Framing Legislative Bills In Parliament: Regional-Nationalist Parties’ Strategies In Spain’S Multinational Democracy

Keywords

Framing; legislative politics; party competition; regional-nationalist parties; Spain

Abstract

This article analyzes the strategies parties employ during the inter-electoral phase of party competition. It focuses on Spain’s multi-national democracy and how regional-nationalist parties frame their policy proposals in the statewide parliament (Congress of Deputies) for the period 1979–2011. Using the Catalan Convergence and Union (CiU) and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), it examines how frequently the parties rhetorically connect their bill proposals to the center-periphery dimension of party competition, and their justifications of these proposals in parliamentary debate. Challenging the niche party thesis, our findings indicate that the parties frame a small share of bills in center-periphery terms. They most frequently justify their center-periphery bills with reference to legal-constitutional compliance and administrative efficiency and less frequently with reference to culture, citizen rights, and economic performance. This can in part be explained by the fact that these parties are mainstream parties within their regions and operate in a clearly demarcated two-dimensional space in a multilevel state.

Publication Date

11-1-2015

Publication Title

Party Politics

Volume

21

Issue

6

Number of Pages

900-911

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068815597575

Socpus ID

84942755644 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84942755644

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