Politics and Society in Contemporary Spain

From Zapatero to Rajoy

B. Field, A. Botti, B. Field, A. Botti, B. Field, A. Botti

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137306623
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria politica

This edited volume examines the political, social, and economic developments in contemporary Spain, with a particular focus on the period of the Socialist government (2008-11), the 2011 elections, and the challenges facing Spain and the new Popular Party government.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Political Change in Spain, from Zapatero to Rajoy

Bonnie N. Field and Alfonso Botti

Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was once a darling of European social democracy, and was and remains a villain for the Spanish political right. Leading the Socialist Party (PSOE) to a surprise electoral victory in 2004, following the Islamist terrorist attacks on the Madrid commuter train system, he enacted a striking set of progressive reforms (Bosco & Sánchez-Cuenca 2009; Field 2011).

He rapidly reoriented Spanish foreign policy by withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq, reversing the support that his predecessor, the conservative José María Aznar of the Popular Party (PP), had given to the US-led war (Powell 2009). Parliament also passed a series of progressive social and civil rights laws, including an ambitious gender equality act and the legalization of same-sex marriage and adoption (Calvo 2009; Encarnación 2009). He placed particular emphasis on women’s representation, appointing a cabinet that for the first time in the history of Spanish democracy included an equal number of women and men.

Rooted in the discovery of more than two hundred mass graves with the remains of the victims of Francoist and Falangist violence, Zapatero confronted Spain’s divisive history of civil war, the Franco dictatorship, and human rights’ violations more than any other Spanish leader since the transition to democracy in the mid-1970s (Aguilar 2009). He oversaw significant reforms of Spain’s territorial institutions by expanding autonomy in several political regions (called autonomous communities) (Baldi & Baldini 2009; Muro 2009). Moreover, he strengthened Spain’s comparatively frail, at least in the Western European context, welfare state, especially with the passage of the dependency law, which committed the state to providing some care for those who cannot care for themselves. Nonetheless, it is important to note that various social policies initiated by Zapatero have been criticized for lack of resources, problems of implementation, and for the difficulties of actually meeting their stated goals (chapter 10 in this volume; Bernardi & Sarasa 2009; Calvo & Martin 2009).

The Zapatero government also began risky negotiations with the terrorist group ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom) with the goal of ending the violence that the radical Basque independence group had been perpetrating since the later years of the Francoist dictatorship. The negotiations were supported by all of the parliamentary parties except the principal opposition party. The PP vehemently opposed the government’s antiterrorist policies, and the subject formed part of the deep polarization (or crispación) that marked the relationship between the PSOE and PP (Field 2009; Sánchez-Cuenca 2009). The negotiations ended in failure and with a deadly bomb that ETA placed in terminal four of Madrid’s Barajas airport in December 2006. It was undoubtedly a defeat for the government and a blow to Zapatero’s leadership. But with ETA’s declaration in October 2011 that it would definitively abandon violent activity, a month before Spain’s general elections, some analysts stressed the contribution of the then failed peace process to the end of terrorism (Sánchez-Cuenca 2012, 55–65), or what the principal Socialist negotiator called a “tactical failure and a strategic win” (Eguiguren & Rodríguez Aizpeolea 2011, 247). Without doubt, the announced end of terrorist activity is a tremendous achievement of the Zapatero governments and for Spanish and Basque democracy more broadly (see chapter 5 in this volume).

Even though the Socialists under Zapatero’s leadership had recognized the weaknesses of Spain’s preexisting economic model based on consumption and construction, it is evident that the Zapatero government did not effectively reorient the economy or deflate the real estate bubble. This is in part due to the success of the Spanish economy during his first term. As Mulas-Granados (2009) notes, Zapatero preferred to prolong the period of economic expansion that he had inherited from his predecessors. Therefore, the more ambitious economic proposals contained in the 2004 Socialist Party electoral manifesto turned into timid fiscal and labor market reforms. According to Royo (2009a), Zapatero’s economic team continued, in general, the economic policies of its predecessors, Felipe González (PSOE) and José María Aznar (PP), and according to López and Rodríguez (2011) Spain in broad strokes has continued to follow the same economic model adopted during the Francoist regime in the 1950s. The lack of effective action in times of economic expansion would end up being very costly when the international economic crisis began to explode after 2007 and to deeply impact Spain beginning in 2008.

Nonetheless, the government fulfilled much of the program with which the Socialist Party went to the polls in 2004. Despite the aggressive opposition of the PP, and other conservative groups such as the Catholic Church (see chapter 9 in this volume), to nearly their entire political agenda, the government’s actions obtained substantial electoral support in 2008. Compared to 2004, the PSOE won more votes and increased its seats by five, with which it was able to continue governing again in minority (see chapter 4 this volume). However, it is important to note that the PP also increased its votes and seats, in fact more than the Socialists, producing the highest vote concentration in the two principal parties since the beginning of Spain’s democracy.

Political scientists, historians, and other analysts all highlight the differences between Zapatero’s first and second terms in office. The second term, inaugurated in 2008, was inescapably marked by the most severe economic crisis Spain has experienced in the past 80 years. This crisis has not only tested Spain, but, in its international dimensions, has indeed severely challenged the Euro and the European Union (EU). Accustomed to seeing itself (and to being seen) as the architect of a model transition to democracy and economic successes, in sharp contrast,¹ Spain is now at the center of international attention for its economic frailty, extremely high unemployment, and protest movements, such as the indignados (indignant).

