Going National: Ciudadanos from Catalonia to Spain

Transcription

1 South European Society and Politics ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: Going National: Ciudadanos from Catalonia to Spain Juan Rodríguez Teruel & Astrid Barrio To cite this article: Juan Rodríguez Teruel & Astrid Barrio (2015): Going National: Ciudadanos from Catalonia to Spain, South European Society and Politics, DOI: / To link to this article: Published online: 09 Dec Submit your article to this journal Article views: 2233 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at Download by: [ ] Date: 30 January 2016, At: 20:55

2 South European Society and Politics, Going National: Ciudadanos from Catalonia to Spain Juan Rodríguez Teruel and Astrid Barrio Ciudadanos, a party founded in Catalonia in 2006, has recently acquired a major role in the Spanish political system. This article examines why it was formed almost ten years ago and how it has evolved since; its ideological principles and policy menu; the party organisation and leadership; the main determinants of its vote, and the structure of opportunities faced by the party in the 2015 general election. It considers Ciudadanos in two different contexts Catalonia and all Spain and in two different time zones : before 2014, when the party was mainly a regional force, and after that date. In each context, the party seems to have responded to the unsatisfied demands resulting from the double electoral market failure of the last decade in Spain and Catalonia. Keywords: Spain; Catalonia; Albert Rivera; New Parties; Party Institutionalisation; Party Realignment In Spain, the emergence of new parties, 1 like C s (Ciudadanos-Partido de la Ciudadanía - Citizens-Party of the Citizenry) and Podemos (We Can), is threatening the long-term predominance of the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español - Spanish Socialist Workers Party) and the PP (Partido Popular - Popular Party). As a consequence of this party realignment process, the new parties are becoming relevant in supporting governments at different levels of the Spanish political system. The emergence of the new parties has raised questions about their origins, political aims and internal functioning factors which can help us to understand their potential evolution and impact. Most of the recent literature on the emergence of new parties explains their breakthrough as a result of the incentives for electoral coordination in the presence of problems of collective action, decision-making and political ambition (Aldrich 1995; Cox 1997). These incentives might be institutional (party regulation or the electoral system, amongst others) or sociological (the cleavage structure). Political elites and organisations have a determinant role in interpreting them and deciding when and where to mobilise in order to maximise their utility (Boix 2007, pp ; Van Biezen & Raskova 2015 Taylor & Francis

3 2 J. Rodríguez Teruel and A. Barrio 2014, p. 891). In this vein, Lago & Martínez identify two key variables that determine political elites decisions to enter electoral competition: the degree of institutionalisation of a party system (which affects the extent of voters elasticity, i.e. their willingness to change their voting preferences) and the conditions for electoral market failure, 2 when the number of parties that voters are willing to vote for may be lower than the number of parties competing (Lago & Martínez 2011, p. 7). Hence, as party loyalty grows and the party system achieves institutionalisation, voters become inelastic and the odds of vote-switching to a different party decrease. Yet, in the context of an electoral market failure produced by dissatisfied citizens or by internal party conflicts (Lago & Martínez 2011, p. 8), voters may become temporarily elastic again. In this situation, according to the existing incentives, elites may decide to form a party and enter the race. Nevertheless, contextual factors and electoral incentives are not sufficient conditions to explain the success of new parties in the long term. In this respect, the organisational persistence of a party and its electoral sustainability depend on its institutionalisation - whereby the party s preservation and survival become a goal in itself, according to Panebianco (1988, pp ) - as a result of the interaction between the structural conditions and the choices made by party elites in the early years of its existence (Bolleyer 2013, p. 51). According to this theoretical framework, the article aims to analyse the context of the formation and success of Ciudadanos. In particular, we will contend that C s responds to a double failure of the electoral market at two different levels. Firstly, in Catalonia, the predominance of nationalism in political and social life, even after the change of government in the early 2000s, left unsatisfied demands amongst voters who had rejected nationalism and the emphasis on identity issues shared by most of the political establishment (Lago, Montero & Torcal 2007, p. 233; Lago & Martínez 2011, p. 8). A few years later, under Rajoy s government ( ), the conditions for another electoral market failure also occurred in the whole of Spain, although, in this case, it came from unsatisfied demands for political renewal, transparency and democratic regeneration. Apart from its political relevance, Ciudadanos provides an interesting case study of a new party. It allows us to observe the influence of multilevel institutional settings on the breakthrough and political success of new parties. Indeed, a distinctive pattern in Spain has been that successful new parties do not usually directly enter the national parliament, but first gain access on a different political level, often the regional level. Thus, the multilevel context opens different institutional windows of opportunity for regional parties as well as for national parties. Furthermore, the growing party competition has juxtaposed Ciudadanos with two other new parties undergoing opposite patterns of evolution, Podemos and UPyD (Unión Progreso y Democracia - Union Progress and Democracy). The article will not develop a comparative analysis of these parties but will mention them in order to observe relevant similarities and dissimilarities. Overall, the examination of how Ciudadanos has responded to the double electoral market failure will also provide the opportunity to observe in detail some of the main dimensions of this new party: its ideology, organisation and leadership, and electorate.

