Ministerial advisors in the national government in Spain

There has been an increasing interest in the role of political advisors working for governmental organizations in the last two decades, associated to their increasing importance of these tasks and figures in the governance of contemporary states (James 2007; Connaughton 2010; Yong and Hazell 2014; OECD 2017; Shawn and Eichbaum 2018; Meert, Brans and Gouglas 2021; Snagovski, Taflaga and Kerby 2022). In contrast with other countries, where this group of political actors have been identified and studied (see, for instance, the comparative volume edited by Shawn and Eichbaum), they are a quite unknown area in Spain (though some initial attempts are found in Natera and Ruiz-Martínez 2007; Mondéjar 2021; and Gallardo 2022). This gap in our knowledge about Spanish special advisors is mostly derived from the difficulty of gain access to basic information about who they are and what they do, particularly in the central government, since they are not considered top-level officials, those where personal information on their cv and activities has to be publicly released, according to transparency regulations. This paper aims to contribute to increase the existing knowledge about special advisors in national government in Spain by providing an updated account about their socio-demographic, professional and political background, as well as their actual tasks. Ultimately, we want to explore whether these special advisors can be classified in different categories and which factors may influence in their recruitment to specific ministerial departments and tasks. [The paper will be co-authored with Juan Rodríguez Teruel, (University of Valencia), Isabel Mondéjar, and Lorenzo Candamín]