South European Society and Politics

ISSN: 1360-8746 (Print) 1743-9612 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fses20

Going National: Ciudadanos from Catalonia to

Spain

Juan Rodrguez Teruel & Astrid Barrio

To cite this article: Juan Rodrguez Teruel & Astrid Barrio (2015): Going National:
Ciudadanos from Catalonia to Spain, South European Society and Politics, DOI:
10.1080/13608746.2015.1119646

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2015.1119646

Published online: 09 Dec 2015.

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 South European Society and Politics, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2015.1119646

Going National: Ciudadanos from

Catalonia to Spain
Juan Rodrguez Teruel and Astrid Barrio
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Ciudadanos, a party founded in Catalonia in 2006, has recently acquired a major role in
the Spanish political system. This article examines why it was formed almost ten years ago
and how it has evolved since; its ideological principles and policy menu; the p arty organi-
sation and leadership; the main determinants of its vote, and the structure of o pportunities
faced by the party in the 2015 general election. It considers Ciudadanos in two different
contexts Catalonia and all Spain and in two different time zones: before 2014, when
the party was mainly a regional force, and after that date. In each context, the party seems
to have responded to the unsatisfied demands resulting from the double electoral market
failure of the last decade in Spain and Catalonia.

Keywords:Spain; Catalonia; Albert Rivera; New Parties; Party Institutionalisation; Party

Realignment

In Spain, the emergence of new parties,1 like Cs (Ciudadanos-Partido de la Ciudadana

- Citizens-Party of the Citizenry) and Podemos (We Can), is threatening the long-term
predominance of the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Espaol - Spanish Socialist
Workers Party) and the PP (Partido Popular - Popular Party). As a consequence of
this party realignment process, the new parties are becoming relevant in supporting
governments at different levels of the Spanish political system. The emergence of
the new parties has raised questions about their origins, political aims and internal
functioning factors which can help us to understand their potential evolution and
impact.
Most of the recent literature on the emergence of new parties explains their
breakthrough as a result of the incentives for electoral coordination in the presence of
problems of collective action, decision-making and political ambition (Aldrich 1995; Cox
1997). These incentives might be institutional (party regulation or the electoral system,
amongst others) or sociological (the cleavage structure). Political elites and organisations
have a determinant role in interpreting them and deciding when and where to mobilise
in order to maximise their utility (Boix 2007, pp. 501506; Van Biezen & Raskova

2015 Taylor & Francis

 2 J. Rodrguez Teruel and A. Barrio

2014, p. 891). In this vein, Lago & Martnez identify two key variables that determine
political elites decisions to enter electoral competition: the degree of institutionalisation
of a party system (which affects the extent of voters elasticity, i.e. their willingness to
change their voting preferences) and the conditions for electoral market failure,2 when
the number of parties that voters are willing to vote for may be lower than the number
of parties competing (Lago & Martnez 2011, p. 7). Hence, as party loyalty grows and
the party system achieves institutionalisation, voters become inelastic and the odds of
vote-switching to a different party decrease.
Yet, in the context of an electoral market failure produced by dissatisfied citizens
or by internal party conflicts (Lago & Martnez 2011, p. 8), voters may become
temporarily elastic again. In this situation, according to the existing incentives, elites
may decide to form a party and enter the race. Nevertheless, contextual factors and
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electoral incentives are not sufficient conditions to explain the success of new parties in
the long term. In this respect, the organisational persistence of a party and its electoral
sustainability depend on its institutionalisation - whereby the partys preservation and
survival become a goal in itself, according to Panebianco (1988, pp. 4953) - as a result
of the interaction between the structural conditions and the choices made by party
elites in the early years of its existence (Bolleyer 2013, p. 51).
According to this theoretical framework, the article aims to analyse the context
of the formation and success of Ciudadanos. In particular, we will contend that Cs
responds to a double failure of the electoral market at two different levels. Firstly, in
Catalonia, the predominance of nationalism in political and social life, even after the
change of government in the early 2000s, left unsatisfied demands amongst voters who
had rejected nationalism and the emphasis on identity issues shared by most of the
political establishment (Lago, Montero & Torcal 2007, p. 233; Lago & Martnez 2011,
p. 8). A few years later, under Rajoys government (201115), the conditions for another
electoral market failure also occurred in the whole of Spain, although, in this case, it
came from unsatisfied demands for political renewal, transparency and democratic
regeneration.
Apart from its political relevance, Ciudadanos provides an interesting case study of
a new party. It allows us to observe the influence of multilevel institutional settings on
the breakthrough and political success of new parties. Indeed, a distinctive pattern in
Spain has been that successful new parties do not usually directly enter the national
parliament, but first gain access on a different political level, often the regional level. Thus,
the multilevel context opens different institutional windows of opportunity for regional
parties as well as for national parties. Furthermore, the growing party competition has
juxtaposed Ciudadanos with two other new parties undergoing opposite patterns of
evolution, Podemos and UPyD (Unin Progreso y Democracia - Union Progress and
Democracy). The article will not develop a comparative analysis of these parties but will
mention them in order to observe relevant similarities and dissimilarities. Overall, the
examination of how Ciudadanos has responded to the double electoral market failure
will also provide the opportunity to observe in detail some of the main dimensions of
this new party: its ideology, organisation and leadership, and electorate.
 South European Society and Politics 3

The article is divided into seven sections. The first and second sections sketch the
evolution of the party since its formation in 2006. The next section outlines the main
ideological principles and the policies included in the party platform. Then we depict
the organisation and the main features of the leaders. The fifth section offers analytical
models to identify the main determinants of the vote at both Spanish and Catalan
levels. The sixth introduces the structure of opportunities in a context of party system
transformation. The last section concludes and suggests new avenues for the research
on new parties.

Ciudadanos in Catalonia
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The origin of Ciudadanos is anchored in the context of Catalan regional politics of the
2000s. After 23years of regional government by the centre-right Catalan nationalist
alliance CiU (Convergncia i Uni - Convergence and Union), headed by the charismatic
Jordi Pujol, in December 2003 a new regional government was formed which consisted
of a coalition of the three main left-wing parties: PSC (Partit dels Socialistes de
Catalunya - Catalan Socialist Party, PSOEs sister party), ERC (Esquerra Republicana
de Catalunya - Republican Left from Catalonia, left secessionists) and ICV (Iniciativa
per Catalunya Verds - Initiative for Catalonia Greens, Green ex-communists). The
coalitional agreement included as a focal point the reform of the Statute of Autonomy.3
Throughout the whole period, the reform process not only generated internal problems
within the cabinet coalition, and between the regional government and the national
executive (ruled by the PSOE after April 2004), but also fuelled political tension in the
centreperiphery cleavage between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. As a consequence,
an increasing proportion of the coalition partners voters declared their dissatisfaction
with the political situation at the polls, thereby suggesting the conditions for an electoral
market failure (Lago, Montero & Torcal 2007).
As a response to this unsatisfied demand, in June 2005 a group of Catalan intellectuals,
formerly close to PSC and ICV, presented a manifesto entitled For a New Political Party.
They considered that the arrival of the left in government had not really contributed to a
change in the established consensus, which favoured the predominance of nationalism
in Catalan society and politics. They therefore proposed the creation of a new party to
oppose this. Ciudadanos became politically active during the campaign before the June
2006 referendum on the new statute, in which they canvassed for a No vote. The new
party held its first party congress in July 2006, when 350 party delegates elected Albert
Rivera as party chairman.
Ciudadanos ran in its first regional election in Catalonia in November 2006. The
results exceeded party expectations and poll forecasts because Ciudadanos became
the first new party to enter the Catalan regional parliament since 1992, with three
members of parliament (MPs) and almost 90,000 votes (Table 1). This successful
breakthrough was based on urban voters from the region around Barcelona, coming
almost equally from those who had formerly voted for PSC and PP (Pallars & Muoz
2008, p. 459).
 4 J. Rodrguez Teruel and A. Barrio

