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This paper analyzes the use of Twitter by the candidates for the presidency of the Government of Spain of the five main parties at the national level -PSOE, PP, Vox, Podemos and Ciudadanos- of the general elections campaigns held in April and November 2019. The main purpose of our study is to determine the strategies used of the microblogging network by the leaders, both in terms of activity, interaction and notoriety and in terms of topics and discursive development, as well as their similarities and differences. The secondary objective is to study the evolution of these strategies both between the two campaigns and with respect to previous elections. To this end, the research is based on a content analysis methodology that studies quantitative, qualitative and discursive elements. The results reveal an uneven use of Twitter in terms of the frequency of updates, but similar in terms of its unidirectionality, with scarce interaction with other users and a predominance of tweets with their own content over retweets. The dissemination of other people's content was used almost entirely to promote the candidate's political party and, to a lesser extent, to interact with journalists. Dialogue with citizens was almost always residual, both in retweets and in responses. This utilitarian conception of the microblogging network was accompanied by a polarizing thematic selection, with an almost general preponderance of political issues over policy issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the evolution of the electoral use of Instagram in Spain, from its origins as a political communication channel to its current consolidation. A content analysis of eleven variables is applied to the formal, spatial, personal, thematic-discursive and interactive dimensions of the activity carried out on this social network by the candidates for the presidency of the Spanish Government of the parties that ran with the highest vote expectations in the General Elections of December 2015, June 2016 and April and November 2019 (571 posts). The results show the consolidation of Instagram as a political communication tool and the growing interest of the parties in it, as well as the increasing importance of short videos as a format. The electoral use of this social network is carried out with an increasingly mobilising intention, as evidenced both by the themes chosen and, above all, by the purpose of the publications, the spatial context represented and the hashtags used. The growing characterisation of candidates as leaders of the masses is also evidence of the personalisation of political leadership that occurs in this medium during electoral campaigns. Finally, the phenomenon of polarisation and the presence of populist stylistic traits are also beginning to be noticeable, as reflected in the increase in political issues and negative emotional appeals in the messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the use of Telegram as an electoral communication tool in Spain, focusing on the messages sent by the five major parties in the country (PSOE, PP, Vox, Unidas Podemos and Ciudadanos) during the campaigns corresponding to the general elections of April 28 and November 10, 2019. This research paper steps outside this somewhat still narrow area of methodology by combining two different research techniques on a methodological triangulation: traditional content analysis and data mining processes using Python. Results, which show how political parties in Spain use Telegram mainly as a mobilization tool while expressing closeness with the candidate, are contextualized thanks to the implementation of Big Data analysis techniques that improve and allow for an in-depth investigation and understanding of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the informative coverage of 9 Latin American newspapers on the general election held in Spain on November 10, 2019. This is considered an important event that helped close a turbulent period of the national political life. A content analysis sheet was applied to all texts regarding the campaign appeared between November 1 and 11 (n = 35), considering, among other variables, location, extension, authorship, sources, genres, nature of the content and frame. The results allow concluding that the selected newspapers dedicated a wide space to the November 10 election. Furthermore, media outlet granted part of their coverage an interpretive dimension and offered a vision on the campaign dominated by the strategic and game frames, since they placed the focus on the polls and the possibility of post-electoral agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the information coverage by the Spanish newspapers El país, El mundo, ABC, and La vanguardia in Twitter on the electoral campaign prior to the 10 November 2019 general elections. A content analysis of all tweets published by these media regarding the elections (n = 1,462) between Friday 1 and Saturday 9 November reveals that, although there are differences in the production patterns and features of the messages, the subject received notable attention in all the newspapers. The coverage gravitated around two main themes: the 4N electoral debate, and campaign events. The results reveal that, although most of the tweets had a neutral tone, messages with clear positioning corresponding to the editorial line of the newspaper were also published, albeit to a lesser extent. During the electoral period, the media agenda revolved around this issue, accounting for around one-fifth of all pieces published on Twitter. Newspapers do not take advantage of the dialogic nature or possibilities offered by this social network to create a community among their readers, limiting themselves to the dissemination of content from their digital edition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the content of the electoral hoaxes identified by factcheckers Maldita and Newtral, using as a case study the campaign for the April 28th 2019 Spanish general election. To study the context in which electoral disinformation operates, a bot was created on Twitter (@unfaking_es) that followed the activity of the accounts of the main media, political parties, candidates, official institutions and factcheckers. Most of the 37 hoaxes analysed originated on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, and the electoral system itself was the main target of disinformation, being labelled as fraudulent. The debate on Twitter was dominated by live fact-checking carried out carried out by left-wing media, media, with Pablo Casado (Popular with Pablo Casado (Popular Party) being the most frequently debunked candidate. most frequently debunked candidate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This is a research paper that focuses on the Spanish General Elections of 2015 and the subsequent elections, which were held in 2016 as a result