que se
va a beneficiar si Ciudadanos gobierna.[…] Esos autónomos que se levantan
18
cada mañana para luchar contra las trabas y la burocracia que la propia
administración les pone; que se levantan cada mañana para pagar contratos,
para pagar IVAs, IRPF, seguridad social, que tienen un sueño, y que quieren
llevar a cabo. -Que no piden nada, que sólo quieren que les dejen trabajar.
Nosotros vamos a ser los aliados de toda esa gente normal’
(And normal people doing extraordinary things: the normal people will
benefit if Ciudadanos rules. […] Those self-employed workers that wake up
every day to fight against the red tape of the administration. That wake up
every morning to pay salaries, to pay VATs, to pay Personal Income Tax,
social security, that have a dream, and want to turn it real. They ask nothing,
they just want to work. We are going to be the allies of those normal people)
The process also carries (as with Podemos) a historic recreation of the Spanish people:
‘hombres libres, valientes, que defendían ideas liberales y progresistas, que
defendían que los derechos eran de los ciudadanos y no de los territorios,
que se oponían a los reaccionarios y a los de vivan las cadenas, forjaron la
primera constitución liberal y democrática en Europa, junto a la constitución
francesa. Fuimos primeros en crear un sistema liberal de derechos. […] les
pido que no voten sólo por ustedes, que votemos por la dignidad, el
reconocimiento y el esfuerzo de nuestros antepasados, de nuestros padres, de
nuestros abuelos, de la gente que nos ha permitido tener un país democrático,
de la gente que ha sabido levantarse después de mucho dolor’
(Free men, brave and bold, that advocated for liberal and progressive ideals,
that defended that rights belonged to citizens and not territories, that opposed
to reactionaries and to the ones of ‘vivan las caenas’iii
, they created the first
liberal and democratic constitution of Europe, together with the French one.
[…] I ask you not to vote only for yourselves, but to vote for dignity instead,
to vote and recognise the effort of our ancestors, of our parents, of our
grandparents, of people that allowed us to have a democratic country, people
who managed to stand up again after so much pain)
In comparison with this depiction of the Spanish people as normal, hard-working people,
linked to a lineage of determined, freedom-lovers and entrepreneurs, the elite is
occasionally hinted in terms of the old politics and the ‘Turno parties’, particularly linked
to corruption:
‘Tenemos que empezar a gobernar pensando no sólo en una legislatura,
pensando en una generación, en nuestros hijos, en nuestros nietos, en nuestro
futuro. Esa es la gran diferencia de nuestro gobierno con los gobiernos que
hemos tenido hasta ahora. Nuestro gobierno pensara en el corto plazo, pero
también en el largo […]. Si alguien tiene que tener miedo son todos aquellos
que si gobernamos van a perder su silla. Miedo van a tener los del senado,
los de las diputaciones, los cargos de confianza, miedo […] Llevamos años
quejándonos de un bipartidismo decadente, de corrupción, de recortes, de
mala gestión, de tomarle el pelo a la gente, de líderes que se esconden y no
dan la cara, de políticos que no tratan con respeto a sus ciudadanos.
Llevamos años aguantando todo esto, y por tanto ha llegado la hora de
cambiar todo esto’
(We need to start to govern thinking not only in one term, but in one
generation: in our children, our grandchildren, in our future. This is the great
19
difference between our government and the ones we have had until now. Our
government will consider the short-term but will also think in long-term […].
If someone has to feel fear, are all those who will lose their chairs if we
govern. Fear will be felt by the ones in the senate, the provincial governments,
in posts of confidence… fear. […]. We have spent years complaining about
our decadent bipartisanship, about corruption, social cuts and bad
governance, of people being fooled, of leaders that hide, of politicians that do
not respect the citizens. We have spent years withstanding this, and the time
has come to change it all).
The dichotomy between this ‘people’ and the ‘old elite’ is presented in several parts, such
as
‘Y eso lo vamos a hacer nosotros, quedan cuatro días para el día más
importante de España en los últimos 35 años, las elecciones más importantes,
el 20 de diciembre los españoles decidirán si gana el miedo o si gana la
ilusión, si vence la resignación o si vence la esperanza […] Hablando de
fútbol, quiero juego limpio, quiero que la política vuelva a ser algo limpio.
Quiero que esos concejales, esos simpatizantes, vuelvan a ser gente que
represente a los españoles’
(and this is what we are going to do, we only have 4 days left before the most
important day for Spain of the last 35, the most important elections, December
20th
Spaniards will decide if the winner is fear or dreams, if resignation or
hope triumphs. […] Speaking of football, I want fair play, I want politics to
be clean again. I want those representatives, those sympathisers, to be again
people that represent the Spaniards).