4 South European Society and Politics 3 The article is divided into seven sections. The first and second sections sketch the evolution of the party since its formation in The next section outlines the main ideological principles and the policies included in the party platform. Then we depict the organisation and the main features of the leaders. The fifth section offers analytical models to identify the main determinants of the vote at both Spanish and Catalan levels. The sixth introduces the structure of opportunities in a context of party system transformation. The last section concludes and suggests new avenues for the research on new parties. Ciudadanos in Catalonia The origin of Ciudadanos is anchored in the context of Catalan regional politics of the 2000s. After 23 years of regional government by the centre-right Catalan nationalist alliance CiU (Convergència i Unió - Convergence and Union), headed by the charismatic Jordi Pujol, in December 2003 a new regional government was formed which consisted of a coalition of the three main left-wing parties: PSC (Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya - Catalan Socialist Party, PSOE s sister party), ERC (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya - Republican Left from Catalonia, left secessionists) and ICV (Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds - Initiative for Catalonia Greens, Green ex-communists). The coalitional agreement included as a focal point the reform of the Statute of Autonomy. 3 Throughout the whole period, the reform process not only generated internal problems within the cabinet coalition, and between the regional government and the national executive (ruled by the PSOE after April 2004), but also fuelled political tension in the centre periphery cleavage between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. As a consequence, an increasing proportion of the coalition partners voters declared their dissatisfaction with the political situation at the polls, thereby suggesting the conditions for an electoral market failure (Lago, Montero & Torcal 2007). As a response to this unsatisfied demand, in June 2005 a group of Catalan intellectuals, formerly close to PSC and ICV, presented a manifesto entitled For a New Political Party. They considered that the arrival of the left in government had not really contributed to a change in the established consensus, which favoured the predominance of nationalism in Catalan society and politics. They therefore proposed the creation of a new party to oppose this. Ciudadanos became politically active during the campaign before the June 2006 referendum on the new statute, in which they canvassed for a No vote. The new party held its first party congress in July 2006, when 350 party delegates elected Albert Rivera as party chairman. Ciudadanos ran in its first regional election in Catalonia in November The results exceeded party expectations and poll forecasts because Ciudadanos became the first new party to enter the Catalan regional parliament since 1992, with three members of parliament (MPs) and almost 90,000 votes (Table 1). This successful breakthrough was based on urban voters from the region around Barcelona, coming almost equally from those who had formerly voted for PSC and PP (Pallarès & Muñoz 2008, p. 459).

5 4 J. Rodríguez Teruel and A. Barrio Table 1 National Identity and Language in Ciudadanos Regional Vote in Catalonia Voters b Party Members Electorate b Voters b Party Members Electorate b National identity Only Spanish More Spanish As Spanish as Catalan More Catalan Only Catalan Other/NA Main language a Spanish Catalan Both Other/NA (n) , c 2,100 Source: CEO (BOP 6 and 24) for voters and electorate; GREP (see note 4) for party members. Notes: a The indicator is measured by the question language employed at home ; b Voters and electorate refer to the 2006 and 2010 Catalan regional elections; c Data are only reported for those party members living in Catalonia (N = 192). Although Ciudadanos had a detailed platform covering a wide range of policies (health, education, economy, agriculture, public administration reform, etc.) (Ciudadanos 2006), its campaign messages focused mostly on identity and linguistic issues. The party was very critical of long-term regional policies focused on nation-building (for example, positive action in favour of Catalan in public schools to the detriment of Spanish, support only of cultural events in Catalan, etc.) and what they considered the consequences of these policies (corruption, parochialism, cultural homogenisation, etc.). Its main symbolic policy proposal was the promotion of bilingualism in the public school system. Indeed, Ciudadanos electoral support and party membership mainly came from Spanish-speaking voters who felt mainly Spanish or as much Spanish as Catalan (see Table 1). Accordingly, during these years Ciudadanos gave great saliency to its position against Catalan nationalism and in favour of Spanish language and identity. In a context of polarisation, Ciudadanos became a vehicle channelling political discontent as the PSC lost support from dissatisfied voters because of its coalition with ERC (Lago, Montero & Torcal 2007, p. 233). This early successful breakthrough encouraged the party to run in all the elections held afterwards the local elections in May 2007 and May 2011, the Andalusian regional election and the general election in March 2008, as well as the European election in June Yet the results in all these elections were extremely poor, with a steady loss of electoral

6 South European Society and Politics 5 Table 2 Electoral Results of Ciudadanos Election Votes (%) Seats Seats (%) General elections Regional elections (Catalonia) Regional elections (rest of Spain) 2008 Andalusia Andalusia Aragon Asturias Balearic Islands Canary Islands Cantabria Castilla la Mancha Castilla Leon Extremadura Madrid Navarra Murcia La Rioja Community of Valencia Local elections , European elections 2009 a Source: Official data. Note: a In the 2009 European election, the party ran in coalition with Libertas. support and virtually no institutional representation (see Table 2). Thus, Ciudadanos failed to spread in the rest of Spain and remained functionally a regional party. The disappointing electoral progress during the period of generated internal disagreement around organisational strategy and party ideology. Moreover, the emergence of the UPyD in Spain increased pressure to merge the two parties, as supported by the internal opposition to Rivera (see next section). Hence, factionalism

