The end of consensus on Gender Issues In Spanish Politics: Identity Politics And Parties’ Strategic Behaviour

One incontrovertible accomplishment of the Spanish democracy throughout the last four decades has been the extraordinary progress in gender-based equality and woman’ rights issues. At this regard, Spain has become one of the most advanced countries in the world, particularly singular among the south European democracies, when it comes to create innovative laws about gender issues that are passed with broad parliamentary support. Likely the main outcome of that has been the institutionalization of gender equality policies and management, which has been called Feminism of State, what has been supported alike by progressist and conservative national governments. However, political consensus on gender issues appears to break apart in the last decade. On the one hand, regional parliaments began to pass laws on gender issues which were meant more politically symbolic than legally effective. On the other hand, the rise of radical parties on the left-wing (Podemos) and the right-wing (Vox) at regional and national levels coincides with parties’ polarization on gender policies. This paper analyses the causal mechanisms that can account for consensus building and breakdown on gender equality issues in the Spanish and the regional parliaments from the beginning of the eighties until nowadays. Theoretical arguments are based on the framework of identity politics and theories on party strategical behaviour. The analysis will be based on empirical data of legislative voting behaviour collected from the 18 representative assemblies, interviews with sampled MPs of the Spanish parliament and several regional parliaments, and MPs opinion data collected in 2018 and 2022.