The Emotional Dimension of the Spanish Far Right and Its Effects on Satisfaction with Democracy

Abstract

The recent rise of the far right in Spain highlights the importance of analysing the elements that have contributed to VOX’s success and the party’s ascent to the third political power in the country after the general election held in November 2019. In order to explain the electoral support for VOX, in this study we adopt an emotional perspective, giving emotions a fundamental role alongside the traditional variables involved in the far-right vote. After describing the emotional regime of VOX voters, we observe the relationship between these voters’ emotions towards political actors and the levels of satisfaction with democracy. Subsequently, we try to identify the determining elements of the vote for VOX through a multivariate analysis. Finally, after stating that hope in Santiago Abascal is one of the main variables that explain voters’ support for VOX, we analyse its constituent elements. Our findings reveal that hope for VOX’s leader is not made up of structural elements but cultural elements, citizens’ ratings of political leaders and ideological and identity questions.

Emotions of Candidates on Twitter in the 2023 Seville City Council Election: A Second-Order Campaign?

“…Due to its minority condition, the development of this coalition's political action has entailed a constant seek to obtain parliamentary support from other parties, especially those classified as Non-Statewide Parties (NSWPs). On the other hand, PP (Partido Popular) emerged as the dominant force within the right-wing sector of the political spectrum-although still considerably far from the winning party-alongside the far-right group Vox, which gained access to the Parliament for the first time in April and progressively increased in relevance until becoming the third political force, due to the repetition of elections in November (Jaráiz-Gulías et al 2022). In addition, the aforementioned suffrage had a quantitative detrimental effect on Cs (Ciudadanos), which had also been crucial throughout the former term, having obtained the third position in April 2019, extremely close behind PP 5 .…”

“…Before the twenty-first century, a wide variety of propositions within the core of political science included models and approaches inspired by rationalism that overshadowed the potential emotional factor (Marcus 2002;Marcus et al 2000). On the contrary, empirical theories and strategies contemplated by recent papers have allowed enquiries to be made about the importance of emotional components in the various dimensions of politics (Corduneanu 2018;Jaráiz-Gulías et al 2022;Pereira et al 2021). The way digital social networks are naturally configured makes them suitable spaces for expressing emotions (Duncombe 2019;Rivera-Otero et al 2021a) and, consequently, for studying their impact on political processes.…”