Spain’s military support for Ukraine: Public opinion, partisanship, and the personification of the debate on X/Twitter
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22325/fes/res.2025.271Keywords:
public opinion, partisanship, Ukraine, log-linear analysis, content analysisAbstract
After the Russian invasion, the Spanish government's decision to send arms to Ukraine caused a division among political parties (February–March 2022). This paper examines the influence of partisanship on the formation of public opinion in this context. We conducted a log-linear analysis (CIS, No. 3355) to measure the effect of partisan proximity on opinions regarding military support. Additionally, we carried out a content analysis of the debate on X, which revealed qualitative differences in how users articulated their views. The findings indicate that partisanship shapes both the public opinions and the discourses expressed on X. Furthermore, the study highlights the risk that partisan bias may steer foreign policy debates toward specific public figures, rather than grounding them in a diversity of arguments, a dynamic that could also manifest in other communicative contexts beyond X.
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