7 6 J. Rodríguez Teruel and A. Barrio was soon reflected within the parliamentary party and was widespread in the second party congress of June 2007, when Rivera faced strong internal opposition and criticism. Although he was re-elected in a contested election with a narrow majority, the party was weakened, as many members of the losing faction abandoned it in the following months (El Confidencial 2007). The internal disagreement evolved towards a final clash during the 2009 European electoral campaign, 4 when two critical MPs split the parliamentary group and removed Rivera from the parliamentary leadership (El Mundo 2009). During the months after the European election, the organisation was seriously weakened by several splits. Not surprisingly, at the end of 2009, Ciudadanos seemed to be heading into a final decline. However, the political context evolved towards a more favourable scenario for the party. In July 2010, the Spanish Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional some articles of the new Catalan statute, which had formerly been approved in the 2006 referendum. Actually the ruling stated the constitutionality of most of the text, but the few elements to be annulled were crucial in the view of the main Catalan parties (Colino 2013). Simultaneously, the worsening of the economic situation forced the national government headed by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to announce a package of social cuts and a reduction in salaries. While this adverse context eroded the electoral support for the PSC, it allowed opposition parties like Ciudadanos to benefit from political dissatisfaction and the return of polarisation around the centre periphery cleavage in Catalonia (Rico & Liñeira 2014, p. 273). Hence, Ciudadanos gained a positive result in the November 2010 Catalan regional election, since it maintained its three parliamentary seats and achieved a small increase in electoral support to 105,000 votes (Rico 2012). While this result might seem quite modest in the context of high electoral volatility, it allowed Rivera to confirm his leadership and to re-establish party unity. Indeed, the third party congress in October 2011 marked a turning point towards greater organisational stability and internal cohesion. This time, Rivera was re-elected as party leader with a stronger majority and he replaced most of the party elite. From that point on, internal factionalism was greatly reduced in the party. Furthermore, the early Catalan election held in November 2012, after the upsurge of nationalist mobilisation in favour of secessionism (with a massive demonstration on 11 September), delivered an outstanding result for Ciudadanos. The high level of polarisation around secessionism eroded the electoral support of both main parties (CiU and PSC) in favour of other forces with stronger positions on the national issue (Martí 2013). Ciudadanos increased its electoral support to 275,000 votes and nine seats, to the detriment of the PSC (which obtained its worst score ever in Catalan elections) and, to a lesser extent, the PP (Rico & Liñeira 2014). Not only did Ciudadanos gain votes from PSC and PP, but also some members deserted these parties to join the new emerging political group. 5 Ciudadanos in Spain Until 2014, Ciudadanos was considered a Catalan regional party. The attempts to run for elections outside Catalonia had ended in failure to such an extent that the party decided not to run in the 2011 Spanish general election. The major challenge for

8 South European Society and Politics 7 Ciudadanos in Spain came from growing party competition in the centre. In September 2007, Unión Progreso y Democracia had been created in Madrid. The new party had many similarities to Ciudadanos in terms of party agenda and strategy. It defended Spanish patriotism and criticised the evolution of decentralisation in Spain and the role of Catalan and Basque nationalism in Spanish politics. As a new party, UPyD criticised the traditional pattern of two-party politics in Spain and in a bid to attract dissatisfied voters from both PP and PSOE, it appealed for political renewal in the institutions. These similarities made UPyD a serious threat to Ciudadanos, especially as it successfully won representation in the Congreso (national parliament) in the 2008 general election and in the European Parliament one year later. In this respect, UPyD prevented the growth of Ciudadanos electorate in the rest of Spain. As a result, the idea of merging Ciudadanos and UPyD circulated for a long time. Those who were opposed internally to Rivera gradually became supporters of a coalition with UPyD. The Spanish political landscape changed substantively during , thus providing new political opportunities for Ciudadanos. Following the course of the same electoral epidemic across Southern Europe (Bosco & Verney 2012), the 2011 electoral cycle local, regional and national elections led to an unprecedented defeat of the ruling PSOE and to a great victory for the PP, which also achieved an unprecedented institutional predominance at all levels (Martín & Urquizu 2012; Torcal 2014). However, the constraints of the economic situation (such as increasing unemployment, austerity policies and bank bailouts) soon led the new PP government, headed by Mariano Rajoy, towards a rapid decline in popular support. During 2012 and 2013, polls suggested the government had lost more than 25 per cent of those who had voted for it just a few months before (Urquizu 2012; Rodríguez-Teruel 2013). Party corruption further aggravated the political situation, as various cases of illegal party financing, bribery, tax evasion and money laundering implicated a number of representatives from the main Spanish parties at different levels. 6 This fostered voters anger against both PP and PSOE. From then on, Spanish voters regarded political parties and political corruption along with the economic crisis as among the country s most serious problems. 7 In the early months of 2013, even though IU (Izquierda Unida - United Left) and UPyD benefited from the decline of the two main parties, their gains in the polls did not match the collapse of the PP and PSOE vote (see Figure 1). In other words, the increasing number of dissatisfied voters leaving the two main parties did not consider the existing third parties as satisfactory alternatives. In this context of potential electoral market failure, Ciudadanos made a new attempt to expand politically beyond Catalonia through a political association called Movimiento Ciudadano (Citizen Movement) seeking new party members from across Spain. This strategy would definitely put an end to any kind of collaboration with UPyD (González 2015). Simultaneously, Rivera developed his profile by participating in the most popular TV shows, while the party adopted a tough position against corruption and the old politics. Although the party had already focused on this issue in Catalonia, it now gradually became the central topic of its discourse in the national arena. 8 Political distrust appeared in the European election in May According to the second-order elections model, European elections may provide a good window of

