Explaining Electoral Reorganization in Spain (2010-2015): 15-M, Mareas, and the Uprising of New Parties

The campaign for the Europarliamentary elections in May 2014 brought up Podemos into the Spanish political scene. This new party articulates its political identity on the basis of the political agenda introduced by social movements since 2011. Podemos’ success on this election meant the beginning of the electoral reorganization in Spain. In May 2015, local and regional elections brought new actors and issues to governments and Parliaments, as well as last December General Elections have confirmed the fragmentation of the electorate among four political parties, two of them completely new (Podemos and Ciudadanos). The emergence of the Spanish 15M/Indignados movement (May 2011) and the mobilization against the privatization of public services (the so-called mareas or 'tides') between 2012-2014 represented a major cycle of protest with no precedent in Spanish recent history. Among others, this mobilization achieved to include two major axis of contention into the public agenda: quality of democracy and defense of social rights. Which mechanism can explain the arrival of these contentious actors and issues to institutions? This paper focuses on the link between social movements and the new configuration of Spanish electoral landscape (i.e., new distribution of political power in the form of new actors and issues) in order to explain how ideological reconfiguration transfers to political representation through four stages: first, new issues are set by citizens’ mobilization; second, a new political party effectively takes the window of opportunity and mobilizes electorally on that agenda; third, its electoral success changes the political opportunities for their contenders, who, fourth, shift discourse and identities to adapt to this new context.