Multilevel System in Critical Situations: The Climate Crisis in Spain

The management of recent political crises in Spain suggest that critical situations such as natural disasters can be used as a measure of the individual’s preferences about territorial decentralization. The latest events experienced in Valencia’s floods might be an example of how individuals express their needs to the democratic regime in terms of having mechanisms that enforce the separation of powers between different levels of territorial administration. This might indicate that centralist and iliberal actions by the national and regional political system would be legitimized by part of the population surveyed. In cultural terms, political culture in critical situations could not only reflect the existence of non-democratic attitudes and tendencies but the existence of an individuals need for what he or she wants to obtain from the political system and the democratic regime. Of all the possibilities of managing a critical situation, what type of political culture does the citizen express in a crisis situation? Participatory or paternalistic? Does the individual tend towards more authoritarian positions in critical situations? What feelings are expressed towards the democratic regime? And towards the political system? These general questions can help to understand whether political culture is an established norm not only towards the traumatic event itself, but also towards political structures and also towards the value system present in individuals. Using data from the national barometer conducted by the CIS in Spain