Leiden University Student Repository

Blanes Tortajada, María Mercedes (2023)

Regionalist parties supporting minority state governments: A study of Spain’s Congress of Deputies.

Master thesis | Political Science (MSc)

This study addresses the behavior of regionalist parties in Spain as supporters of minority state governments. Focusing on three parties, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, EH Bildu and the Basque Nationalist Party, this paper compares and analyzes their behavior in seven votes of the 2019-2023 legislature, looking closely at the exchanges of support and political concessions between the central government and these three parties. From this observation it can be concluded that the pay-offs preferred by the regionalist parties are territorial policy concessions, such as transfers of powers or state investments in these autonomous communities. However, it cannot be concluded that regionalist parties prefer multi-level goods, nor is there a relationship between the degree of regionalist extremism of the parties and their preferred type of territorial concession.

Regionalist Parties, Political Parties, Parliaments, Minority Governments, Spain, Catalans, Basques

Author

Blanes Tortajada, María Mercedes

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Parties, Parliaments and Democracy

Supervisors

Spirova, M.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en