Essay on Vox’s electoral advance
The electoral advance of a populist radical political party depends on an unusual set of circumstances and therefore the arrival of the moment of the success of an extreme right party has been very different from one country in Western Europe to another. The objective of this essay is to find an tentative explanation of why a populist radical right -wing party failed. Social, economic and above all policy turbulence around the influence of immigrants in recent years created the ideal conditions for Vox to gain credibility as a realistic political actor.
This change in the set of factors will ensure a place for this type of political parties in an uncertain future and I will also comment on the upcoming consequences of Vox’s promotion not only in Spain but also in a global context. The factors related to the success of a populist radical right -wing party have already been investigated, such as explanations of the lack of one of these parties in Spain. However, recent years have seen rapid changes in this issue in Spain and few studies have been able to apply to the current situation in Spain, so I chose to apply the previous ideas of the studies to the present. Although a wide variety of definitions have been suggested for the political parties that I mean, in this essay the proposal of Mudde of . Many experts favor the definition of Mudde because it emphasizes that the current populist radical right -wing parties are different from the old radical right -wing parties, including the Franco regime party. The former are democratic (although they do not agree with some aspects of liberal democracy), while the latter are anti -democratic and supported the creation of an authoritarian government.
This essay begins by examining the results of the general elections of November 2019 and the political party that central axis in my essay, Vox. Next, we will explore the history of the extreme right in Spain from the Franco regime and consider how the factors that make up the correct circumstances to which Encarnación have changed over time. Finally, I will contribute to the increase in knowledge in the possible consequences in the future of the promotion of the VOX and the global context of the subject. First, it seems appropriate to give a brief overview of the Vox party. It is, that its rise in popularity began in 2013 and has gained ground since then . In the general elections of November 2019 Vox became the third largest force of Congress with the victory of the PSOE Socialist Party.
The political party received more than 3.64 million votes – 15.09% of ballots – and the populist radical right -wing party thus became one of the victors with the most relevance of the elections. The general elections of November 2019 were the second call for general elections in less than seven months in Spain that reflects the current political instability in Spain. I will discuss this later as one of the factors that configured the great promotion of Vox. In just six months since the last general elections, Vox has come to bend his number of seats. Although it has managed to be the second force of the right block (behind the Popular Party), the entrance of Vox in Congress equated the presence of the radical right in Spain to that of the rest of Europe. Even the general elections of April Spain was an anomaly in Europe for not having a populist radical right -wing party in Congress. I will illustrate this in the next paragraph. The general elections of November 2019 are what Koning would refer as – the first success of a populist radical right -wing party from the Franco regime.
The following paragraph establishes the history of the extreme right in Spain and makes comparisons with the rest of Europe. The analysis of why ultra -right failed when gaining popularity so far, has become more relevant recently because during the last forty years a development of this Spanish policy has been established. According to Canals Meseguer, development was characterized in four stages that cover an interaction between activists generations. The first stage extended from 1966 to 1975 and was the evolution of the radical sector of the Franco regime that established the bases of the 70s ultra -right. The second stage that followed can be characterized by the arrival of many young people to the ranks of the ultra -right block. The third stage began in 1982 with the marginality of the extreme right and – the young people of the last stage and those who were still faithful to Franco’s politics.
The final and current stage began in 1995 when organizations and political parties tried. As I referred to earlier, since the early 80s the political landscape of Western Europe has changed a lot for the obvious reappearance of the radical right. Although none of these Spanish groups had the necessary followers to gain ground in Spanish politics, political commentators both in the United States and Europe were speculating whether the continent approaches an unstable policy.
These concerns are likely to have grown up in the last decade as populist radical parties have gained more power in Europe. It is in this last decade that Spain has become an anomaly of much of the rest of Western Europe, as predicted by incarnation. In Germany, for example, Alternative Für Deutschland (AFD) also managed to be the third force. Although AFD was founded the same year as Vox, he succeeded in getting a place in German politics in his first elections in 2013. In addition, in Italy and Italy the forces against immigration and ultra -nationalists also had a lot of power.
The following sections propose why Vox was able to establish himself in Spanish politics in the last general elections and explain the set of factors that was not present until now and contributed to their success. Politologists were sure for a long time that a populist radical party would not be established in Spain. They thought this for these political reasons: first, because decentralization was a more central concern than immigration.
The process of the decentralization policy of Spain, one of the most extensive and of greatest range in postwar Europe triggered the resurgence of the parties, identities and regional symbols after Franco’s dictatorship. These developments made Spain’s Francoist vision as a culturally homogeneous and a shameful past. It has been replaced by the vision of Spain as a multicultural, modern and democratic society – Nativistic or xenophobic attitudes are in direct contradiction with these ideals and, therefore, it is unlikely that they will be adopted by any political party by any political party. However, this is no longer true. While this type of reasoning describes Spanish politics well in normal times, it does not apply today.
