Government and Opposition in Spain Under the Pressure of Economic Collapse and Debt Crisis

Following the outbreak of the world financial crisis, the economic situation in Spain changed dramatically in the late 2000’s, from relatively high levels of economic growth and government surplus, to a deep economic recession, rising levels of unemployment and a severe debt crisis. Since the beginning of the crisis, the socialist government of Rodriguez Zapatero, in power since 2004 to 2011, and the new elected popular government lead by Mariano Rajoy, have implemented sever austerity policies, affecting welfare issues, taxation and labor conditions. Most of these policies have been implemented against electoral promises and have caused high controversy in public opinion and social mobilization. The question we analyze in this paper is to what extent the economic recession has transformed the high level of consensus that has characterized government-opposition relations in Spain since the end of transition to democracy (Capo 1994, Mújica and Sanchez-Cuenca 2006). Have opposition parties used a strategy of cooperation to overcome the crisis or by the contrary have they used it as an opportunity to weaken the government brining unprecedented levels of conflict in the political system? As explanatory variables we consider the type of government—minority or majority—, changes in the popularity of the incumbent government, and the role of external factors –pressures coming from the EU and international financial organizations—. The paper is based on the analysis of all the executive and parliamentary bills passed in the Spanish Parliament since 2000 to 2012, using the Spanish Policy Agendas Database.