The welfare State and party political programmes in Spain: A proposed comparative analysis of parties´ social profiles

Abstract

Since the start of the Great Recession in 2007, increased concern has emerged about the amount of social expenditure devoted to the elderly in various European societies. In Spain, this debate has been linked to the irruption of two new political parties Podemos (We can) and Ciudadanos (Citizens). This paper presents a methodological proposal that aims to define, in comparative perspective, parties´ social policy profiles. It is based on the annotated manifestos issued by the Manifesto Corpus and on the Hirschman´s conceptual model. The latter summarises critiques of the Welfare State (WS) in three arguments of perversity, futility, and jeopardy. Data from the Manifesto Project on the 94 general elections held in the EU-15 from 1993 onwards, and covered in the “2017b” version of its main dataset (729 observations), are used. Parties’ positions on the expansion of welfare spending and emphases on social cuts are examined, both at the meso-level of political parties and the macro-level of national Parliaments. In Spain, Podemos and Ciudadanos have not offered to expand social services for the young generations and, moreover, they have paid scarce attention to the elderly. Neither the Partido Popular (PP, Popular Party), nor the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Socialist Party), have given greater priority to pensions in comparison to other welfare programmes, such as education or employment. Finally, since 1993, the PP, Ciudadanos and Unión Progreso y Democracia (UPyD, Union, Progress and Democracy) have been the only parties supportive of cuts to social spending, albeit infrequently. The PP has changed its reasons for proposing cuts to social spending over time. By 2016, these reasons were consistent with the idea of the perversity of the welfare state.