Valence and Ideological Proximity in the Rise of Nationalist Parties: Spanish General Elections, 2008 and 2011

Abstract

During the last few years, in the aftermath of the bank crisis of 2007, anti-European and right or far-right parties started to gain more and more support across Europe (Bosco and Verney 2012). This reaction seems a natural response to austerity measures and the rise of unemployment in the region. Meanwhile, in some European regions that have a different cultural identity to the dominant identity, a seemingly significant rise of peripheral nationalism has occurred (Gómez Fortes and Cabeza Perez 2013; Brubaker 2011; Rico 2012).

Appendix

1.1 Survey Questions (The Same in 2008 and 2011)

• 1. Multiculturality/immigration issue

  Some people think it is very positive that people of different origin, culture and religion coexist in the same country (these people would be at the point 0 on the scale). Others think that the presence of migrants can endanger the values and the culture here (these would be at point 10), and there are others who would be at intermediate positions. What place would you stand? (0–10)

• 2. Government intervention in economy

  Some people think they should improve public services and benefits, even if they pay more taxes (these people would be at the point 0 on the scale). Others think it’s more important to pay less tax, even if it means reducing public services and social benefits (these would be at point 10), and there are others who would be at intermediate positions.. What place would you stand? (0–10)

• 3. Anti-terrorist policy issue

  Some people think that the only way to stop is defeat ETA policing (these people would be at the point 0 on the scale). Others think that to end ETA also need dialogue (these would be at point 10), and there are others who would be at intermediate positions. What place would you stand? (0–10)

• 4. Conservative values scale

  Some people believe that the key is to defend our traditional religious and moral values (these people would be at the point 0 on the scale), while others think the key is to defend the freedom of the individual to be and believe what you want (these would be at point 10), and there are others who would be at intermediate positions. What place would you stand? (0–10)

• 5. Decentralization

  I will now present some alternative formulas for the organization of the State in Spain. Tell me, please, what do you prefer? (0–4)

  • Just the main state without autonomous regions

  • The main state without autonomous regions as nowadays

  • The main state without autonomous regions more independent than nowadays

  • The main state with autonomous regions having an easy legal option to become independent

• 6. Nationalist self-identification

  Which of the following statements would you say best expresses your feelings? (0–4)

  • I feel only Spanish

  • I feel more Spanish than …

  • I feel as Spanish as …

  • I feel more …than Spanish

  • I feel only …

• 7. Proudness to be Spanish

  To what extent would you say that you are proud to be Spanish: very proud, proud, somewhat proud or not proud? (0–3) (Tables 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 12, 13, 14).

Table 5 Autonomous communities and regions of Spain

Table 6 Parties participating in General Elections in 2008

Table 7 Parties participating in General Elections in 2011

Table 8 Parties participating in General Elections in 2011

Table 9 CFA: Factor loadings for 2008

Table 10 CFA: Factor loadings for 2011

Table 11 CFA: correlation matrix for the scores, 2008

Table 12 CFA: correlation matrix for the scores, 2011

Table 13 Ideological means by region: 2008

Table 14 Ideological means by region: 2011

1.2 Implementation of the VCL

The varying choice logit with the individual voting utility function (3), for which Sect. 3 provides a theoretical description, was implemented through the Bayesian approach via Gibbs sampling (Gelman et al. 2013) in the r package rjags with R version 3.0.3.

In the beginning of the computational analysis, all estimated coefficients for the formula (3) were assigned the commonly recommended uninformative normal priors with their variances distributed inverse-gamma (Gelman et al. 2013):

$$\displaystyle\begin{array}{rcl} & \beta _{t,r(i)} \sim \mathcal{N}(0,\gamma _{\beta }),\ t \in \{ 1,2\},\forall i & {}\\ & \mu _{p} \sim \mathcal{N}(0,\gamma _{\mu _{1}}),\ p \in P & {}\\ & \mu _{p,r(i)} \sim \mathcal{N}(0,\gamma _{\mu _{2}}),\ p \in P,\forall i & {}\\ & \gamma _{beta} \sim Inv - Gamma(0.1,0.1)& {}\\ & \gamma _{mu_{1}} \sim Inv - Gamma(0.1,0.1)& {}\\ & \gamma _{mu_{2}} \sim Inv - Gamma(0.1,0.1)& {}\\ \end{array}$$

The model graph for the analysis consisted of 591,480 nodes for the data on General Spanish Elections in 2008; and 664,432 for 2011. The total number of the iterations in each of the three chains for each of the analysis was 12,500 with the first 7500 burned. Table 15 presents the deviance statistics for this estimation.