Table 1 National Identity and Language in Ciudadanos Regional Vote in Catalonia

2011 2006
Party Party
Votersb Members Electorateb Votersb Members Electorateb
National identity
Only Spanish 16.9 16.5 5.5 22.1 13.6 6.1
More Spanish 15.1 24 3.7 12.2 20.8 4.7
As Spanish as 68.0 52.9 43.6 61.0 48.0 44.3
Catalan
More Catalan 0 0.8 26.7 0.8 0.5 27.2
Only Catalan 0 0.8 20.6 3.8 0 14.5
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Other/NA 0 5 0 0 17.1 3.2

Main language a

Spanish 86.7 - 40.1 78.0 76.6 35.1

Catalan 0 - 49.3 1.7 5.7 46.1
Both 13.3 - 9.7 19.9 16.2 16.8
Other/NA 0 - 0.9 0.4 0.5 2.0

(n) 39 121 2,454 55 221c 2,100

Source: CEO (BOP 6 and 24) for voters and electorate; GREP (see note 4) for party members.
Notes: aThe indicator is measured by the question language employed at home; bVoters and electorate
refer to the 2006 and 2010 Catalan regional elections; cData are only reported for those party members
living in Catalonia (N = 192).

Although Ciudadanos had a detailed platform covering a wide range of policies (health,
education, economy, agriculture, public administration reform, etc.) (Ciudadanos 2006),
its campaign messages focused mostly on identity and linguistic issues. The party was very
critical of long-term regional policies focused on nation-building (for example, positive
action in favour of Catalan in public schools to the detriment of Spanish, support only
of cultural events in Catalan, etc.) and what they considered the consequences of these
policies (corruption, parochialism, cultural homogenisation, etc.). Its main symbolic
policy proposal was the promotion of bilingualism in the public school system.
Indeed, Ciudadanos electoral support and party membership mainly came from
Spanish-speaking voters who felt mainly Spanish or as much Spanish as Catalan (see
Table 1). Accordingly, during these years Ciudadanos gave great saliency to its position
against Catalan nationalism and in favour of Spanish language and identity. In a
context of polarisation, Ciudadanos became a vehicle channelling political discontent
as the PSC lost support from dissatisfied voters because of its coalition with ERC (Lago,
Montero & Torcal 2007, p. 233).
This early successful breakthrough encouraged the party to run in all the elections
held afterwards the local elections in May 2007 and May 2011, the Andalusian regional
election and the general election in March 2008, as well as the European election in June
2009. Yet the results in all these elections were extremely poor, with a steady loss of electoral
 South European Society and Politics 5

Table 2 Electoral Results of Ciudadanos 200615

Election Votes (%) Seats Seats (%)
General elections
2008 0.2 0 0
Regional elections (Catalonia)
2006 3.0 3 2.2
2010 3.4 3 2.2
2012 7.7 9 6.7
2015 18.8 25 18.5
Regional elections (rest of Spain)
2008 Andalusia 0.1 0 0
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2015 Andalusia 9.3 9 8.3

2015 Aragon 9.4 5 7.5
2015 Asturias 7.1 3 6.7
2015 Balearic Islands 5.9 2 3.4
2015 Canary Islands 5.9 0 0
2015 Cantabria 6.9 2 5.7
2015 Castilla la Mancha 8.6 0 0
2015 Castilla Leon 10.3 5 6.0
2015 Extremadura 4.4 1 1.5
2015 Madrid 12.1 17 13.2
2015 Navarra 2.9 0 0
2015 Murcia 12.5 4 8.9
2015 La Rioja 10.5 4 12.1
2015 Community of Valencia 11.2 13 13.1
Local elections
2007 0.3 13 0.0
2011 0.2 10 0.0
2015 6.5 1,527 2.3
European elections
2009a 0.2 0 0
2014 3.2 2 3.7
Source: Official data.
Note: aIn the 2009 European election, the party ran in coalition with Libertas.

support and virtually no institutional representation (see Table 2). Thus, Ciudadanos
failed to spread in the rest of Spain and remained functionally a regional party.
The disappointing electoral progress during the period of 200609 generated
internal disagreement around organisational strategy and party ideology. Moreover,
the emergence of the UPyD in Spain increased pressure to merge the two parties, as
supported by the internal opposition to Rivera (see next section). Hence, factionalism
 6 J. Rodrguez Teruel and A. Barrio

was soon reflected within the parliamentary party and was widespread in the second
party congress of June 2007, when Rivera faced strong internal opposition and
criticism. Although he was re-elected in a contested election with a narrow majority,
the party was weakened, as many members of the losing faction abandoned it in the
following months (El Confidencial 2007). The internal disagreement evolved towards
a final clash during the 2009 European electoral campaign,4 when two critical MPs
split the parliamentary group and removed Rivera from the parliamentary leadership
(El Mundo 2009). During the months after the European election, the organisation was
seriously weakened by several splits. Not surprisingly, at the end of 2009, Ciudadanos
seemed to be heading into a final decline.
However, the political context evolved towards a more favourable scenario for the
party. In July 2010, the Spanish Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional some
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articles of the new Catalan statute, which had formerly been approved in the 2006
referendum. Actually the ruling stated the constitutionality of most of the text, but the
few elements to be annulled were crucial in the view of the main Catalan parties (Colino
2013). Simultaneously, the worsening of the economic situation forced the national
government headed by Jos Luis Rodrguez Zapatero to announce a package of social
cuts and a reduction in salaries. While this adverse context eroded the electoral support
for the PSC, it allowed opposition parties like Ciudadanos to benefit from political
dissatisfaction and the return of polarisation around the centreperiphery cleavage
in Catalonia (Rico & Lieira 2014, p. 273). Hence, Ciudadanos gained a positive
result in the November 2010 Catalan regional election, since it maintained its three
parliamentary seats and achieved a small increase in electoral support to 105,000 votes
(Rico 2012). While this result might seem quite modest in the context of high electoral
volatility, it allowed Rivera to confirm his leadership and to re-establish party unity.
Indeed, the third party congress in October 2011 marked a turning point towards
greater organisational stability and internal cohesion. This time, Rivera was re-elected
as party leader with a stronger majority and he replaced most of the party elite. From
that point on, internal factionalism was greatly reduced in the party.
Furthermore, the early Catalan election held in November 2012, after the upsurge of
nationalist mobilisation in favour of secessionism (with a massive demonstration on 11
September), delivered an outstanding result for Ciudadanos. The high level of polarisation
around secessionism eroded the electoral support of both main parties (CiU and PSC)
in favour of other forces with stronger positions on the national issue (Mart 2013).
Ciudadanos increased its electoral support to 275,000 votes and nine seats, to the detriment
of the PSC (which obtained its worst score ever in Catalan elections) and, to a lesser extent,
the PP (Rico & Lieira 2014). Not only did Ciudadanos gain votes from PSC and PP, but
also some members deserted these parties to join the new emerging political group.5