9 8 J. Rodríguez Teruel and A. Barrio Figure 1 Declared Voting Intention in Opinion Polls under the Rajoy Government ( ) Source: CIS Barometer Databank; Metroscopia for El País (Sept/Oct 2015). opportunity for small parties in established democracies featuring consolidated party systems (Schmitt & Teperoglou 2015, p. 296; Viola 2015, p. 682). Besides, Spain has a more proportional system for the European elections than for the legislative ones; although this has provided only rather modest benefits to third parties, usually after forming coalitions with similar small parties (Ramiro & Font 2012, p. 258; Magone 2015, p. 348). In this context, with the lowest turnout ever in Spanish nationwide elections (43.8 per cent), the two main parties together lost more than five million votes. In contrast, IU and UPyD doubled their electoral support and parliamentary representation. However, this achievement was eclipsed by the entry to the European Parliament of the new parties : Podemos, with 1.2 million votes and five MEPs, and Ciudadanos, with almost half a million votes and two MEPs. Young voters and those dissatisfied with democracy and lacking confidence in politicians were the main supporters of the new parties (Cordero & Montero 2015, p. 374). Thereafter, the breakthrough of Podemos caused an upheaval in national politics. At the end of 2014, the new party was tied with the PP and PSOE in the polls, thereby threatening the traditional predominance of the two main parties and fostering the expectations of the new radical left (see Figure 1). Simultaneously, IU and UPyD collapsed in the polls, while Ciudadanos started to rise steadily. Rivera and Pablo Iglesias (the leader of Podemos) became the highest-rated politicians in the polls. These trends dramatically transformed the political scenario and suggested that Spain s party system was on the verge of collapse. The local and regional elections held in 2015 reflected the extent of the change in the party system. This cycle (starting with the Andalusia regional election in March, followed by the rest of the elections in May and ending with the Catalan election in September) brought an electoral setback for PP and PSOE, the collapse of the existing

10 South European Society and Politics 9 third parties, IU and UPyD, and the entry of both Ciudadanos and Podemos into most regional parliaments and local councils in major cities. The end of PP s parliamentary majorities led to hung parliaments in all regions. While PSOE and PP remained the first two parties in almost all regions (except in cases where regional parties are strong, such as Navarre and the Canary Islands), Ciudadanos and Podemos replaced IU and UPyD as the third parties. In 2015, for the first time Ciudadanos ran in all regions and in 938 cities. It obtained almost 1.5 million votes at the local level, electing 1,527 local councillors, more than 50 city mayors (but none in the largest Spanish cities) and 56 regional parliamentarians in 13 regional parliaments. However, the extent of its influence was less than predicted by polls during the campaign. Ciudadanos did not achieve the third parliamentary position in any region and its support was only necessary in four regions in order to form majorities with the first-ranking party (in Andalusia with the PSOE, and in Madrid, Murcia and La Rioja with the PP). Like Podemos, Ciudadanos rejected participating in coalition governments with the traditionally predominant parties. Instead, it gave parliamentary support to the ruling party in exchange for measures of transparency, political renewal and the fight against corruption. For instance, Ciudadanos required the resignation of the incumbent regional premier in La Rioja as a condition of its support. The Catalan election in September marked a milestone in Ciudadanos evolution in Spain. As the governing nationalist parties aimed to turn the election into a plebiscite on secession, the electoral campaign became extremely polarised. Ciudadanos took advantage of this unprecedented situation and achieved second place, leaving PSOE-PSC and PP behind. Hence, Isabel Arrimadas, a 34-year-old lawyer born in Andalusia, who had replaced Rivera (already canvassing in the national campaign) as top candidate, became the first female leader of the official opposition in the Catalan parliament and an emerging reference point for those against independence. Beyond the Catalan political arena, this result definitely boosted the party in the polls. By mid- October 2015, Ciudadanos was not only polling better than Podemos, but was also very close to the two main parties. This is the context in which the campaign for the general election started. Ideology, Party Programme and Policies Its ideology is a controversial feature of the party. Like Podemos, Ciudadanos strategically claims to be beyond the left and right labels. This is a catch-all strategy designed to attract voters with different ideologies who distrust the traditional political parties. As a result, Ciudadanos has manifested ideological ambiguity since its inception. As the original party message emphasising a position against Catalan nationalism attracted individuals from both the left and right, the lack of definition on the ideological cleavage soon became a matter of internal criticism, especially for those in favour of a more leftist, policy-oriented discourse. In 2007, the Carreras amendment, prepared by one of the founding intellectuals to provide a more general ideological profile, identified the party with the three great political traditions in the European

