Beyond Self-placement: Why Nationalism is a Better Predictor of Electoral Behaviour in the Basque Country

Most analysts agree that in the Basque Country, the nationalist cleavage is more important for party competition than the left-right divide. Recent studies, however, suggest that self-placement on the left-right scale is a more powerful predictor of electoral choices than self-placement along the Ba...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Leonisio Calvo, Rafael, Strijbis, Oliver
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Institución:Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Repositorio:e-spacio. Repositorio Institucional de la UNED
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:e-spacio.uned.es:20.500.14468/31516
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/31516
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:5902 Ciencias políticas
Basque Country
elections
left-right
nationalism
voting behavior
País Vasco
elecciones
izquierda-derecha
nacionalismo
comportamiento electoral
Descripción
Sumario:Most analysts agree that in the Basque Country, the nationalist cleavage is more important for party competition than the left-right divide. Recent studies, however, suggest that self-placement on the left-right scale is a more powerful predictor of electoral choices than self-placement along the Basque-Spanish division. We work to solve this seeming paradox by showing that self-placement along the left-right axis is related to preferences on several issue dimensions, and is therefore not coincident with a classic understanding of “left” and “right”. Once operationalized as issue preferences, the Basque-Spanish divide appears to be more important for electoral decisions than the left-right one.