Ciudadanos in Spain
Until 2014, Ciudadanos was considered a Catalan regional party. The attempts to
run for elections outside Catalonia had ended in failure to such an extent that the
party decided not to run in the 2011 Spanish general election. The major challenge for
 South European Society and Politics 7

Ciudadanos in Spain came from growing party competition in the centre. In September
2007, Unin Progreso y Democracia had been created in Madrid. The new party had
many similarities to Ciudadanos in terms of party agenda and strategy. It defended
Spanish patriotism and criticised the evolution of decentralisation in Spain and the
role of Catalan and Basque nationalism in Spanish politics. As a new party, UPyD
criticised the traditional pattern of two-party politics in Spain and in a bid to attract
dissatisfied voters from both PP and PSOE, it appealed for political renewal in the
institutions. These similarities made UPyD a serious threat to Ciudadanos, especially
as it successfully won representation in the Congreso (national parliament) in the 2008
general election and in the European Parliament one year later. In this respect, UPyD
prevented the growth of Ciudadanos electorate in the rest of Spain. As a result, the idea
of merging Ciudadanos and UPyD circulated for a long time. Those who were opposed
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internally to Rivera gradually became supporters of a coalition with UPyD.

The Spanish political landscape changed substantively during 201213, thus
providing new political opportunities for Ciudadanos. Following the course of the same
electoral epidemic across Southern Europe (Bosco & Verney 2012), the 2011 electoral
cycle local, regional and national elections led to an unprecedented defeat of the
ruling PSOE and to a great victory for the PP, which also achieved an unprecedented
institutional predominance at all levels (Martn & Urquizu 2012; Torcal 2014).
However, the constraints of the economic situation (such as increasing
unemployment, austerity policies and bank bailouts) soon led the new PP government,
headed by Mariano Rajoy, towards a rapid decline in popular support. During 2012
and 2013, polls suggested the government had lost more than 25 per cent of those
who had voted for it just a few months before (Urquizu 2012; Rodrguez-Teruel 2013).
Party corruption further aggravated the political situation, as various cases of illegal
party financing, bribery, tax evasion and money laundering implicated a number of
representatives from the main Spanish parties at different levels.6 This fostered voters
anger against both PP and PSOE. From then on, Spanish voters regarded political
parties and political corruption along with the economic crisis as among the countrys
most serious problems.7
In the early months of 2013, even though IU (Izquierda Unida - United Left) and
UPyD benefited from the decline of the two main parties, their gains in the polls did
not match the collapse of the PP and PSOE vote (see Figure 1). In other words, the
increasing number of dissatisfied voters leaving the two main parties did not consider
the existing third parties as satisfactory alternatives. In this context of potential electoral
market failure, Ciudadanos made a new attempt to expand politically beyond Catalonia
through a political association called Movimiento Ciudadano (Citizen Movement)
seeking new party members from across Spain. This strategy would definitely put an
end to any kind of collaboration with UPyD (Gonzlez 2015). Simultaneously, Rivera
developed his profile by participating in the most popular TV shows, while the party
adopted a tough position against corruption and the old politics. Although the party
had already focused on this issue in Catalonia, it now gradually became the central
topic of its discourse in the national arena.8
Political distrust appeared in the European election in May 2014. According to the
second-order elections model, European elections may provide a good window of
 8 J. Rodrguez Teruel and A. Barrio
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Figure 1 Declared Voting Intention in Opinion Polls under the Rajoy Government (201115)
Source: CIS Barometer Databank; Metroscopia for El Pas (Sept/Oct 2015).

opportunity for small parties in established democracies featuring consolidated party

systems (Schmitt & Teperoglou 2015, p. 296; Viola 2015, p. 682). Besides, Spain has
a more proportional system for the European elections than for the legislative ones;
although this has provided only rather modest benefits to third parties, usually after
forming coalitions with similar small parties (Ramiro & Font 2012, p. 258; Magone
2015, p. 348). In this context, with the lowest turnout ever in Spanish nationwide
elections (43.8 per cent), the two main parties together lost more than five million
votes. In contrast, IU and UPyD doubled their electoral support and parliamentary
representation. However, this achievement was eclipsed by the entry to the European
Parliament of the new parties: Podemos, with 1.2 million votes and five MEPs, and
Ciudadanos, with almost half a million votes and two MEPs. Young voters and those
dissatisfied with democracy and lacking confidence in politicians were the main
supporters of the new parties (Cordero & Montero 2015, p. 374).
Thereafter, the breakthrough of Podemos caused an upheaval in national politics.
At the end of 2014, the new party was tied with the PP and PSOE in the polls, thereby
threatening the traditional predominance of the two main parties and fostering the
expectations of the new radical left (see Figure 1). Simultaneously, IU and UPyD
collapsed in the polls, while Ciudadanos started to rise steadily. Rivera and Pablo
Iglesias (the leader of Podemos) became the highest-rated politicians in the polls. These
trends dramatically transformed the political scenario and suggested that Spains party
system was on the verge of collapse.
The local and regional elections held in 2015 reflected the extent of the change in
the party system. This cycle (starting with the Andalusia regional election in March,
followed by the rest of the elections in May and ending with the Catalan election in
September) brought an electoral setback for PP and PSOE, the collapse of the existing
 South European Society and Politics 9

third parties, IU and UPyD, and the entry of both Ciudadanos and Podemos into most
regional parliaments and local councils in major cities. The end of PPs parliamentary
majorities led to hung parliaments in all regions. While PSOE and PP remained the
first two parties in almost all regions (except in cases where regional parties are strong,
such as Navarre and the Canary Islands), Ciudadanos and Podemos replaced IU and
UPyD as the third parties.
In 2015, for the first time Ciudadanos ran in all regions and in 938 cities. It obtained
almost 1.5 million votes at the local level, electing 1,527 local councillors, more than 50
city mayors (but none in the largest Spanish cities) and 56 regional parliamentarians
in 13 regional parliaments. However, the extent of its influence was less than predicted
by polls during the campaign. Ciudadanos did not achieve the third parliamentary
position in any region and its support was only necessary in four regions in order to form
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majorities with the first-ranking party (in Andalusia with the PSOE, and in Madrid,
Murcia and La Rioja with the PP). Like Podemos, Ciudadanos rejected participating
in coalition governments with the traditionally predominant parties. Instead, it gave
parliamentary support to the ruling party in exchange for measures of transparency,
political renewal and the fight against corruption. For instance, Ciudadanos required
the resignation of the incumbent regional premier in La Rioja as a condition of its
support.
The Catalan election in September marked a milestone in Ciudadanos evolution in
Spain. As the governing nationalist parties aimed to turn the election into a plebiscite
on secession, the electoral campaign became extremely polarised. Ciudadanos
took advantage of this unprecedented situation and achieved second place, leaving
PSOE-PSC and PP behind. Hence, Isabel Arrimadas, a 34-year-old lawyer born in
Andalusia, who had replaced Rivera (already canvassing in the national campaign) as
top candidate, became the first female leader of the official opposition in the Catalan
parliament and an emerging reference point for those against independence. Beyond
the Catalan political arena, this result definitely boosted the party in the polls. By mid-
October 2015, Ciudadanos was not only polling better than Podemos, but was also very
close to the two main parties. This is the context in which the campaign for the general
election started.

