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Ideological Congruence Following the Great Recession

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Politicians in Hard Times

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Abstract

This chapter analyses changes in ideological congruence following the Great Recession and the huge institutional crisis that has occurred in Spain over the 2010s. Data show that ideological congruence on the left-right scale is lower following the Great Recession than before. The reason is not only the emergence of new parties, some of which are radical, but the fact that the two traditional mainstream parties have become more extreme and polarised. The polarisation process has made parties more congruent with voters at the extremes of the ideological scale, but much less congruent with those placed around the centre. However, there is more congruence in attitudes towards taxation and public services, because since the crisis citizens have seemed more favourable towards tax increases, a change that has placed them closer to MPs on this issue.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This research was conducted thanks to data collected within the framework of the CIUPARCRI project (Citizenship and parliamentarians in times of crisis and democratic renewal: the comparative case of Spain in the context of southern Europe), thanks to competitive funding from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness co-financed with ERDF funds under the code CSO2016-78016-R. More information about the project can be found here: https://www.upo.es/investiga/dasp/es/project/ciudadania-y-parlamentarios-en-tiempos-de-crisis-y-renovacion-el-caso-comparado-de-espana-en-el-contexto-del-sur-de-europa/

  2. 2.

    Additional information on the project can be found in https://www.upo.es/democraciayautonomias. Although this period of study includes the first years of the Great Recession, the parliamentarians had been selected between 2007 and 2008 in the Congress of Deputies and in all the regional chambers (except the Basque Country and Galicia) and therefore represent the pre-crisis party system. The database can be obtained in Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, study no. 2827 (2012).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, University of Burgos, Burgos, Spain

    Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer

  2. Department of Sociology, Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain

    Pablo Domínguez

Authors
  1. Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer
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  2. Pablo Domínguez
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Correspondence to Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science and Administration, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain

    Xavier Coller

  2. School of Law, Universidad de Burgos, Burgos, Spain

    Leonardo Sánchez-Ferrer

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Sánchez-Ferrer, L., Domínguez, P. (2021). Ideological Congruence Following the Great Recession. In: Coller, X., Sánchez-Ferrer, L. (eds) Politicians in Hard Times. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70242-7_13

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