Populism as a Catalyst for Society-State Relations?

In an unstable Spain, severely hit by the financial and economic crisis and after the awakening of new political formations that have broken into the political and institutional landscape, will the emergence of political populisms in Spain result in the alteration of the functioning of its political system (in particular of the partisan system and the system of government), in the context of a democratic regime based on a young constitutional monarchy? Starting from this question, the impact of the new populisms in Spain will be assessed through the verification of the reliability of three hypotheses. A radical hypothesis: according to which populisms are succeeding in acting as catalysers, there is, as transmitting vehicles between citizens (agency) and the Political Power (structure), in such a way that their presence becomes structural, perennial, resulting in a definitive alteration of the partisan and government system, which can in turn influence the balance of political and social forces within a democratic regime where not everyone supports the Monarchy and clearly faces collective identity challenges resulting from internal ethno-regionalisms; A moderate hypothesis: verifying the first part of the radical hypothesis (transmission), the force of populism is though essentially dictated a) by social and economic circumstances, and b) by the qualities of populist leaders. Thus, it is expected that the changes in a) and / or b) lead to the slowdown of populist success and to a "normalization" of parties such as Podemos or Vox, which will become part of the regular party system (i.e. part of the mainstream traditional politics). In this case, the party system is assumed as a multi-party not only de jure but also de facto, while there are no changes in the system of government or in the regime. A weak hypothesis: in which case, populism is confirmed as a successful communicational phenomenon, but as a product vulnerable to changes in the economic realm, therefore, its use is mainly instrumental, its survival not guaranteed, and without relevant structural impacts. From an agency-structure/society-state focus, we hope to analysis and understand the complex effects of the populist strategy on meta-structures such as the political system, the political regime and the national identity of the Spanish State, embedded in a European context where Populism has been playing an important role over the last decade.