Ideology, Party Programme and Policies

Its ideology is a controversial feature of the party. Like Podemos, Ciudadanos strategically
claims to be beyond the left and right labels. This is a catch-all strategy designed to
attract voters with different ideologies who distrust the traditional political parties. As
a result, Ciudadanos has manifested ideological ambiguity since its inception.
As the original party message emphasising a position against Catalan nationalism
attracted individuals from both the left and right, the lack of definition on the
ideological cleavage soon became a matter of internal criticism, especially for those in
favour of a more leftist, policy-oriented discourse. In 2007, the Carreras amendment,
prepared by one of the founding intellectuals to provide a more general ideological
profile, identified the party with the three great political traditions in the European
 10 J. Rodrguez Teruel and A. Barrio

contemporary culture: liberalism, democracy and socialism (Ciudadanos 2007).

This statement, indicating an individualistic approach to society, and opposed to the
communitarian view which predominated in traditional Catalan nationalism, still
remains the core ideology of the party (Ciudadanos 2015). Yet other decisions made
afterwards seemed to contradict these principles. For instance, the electoral alliance
formed with the conservative pan-European Eurosceptic Libertas in 2009 for the
European electoral campaign was contested within the party and led to the split within
the parliamentary group mentioned above. Rather than a coherent political preference,
such a contradictory coalition shows the inconsistency of Cuidandos unsuccessful
attempts to enlarge its political base during its early years. When the party finally
achieved representation in the European Parliament in 2014, it joined the Alliance of
Liberals and Democrats for Europe.
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Although Ciudadanos has offered a detailed programme since its inception, covering
a wide range of policies, the increase in expectations once it entered the national arena
has brought the partys policy platform9 into the spotlight. As with other new parties,
the political discourse focuses on political renewal, democratic regeneration and the
fight against political corruption, which has been a core issue in its electoral platforms
since 2010. In this respect, Ciudadanos proposes to reform the regulations on political
parties and party finances to guarantee greater transparency and to promote internal
democracy within the parties. Other measures concerning the reform of public
administration and the depoliticisation of judicial institutions also aim to respond to
voters demands for democratic regeneration.
The economy is the other issue on which Ciudadanos placed emphasis in order to
gain credibility as a responsible party. With this aim, early in 2015 the party announced
the recruitment of Luis Garicano (professor at the London School of Economics and
Political Science) and Manuel Conthe (former president of the Comisin Nacional del
Mercado de Valores, the agency in charge of supervising and inspecting the Spanish
stock markets) two respected economists and supporters of deep reforms in the
Spanish economy and the public administration as well as Manuel de la Torre, the
former secretary general of the Organizacin de Inspectores de Hacienda (Organisation
of Tax Inspectors). The core issues of the partys economic programme are stimuli
to reduce unemployment and fiscal reform (consisting of extending value added tax
and lowering income tax rates). In this area, the most controversial proposal is the
introduction of a single-contract employment model instead of the existing dual
system of contracts, with high and low levels of protection, with the aim of reducing
the difference between insiders and outsiders in the labour market. This pro-business
programme has generated some criticism from the left-wing parties, which accuse
Ciudadanos of being the Podemos of the right10 (the right-wing version of Podemos),
while others deny that it could be considered a truly liberal programme (Rallo 2015).
Other controversial policy proposals focus on ethical issues such as supporting
a 12-week term limit for abortion (more restrictive than the current regulation) or
infrastructure policy, such as reducing investment in the high-speed train network.
However, controversial issues have not really affected the party image since most of the
platform follows the political mainstream, supporting the welfare state (investing more in
public health, education and social services) and the liberal tradition on political rights.
 South European Society and Politics 11

Regarding the centreperiphery cleavage, Ciudadanos defends the decentralisation

model based on the state of autonomies, in opposition to the more critical view held
by UPyD. The party proposes, however, to reform the model by setting a clearer
distribution of competences amongst state and regions, reforming the Senate and the
regional financing system (eliminating, for instance, the Basque and Navarre fiscal
autonomy), and by eliminating some political levels, particularly the second tier of
local government (Diputaciones, the provincial administration). As for the European
dimension, the party favours a stronger European Union with a federal perspective.
Consistent with this, the party supports common European frameworks to regulate
issues like immigration.
Overall, this summary of Ciudadanos policy platform does not support the idea
of a clear right-wing ideological bias. According to the data gathered by the Regional
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Manifesto Project for the 2012 Catalan election, the Ciudadanos platform gave more
saliency to the leftright cleavage than to the centreperiphery one, and the level of
saliency for leftright issues was equivalent to that of parties like the centre-right CiU
or the leftist ICV. Moreover, the platform was located in a central position on the scale
since it gave the same attention to pro-left issues as to pro-right ones, in contrast to the
PP platform which was much more clearly devoted to pro-right issues (Gmez, Alonso
& Cabeza 2014).
This general policy direction is coherent with the party members values and
opinions. A majority is strongly in favour of the welfare state (52.1 per cent), and of
reducing decentralisation (86 per cent), opposes state funding of religious practices
(83.5 per cent) and supports gay marriage (50.4 per cent). Similarly, members think the
defence of freedom should be the partys main aim (93.4 per cent), rather than social
equality (82.6 per cent) or the defence of the nation (61.2 per cent).11

Party Organisation and Leadership

Ciudadanos is a new party dressed in traditional garb. Its inception followed a call
made by intellectuals to respond to dissatisfied voters, and its foundation took place at
a general meeting which approved party statutes and a general ideological direction.
The structure follows the mass party model with an extra-parliamentary organisation
based on fee-paying members enrolled in territorial branches with a local base. The
highest decision-making body is the party congress (called General Assembly), held
every four years.12 The general council is the body dealing with main decisions between
party congresses, consisting of around 70 members (60 of whom are elected by the
party congress). At the top of the organisation, the executive committee governs the
party and has authority on critical issues, such as financial decisions or candidate
selection (except the top candidate, who is elected by the grassroots members). Hence,
the internal distribution of power in Ciudadanos follows the traditional pattern of
centralisation within Spanish political parties (Van Biezen 2003, p. 99), although the
rapid expansion of the organisation across Spain has paved the way for even greater
centralisation in practice.
 12 J. Rodrguez Teruel and A. Barrio