Together with this, the sovereignty of the people is presented as:
‘Porque España, cuando funciona, vale la pena. […] Así que yo sólo quiero
el gobierno de España se parezca más a los españoles, que le parlamento de
España se parezca más a los españoles, y que la política, por favor, se
parezca más a lo que soñamos los españoles’
(Because Spain, when it works, is worth it. […] So, I just want the Spanish
government to resemble more the Spaniards, that the Spanish parliament
resembles more the Spaniards, and that politics, please, resembles more what
we, Spaniards, dream)
However, there are several lines when these lines are blurred: people from other political
parties are considered as ‘legitimate actors’ to discuss policies, and difference and
plurality is acknowledged among the people, thus not equalling the party’s audience with
it
‘La nueva política se hace sentándose en la mesa, no sólo con los tuyos, que
es muy fácil. Lo difícil es sentarse con lo que piensan distinto y convencerles,
y sólo ciudadanos puede liderar esa transición […]. Y cómo les decía quiero
gobernar para todos los españoles. No quiero gobernar sólo para una
mayoría. El eslogan del partido socialista decía que ellos sólo gobernarán
para una mayoría. Yo no. Yo gobierno para todos los españoles, también
para los que le queden al partido socialista’
(the ‘new politics’ is done by sit down, not only with your own side, which is
very easy. The hard part is to sit down with people that thinks differently and
20
convince them, and only Ciudadanos can lead this transition […] And as I
was telling you, I want to govern for all Spaniards, not only for a majority of
them. The slogan of the Socialist Party says that they will govern for the
majority. I won’t. I govern for all Spaniards, including the ones remaining in
the Socialist Party).
The party, therefore, considers itself part of the ‘new politics’ and draws a political
landscape where the bad attributes of the ‘old system’ is considered some sort of elite to
be expelled. In this process, the people itself is depicted as inherently good and wise,
strong and resilient against deceiving and corrupt leaders.
However, the discourse does not continue this discursive division much further than what
is expected in a political speech (as no political party would announce that the other
options are more suitable than the own one), makes the difference between the Spanish
Citizens and the party voters, and assumes the valid political position of other actors in
the system. While it presents the people as inherently good and sovereignly wise, it does
acknowledge for intermediaries between the leadership and the people:
Le prometo honradez, profesionalidad, un gobierno con los mejores, con
expertos, con profesionales
(I promise you honesty, professionality, a government with the best, with
experts, with professionals).
The discourse, therefore, does construct a cleavage of ‘old and new politics’ and
discharges the people of any bad deed, which is linked to the ‘old elite’. However, it
neither constructs a homogeneous concept of people, as it discerns different groups within
the large ‘Spaniards’ category, nor assumes a homogeneous elite on the other side.
The honesty and wisdom of the ‘hard-working man’ is praised, but so is considered the
labour of professionals and experts.
In comparison with the content analysis, the data also seems consistent for the most part,
with mentions of liberal topics (such as entrepreneurship), a strong social content and a
wide range of populist-like resources (which are nevertheless common in political
speeches). One diverging issue is however national identity: the territorial configuration,
and specifically, the unity of Spain. The speech is mostly structured through this recurring
idea, approaching jacobine positions (individuals, not territories, have rights) and creating
a link between modern regional nationalisms and the ancient regime defeated by the
liberals. Therefore, discourse analysis shows that national identity is a much more salient
dimension in Ciudadanos that what is shown by content analysis.
This contradiction can be explained by the exclusion of the root ‘Spain’ and ‘spa*’ from
the dictionary. When introduced, national identity issues soar in almost every party, but
concordance analyses showed that in many cases words such as ‘Spain’, ‘the Spanish
people’ or ‘Spaniards’ are used generically to refer to people in other context (such as
unemployment or corruption, for instance). Therefore, ‘Spain’ was flagged as a false
positive, particularly in materials like party programmes, where the word is used many
times in descriptive chapters about any topic.
21
Conclusions
The findings prove the expected conclusions that all or almost all parties have some
degree of populism in their speeches. The analysis shows that two parties have much
higher degrees than the rest (Podemos and Ciudadanos), both being the ‘newcomers’ of
the political arena, which also fits the expectations, and concludes that one of them
(Podemos) can be classified as a populist party without any doubt. These findings agree
with most existing research on the field commented above, obtaining similar conclusions
in which party is populistic with different approaches.