11 10 J. Rodríguez Teruel and A. Barrio contemporary culture: liberalism, democracy and socialism (Ciudadanos 2007). This statement, indicating an individualistic approach to society, and opposed to the communitarian view which predominated in traditional Catalan nationalism, still remains the core ideology of the party (Ciudadanos 2015). Yet other decisions made afterwards seemed to contradict these principles. For instance, the electoral alliance formed with the conservative pan-european Eurosceptic Libertas in 2009 for the European electoral campaign was contested within the party and led to the split within the parliamentary group mentioned above. Rather than a coherent political preference, such a contradictory coalition shows the inconsistency of Cuidandos unsuccessful attempts to enlarge its political base during its early years. When the party finally achieved representation in the European Parliament in 2014, it joined the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. Although Ciudadanos has offered a detailed programme since its inception, covering a wide range of policies, the increase in expectations once it entered the national arena has brought the party s policy platform 9 into the spotlight. As with other new parties, the political discourse focuses on political renewal, democratic regeneration and the fight against political corruption, which has been a core issue in its electoral platforms since In this respect, Ciudadanos proposes to reform the regulations on political parties and party finances to guarantee greater transparency and to promote internal democracy within the parties. Other measures concerning the reform of public administration and the depoliticisation of judicial institutions also aim to respond to voters demands for democratic regeneration. The economy is the other issue on which Ciudadanos placed emphasis in order to gain credibility as a responsible party. With this aim, early in 2015 the party announced the recruitment of Luis Garicano (professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science) and Manuel Conthe (former president of the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores, the agency in charge of supervising and inspecting the Spanish stock markets) two respected economists and supporters of deep reforms in the Spanish economy and the public administration as well as Manuel de la Torre, the former secretary general of the Organización de Inspectores de Hacienda (Organisation of Tax Inspectors). The core issues of the party s economic programme are stimuli to reduce unemployment and fiscal reform (consisting of extending value added tax and lowering income tax rates). In this area, the most controversial proposal is the introduction of a single-contract employment model instead of the existing dual system of contracts, with high and low levels of protection, with the aim of reducing the difference between insiders and outsiders in the labour market. This pro-business programme has generated some criticism from the left-wing parties, which accuse Ciudadanos of being the Podemos of the right 10 (the right-wing version of Podemos), while others deny that it could be considered a truly liberal programme (Rallo 2015). Other controversial policy proposals focus on ethical issues such as supporting a 12-week term limit for abortion (more restrictive than the current regulation) or infrastructure policy, such as reducing investment in the high-speed train network. However, controversial issues have not really affected the party image since most of the platform follows the political mainstream, supporting the welfare state (investing more in public health, education and social services) and the liberal tradition on political rights.

12 South European Society and Politics 11 Regarding the centre periphery cleavage, Ciudadanos defends the decentralisation model based on the state of autonomies, in opposition to the more critical view held by UPyD. The party proposes, however, to reform the model by setting a clearer distribution of competences amongst state and regions, reforming the Senate and the regional financing system (eliminating, for instance, the Basque and Navarre fiscal autonomy), and by eliminating some political levels, particularly the second tier of local government (Diputaciones, the provincial administration). As for the European dimension, the party favours a stronger European Union with a federal perspective. Consistent with this, the party supports common European frameworks to regulate issues like immigration. Overall, this summary of Ciudadanos policy platform does not support the idea of a clear right-wing ideological bias. According to the data gathered by the Regional Manifesto Project for the 2012 Catalan election, the Ciudadanos platform gave more saliency to the left right cleavage than to the centre periphery one, and the level of saliency for left right issues was equivalent to that of parties like the centre-right CiU or the leftist ICV. Moreover, the platform was located in a central position on the scale since it gave the same attention to pro-left issues as to pro-right ones, in contrast to the PP platform which was much more clearly devoted to pro-right issues (Gómez, Alonso & Cabeza 2014). This general policy direction is coherent with the party members values and opinions. A majority is strongly in favour of the welfare state (52.1 per cent), and of reducing decentralisation (86 per cent), opposes state funding of religious practices (83.5 per cent) and supports gay marriage (50.4 per cent). Similarly, members think the defence of freedom should be the party s main aim (93.4 per cent), rather than social equality (82.6 per cent) or the defence of the nation (61.2 per cent). 11 Party Organisation and Leadership Ciudadanos is a new party dressed in traditional garb. Its inception followed a call made by intellectuals to respond to dissatisfied voters, and its foundation took place at a general meeting which approved party statutes and a general ideological direction. The structure follows the mass party model with an extra-parliamentary organisation based on fee-paying members enrolled in territorial branches with a local base. The highest decision-making body is the party congress (called General Assembly), held every four years. 12 The general council is the body dealing with main decisions between party congresses, consisting of around 70 members (60 of whom are elected by the party congress). At the top of the organisation, the executive committee governs the party and has authority on critical issues, such as financial decisions or candidate selection (except the top candidate, who is elected by the grassroots members). Hence, the internal distribution of power in Ciudadanos follows the traditional pattern of centralisation within Spanish political parties (Van Biezen 2003, p. 99), although the rapid expansion of the organisation across Spain has paved the way for even greater centralisation in practice.