Overall, Ciudadanos has undergone a process of institutionalisation as a strategy to

achieve sustainability after the regional breakthroughs and organisational persistence in
the long term (Bolleyer 2013, p. 69). This process was well reflected in the way the party
approached negotiations with UPyD and how it managed to resist internal pressures
to coalesce with its opponent. Party membership also broadly reflects this process of
institutionalisation, with a decrease after the splits in 2009 and a major increase during
2015 (see Table 3). During this process, the party has faced two organisational dilemmas.
The first dilemma concerns its origins in the periphery: is Ciudadanos a Catalan
regional party or a Spanish nationwide party? This dilemma is implicitly acknowledged
in the party statutes, which state that Ciudadanos is a party that performs its political
activity in the whole national territory, while it keeps a special relationship with Catalonia
due to its origins (Art. 1.2, 2006 party statutes). Significantly, the party headquarters
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have so far remained in Barcelona (a remarkable exception amongst Spanish nationwide

parties). In addition, its membership was until recently mainly rooted in Catalonia. For
instance, only around ten per cent of the delegates attending the first party congress
came from outside Catalonia (Baras & Orriols 2007, p. 10). This peripheral identity of
the party and the early failed attempts to achieve representation at different political
levels outside Catalonia triggered internal conflicts with the few non-Catalan branches.
The failure to succeed outside Catalonia forced the party to rethink its expansion
strategy. In order to take advantage of the political anger towards other parties, in
2013 the Movimiento Ciudadanos was launched, as previously explained. Indeed, this
organisational tool aimed not only at recruiting new members but also at attracting
leaders and activists from other parties (mainly PP and UPyD). In addition, by
changing the modes of party affiliation, Ciudadanos also made agreements with
existing local groups. Since 2007, the party has allowed digital affiliation through the

Table 3 Evolution of Ciudadanos Party Membership, 200615

Year Party Members
2006 2,500
2007 4,000
2008 5,535
2009 NA
2010 2,156
2011 2,200
2012 4,000
2013 NA
2014 NA
2015 12,000 (January)
15,000 (March)
20,800 (May)
25,200 (October)
Source: Data provided by the party or collected from the press. Data for 2015 are provided by the party
website and updated regularly (https://www.ciudadanos-cs.org/origenes).
 South European Society and Politics 13

Internet, whereby new members can join the party without joining a territorial branch.
This new way of recruiting members has contributed to increased party membership
all over Spain, and was critical in the 2015 local elections, when Cs allowed these
new members to present lists of candidates in areas where the party had no prior
organisational presence. While this strategy permitted Ciudadanos to run in hundreds
of medium-sized municipalities even in the absence of a local party branch, in the
future it may become the source of internal factions and threats to party cohesion,
especially as problems of political coordination might arise.
The second dilemma relates to intraparty democracy, as party institutionalisation
triggers contradictions between the party founders will to retain power while
enhancing party persistence and electoral sustainability and the development of
the grassroots, implying less autonomy and more restrictions for leaders. One of the
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ways new parties respond to this leadership structure dilemma (Bolleyer 2013, p. 2)
is to foster intraparty democracy by giving voice and power to party members while
keeping leadership legitimacy (Ignazi 1996; Sandri & Seddone 2015). Thus, when
factionalism and internal crisis arose in Ciudadanos because electoral performance did
not meet expectations, the party opened up the process of candidate selection. In 2007
the second party congress adopted direct election by party members (primaries) for
selection of the top candidate to strength party legitimacy.
This change was consistent with the party members view; for the majority of party
activists (92 per cent), the party leader and candidates should be directly elected by
the grassroots, and a significant proportion (43.6 per cent) supported the notion that
the main internal decisions should be decided by the membership rather than by the
executive board or the congress.13 Since then, there have been closed primaries for the
top candidates in some local elections, such as in Barcelona (2011 and 2015), as well
as regional (2010, 2012 and 2015), European (2009 and 2014) and national elections
(2008). But primaries have not altered the internal balance of power, as the candidates
promoted by the party elite have always been elected, mainly through coronations due
to the absence of alternative challengers.
Conversely, party leadership selection has always remained in the hands of the party
congress, as is the case for most Spanish political parties so far (Barber et al. 2014 and
Barber, Lisi & Rodrguez-Teruel 2015). After almost ten years, Ciudadanos has had
only one president and main political representative: Alberto Rivera. This does not
mean that he has been an unchallenged leader. In 2007 and 2011 Rivera was elected in
competitive contests. Indeed, he won narrowly in 200714 when he faced internal revolt
by those who criticised personalism and party centralisation. Four years later, Rivera
won clearly15 in a less competitive race.
All these episodes have shaped Riveras leadership and given him political resilience.
It is certainly a curious paradox that, after almost a decade in the regional parliament
and strong party leadership in Catalonia, he has managed to appear as a new politician
on the Spanish scene. This shows the potential of subnational institutions as a training
pool for national leaders. Male, highly educated, and a lawyer with a very short
professional career before entering politics, Rivera follows the traditional pattern of
Spanish politicians (Coller 2008; Rodrguez-Teruel 2011). His leadership has also
 14 J. Rodrguez Teruel and A. Barrio

benefited from the (few) parliamentary offices achieved by the party, which has allowed
for a concentration of power in Riveras hands (Gallero 2015).
Nevertheless, the entry of the party into local government institutions in 2015
has opened the door to new leaders, and also to potential challengers to Rivera. The
most outstanding example is Isabel Arrimadas, who has become the leader of the
parliamentary opposition in the Catalan parliament. She represents the model of
the rising politician in Ciudadanos young (around 30), with a brief professional
background (usually in the private sector), without a strong partisan profile or previous
political experience in public institutions, and well trained in handling the media. In
this respect, social networks and TV political talk shows have become strategic tools
for Cs, to promote both its message and candidates. For instance, the partys Internet
campaign was inspired by the model developed by the Obama team in the USA (El Pas
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2015a).

Who Votes for Ciudadanos?