After volatile electoral results in recent years and an ongoing constitutional crisis on the State of Catalonia in Spain, politics is marked by uncertainty. Second, Alonso and Kaltwasser proposed that a restrictive position on immigration had already been adopted by the main party of the right center, the Popular Party. Of course there is no place for another anti -immigrant party in Spain. The Popular Party, usually the most obvious option for a voter that opposes immigration, is wrapped in a corruption scandal that is estimated to imply a loss of at least 120 million euros for the public treasure. In previous years, established political parties have received most of the votes of those who adopt a severe attitude about immigration, but in the two general elections of this year a space was made available.
Corruption and the consequent lack of confidence in the Popular Party contributed a lot to the great democratic promotion of Vox because in today.171), together with unemployment, which I will comment on in the next chapter. In the forties, when we have seen the developed of the outraged of Spain, at the same time the presence of foreigners has gone from being a residual issue of any electoral campaign. Of course, the migratory phenomenon is relatively recent and integration policies for immigrants are immature. Immigration and social discourse caused by it has reached its maximum point in recent years due to the European immigration crisis. The controversy that today 14% of Spanish residents have been born abroad and according to a recent study conducted by CIS, 10% of the population said that immigration was one of their main concerns. However, immigration has been a lasting concern among the Spanish population – in a survey conducted in the mid -1990s, 58% of Spaniards thought there were too many foreigners living in the country. This survey also coincides with the opinion of incarnation that a set of conditions is required to open the door to a successful choice. It can only be achieved once many of the factors explained in the introduction at the same time.
I have already presented the political and social conditions that configured the basis for the great democratic rise of Vox and then I will address the final factor presented by Encarnación – the increase in unemployment related to economic issues. More than any other factor, unemployment is usually seen as the root cause of the electoral successes of the populist radical right throughout Europe. Encarnación states that, during the rise of the radical populist right in Western Europe, hostility towards immigrants and refugees only did not allow the emergence of populist radical right -wing parties.
Instead, they were economic conditions as a transition from industrial capitalism to post -industrial capitalism, and resulting problems such as extremely high unemployment and the corresponding lack of confidence in political organizations, which is attributed to promoting the political success of thePopulist Radical Radical Political Parties. During the period of the transition from the dictator to democracy in the late 70s, the problem of unemployment changed radically. At the time of Franco’s death in 1975, Spain enjoyed one of the lowest European unemployment rates – it was 1.5%, practically full employment. However, in the mid -1980s, unemployment in Spain had reached an acute condition that would come its most serious point in 1994 when the unemployment rate was 24%. Now I will refer again to the stages characterized by Canals Meseguer of the history of the extreme right in Spain that I explained at the beginning of my essay. According to Canals Meseguer, the current and most radical stage that led to the rise of the extreme right began in 1995. In addition, 2013 was the next unemployment peak in Spain when the figure reached 26.3% – This year is also when Vox’s rise began.
Concluding this section, I want to give one more explanation of why a populist radical political party has now strengthened now. Some experts maintain that the fundamental reason for the successful afternoon of the extreme right is the identification of the extreme right with Francoism. Spain is a strange country that . This has led to ambiguity by identifying the extreme right in all its variants. At first, Franco’s policy was not anti -immigrant or racist – intensive economic migrations are direct products of a globalization that did not exist at the beginning of the Franco regime and Franco had excellent relations with the Arab countries and most Latin America. Despite this, the regime was certainly protectionist and nationalist. This identification causes the populist radical right -wing parties who have tried to gain power in Spain come more or less that Francoist inheritance. Consequently, all have been marginal parties because the political values that link them with the Franco regime are also their main potential voter. It seems that Vox is the first populist radical political party that has been able to separate from this identification and portray its strong nationalist values through an anti -immigration rhetoric.
Finally, we need to ask ourselves: what are the future consequences of the rise of this political right -wing political party? As mentioned above, the set of unusual factors (notably an immigration influence, amid a high rate of unemployment and political instability) will ensure a place in the coming years. When these parties break through, they can be integrated into the party system, gain credibility as realistic political actors, pay more attention to the issue of immigration and obtain the necessary resources to build their party organization. Once elections are out of the ordinary, anti -immigrant matches usually remain in the hemicycle for quite some time. In all European countries, populist radical right -wing parties have had considerable success after making their way, and only in Belgium there has been a recent descent in their voters. However, it would be a serious mistake to assume that these political parties are inconsequential. In France, for example, it has affected public policies, encouraged to the main radical right -wing party, to adopt a harder position on immigration and have made the feeling against immigrants more political accordingly (Koning, 2009). So, the general elections of November 2019 in Spain are not only important because they change the political landscape for the next legislative period but also the future of the Spanish immigration policy.
To conclude, a brief summary and discussion of the question I have raised is provided. In the last decade, Spain has experienced many of the conditions that, according to Encarnación, configure the bases for the successful choice of a populist radical right -wing party, in particular a high and constant unemployment rate, and a growing influx of immigrants. However, other factors such as identification and shame of voting for a ultra -right party with the Franco regime, as well as an alternative political party established against immigration, damaged the possibility of Vox’s election in Congress in previous years. So what changed in these elections? The key change in conditions was the political instability of the Popular Party. Together with the previously established conditions, this instability annulled the implications of the recent dictatorship of Spain and caused many voters to resort to a radical right -right vote to fix the lasting problems of Spain with unemployment and immigration.
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