13 12 J. Rodríguez Teruel and A. Barrio Overall, Ciudadanos has undergone a process of institutionalisation as a strategy to achieve sustainability after the regional breakthroughs and organisational persistence in the long term (Bolleyer 2013, p. 69). This process was well reflected in the way the party approached negotiations with UPyD and how it managed to resist internal pressures to coalesce with its opponent. Party membership also broadly reflects this process of institutionalisation, with a decrease after the splits in 2009 and a major increase during 2015 (see Table 3). During this process, the party has faced two organisational dilemmas. The first dilemma concerns its origins in the periphery: is Ciudadanos a Catalan regional party or a Spanish nationwide party? This dilemma is implicitly acknowledged in the party statutes, which state that Ciudadanos is a party that performs its political activity in the whole national territory, while it keeps a special relationship with Catalonia due to its origins (Art. 1.2, 2006 party statutes). Significantly, the party headquarters have so far remained in Barcelona (a remarkable exception amongst Spanish nationwide parties). In addition, its membership was until recently mainly rooted in Catalonia. For instance, only around ten per cent of the delegates attending the first party congress came from outside Catalonia (Baras & Orriols 2007, p. 10). This peripheral identity of the party and the early failed attempts to achieve representation at different political levels outside Catalonia triggered internal conflicts with the few non-catalan branches. The failure to succeed outside Catalonia forced the party to rethink its expansion strategy. In order to take advantage of the political anger towards other parties, in 2013 the Movimiento Ciudadanos was launched, as previously explained. Indeed, this organisational tool aimed not only at recruiting new members but also at attracting leaders and activists from other parties (mainly PP and UPyD). In addition, by changing the modes of party affiliation, Ciudadanos also made agreements with existing local groups. Since 2007, the party has allowed digital affiliation through the Table 3 Evolution of Ciudadanos Party Membership, Year Party Members , , , NA , , , NA 2014 NA ,000 (January) 15,000 (March) 20,800 (May) 25,200 (October) Source: Data provided by the party or collected from the press. Data for 2015 are provided by the party website and updated regularly (

14 South European Society and Politics 13 Internet, whereby new members can join the party without joining a territorial branch. This new way of recruiting members has contributed to increased party membership all over Spain, and was critical in the 2015 local elections, when C s allowed these new members to present lists of candidates in areas where the party had no prior organisational presence. While this strategy permitted Ciudadanos to run in hundreds of medium-sized municipalities even in the absence of a local party branch, in the future it may become the source of internal factions and threats to party cohesion, especially as problems of political coordination might arise. The second dilemma relates to intraparty democracy, as party institutionalisation triggers contradictions between the party founders will to retain power while enhancing party persistence and electoral sustainability and the development of the grassroots, implying less autonomy and more restrictions for leaders. One of the ways new parties respond to this leadership structure dilemma (Bolleyer 2013, p. 2) is to foster intraparty democracy by giving voice and power to party members while keeping leadership legitimacy (Ignazi 1996; Sandri & Seddone 2015). Thus, when factionalism and internal crisis arose in Ciudadanos because electoral performance did not meet expectations, the party opened up the process of candidate selection. In 2007 the second party congress adopted direct election by party members ( primaries ) for selection of the top candidate to strength party legitimacy. This change was consistent with the party members view; for the majority of party activists (92 per cent), the party leader and candidates should be directly elected by the grassroots, and a significant proportion (43.6 per cent) supported the notion that the main internal decisions should be decided by the membership rather than by the executive board or the congress. 13 Since then, there have been closed primaries for the top candidates in some local elections, such as in Barcelona (2011 and 2015), as well as regional (2010, 2012 and 2015), European (2009 and 2014) and national elections (2008). But primaries have not altered the internal balance of power, as the candidates promoted by the party elite have always been elected, mainly through coronations due to the absence of alternative challengers. Conversely, party leadership selection has always remained in the hands of the party congress, as is the case for most Spanish political parties so far (Barberà et al and Barberà, Lisi & Rodríguez-Teruel 2015). After almost ten years, Ciudadanos has had only one president and main political representative: Alberto Rivera. This does not mean that he has been an unchallenged leader. In 2007 and 2011 Rivera was elected in competitive contests. Indeed, he won narrowly in when he faced internal revolt by those who criticised personalism and party centralisation. Four years later, Rivera won clearly 15 in a less competitive race. All these episodes have shaped Rivera s leadership and given him political resilience. It is certainly a curious paradox that, after almost a decade in the regional parliament and strong party leadership in Catalonia, he has managed to appear as a new politician on the Spanish scene. This shows the potential of subnational institutions as a training pool for national leaders. Male, highly educated, and a lawyer with a very short professional career before entering politics, Rivera follows the traditional pattern of Spanish politicians (Coller 2008; Rodríguez-Teruel 2011). His leadership has also

