The 2012 Basque regional election, held on 25 March, resulted in a new government of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV). The incumbent Socialist Party suffered a dramatic reduction in electoral support, obtaining just 19% of the vote, far below the 30% they had attained in 2009. This was the first election held in the Basque Country without the looming shadow of ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna; "Basque Homeland and Freedom"). However, the influence of the economy was stronger than the nationalism issue in this election, as we show in this electoral report.

Esta nota presenta una nueva propuesta para analizar las cuestiones de género en la competición partidista. A pesar de su creciente protagonismo en el debate público, apenas existen indicadores para medir énfasis y posición de los partidos en temas de género. Nuestra propuesta cubre esta laguna basándose en el análisis de contenido cuantitativo de programas electorales y, específicamente, en la extensión del esquema de clasificación del Regional Manifestos Project. Proponemos un nuevo dominio sobre género para medir las estrategias partidistas en cuatro de los principales ejes identificados por la literatura: bienestar y mercado laboral, violencia, representación paritaria y valores e identidad. Con ello hemos generado datos inéditos sobre las elecciones autonómicas de 2019 en España que ponemos a disposición de la comunidad investigadora. Aquí presentamos los primeros resultados descriptivos.

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This article introduces new quantitative fine-tuned indicators to objectively measure political parties’ preferences on gender issues. We assess the validity and reliability of these new empirical indicators by analyzing the relationship between ideology and gender positions in decentralized Spain. Using data collected by the Regional Manifestos Project, which for the first time has incorporated a fully fledged gender domain into its coding scheme for content analysis of regional manifestos, we analyze parties’ gender positions on four fundamental dimensions: welfare and the labor market, violence, representation, and values and identity. The results suggest that there is a persistent left-right divide on the last three dimensions: Spanish left-wing parties score significantly higher than right-wing and regionalist parties. However, ideology does not drive parties’ gender positions on welfare and labor market policies; support for gender equality policies on this dimension is so widespread that it can be considered a “valence issue”—all parties, irrespective of their ideology, endorse the same (positive) position.