Handling Separatism: The Effect of Public Protests on Governments in Spain

Public Protests provide one way of political participation outside of institutionalized channels, such as elections. While protests serve the function of expressing disagreement with existing or planned conditions or policies, it is not always clear whether protests are effective and how they impact governments. Here, we propose to analyze the effects of protests in Spain on public opinion ratings of the government. Recent research has shown that one particular form of protests, general strikes, affects public opinion ratings of governments headed by the center-left PSOE negatively, but has no negative effects on public opinion ratings of governments headed by the conservative PP. We propose to investigate whether other public protests follow a similar pattern or whether other protests have different effects on public opinion on the government. We base our empirical analysis on protest data contained in the SPEED dataset on civil unrest. Many of the events recorded revolve around conflicts related to regional autonomy and separatist causes, which are highly salient issues in Spanish politics. Our paper will explore how governments of the left and right are judged in handling separatist protests. We hypothesize that the PP will suffer higher public opinion penalties than the PSOE in the wake of these protests because it has taken a more hardline stance on the issues of regional autonomy. Initial results suggest that in contrast to general strikes and in line with our hypothesis, other forms of public protest actually improve public opinion of leftist governments. Our paper will further analyze the data and explore the reasons for the divergence in public opinion effects on governments led by parties of the left or the right. By differentiating different types of protests, we will be able to present a more nuanced picture of the effects of protests on governments.