Zapatero left office following the November 2011 elections, in which he did not compete, as an extremely unpopular figure, even among his prior base of supporters. With Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba as the Socialist candidate for prime minister, the 2011 elections severely punished the PSOE, and together with the prior local and regional elections relegated the PSOE to its lowest quota of political power since the transition to democracy. This book provides the opportunity to reflect on Zapatero’s legacy and to more broadly analyze contemporary Spain. The contributors to the book examine the major political, social, and economic events of Zapatero’s second term in depth. They also contrast these developments with those of the first term in order to offer a comprehensive assessment. Last, they evaluate the challenges Spain and the new Popular Party government of Mariano Rajoy face. Before summarizing the chapters, this introduction first evaluates in more detail the economic and political crisis that exploded during Zapatero’s second term and then analyzes the results of the November 20, 2011, elections.

An Economic and a Political Crisis

If Prime Minister Zapatero’s first term in office is known for the extension of civil rights and liberties, among other reforms, the second term will surely be remembered for cuts in social benefits, reduction of labor rights, loss of jobs for many Spaniards, and reduction of economic prospects and living standards for many others. Moreover, the economic crisis and the adjustments to it have also provoked a severe political and institutional crisis that does not appear to have attenuated after the general elections of 2011.

We first provide a brief summary of some of the characteristics of the economic crisis. After a growth period from 1995 to 2007 characterized by a 3.6 percent average annual increase of gross domestic product (GDP), Spain entered a period of recession that reached –3.7 percent GDP growth in 2009, and –0.3 percent in 2010. After a timid recovery in 2011 (0.4 percent), the economy again, according to all estimates, experienced negative growth in 2012.² Simultaneously unemployment reached 24.4 percent of the active population in the first trimester of 2012.³ Youth unemployment reached a dramatic 48.6 percent in 2011 (Fundación FOESSA and Cáritas 2012, 7). The evolution of the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP was 4.5 percent in 2008, 11.2 percent in 2009, 9.7 percent in 2010, and 9.4 percent in 2011,⁴ while the government likely missed the 2012 deficit target of 6.3 percent of GDP (which had already been increased from a 5.3 percent target).⁵

The most revealing and at the same time distressing data are those provided by the report Exclusión y desarrollo social (exclusion and social development) (Fundación FOESSA and Cáritas 2012), which indicate that income per capita fell in real terms nearly 9 percent between 2007 and 2010 (p. 6), resulting in a rapid increase in inequality since the mid-1990s. The ratio of income corresponding to the wealthiest 20 percent of the population compared to the poorest 20 percent went from 5.3 in 2007 to 6.9 at the end of 2010 (p. 7); in fact this represents the greatest increase in the EU-27 countries. According to the study’s estimates, the proportion of households that fell below the poverty line in 2011 was 21.8 percent, two points higher than in 2009—an increase without precedent in recent decades (pp. 10–11) and which places Spain among the countries with the most poverty in the EU-21, only surpassed by Romania and Lithuania (p. 13).

It is important to underscore some basic points about the economic and financial crisis in Spain. First, Spain was not Greece. Before the crisis exploded the government’s accounts were healthy and in fact until 2007 there was a surplus. Spain indeed had been applauded for many years for being an example of economic success and the economy during Zapatero’s first term exhibited very positive macroeconomic indicators (Royo 2009a,b). Second, the international crisis affected the Iberian country more punitively because of Spain’s structural economic problems, such as low productivity and competitiveness, and a labor market divided between many with precarious jobs and others with permanent contracts and high job security (see chapters 6 and 7 in this volume; Royo 2009b; Salmon 2010), and due to its economic model that is based largely on construction and consumption, which produced an increase in unemployment without comparison in the rest of the EU. Spain has spent months on the edge of a cliff, over which Greece has already fallen, while Portugal dangerously approaches the abyss. Third, Spain’s economic model did not originate in the Zapatero era and therefore responsibility for its failures lies with the PSOE and the PP, and the real estate policy in the prior decades is just one of the more obvious examples.

On the other hand, one can surely evaluate the Zapatero government for not having reoriented the economy as we mentioned earlier and for its response to the crisis. Zapatero has been harshly criticized for not reacting to the crisis in time and for denying or underestimating its magnitude. When the government began to respond at the end of 2008, initially its policies were Keynesian in nature, using moderate countercyclical fiscal stimulus measures. But, after May 2010, due to pressure from European institutions, the government’s policies were completely reversed, and painful austerity-based adjustment policies were enacted. The government also liberalized the labor market, making firing easier and cheaper, against the fervent opposition of the unions (see chapter 7 in this volume), and with the argument that a more flexible labor market would facilitate employment. But, labor market reform did not create employment (Fishman 2012). The adjustment policies also did not resolve the economic crisis nor did they prevent the emergence of a sovereign debt crisis that persisted after Zapatero left office; many analysts also fear that the adjustment policies will not correct and may even worsen the structural problems of the Spanish economy and labor market (chapter 6 in this volume; Fishman 2012).

Let’s consider the contex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1   Introduction: Political Change in Spain, from Zapatero to Rajoy
• 2   The Long Adiós: The PSOE and the End of the Zapatero Era
• 3   From Opposition to Government: The Popular Party of Mariano Rajoy
• 4   Governing Spain in Tough Times and in Minority: The Limits of Shifting Alliances
• 5   The State of Autonomies between the Economic Crisis and Enduring Nationalist Tensions
• 6   Economic Reforms and the Labor Market: Zapatero’s Endless Period in the Wilderness
• 7   The Relationship between Unions and Zapatero’s Government: From Social Pacts to General Strike
• 8   Youth Protests and the End of the Zapatero Government
• 9   The Spanish Catholic Church from the Zapatero Era to the Rajoy Government
• 10   Gender Equality Policymaking in Spain (2008–11): Losing Momentum
• 11   The Spanish Welfare State from Zapatero to Rajoy: Recalibration to Retrenchment
• 12   Conclusions
• Index