Moreover, the analysis shows that Podemos fulfils the 4 items proposed to identify a
populist party and is particularly strong in the articulation of a good, homogeneous people
and a bad, homogeneous elite, and the conflict between the two. Consistently with the
findings of Arroyas Langa & Pérez Díaz (2016), the unmediated leadership of Pablo
Iglesias is not as present as the other populist items, although discourse analysis has not
found traces of a more collective leadership, either, other than the use of the first person
of plural to identify the own party, which is also present in the rest of parties. Both in
grammar and content, as well as terminology, the whole speech is structured around the
conflict between the people and the elite, often represented by the ‘new’ and the ‘old’,
and the link between the party-leader and the people, created by both direct assertions
and, particularly, by the use of formal and informal ranges of language to create closeness
or distance, depending of the target group.
Ciudadanos, on the other hand, shows some degree of populism, but also displays
examples of a heterogenous people, and therefore cannot be fully classified as populist.
Given that this analysis did not intend a ‘either-or’ classification, it can be labelled as a
party with some populistic traits, which score higher than others probably because it is a
newcomer to the political game.
We can also conclude that Podemos, aside from populistic, has a large share of social and
national issues on the agenda, while Ciudadanos has a more liberal-conservative stance,
with a very strong national identity dimension (as seen in the speech). Both parties align
themselves through the speeches along the lines of the old v new cleavage in politics.
In general terms, the political landscape of Spain can be seen as highly salient in social
and national terms, which, as commented above, can be linked to the two main crises
faced by the country in the last years. Environment and immigration, two issues usually
relevant in other countries analysed (Pauwels, 2014), are almost irrelevant in general.
These findings seem to align with the idea that populist parties are simply grasping the
most relevant issues among the public and using them. This analysis shows, with the
differences between Podemos and Ciudadanos, the key difference between ‘somewhat
populistic’ and ‘populistic’ that often blurs the line of political discourse analysis,
relevant in most western countries if a line is to be drawn and light be shed over the
obscure abundance of the label populism.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Lukáš Lehotský and Veronika Zapletalová for their comments, and in
particular for the guidance and feedback of my PhD supervisor Vít Hlousek.
Funding
This work was partially supported by Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic)
22
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Annex
Annex I - Dictionary
DICTIONARY (SPA/CAT) ENGLISH TRANSLATION
CONSERVATISM: creenci* cristian*
eclesiástic* esglési* esquer* estabil*
estable fe iglesia izquierd* Jesucristo
norma porn* sexe Sexo valores valors
Belief, christian, ecclesial, church, left,
stability, faith, jesus, rule, porn, sex,
values
ENVIRONMENT: Ecol* calentament
calentamiento clima mediambient
medioambiente orgánic* verde
Ecol*, global warming, climate,
environment, organic, green
IMMIGRATION: Inmigraci* Marroquí
burka estrange* extranj* gitan* ilegal
il·legal* inmigrant* islam mora moro
ruman* sudamerican* velo árab*
Immigra*, Moroccan, burkha, foreigner,
gipsy, illegal, islam, moor, Romanian,
southamerican, arab veil
LAW AND ORDER: Seguridad crimen
criminalidad droga seguretat terroris*
violencia
Security, safety, criminality, drugs,
terrorism, violence
LIBERALISM: Impuest* burocracia
competencia competitividad
competitivitat eficien* impostos liberaliz*
reducció* tarea
Taxes, bureauracy, competition,
efficiency, liberalisation, reduction, task
NATIONALISM: Catalunya Euskal
Galiza Herria asturi* autodeterminaci*
canari* catalan* galleg* independencia
nacion* naciones paisos patria*
pluricultur* plurinacional terra tierra
valencia* vasc*
Catalonia, Basque Country, Galicia,
Asturias, self-determination, canar*,
Independence, nations, countries,
fatherland, pluricultural, plurinational,
land, valencia
NEOLIBERALISM: Parasit* abusiv*
benefici* competiti* competitiv*
disrupti* emprende* emprendiment
informal
Parasite, abusive, profit, competitive,
disruptive, entrepreneurship, informal
POPULISM: abajo arriba arrogant*
arrogante Baix bipartidis* calle
capitulaci* carrer casta clase corrup* Dalt
dictadura direct* elit* establishment
expresio* franco franq* gent* gobernant*
mafia partitocracia poble* promesa
propaganda pueblo referéndum régim*
traición traïció vergony* vergüenza élite
élites
Below, above, arrogant, bipartidism,
street, capitulation, caste, class,
corruption, dictatorship, directly, elite,
establishment, franco, expression, people,
ruling, mafia, partitocracy, promise,
propaganda, referendum, regimen,
betrayal, shame,
PROGRESSIVE: Individu* LGTB*
derecha dereta dona dones feminism*
homofob* mujer progresista xenofob*
Individual, LGTB, right, woman,
feminism, homophobia, progressism,
xenophobia
SOCIAL: atur austeridad austeritat
desempl* deshauci* deuda* deute*
iscapacit* educació* igualdad igualtat
Austerity, unemployment, evictions, debt,
disabled, education, equality, misery,
26
miseria parad* paro pensió* pobr*
protecció* social
Diccionary notes: populism label: corruption, while understood by Pauwels as a marker
for populism, might be deceiving in Spain, as it is such a broad, far-reaching topic
common to all parties (either to criticise it or to announce the fight against it). In yellow,
words that might be causing false positives (most of them taken from Pauwels’
dictionary). Followed by * includes all possible endings with the same root.