The portrait of Ciudadanos voters reflects significantly some of the features mentioned
in previous sections. In Table 4, we show the results of two models using logistic
regression to test the factors underlying the vote for Ciudadanos: one for the Spanish
general election and the other for the Catalan regional election.16
At the Spanish level, age has a clear effect on the cleavage between new/old parties
(Cordero & Montero 2015, p. 374). Young voters are more likely to express their
support for Ciudadanos, as the odds of voting for this party decrease by one per cent
with each ten-year increase in a voters age. Similarly, the odds also increase with higher
educational levels, which is the opposite seen for PP and PSOE. On the other hand, no
clear patterns in voting for Ciudadanos emerge in relation to gender or working status,
apart from the lower odds for entrepreneurs, self-employed and retired individuals.
Regarding political factors, ideology (where the reference category is the extreme
left position) shows a clear differential pattern between the three parties. Ciudadanos
has positive coefficients on all the positions compared to the extreme left, and appeals
particularly to centre voters. Interestingly, critical opinions about the economy have
an opposite effect from the assessment of the political situation. The odds of voting for
Ciudadanos are significantly higher among those voters who believe that the political
situation is bad or very bad (odds increase by 56 per cent), while a poor assessment of
the economic situation has a negative impact (the odds decrease by 40 per cent). We
can deduce from this that voting for Ciudadanos is not the outcome of experiencing a
precarious economic situation, but rather of being very critical of the political context.
This is consistent with the fact that the rise of Ciudadanos was simultaneous with the
worsening of the political context in terms of corruption among and mistrust in the
political class. Similarly, the factor corruption and politics (which refers to those who
rank these issues as the main problems in Spain) is also positive, albeit insignificant,
while it negatively affects the odds for an individual to vote for the PSOE.
Finally, it is also interesting to note that voting for the PSOE in 2011 reduces the
odds of declaring an intention to vote for Ciudadanos in 2015 by 52 per cent, which
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Table 4 Determinants of Declared Voting Intention for Ciudadanos, PP and PSOE in Spain and Catalonia (2015)
SPAIN CATALONIA
Ciudadanos PP PSOE Ciudadanos PP PSOE
Variables Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE
Women 0.09 (0.17) 0.32* (0.18) 0.15 (0.14) 0.21 (0.15) 0.32 (0.22) 0.14 (0.18)
Age 0.01* (0.01) 0.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.00) 0.00 (0.01) 0.01 (0.01) 0.01 (0.01)
Educational background (university)
Primary 1.56*** (0.36) 0.84*** (0.30) 0.96*** (0.24) 0.71** (0.31) 0.90** (0.40) 0.90** (0.33)
Secondary 0.40** (0.18) 0.69*** (0.24) 0.23 (0.19) 0.19 (0.16) 0.79** (0.32) 0.52** (0.22)
Work status (reference: permanent/employeda)
Temporary contracts 0.51 (0.32) 0.36 (0. 37) 0.13 (0.29)
Entrepreneurs 0.66** (0.30) 0.60* (0.31) 0.24 (0.30)
Unemployed 0.14 (0.22) 0.17 (0.28) 0.57** (0.20) 0.17 (0.25) 0.24 (0.40) 0.01 (0.29)
Retired 0.34 (0.31) 0.71** (0.30) 0.15 (0.24) 0.66** (0.24) 0.66* (0.35) 0.10 (0.27)
Catholic practice 0.23 (0.18) 0.19 (0.19) 0.03 (0.17)
Ideology (reference: extreme left)
Left 2.40** (1.02) 1.90*** (0.52) 0.50** (0.22) 0.68** (0.25) 0.35 (1.00) 0.06 (0.21)
Centre 3.77*** (1.01) 0.08 (0.25) 0.20 (0.24) 1.61*** (0.22) 2.89*** (0.73) 0.37* (0.22)
Right 3.23*** (1.04) 1.73*** (0.27) 2.31*** (0.76) 1.81*** (0.27) 4.07*** (0.74) 1.25** (0.49)
Extreme right 3.61*** (1.08) 1.77*** (0.41) 1.68* (1.06) 1.15*** (0.37) 4.90*** (0.75) 0.09 (0.45)
Economic criticism 0.52 *** (0.17) 0.80*** (0.18) 0.03 (0.16)
Political criticism 0.44 ** (0.19) 0.55*** (0.18) 0.20 (0.16) 0.50*** (0.15) 0.66*** (0.22) 0.38* (0.19)
Corruption & politics 0.13 (0.17) 0.03 (0.17) 0.40 *** (0.14) 0.38** (0.19) 0.36 (0.30) 0.11 (0.23)
Independence 1.48*** (0.16) 1.23*** (0.23) 0.48** (0.23)
South European Society and Politics 15

(Contined)
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Table 4 (Continued)
SPAIN CATALONIA
Ciudadanos PP PSOE Ciudadanos PP PSOE
Variables Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE Coef. SE
c
Voted PP last election 0.18 (0.20) 2.89 *** (0.20) 0.35 (0.29) 1.09*** (0.24) 2.36*** (0.53) 0.79** (0.36)
Voted PSOE last 0.72** (0.28) 0.96* (0.54) 2.64*** (0.15) 0.54** (0.21) 1.49** (0.63) 2.74*** (0.18)
electionc
Constant 4.12*** (1.09) 2.95*** (0.53) 2.83*** (0.44) 3.44*** (0.42) 6.23*** (0.91) 3.57*** (0.48)
R-squared Cox&Snell 0.08 0.39 0.27 0.09 0.10 0.11
16 J. Rodrguez Teruel and A. Barrio

R-squared Nagelkerke 0.19 0.65 0.45 0.20 0.38 0.29

R-squared McFadden 0.12 0.52 0.32 0.14 0.31 0.22
N 2,486 2,486 2,486 2,999 2,999 2,999
(n) 192 397 430 266 116 222
Source: CIS E3104 survey (July 2015) for the general election and CIS E3108 survey (September 2015) for Catalan election.
Notes: Logit regression coefficients, with standard errors in parentheses. Levels of statistical significance: *< 0.1; **< .05; ***< .01. aThe Catalan survey only provides
information about working status but not professional background; bIn the Catalan poll, the question refers to the assessment about the general situation of the
region; cVote refers to 2011 general election (for Spain) and 2012 regional election (for Catalonia).
 South European Society and Politics 17

would suggests a vote transfer (see below for this) to Ciudadanos from the PP (rather
than from the PSOE). Although many commentators have inferred from this that
Ciudadanos is growing among the conservative electorate, it seems rather that the
party is being highly successful in attracting those volatile centre voters who in 2011
switched from the PSOE to the PP, and now are leaving the major parties (Mar-Klose
2015, pp. 8993).
This portrait fits consistently with the hypothesis of a market failure in Spain over
recent years. Hence, Ciudadanos seems to have successfully responded to the demand
for political renewal and has become increasingly electorally attractive to young and
middle-aged, middle-class, highly educated centre voters (Galindo 2015) who in the
past used to fluctuate between the PP and the PSOE.
Regarding the declared intention to vote for Ciudadanos in Catalonia (in the 2015
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regional election), we find the same voting pattern, although there are some meaningful
differences that suggest additional reasons for the success of the party in this region. On
the one hand, the age effect disappears and the relative differences between educational
backgrounds are reduced. This would suggest that voting for Ciudadanos in Catalonia
has a less distinctive pattern in social terms compared to Spain.
Instead, attitudinal factors explain the intention of voting for Ciudadanos in
Catalonia better than the sociodemographic features. Centre voters, but also right-
wing voters, have higher odds of voting for Ciudadanos than those from the left.
Moreover, criticism of the political situation in Catalonia is a powerful factor to explain
the vote for Ciudadanos. The odds improve for those who express a poor assessment of
Catalonias general situation (64 per cent higher), those who worry about corruption
(46 per cent higher) and, above all, those who rank independence as the main problem
for Catalonia (increase by 4.4 times). Finally, the odds of voting for Ciudadanos improve
by 71 per cent among those who voted for the PSC in 2012. In sum, we may infer from
this picture that the market failure in the mid-2000s paved the way for the creation
of a new party that has become the main reference point for those who are politically
dissatisfied and strongly against Catalan independence. Consequently, in a context of
extremely high polarisation around the national issue, this helped Ciudadanos to win
second place in the 2015 regional election.
This focusing of Ciudadanos on democratic regeneration (Spain) and, moreover,
against independence (Catalonia) blurs the party ideology in terms of left and right.
Accordingly, citizens acknowledge some confusion about the partys ideological
position. In 2014 two out of three Spanish voters did not know where to place Cs on the
leftright axis. Even more striking, in Catalonia one out of three voters failed to locate
the party in Catalonia, even though it has already contested four regional elections
since 2006.
While Cs origins, party manifestos and the ideological position of party members
would all suggest that the party is located in the centre and centre-left, opinion leaders
and voters from other parties tend to place Cs closer to the right (see Figure 2).
Interestingly, in Catalonia 32.4 per cent of people place Ciudadanos in more rightist
positions. This may be regarded as symptomatic of the way in which many individuals in
Catalonia tend to identify anti-nationalist positions with extreme right-wing ideology.
 18 J. Rodrguez Teruel and A. Barrio
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Figure 2 Ciudadanos Position on LeftRight Axisa According to Voters and Party Membersb
Source: CIS data bank (2970, 3028, 3104) and GREP (see note 14).
Notes: aNA: 66 per cent (Spain 14). 29.2 per cent (Spain 15), 25.7 per cent (Cat 12), 6.3 per cent
(party voters), 3.3 per cent (party members); bThe curves show: the party position in the view of the
electorate (Spain 2014, 2015 and Catalonia 2012), the voters own position (Spanish voters 2015) and
the party members own position (2011).

