Published peer-reviewed articles
Papers and works in progress
PSOE’s ties to Spanish modernization, globalization, and laying the ground for Podemos (Revise and resubmit)
Across the majority of countries in Western Europe, new political parties have found success in national elections within the past decade. Amongst them, Spain stands out: despite being relatively bipartisan for three decades, the party system has become increasingly fragmented. At the national level, three new parties in particular have been especially successful in terms of the popular vote and seats won. In this paper I focus on data gathered from archives of Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) campaign materials, evidence from manifestos, and other texts in order to trace the interaction of social cleavages with PSOE’s party strategy over time. I argue that the decline of old cleavages interacted with PSOE’s strategic development after the Civil War, leading to a focus on a politics of compromise and modernization. In particular, I draw out four main themes from the evidence, which helped PSOE in stabilizing Spanish democracy. However, at the same time, this strategy also meant that as new cleavages arose – linked to globalization – PSOE’s response to its voters was constrained, leaving a more fragmented Spanish party politics.
Authoritarian legacy and support for the modern day far-right in Spain
Vox – the relatively new far-right party – has seen great success in both regional and national elections across Spain since its establishment in 2013. In this paper I ask to what extent support for the Spanish far-right is linked to the country’s legacy of authoritarianism by comparing vote shares for Vox and attitudes towards Franco’s dictatorship across all 19 regional parliaments. First I consider the broader historical context and conduct a qualitative analysis of the different legacies of Francoist Spain across regions. In particular, I focus on the cultivation of a national memory regarding the dictatorship – or rather, a repression of it – which I argue allowed Vox to positively draw on a romanticized legacy of Francoist Spain. Second, I analyze a dataset from 2000 that asks respondents to assess and reflect on their memories and attitudes towards Franco’s regime. Third, I then compare these results with recent data (2023) to draw out the similarities and differences between predictors for sympathetic views towards Spain’s authoritarian past and current-day support for the far-right. In contrast, regions that are less sympathetic towards Franco’s legacy are more likely to vote for leftist parties. I also find that several indicators – in particular age – are strong common predictors of support, although the impact of the legacy of dictatorship on voting for the far-right at the individual-level is mixed.
National Memory of Dictatorships and Framing of Contemporary Right-Wing Populism in Spain and Argentina
Right-wing populist movements are surging across many countries, although their methods of achieving success are varied. Some scholars thought that parties such as Vox and figures such as Javier Milei would be unlikely, given Spain and Argentina’s recent histories of right-wing dictatorships. Although there are some similarities between contemporary right-wing populism in Spain, both their ideologies and campaign appeals are different, especially in their references to the legacy of their countries’ dictatorships. I ask, in countries with both a legacy of far-right dictatorship and a contemporary far-right party, what role might the political memory of these dictatorships play in shaping the strategy of contemporary far-right parties? I argue that Spain and Argentina crafted distinct national memories of the dictatorships through cultural and institutional mechanisms that impacted how the two contemporary far-right parties – Vox and La Libertad Avanza – frame their political platform today. Whilst Spain fostered a national memory of silence and forgetting the dictatorship, Argentina more actively confronted the dictatorship’s human rights violations, and recognized its victims. This legacy is evident in the countries’ main two far-right parties today, as Vox draws on an implicit nostalgia of the dictatorship, whilst La Libertad Avanza bypasses any references to the military regime.
Book project
Haunted Democracies and Political Memory: How Dictatorships Shape Today’s Far Right in Spain, Argentina, and Portugal
Far-right and populist-right political parties continue to succeed at the ballot box globally. Some of these are formally in power, such as the Bharatiya Janata Party in parliament under the leadership of Modi, or the Brothers of Italy serving a prominent role with Meloni as Prime Minister. In other cases, far-right parties may not hold power at the central level, but are still winning a significant percentage of the popular vote in national elections, in addition to gaining ground at the local level. One recent prominent example is the Alternative for Germany, finishing first in the 2024 regional elections in Thuringia and Saxony.
The majority of scholarship seeking to explain the rise of the far-right focuses on the success of these movements, defined as popular support: votes and seats won in elections. However, in this project, I focus more on the party strategy and the framing of far-right policy platforms. By drawing on evidence from Spain, Argentina, and Portugal, I ask: how did these countries’ (relatively recent) legacies of far-right dictatorship affect the framing and platform of far-right parties today?
The most recent dictatorships in Spain, Argentina, and Portugal – of course, despite some differences – shared many similarities e.g. the role of state terror and repression, propaganda and censorship, and right-wing nationalism. Yet, distinctions in these countries’ approaches to the development of a national narrative of the authoritarian regimes during the democratic transitions led to the development of varied legacies and memories of dictatorship.
I show that the legacies of dictatorship within these three countries differed significantly, which is reflected in the framing of each parties’ policies and platforms. Therefore, given the similarities of the authoritarian regimes, and the distinct outcomes regarding the strategy employed by the contemporary far-right parties, I employ a Most Similar Systems Design. By using process tracing, I show that the development of a national memory of authoritarianism during the process of democratic consolidation is key to understanding how far-right parties make appeals to their supporters.
I argue that the formulation of a political memory of dictatorship, by both political elites and citizens, provides opportunities and constraints for the far-right’s party strategy. In countries where the past is directly confronted – demonstrated by a serious attempt to grapple with the human rights abuses of dictatorship – far-right parties will avoid drawing on this legacy, given that such a strategy could be highly divisive and distracting for potential supporters. On the other hand, in countries where an environment of evasion is fostered – regarding the dictatorship’s crimes – far-right parties can use a percieved positive legacy of authoritarianism to appeal to voters, by way of drawing on nostalgia.