"The Spanish Exception: Unemployment, inequality and immigration, but no right-wing populist parties"

[Crowd in the center of Madrid. Photo: Manolo Gómez (CC BY 2.0)] If we accept that the governing Partido Popular is in fact right-wing but not actually 'populist' then these findings are fascinating...

"Very few European countries have proven immune to the appeal of right-wing populism. The exception is Spain: despite economic crisis and fast-eroding political trust, Spain has not seen any right-wing populist party obtain more than 1% of the vote in national elections in recent years. 

What might explain this remarkable absence of an electorally successful Spanish right-wing populist party?

Using public data (including statistics and opinion polls), interviews with experts and original polling, this case study scrutinises various factors influencing right-wing populist success in Spain – or lack thereof. First, it sets out why it is so remarkable that Spain should not have a right-wing populist presence in politics. 

Several explanations are discussed, including the historical weakness of the Spanish national identity and the Spanish people’s pro-Europeanism. These factors all seem to influence the (lack of) demand for a populist message by Spanish people. In and of themselves, however, these factors fail fully to explain the absence of a right-wing political party. 

Finally, this case study considers so-called supply-side factors, particularly the failure of parties that have tried to appeal to right-wing populist sentiments in Spain and the effects of the Spanish electoral system.

This report takes part of the Research Project “Nothing to fear but fear Itself?”, an initiative of the British think tank Demos, which covers six countries: Germany, Poland, France, the UK, Sweden and Spain. The full report can be found on this webpage."