27
Party Document Literature
Type
Podemos Manifesto Mover Ficha Other
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
Manifesto Asamblea Ciudadana Other
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment (other than Iglesias)
2015
Other
Electoral Speech 2016 Other
Program Prologue 2015 Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Other
Parliament Speech for PM Impeachment 2017 Other
National Elections Program 2015 Program
Ciudadanos Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Other
Ciudadanos Magazine Other
Electoral Speech 2015 Other
Parliament Speech for PM Impeachment 2017 Other
II Party congress speech Other
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment (other than Rivera)
2015
Other
First Manifesto Other
National Elections Program 2016 Program
Bildu European Elections Program 2014 Program
Manifesto European Elections Other
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
National Elections 2015 program Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Other
Coalición
Canaria
(CC)
European Elections Program 2014 Program
National Elections Program 2011 Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
National Elections 2015 program Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Other
Compromis National Elections Program 2011 Program
European Elections Program 2014 Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
National Elections 2015 program Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Other
Founding Manifesto Other
Esquerra
Republicana
de
Catalunya
(ERC)
National Elections Program 2011 Program
Manifesto European Elections Other
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
National Elections 2015 program Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Other
FORO Manifesto European Elections Other
National Elections Program 2011 Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
National Elections 2015 program Program
28
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Other
Nueva
Canarias
(NCa)
National Elections Program 2011 Program
National Elections 2015 program Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Other
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
Partit
Democrata
de
Catalunya
(PDCat)
National Elections Program 2011 Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
National Elections 2015 program Program
Founding Manifesto Other
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Program
Political Congress 2016 Other
Partido
Nacionalista
Basco
(PNV)
Political Manifesto Other
National Elections Program 2011 Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
National Elections 2015 program Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Other
Partido
Popular
(PP)
National Elections Program 2011 Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
Electoral Speech 2016 Other
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Other
National Elections 2015 program Program
Partido
Socialista
Obrero
Español
(PSOE)
National Elections Program 2011 Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Other
National Elections 2011 program Program
National Elections 2015 program Program
Unión del
Pueblo
Navarro
(UPN)
National Elections Program 2011 Program
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2015 Other
Parliament Speech for PM Appointment 2016 Other
Endnotes
i
Particularly interesting for Populism is the concept of people, which uses its lack of
definition as a common unification device. In this sense, the idea of ‘the people’ is a
metaphor for something that cannot be referred literally, much alike modern currency.
Proper functioning of modern monetary systems based on debt rely first and foremost on
people’s confidence (that is, that they do not attempt to change their currencies into gold
-if that were even possible legally speaking), and money acts as a metaphor of everything
that can be bought. Populism uses the same system with people, which becomes a
metaphor for everything good and every demand individuals might have, and works in
the most effective way when no attempt is made to reduce it to any literal meaning,
therefore opening who can be included or excluded (Solá & Rendueles, 2017). In this
sense, e.g. Villacañas (2015), argues that populism has managed to find a substitute for
the unifying narrative of Marxism where the destruction of private property was the
demand that unified any other possible one.
29
ii
In reference to the political system of the Bourbonic restoration between the 1870s and
1923, where two parties took turns to occupy power (the so-called dynastic parties),
imitating the British system. However, as the designers of the system were not sure of
how that would work in Spain, they created a whole corrupt scheme to ensure that no one
outside those parties could get effective political power -despite the adoption of universal
suffrage in the 20th
century)
iii
‘Vivan las caenas (sic)’, literally ‘hail the chains’ or ‘long live the chains’ was a motto
of the absolutists against the liberals during the political struggles of the Spanish 19th
Century, although over time it became a derogatory term used by the latter group against
the first one.