A New Perspective to Spanish Politics

With research interests focusing on the role of labor unions in politics as well as in Spanish politics, Dr. Kerstin Hamann, Pegasus Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department has recently published a co-authored article with Dr. Bonnie N. Field, Bentley University. The article appears in the journal, Party Politics, “Framing Legislative Bills in Parliament: Regional-nationalist Parties’ Strategies in Spain’s Multinational Democracy.” In this article the authors examine the behaviors of two major regional-nationalist political parties in the Spanish Congress of Deputies, and in particular, how these parties frame their policy proposals.

The two parties, the Catalan Convergence and Union (CiU) and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) are widely known for advocating policies that further the sovereignty of their respective regions. The findings between these two parties indicate that the members who introduce the bills rely more on justifications relating to legal-constitutional compliance and administrative efficiency. Each party plays a major role in their individual regions pointing to the complexities of party competition in multi-level states.  All in all, the research displayed in this article builds on earlier work by Dr. Hamann on government formation and party systems in Spain’s autonomous regions, and Field’s work about the dynamics of minority governments in multi-level territorial politics.