Minority Government Performance in Multilevel Perspective: The Case of Spain

This paper offers an explanatory framework to account for the performance of minority parliamentary governments. It includes the opportunities and constraints created by political institutions, the contingent partisan bargaining circumstances, and the reconcilability of party goals, all of which are understood in multilevel, territorial perspective where relevant. The framework is then used to account for the strong governing capacity of Spain’s minority governments. The central argument is that Spain’s minority governments work in part because the political institutions and partisan bargaining circumstances tend to strengthen the government’s bargaining position. Moreover, the goals of Spain’s statewide governing parties and regional parties, with whom governments have predominantly allied, are distinct yet often reconcilable, fostering cooperation during minority governments. The statewide governing party can make policy concessions to regional parties in the national parliament where regional parties are policy seeking and offer office concessions at the regional level where regional parties are office seeking, in exchange for achieving its priority goal of governing Spain.