Resumen de Democratic credentials and the ‘other(s)’ in the discourse of the Spanish 'Partido Popular', 1977–2015
David Atkinson, María de la Cinta Ramblado Minero
In this paper we argue that aspects of the discourse of the governing party in Spain at the time of writing, the Partido Popular, and its predecessor (1976–1989), Alianza Popular, reveal a marked continuity in its self-presentation and its representation of its adversaries, spanning the entire period from its origins in the immediate post-Franco period of the late 1970s to the present. We conclude that the type of construction we describe can be found in the discourse of many of the party’s most prominent figures, that it is central to the entire historical trajectory of AP/PP, and in some cases is in the process of becoming if anything more explicit.