In reality, as shown in Figure 2, the partys voters and members are mostly located at the
centre, with leftist voters predominating over those from the right.17

A Changing Structure of Competitive Opportunities

Since the end of the 1980s, the Spanish party system has featured a high level of
competitiveness and low fragmentation. The PP and PSOE competed around the centre
of the political spectrum, attracting voters from left and right respectively (Gunther,
Montero & Botella 2004, pp. 211 and 221226; Ocaa & Oate 2007, p. 244; Montero
& Lago 2010, p. 32). This landscape started to transform in 2011 (Anduiza et al. 2014,
p. 1721). In the context of this ongoing party system change, Ciudadanos can take
advantage of a shifting electorate that is leaving the main parties.
Nevertheless, the rise of Ciudadanos in Spain since 2014 has mainly benefited from
voters leaving the PP and from those who did not vote in the last general election
both generally located in moderate ideological positions while support from PSOE
voters has been weaker so far (see Table 5). In July 2015, 38 per cent of those declaring
they would vote for Ciudadanos in the forthcoming general election in December had
voted for the PP in the 2011 general election, while only 9.4 per cent had voted for
the PSOE (24.9 per cent had cast a blank ballot or had not voted). Hence, Ciudadanos
has expanded among the centre-right electorate, thus differing from Podemos, which
is much more anchored to the left (Fernndez-Albertos 2015). Similarly, in July 2015
 South European Society and Politics 19

Table 5 Vote Switching to Ciudadanos According to Opinion Polls (200615)

Vote
Switching to
Ciudadanosa Previous Vote of Ciudadanos Electorateb
National/Regional Spain Spain Catalonia
2015 2014 2015 2012 2006
Julyc European Regional Regional Regional
election election election election
PSC-PSOE 2.9 8.6 29.3 21.2 30.6
PP 12 31.4 26.3 32.9 27.8
UPyD 40 2.9 3.0 0
Blank, Didnt vote 8.4 11.5 18.4 10.7 16.7
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Other options 45.6 23 35.2 24.9

100 100 100 100
Source: CIS data bank (2660, 2970, 3028, 3104, 3108).
Notes: aThe column reports the percentage of voters who in July 2015 declared they were likely to
vote for Ciudadanos, according to their vote in the 2011 general election (CIS Barometer, July 2015);
b
Previous vote reports the percentage of Ciudadanos voters (in 2012, 2014 and 2015) who had voted
for another party in the 2011 general election and the percentage of Ciudadanos voters (in 2006) who
had voted for another party in the 2004 general election.

the probability of supporting Ciudadanos was greater amongst PP voters than PSOE
supporters or those who did not vote in 2011. While this trend has fed the idea of Cs
being a Podemos of the right (which we have tried to refute in the previous sections),
it also suggests new opportunities for the party in the short term.
If there is plausibly less potential to maintain this increase over time amongst PP
voters, there could still be considerable possibilities of expanding the partys support in
the centre and centre-left. Generally, two out of three voters occupying centre positions
(which represents over 30 per cent of the whole electorate) used to vote for the PP and
PSOE in general elections.18 Yet polls suggest that the declared voting intention for
these parties among centre voters has decreased by 25 per cent. Hence, Ciudadanos
could benefit from this situation, which would be to the detriment of the PSOE (Mar-
Klose 2015). Actually, looking at the case of Catalonia, this has been the pattern in the
vote for Ciudadanos since its formation (see Table 5).
In this battle for the centre, Ciudadanos faces two main electoral challenges. On the
one hand, the partys image as leaning to the right might be a constraint, since Cs is still
perceived by the electorate as being much further to the right, as the PP. In this respect,
personalisation will be a key dimension of the electoral campaign and may help to
centre the party image. Although Rivera has become the highest-ranked leader in the
polls, voters assessments of the leaders political skills are better for the Socialist leader
Pedro Snchez than for Rivera.19
The other challenge concerns strategic voting, which tends to favour the main Spanish
parties in general elections (Lago 2005). Given that all the polls suggested that no
single party would win a majority in the December 2015 general election, expectations
about potential coalitions became a relevant factor. As Ciudadanos electoral chances
 20 J. Rodrguez Teruel and A. Barrio

improved, this strengthened the prospects for the party to play a decisive role. A
survey conducted in July 2015 showed one out of five Spaniards preferred a cabinet
coalition between Ciudadanos and one of the two main parties (31.9 per cent for self-
declared centrists) (CIS Barometer 3104). During the first months of the new terms
in the regional parliaments, Ciudadanos has agreed more often with PSOEs positions
than with the PP (El Pas 2015b). However, in the run-up to the national election, the
party was reluctant to express preferences about coalition building, with Rivera has
repeatedly stating that Ciudadanos would not enter any government not headed by
himself. However, the experience of the May 2015 regional elections indicated that,
unless Ciudadanos was to occupy a pivotal position after the election, it might have no
alternative other than to support whichever of the two main parties comes first. In the
long term, this could erode the partys still weak territorial basis, built after a very rapid
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organisational expansion.