Table 15 Deviance statistics for VCL

1.2.1 Convergence Statistics

• Spanish General Elections in 2008

  The Gelman-Rubin diagnostic.

  All points estimates for the potential scale reduction factors for the parameters did not exceed 1.04, while the upper confidence interval estimates were less than 1.15. For most of the parameters both point estimates and the upper confidence interval were 1.0. The multivariate potential scale reduction factor was 1.09.

  The Raftery-Lewis diagnostic.

  Two of three chains converged on the probability level of 0.95.

• Spanish General Elections in 2011

  The Gelman-Rubin diagnostic.

  All points estimates for the potential scale reduction factors for the parameters did not exceed 1.07, while the upper confidence interval estimates were less than 1.2.⁹ For most of the parameters both point estimates and the upper confidence interval were 1.0. The multivariate potential scale reduction factor was 1.09.

  The Raftery-Lewis diagnostic.

  Two of three chains converged on the probability level of 0.95 (Tables 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21).

Table 16 Filter matrix ($\Phi$) for the Spanish General Elections in 2008

Table 17 Filter matrix ($\Phi$) for the Spanish General Elections in 2011

Table 18 General Parliamentary elections in 2008: Spatial ideological coefficients (β ₁—the central periphery dimension, β ₂—socio-ecomomic dimension)

Table 19 General Parliamentary elections in 2011: Spatial ideological coefficients (β ₁—the central periphery dimension, β ₂—socio-ecomomic dimension)

Table 20 General Parliamentary elections in 2008: Exogenous party valence (N = 4346)

Table 21 General Parliamentary elections in 2011: Exogenous party valence (N = 4530)

1.3 Code: rjags

¹⁰

 data2008 <−

         structure ( l i s t (

              sec= c (... ),  l r= c (... ),  vote= c (... ),

                  region= c (... ), N  =  4551, P  =  13,

                  R  =  17, psec =  c (... ),  plr  =  c (... ),

                  phi= c (... ) ),

         . Names =  c (” sec ”, ” l r ”, ”vote ”, ” region ”,

                 ” N”, ”P”, ” R”, ”psec ”, ” plr ”,” phi ”))

 model

 {

     for  ( i  in 1:N) {

         for  (p in 1:P) {

             v [ i,  p ]  <−  lambda [ p ]

                         −  beta [1,  region [ i ] ]  *  ( sec [ i ]  −  psec [ p ])ˆ2

                         −  beta [2,  region [ i ] ]  *  ( l r [ i ]  −  plr [ p ])ˆ2)

                         +  mu[ region [ i ],  p ]

             expv [ i,  p ]  <−  exp (v [ i,  p ] )  *  phi [ region [ i ],  p ]

            pv [ i,  p ]  <−  expv [ i,  p]/sum( expv [ i,  1:P] )

        }

        vote [ i ]  ˜ dcat (pv [ i,  1:P] )

    }

    lambda [ 1 ]  <−  0.00000E +00

    for  (p in 2:P) {

        lambda [ p ]  ˜ dnorm(0.00000E+00, taul )

    }

    for  ( r in 1:R)

                for  ( i  in 1:2)  {

                        beta [ i,  r ]  ˜ dnorm(0.00000E+00, tbeta )

                        }

        }

   for  ( r in 1:R) {

        for  (p in 1:P) {

            mu[ r,  p ]  ˜ dnorm(0.00000E+00, taum)

        }

    }

    taum ˜ dgamma(0.1,  0.1)

    taul  ˜ dgamma(0.1,  0.1)

    tbeta ˜ dgamma(0.1,  0.1)

}