15 14 J. Rodríguez Teruel and A. Barrio benefited from the (few) parliamentary offices achieved by the party, which has allowed for a concentration of power in Rivera s hands (Gallero 2015). Nevertheless, the entry of the party into local government institutions in 2015 has opened the door to new leaders, and also to potential challengers to Rivera. The most outstanding example is Isabel Arrimadas, who has become the leader of the parliamentary opposition in the Catalan parliament. She represents the model of the rising politician in Ciudadanos young (around 30), with a brief professional background (usually in the private sector), without a strong partisan profile or previous political experience in public institutions, and well trained in handling the media. In this respect, social networks and TV political talk shows have become strategic tools for C s, to promote both its message and candidates. For instance, the party s Internet campaign was inspired by the model developed by the Obama team in the USA (El País 2015a). Who Votes for Ciudadanos? The portrait of Ciudadanos voters reflects significantly some of the features mentioned in previous sections. In Table 4, we show the results of two models using logistic regression to test the factors underlying the vote for Ciudadanos: one for the Spanish general election and the other for the Catalan regional election. 16 At the Spanish level, age has a clear effect on the cleavage between new/old parties (Cordero & Montero 2015, p. 374). Young voters are more likely to express their support for Ciudadanos, as the odds of voting for this party decrease by one per cent with each ten-year increase in a voter s age. Similarly, the odds also increase with higher educational levels, which is the opposite seen for PP and PSOE. On the other hand, no clear patterns in voting for Ciudadanos emerge in relation to gender or working status, apart from the lower odds for entrepreneurs, self-employed and retired individuals. Regarding political factors, ideology (where the reference category is the extreme left position) shows a clear differential pattern between the three parties. Ciudadanos has positive coefficients on all the positions compared to the extreme left, and appeals particularly to centre voters. Interestingly, critical opinions about the economy have an opposite effect from the assessment of the political situation. The odds of voting for Ciudadanos are significantly higher among those voters who believe that the political situation is bad or very bad (odds increase by 56 per cent), while a poor assessment of the economic situation has a negative impact (the odds decrease by 40 per cent). We can deduce from this that voting for Ciudadanos is not the outcome of experiencing a precarious economic situation, but rather of being very critical of the political context. This is consistent with the fact that the rise of Ciudadanos was simultaneous with the worsening of the political context in terms of corruption among and mistrust in the political class. Similarly, the factor corruption and politics (which refers to those who rank these issues as the main problems in Spain) is also positive, albeit insignificant, while it negatively affects the odds for an individual to vote for the PSOE. Finally, it is also interesting to note that voting for the PSOE in 2011 reduces the odds of declaring an intention to vote for Ciudadanos in 2015 by 52 per cent, which

16 South European Society and Politics 15 Table 4 Determinants of Declared Voting Intention for Ciudadanos, PP and PSOE in Spain and Catalonia (2015) SPAIN CATALONIA Ciudadanos PP PSOE Ciudadanos PP PSOE Variables Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Women 0.09 (0.17) 0.32* (0.18) 0.15 (0.14) 0.21 (0.15) 0.32 (0.22) 0.14 (0.18) Age 0.01* (0.01) 0.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.00) 0.00 (0.01) 0.01 (0.01) 0.01 (0.01) Educational background (university) Primary 1.56*** (0.36) 0.84*** (0.30) 0.96*** (0.24) 0.71** (0.31) 0.90** (0.40) 0.90** (0.33) Secondary 0.40** (0.18) 0.69*** (0.24) 0.23 (0.19) 0.19 (0.16) 0.79** (0.32) 0.52** (0.22) Work status (reference: permanent/employed a ) Temporary contracts 0.51 (0.32) 0.36 (0. 37) 0.13 (0.29) Entrepreneurs 0.66** (0.30) 0.60* (0.31) 0.24 (0.30) Unemployed 0.14 (0.22) 0.17 (0.28) 0.57** (0.20) 0.17 (0.25) 0.24 (0.40) 0.01 (0.29) Retired 0.34 (0.31) 0.71** (0.30) 0.15 (0.24) 0.66** (0.24) 0.66* (0.35) 0.10 (0.27) Catholic practice 0.23 (0.18) 0.19 (0.19) 0.03 (0.17) Ideology (reference: extreme left) Left 2.40** (1.02) 1.90*** (0.52) 0.50** (0.22) 0.68** (0.25) 0.35 (1.00) 0.06 (0.21) Centre 3.77*** (1.01) 0.08 (0.25) 0.20 (0.24) 1.61*** (0.22) 2.89*** (0.73) 0.37* (0.22) Right 3.23*** (1.04) 1.73*** (0.27) 2.31*** (0.76) 1.81*** (0.27) 4.07*** (0.74) 1.25** (0.49) Extreme right 3.61*** (1.08) 1.77*** (0.41) 1.68* (1.06) 1.15*** (0.37) 4.90*** (0.75) 0.09 (0.45) Economic criticism 0.52 *** (0.17) 0.80*** (0.18) 0.03 (0.16) Political criticism 0.44 ** (0.19) 0.55*** (0.18) 0.20 (0.16) 0.50*** (0.15) 0.66*** (0.22) 0.38* (0.19) Corruption & politics 0.13 (0.17) 0.03 (0.17) 0.40 *** (0.14) 0.38** (0.19) 0.36 (0.30) 0.11 (0.23) Independence 1.48*** (0.16) 1.23*** (0.23) 0.48** (0.23) (Contined)

