Since its accession to the European Community in 1985, Spain has been considered a pro-European country. However, in 2005 the referendum on the European Constitution revealed the existence of some fractures among parties, while Spaniards' acritical acceptance of the relationship between Spain and Europe has also been denounced. The article asks whether these developments suggest an increasing euroscepticism among Spanish political parties and citizens. It reviews the euroscepticism of Spanish parties and citizens and concludes with a reflection on the links between parties and citizens.

This study analyses the extent, sense, and strategies employed by sympathisers with Spanish state-wide left-wing parties to ‘reconstruct’ their affective ties with the Spanish nation after the ‘monopolisation of patriotism’ by Franco's regime. Such an undertaking is further complicated within the context of economic crisis and intensified peripheral nationalism found in Catalonia and the Basque Country. This article applies qualitative analysis to the discourse of left-wing participants from 11 focus groups held in March 2012 amidst the economic (and political) crisis. As expected, this context of crisis favoured the emergence of explicit discourse on the Spanish nation, providing an opportunity to gain a better understanding of its nature. Findings show that welfare nationalism and social patriotism define the kind of attachment developed by the interviewees towards Spain better than the concept of constitutional patriotism, or any kind of ethnic-cultural feeling of belonging.

The aim of this research is to examine to what extent the electoral support for radical right parties (RRPs) is driven by ‘policy voting’ and to compare this support with that of centre-right parties. Using the European Election Study 2019, we focus on six party systems: Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom. Our analyses reveal that party preferences for RRPs are better explained by policy considerations than by other alternative explanations (e.g. by ‘globalization losers’ or ‘protest voting’). Additionally, the results show that although preferences for both party families are mainly rooted in ‘policy voting’, notable differences emerge when looking at the role of specific policy dimensions. Overall, these findings suggest that the support for RRPs cannot be understood fundamentally as a mere reaction against economic pauperization or political dissatisfaction but instead as an ideological decision based on rational choice models.

This article defines contemporary social patriotism as a type of welfare nationalism, with characteristics of an achievable civic form of maintenance nationalism. It investigates the presence of this type of nationalism in contemporary Spain, pointing out the novelty of the explicit linkage of patriotism and a reformist agenda by leftist parties. It also argues that social patriotism has the leverage for creating transversal identities within a multinational democracy such as Spain. After testing our hypotheses using qualitative and quantitative data, we discuss the implications of these findings within a wider European context.

La organización territorial española en crisis. Análisis del pensamiento político de las élites locales y regionales en los partidos de ámbito estatal de izquierda