Conclusions
This article has shown that the creation and success of Ciudadanos can be considered
the outcome of a double electoral market failure in both Catalonia (2006) and Spain
(201415). These two failures necessitated different responses from Ciudadanos in
terms of organisation, discourse and electoral strategy. Overall, the party benefitted
from a realignment, which has been changing the structure of competition in the
Spanish party system. Yet, although in the short term Ciudadanos has taken advantage
of this success at both the regional and national levels (indeed, the partys success in the
September 2015 Catalan election has fostered its electoral support in the rest of Spain),
in the longer term, trade-offs and constraints on electoral coordination may generate
tensions and internal conflicts. To a great extent, this will depend on how the party
manages a potential pivotal position in the Spanish parliament elected in 2015.
A further question concerns how long Ciudadanos will be able to sustain a lack
of identification in terms of left and right in a country like Spain, where the left
right cleavage still remains critical for party competition. While in the short term
Ciudadanos can benefit from blurred ideological identification, its strategic decisions
on coalition support or even policy decisions in the case of entering the executive
will force clarification and possibly voters disappointment. In this respect, party
institutionalisation, as well as party anchoring, will be essential conditions for the
partys sustainability once the voters anger towards traditional parties declines.
There is still much to be done to explain the party realignment, which is taking place
in Spain as a consequence of the economic meltdown and the subsequent political crisis.
On the one hand, research would benefit from a careful comparative examination of
new parties in Spain. Ciudadanos, Podemos and UPyD share patterns of political and
ideological competition, but they present different features in terms of organisation and
leadership. Moreover, the rise of challenger parties as a consequence of the financial
crisis displays some parallels with other South European countries like Greece, where
Syriza, Potami and Golden Dawn have also disrupted the traditional party system, thus
suggesting similarities but also significant differences.
 South European Society and Politics 21

On the other hand, the role of multilevel politics deserves greater attention by
scholars focusing on new parties. Although Bordignon and Ceccarini (2013, p. 441)
rightly refer to the importance of second-order re-elections for anti-system forces,
more research needs to be done concerning the strategic supply in terms of resources,
opportunities for leadership training and electoral visibility provided by subnational
politics. In this vein, Ciudadanos stands out as a peculiar case of a peripheral actor that
is successfully challenging national parties. To some extent, one might ask whether
the success of Cs entails a new way of driving the nationalisation of the Spanish party
system at the expense of the traditional parties.

Acknowledgements
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We would like to thank Montserrat Baras, the three anonymous reviewers and the journals editors for
providing very useful insights on previous versions of this article.

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes
1. New parties in Spain are not a rarity. On average, 123 organisations per year have joined the
national register of political parties since 1977, although this number has steadily increased to 26
per month in the last five years. Most of them never reach the electoral threshold, and when they
do, they only attain unstable representation at the local level (Casal-Brtoa et al. 2014).
2. An electoral market failure is provoked when political demands shared by a significant number of
individuals eventually [are] left unsatisfied (Lago, Montero & Torcal 2007, p. 229).
3. The Statute of Autonomy is the basic institutional chart of every Spanish Autonomous Community,
containing the main elements of the self-government system. The Catalan Statute was adopted in
1979 under the Spanish Constitution of 1978.
4. The 2008 general and the 2009 European election delivered the lowest support obtained by
Ciudadanos (27,000 and 23,000 votes respectively in the whole of Spain) since its creation.
5. For instance, Jordi Caas, one of the leading MPs elected in 2010, had been affiliated to the PSC
before joining the party. Another party leader and MP, Carina Mejas, had been a parliamentarian
with the PP for two terms (until 2010) before joining Ciudadanos. Rivera himself acknowledged
having participated briefly in the PPs youth wing. While many of Ciudadanos members had no
prior party experience, for those who did it was left-wing parties, and particularly the PSC, which
were the most relevant (Baras & Orriols 2007, p. 18). This transfer of members to Ciudadanos
from other parties has operated mainly at the local level, especially at the moment of making
electoral lists for local elections.
6. The most relevant scandal was the Brcenas affair, still under investigation, which seriously
damaged the reputation of the PP, and particularly Prime Minister Rajoy. The scandal broke out
in January 2013 after the publication of leaks indicating that the party treasurer Luis Brcenas)
had been paying undeclared and illegal cash donations to the main party leaders (Ekaizer 2015).
7. In February 2013 corruption became the second most important problem (40 per cent) after
unemployment (79.9 per cent) while politicians and political parties (29.7 per cent) ranked
fourth after economic problems (35.4 per cent). CIS Barometer No. 2978 (http://www.cis.es).
8. The party also changed its original name in Catalan Ciutadans to the Spanish version Ciudadanos.
 22 J. Rodrguez Teruel and A. Barrio

9. The core elements of the general party platform may be consulted in the party website (https://
www.ciudadanos-cs.org/nuestras-ideas).
10. Those critical opponents from the left arguing that Ciudadanos is a tool created by the business
elite often make reference to Josep Oliu, one of the foremost Spanish bankers, who stated in June
2014 when Podemos was on the rise with its radical platform We need a Podemos of the right
(El Peridico 2014).
11. Data obtained from a survey of the delegates to the third party congress in October 2011,
conducted by the Research Group on Elites and Political Parties. The data was collected through
questionnaires, distributed to all delegates individually, who completed it and returned it to the
survey team during the congress. There were 121 respondents (40.3 per cent of the delegates). All
data about party members opinions mentioned in this article have been drawn from this survey.
The questionnaire and other details of the survey are available online at http://www.projectmapp.
eu and http://elitesypartidos.uab.cat (Baras et al. 2015).
12. The party congress had 323 delegates (a ratio of 0.13 delegates/member) in 2006, 425 (ratio of
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0.11) in 2007 and 300 (ratio of 0.14) in 2011. Source: data provided by the party.
13. S ee note 10.
14. Rivera won the support of 54 per cent of the 425 delegates attending the conference, while his
opponent, Luis Bouza-Brey, received 40 per cent.
15. Rivera was elected by the 72 per cent of the delegates while the other candidate, Mario Ruiz, polled
17 per cent.
16. Given the low levels of support for the party until recently, opinion polls usually included very
small sub-samples of Ciudadanos voters. Hence, we have employed the two most recent CIS
(Centro de Investigaciones Sociolgicas - Centre of Sociological Research) surveys which include
enough cases from the party to run successful statistical analysis. In both cases, the declared
intention to vote for the party is the dependent variable.
17. When asked about the party position, party members and party voters have far fewer doubts than
the rest of the electorate, locating Ciudadanos in the centre positions. Some centrist members
consider the party even more to the left than themselves.
18. In the last three general elections, PP and PSOE support represented 63.3 per cent (2011), 68.6 per
cent (2008) and 68.5 per cent (2004) of the total amount of voters located in the centre (positions
5 and 6 on a ten-point leftright scale). Source: CIS databank (2757, 2920, 2559).
19. Metroscopia, July 2015, available online at http://blogs.elpais.com/metroscopia/2015/07/
barometro-electoral-julio-2015.html

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 South European Society and Politics 25

Juan Rodrguez-Teruel is an Associate Professor at the University of Valencia. In 2007 his

PhD dissertation was awarded the Linz Prize and the Spanish Political Science Association
Prize. He has published Los ministros de la Espaa democrtica (2011). His research
focuses on ministers, party members and party finance.

Astrid Barrio is an Associate Professor at the University of Valencia. In 2009 she was
awarded the Spanish Political Science Association Prize for the best PhD dissertation. Her
research focuses on nationalism, party members and party organisation.
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