of the former ones not producing any agreements leading to the creation of a stable executive. During that period and, in particular, since 2015, politics in Spain overcame a historical two-party domination for the first time in its democracy - on the one hand, the Popular Party (PP) and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) - giving way to new political parties aspiring to reach national government, for example, Podemos and Ciudadanos. The main elements of the research deal with studies in agenda setting including an analysis of the Spanish public and media agendas, with a particular emphasis on political coverage. Methodology: A content analysis of the press has been carried out (El Mundo and El País) during the campaign period of the aforementioned elections, revealing the most significant topics on the agenda. Results and Discussion: The data produced by the study indicate that the problems deemed important for the country by Spanish voters have been relegated to a second tier during the electoral campaign. Leaders and different groups prefer to highlight issues linked to politics and governance called "meta-topics" in their speeches, centering on pacts, agreements and self-reference rather than the usual issues of the political agenda such as employment, health and education, among others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Castilla-La Mancha reached its political autonomy 35 years ago, nine regional elections have been held for choosing the representatives for the regional Parliament. The electoral system has been changed in four occasions, the most recent three in the last two legislatures. This paper aims to identify the effects of the different components of the electoral system on issues such as the value of the vote, its proportionality, the regional party sub-system, or regional political pluralism. Also, the paper will examine the arguments set forth by parties defending the reforms and the real goals that may have been behind them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discussed the utility and reach of social networks during electoral campaigns. We presented the results of a research that analyzes the use of Twitter by political parties in the legislative elections in Spain December 20th, 2015. Presence of the candidates and political parties during the last month of campaign was quantified, and the quality and quantity of their interactions with their followers was evaluated. The results indicate that Twitter is a good social thermometer, but still it faces a major methodological challenge as a predictive tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general elections of December 2015 supposed the opening of a new political cycle in Spain. The high electoral volatility, the increase of party fragmentation (with the strong emergence of two new political forces) and the fall in the percentage of votes of the two main groups, are symptoms of change in the party system. This paper describes the Spanish elections from 1977 to 2016 and aims to delimit electoral cycles over almost forty years of democracy. For this purpose, describes the electoral results, the type of party system (focusing on electoral volatility levels, ideological polarization, party fragmentation and electoral competitiveness), the governments formation and the political parties with representation in the Congress of Deputies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a general view about how especially vulnerable people are able to vote nowadays in Spain. It begins with a brief overview of the general regime governing voting in Spain and how votes are emitted. It then examines the normative guidelines affecting the vote for the disabled in more specific detail: access for voters with special mobility needs (direct or by post); special procedures of direct voting for disabled people unable to vote unaided; special procedures enabling the blind to use using braille so they can vote directly; and the special procedure for remote voting by persons whose disablement prevents them from personally filing the corresponding application. Finally, by way of conclusion the paper adds some critical considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has as its goal the measure of the accuracy of the pre-election surveys published in the Spanish media for the 2014 european Parliament, the regionals in the first half of 2015 and the locals in seven of the biggest Spanish cities. Starting with 120 analysed surveys, the aggregated distance model consists of the differences between predictions and actual results by every party and it develops an error coefficient that allows the measure and comparison of those predictions. Results are presented by election, communication group where predictions were published, research company producing them, political party and time distance to election day. Also it is analysed the existing relation between these and some other variables, such as sample size, and the error coefficient as dependent variable with the objective of knowing which are the most decisive factors affecting polls accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effect of candidates on voting behaviour in the regional elections of 2007 and 2011 in a number of Spanish regions (Autonomous Communities) included in the scope of the so-called 'dominant model of competition.' These are characterised by the total predominance of Spain-wide parties—and absence of any relevant nationalist/regionalist parties—in all electoral contests: Castile and León, Castile-La Mancha, Madrid region, Valencia region, Extremadura, La Rioja and Murcia region. Electoral research in Spain has focused mainly on the strong weight of ideology and party identifi cation in terms of voting behaviour, whereas the impact of the regional candidates themselves has not been analysed in so much detail. Using a series of logistic regressions, this study shows that approving of the regional leader is indeed one of the most signifi cant factors regarding voting decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the influence of elections on local government management from the perspective of political budget cycles. The objective is to analyse whether there is budgetary manipulation with the aim of influencing voters' electoral decisions and which budgetary expenses are chosen to carry out this manipulation. We also study the effect of these policies of manipulation on the debt of administrations. The results show evidence of political budget cycles in Valencia's local governments although their influence is not very great. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the predictions of the election results for the Spanish Parliament published in the main Spanish newspapers. To gauge their degree of accuracy, the distance between the predictions and the actual results was defined and later assessed by comparing it with that of the so-called 'perfect poll'. This 'perfect poll' was generated by a simulation using the proportions of votes actually obtained by each party. Other issues related to the published polls are also analysed, such as the relationship between sample size and estimation quality, and between the error made (by excess or defect) for a party and the ideological affinity between that party and the newspaper publishing the survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The variance in electoral magnitude and in district malapportionment is relevant to understand the political consequences of the spanish electoral system. This paper proposes a threefold classification of districts into subsystems and validates it by its diverging results in fractionalization and proportionality. The inequality of electoral magnitudes places a special overrepresentation bonus on certain parties; and the same happens with malapportionment. Both things accumulate into a geographical electoral price which results in a conservative bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is focused on the nationalization of political parties in Spain understood as the homogeneity of parties' electoral support across constituencies in a national election. The first part of the paper describes the evolution of nationalization from 1977 to the present and shows how the Spanish party system is increasingly nationalized despite the differences across parties. The second part seeks to explain party nationalization determinants. The analysis indicates that the votes received at national level increases party nationalization. The age of the party enhances national parties' nationalization while in subnational parties this variable has a negative effect, pointing to a trade-off between the two groups. Finally, the ideological distance in the left-right axis reduces national parties' homogeneity across districts while founding elections have no effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyse the influence of the 2008 and 2011 Spanish electoral campaigns on political efficacy. For this purpose, we employ statistical analysis with poll data. The results support the hypothesis that electoral campaigns can have a positive impact on political efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to understand the behavior of Spain's main media within a specific electoral context: the 2008 General Election. To this end, we analyzed the coverage of the major Spanish newspapers (El País, El Mundo and Abc) in order to determine whether their agenda setting and framing had political motives, in addition to the merely informative intention. Spanish media had at least two options within the context of the elections: to offer their readers a neutral coverage or, on the contrary, to taint it with obvious partisanship. Our findings demonstrate the predominance of the latter option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the pattern of territorial organization established in the Spanish Constitution of 1978 creates non-statewide institutions with legislative powers, and regional elections are held in order to choose non-national deputies. Turnout in these contests is usually lower than the one registered in the national congressional elections. The paper argues that some special groups of voters are particularly prone to vote in national but not in regional elections. This phenomenon, that is called differential turnout, is studied in the 2005 Basque Country and 2006 Catalonia regional elections. Econometric models show a relationship between voters' judgements on the performance of the regional incumbent and the quality of non-national candidates, on one side, and the propensity of differential turnout, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes economic voting in decentralized contexts. The existence of several arenas of political competition allows for the appearance of vertical electoral contamination processes, implying that voters do not evaluate the performance of national and regional governments independently. Using the case of Spain in the period 1982-2008, it is demonstrated that this electoral contamination spreads from the national arena to the regional one, and not the other way round. However, electoral contamination tends to diminish as the process of decentralization takes place over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes over, from an empirical perspective, one of the classic concerns of normative theories of democracy: political community size and citizen participation. Although it focuses on voter turnout, this paper makes a simple question: why and how the political body size can influence the political behaviour of its residents. For this purpose, we examine, from an aggregate approach, the relationship between "size" and turnout in different types of elections in Andalusia, in the period 1999-2011. Our ecological analysis of participation, by using multi-regression techniques, shows that population size is the main "civic" characteristic of localities. However, other characteristics of local contexts, such as income and subsidized agrarian population, are positively related to participation. Our results suggest that individual theories of voting behaviour should also take into account the contextual factor when offering their conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coverage of 2008 Spanish presidential elections was remarkably different among free dailies and the paid press. Content analysis of main Spanish newspapers (El País, El Mundo, ADN, Qué! and 20 minutos) reveals a varying degree of salience in the coverage of the political event, as well as the extent to which these papers were politicized. Additionally, news frames were analyzed. The results of this study come from the project "The model of the free press in Spain: development, contents, uses and gratifications perceived by the audience", funded by Ministry of Science and Innovation (SEJ2007-66380). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a new electoral system for the Spanish Congress. This new system does not require any changes in the current Spanish Constitution. The main objectives are representativity, governability and equity. For this purpose, political party seats are allocated in several stages, and a biproportional allotment is applied to determine how many seats are allocated to each party in each constituency. The possibilities of forming stable governments, with the proposed electoral systems, are similar to those obtained with the present electoral system; however with the proposed system the results are more equal in the sense that two parties with a similar number of votes would obtain the same or nearly the same number of seats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political corruption is a key theoretical issue regarding the quality of democracy. And it was a main theme from the empirical point of view during the last Spanish local elections, held on May 27, 2007. This paper focuses upon the electoral behaviour of foreigners on that occasion and aims to know whether and to what extent corruption mobilized those citizens. Data confirm that there is a relationship between public charges of political corruption and electoral mobilization, but this is not enough as to affect election results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically reviews the conventional wisdom on the positive relationship between turnout and the electoral results of the PSOE in general elections in Spain. We highlight the existence of three causal mechanisms that give rise to different predictions about this correlation and therefore undermine the existing parsimonious thesis. Some of our arguments are empirically tested with aggregate district-level data corresponding to the ten general elections held to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we use the method of counterfactual simulation to estimate the number of strategic votes transferred from the United Left (IU) to the Socialist Party (PSOE) in the last three Spanish general elections. The strategic voters we refer to are those who, in spite of IU being their first political preference, voted for the PSOE in order to attain representation benefits. The counterfactual simulation procedure is used to examine how the predicted individual probability of voting for a party changes when the strategic incentives at constituency level are removed. Our results lend support to the hypothesis that IU's electoral and parliamentary collapse was due in no small measure to the strategic behavior of its followers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manipulation of the Spanish electoral system carried out by the political elites that led the political transition has been proved by several studies. This manipulation moves through the existence of a large number of low-magnitude districts and its interaction with malapportionment, the Hondt formula and, above all, the variance effect of district magnitudes. In this paper I will discuss another bias that has not yet been studied by researchers, and which also paved the way for UCD victories: the turnout bias. I will show how the manipulation of the electoral system led UCD to win systematically in the districts where there was low turnout and how its opponents won in districts with high turnout. Therefore the "price" of the seats for UCD was lower. This bias has remained and it favours those parties that have support in the districts with low turnout which are, at the same time, more overrepresented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to shed new light on the causes of split-ticket voting in concurrent multi-level national and regional elections held under PR electoral rules. Up to now, differences in electoral outcomes in Spanish concurrent elections have been understood as a product of the mechanisms associated with second order elections. Evidence against this interpretation is presented, and alternative explanations from the international literature are tested. We find that, on one hand, Andalusian intrablock and regionalist ticket-splitters weigh their national and regional electoral choices differently: While in the national arena ideology is the main predictor of electoral behavior, at the regional level ticket-splitters tend to cross ideological lines and vote based on the performance of regional politicians or a preference for local leaders. On the other hand, interblock ticket-splitters seem to balance their votes ideologically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the existence of a coordination dilemma in multi-level countries that hold elections for different parliaments, at different territorial levels, and with different electoral rules. With evidence from Spain, our analysis identifies interaction or contamination effects between national and sub-national electoral arenas that generate, just as in most mixed-member electoral systems, a centrifugal force that increases the number of electoral parties in national elections. The incentives that solve this coordination dilemma faced by small regional or local parties are theoretically discussed and empirically tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the way in which voting decision combines factors regarding government performance and the representative nature of the rulers. We have selected four Spanish regions with different degrees of nationalism and different parties at autonomous regional and central government levels. Voters make decisions in a two-dimensional space (ideology and nationalism). We calculate the relative importance of each dimension and show that ideology affects all voters equally, whereas the nationalist dimension only affects nationalists. Using conditional logit estimation techniques, we analyse a 1992 survey of carried out by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, which shows us that (i) there is a coat-tail voting effect, so that the party in power is rewarded or punished at autonomous regional level, (ii) nationalist voters are more indulgent than non nationalist voters when they have a negative opinion of the regional government performance, and (iii) the more exclusionist the nationalism, the stronger this effect will be. We consider that these effects are due to the fact that nationalists vote on the basis of representation rather than government performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the shortcomings of the literature on strategic voting is the absence of empirical evidence in proportional representation electoral systems (PR systems). In this paper the existence of strategic voting in the 1996 regional elections in Andalusia is demonstrated using a pooled cross- section regression model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The M11 massacre opened an exceptional period in the official communication, which ended with an unexpected electoral setback of the Spanish government. This paper analyses the management of the crisis communication, as its use for electoral purposes could have caused the loss of confidence in the Popular Party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the psychological effects of the electoral system, paying attention to the influence that the size or magnitude of the electoral district has on the strategic use of the vote in the Spanish Congreso de los Diputados elections. In order to measure the incidence of the strategic vote on the behaviour of Spanish voters between 1982 and 2000, the various approaches proposed for studying this phenomenon are applied. The results make it possible to confirm that the institutional variable forming the electoral system - the size or dimension of the district, in other words the difference between large and small districts - has an influence on the behaviour of voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]