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In an era of increasing political polarization, its analysis becomes crucial for the understanding of democratic dynamics. This paper presents a comprehensive research on measuring political polarization on X (Twitter) during election cycles in Spain, from 2011 to 2019. A wide comparative analysis is performed on algorithms used to identify and measure polarization or controversy on microblogging platforms. This analysis is specifically tailored towards publications made by official political party accounts during pre-campaign, campaign, election day, and the week post-election. Guided by the findings of this comparative evaluation, we propose a novel algorithm better suited to capture polarization in the context of political events, which is validated with real data. As a consequence, our research contributes a significant advancement in the field of political science, social network analysis, and overall computational social science, by providing a realistic method to capture polarization from online political discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Migraciones is the property of Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Instituto Universitario de Estudios sobre Migraciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent analyses have demonstrated that personality affects political behavior. According to the mediation hypothesis, the effect of personality on political participation is mediated by classical predictors, such as political interest, internal efficacy, political discussion, or the sense that voting is a civic duty. This paper outlines various paths that link personality traits to two participatory activities: voter turnout in European Parliament elections and participation in protest actions. The hypotheses are tested with data from a large, nationally representative, face-to-face survey of the Spanish population conducted before and after the 2009 European Parliament elections using log-linear path models that are well suited to study indirect relationships. The results clearly confirm that the effects of personality traits on voter turnout and protest participation are sizeable but indirect. They are mediated by attitudinal predictors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses two hypotheses. The first is that holding two or more elections at the same time is an institutional device to legitimize newly created regional governments by ensuring an acceptable electoral turnout at their formation. The second is that regional elections provide a participation incentive in relatively poor regions. The study draws upon evidence from the first round of Spanish regional elections (1980-99) when Spanish devolution was still asymmetrical. It empirically examines whether calling simultaneous elections for the European, national, regional and local parliaments and councils increased the aggregate voter turnout. Secondly, it tests whether regional income, inflation and unemployment rates influenced voter turnout. Its findings indicate that calling simultaneous elections can boost electoral turnout for newly created governments. Less affluent autonomous regions exhibited higher turnout—arguably due to a heavier reliance on regional government activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the results of the 2005 autonomous election in Galicia are analyzed. After a review of the political context and the campaign, we present and analyze the results at electoral and institutional level explain the main reasons behind the defeat of the Popular Party after 16 years of absolute majority in the Galician Parliament and discuss its implications for the political system at the Galician and Spanish levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents a spatial analysis of the results in the general elections of contemporary Spain (1977–2007). By using electoral data at municipal level, we have traced back the evolution of the vote at high spatial resolution, thus providing a more accurate overview of the evolution of modern Spanish politics and offering empirical evidence on the nationalization thesis. We demonstrate that this approach reveals several processes that remain hidden when aggregated data are used, especially the clustering patterns in the smooth transition from dictatorship to full democracy (the so-called Spanish Transition). We found a statistical normalization process of the left/right dynamics with a growing number of balanced municipalities with a similar number of votes for left and right parties. The tendency towards a Gaussian histogram centered on a value of 50% for the left vote is an indication of political normalization after 40 years of dictatorship. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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]

In this article, we examine which political issues are considered most important by the Spanish electorate. Although a variety of potentially relevant issues are available, voters are forced to summarise them in just one vote. Thus, they need to prioritise some issues over others. This article analyses which issues end up being the most important for the Spanish electorate when they decide their vote, and why some issues become more influential than others. Our hypothesis is that voters give more weight to issues that polarise the parties. The hypothesis is tested at the individual and at the aggregate level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Autonomous Elections of 2009 entailed a large change in Basque politics, given that the PNV, the party that had been governing the Basque institutions continuously since 1980, was removed from power by the PSE–EE. However, the Basques did not vote very differently compared to other elections, the majority voting for nationalist parties, as it has been doing since 1980, and for centre-right parties, as it had done at the beginning of the autonomy and as of 2001. In this article, we aim to explain how, despite this clear tendency towards nationalism and the centre-right, a leftist and non-nationalist party is currently governing in the Basque Country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the dynamics of electoral competition in a multilevel setting. It is based on a content analysis of the party manifestos of the Spanish PP and PSOE in eight regional elections held between 2001 and 2003. It provides an innovative coding scheme for analysing regional party manifestos and on that basis seeks to account for inter-regional, intra-party and inter-party differences in regional campaigning. The authors have tried to explain the inter-regional variation of the issue profiles of state-wide parties in regional elections on the basis of a model with four independent variables: the asymmetric nature of the system, the electoral cycle, the regional party systems and the organisation of the state-wide parties. Three of their hypotheses are rejected, but the stronger variations in the regional issue profiles of the PSOE corroborate the assumption that parties with a more decentralised party organisation support regionally more diverse campaigning. The article concludes by offering an alternative explanation for this finding and by suggesting avenues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]