17 16 J. Rodríguez Teruel and A. Barrio Table 4 (Continued) Variables SPAIN CATALONIA Ciudadanos PP PSOE Ciudadanos PP PSOE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Voted PP last election c 0.18 (0.20) 2.89 *** (0.20) 0.35 (0.29) 1.09*** (0.24) 2.36*** (0.53) 0.79** (0.36) Voted PSOE last 0.72** (0.28) 0.96* (0.54) 2.64*** (0.15) 0.54** (0.21) 1.49** (0.63) 2.74*** (0.18) election c Constant 4.12*** (1.09) 2.95*** (0.53) 2.83*** (0.44) 3.44*** (0.42) 6.23*** (0.91) 3.57*** (0.48) R-squared Cox&Snell R-squared Nagelkerke R-squared McFadden N 2,486 2,486 2,486 2,999 2,999 2,999 (n) Source: CIS E3104 survey (July 2015) for the general election and CIS E3108 survey (September 2015) for Catalan election. Notes: Logit regression coefficients, with standard errors in parentheses. Levels of statistical significance: *< 0.1; **<.05; ***<.01. a The Catalan survey only provides information about working status but not professional background; b In the Catalan poll, the question refers to the assessment about the general situation of the region; c Vote refers to 2011 general election (for Spain) and 2012 regional election (for Catalonia).

18 South European Society and Politics 17 would suggests a vote transfer (see below for this) to Ciudadanos from the PP (rather than from the PSOE). Although many commentators have inferred from this that Ciudadanos is growing among the conservative electorate, it seems rather that the party is being highly successful in attracting those volatile centre voters who in 2011 switched from the PSOE to the PP, and now are leaving the major parties (Marí-Klose 2015, pp ). This portrait fits consistently with the hypothesis of a market failure in Spain over recent years. Hence, Ciudadanos seems to have successfully responded to the demand for political renewal and has become increasingly electorally attractive to young and middle-aged, middle-class, highly educated centre voters (Galindo 2015) who in the past used to fluctuate between the PP and the PSOE. Regarding the declared intention to vote for Ciudadanos in Catalonia (in the 2015 regional election), we find the same voting pattern, although there are some meaningful differences that suggest additional reasons for the success of the party in this region. On the one hand, the age effect disappears and the relative differences between educational backgrounds are reduced. This would suggest that voting for Ciudadanos in Catalonia has a less distinctive pattern in social terms compared to Spain. Instead, attitudinal factors explain the intention of voting for Ciudadanos in Catalonia better than the sociodemographic features. Centre voters, but also rightwing voters, have higher odds of voting for Ciudadanos than those from the left. Moreover, criticism of the political situation in Catalonia is a powerful factor to explain the vote for Ciudadanos. The odds improve for those who express a poor assessment of Catalonia s general situation (64 per cent higher), those who worry about corruption (46 per cent higher) and, above all, those who rank independence as the main problem for Catalonia (increase by 4.4 times). Finally, the odds of voting for Ciudadanos improve by 71 per cent among those who voted for the PSC in In sum, we may infer from this picture that the market failure in the mid-2000s paved the way for the creation of a new party that has become the main reference point for those who are politically dissatisfied and strongly against Catalan independence. Consequently, in a context of extremely high polarisation around the national issue, this helped Ciudadanos to win second place in the 2015 regional election. This focusing of Ciudadanos on democratic regeneration (Spain) and, moreover, against independence (Catalonia) blurs the party ideology in terms of left and right. Accordingly, citizens acknowledge some confusion about the party s ideological position. In 2014 two out of three Spanish voters did not know where to place C s on the left right axis. Even more striking, in Catalonia one out of three voters failed to locate the party in Catalonia, even though it has already contested four regional elections since While C s origins, party manifestos and the ideological position of party members would all suggest that the party is located in the centre and centre-left, opinion leaders and voters from other parties tend to place C s closer to the right (see Figure 2). Interestingly, in Catalonia 32.4 per cent of people place Ciudadanos in more rightist positions. This may be regarded as symptomatic of the way in which many individuals in Catalonia tend to identify anti-nationalist positions with extreme right-wing ideology.