Guillermo Cordero

Despite academic interest in the negative effects of primaries on gender descriptive representation, we have little evidence on how this impact varies across territorial levels, especially among women with family responsibilities. We focus on Spain as an example of a decentralized country with mandatory quotas to show that there are barely any females with family responsibilities selected in primaries at upper territorial levels. While primaries are a frequent mechanism among women to become councillors, this method seems to exclude those with family responsibilities at regional and national levels. At these higher layers, to fulfil gender quotas, female candidates are more commonly appointed by the party elite. This process has repercussions since representatives appointed by the leadership tend to be more disciplined and homogeneous than those selected in primaries.

Introduction: The goal of this article is to analyze the extent to which ideology intervenes in citizens' trust in the news that appears in traditional and social media during COVID-19. Methodology: To do this, a quantitative
approach based on the online survey technique is used. The questionnaire was launched in July 2021 through the Qualtrics platform and was answered by 2,803 citizens residing in Brazil (726), Spain (682), the United States (694), and India (702). Results: We found a connection between ideology and confidence in traditional media, strongly conditioned by the socio-political context. In addition, right-wing citizens tend to trust the information they receive from digital platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp better than left-wing citizens. This uneven impact of trust in the media could result in a heterogeneous effect of fake news, with right-wing citizens most likely believing political news appearing on social media. Discussion and Conclusions: This article contributes to expanding prior knowledge about the trust in mainstream and social media, with considerable emphasis on the factors that have a predominant influence in four countries with different social and political structures and media systems: Spain, United States, India, and Brazil. In this context, it has been observed how ideology is an essential factor in all of them. When this relevant variable is controlled for, and despite what previous studies had determined (Newman et al., 2021), factors such as educational or income level do not seem to play a significant role.

Introducción: El objetivo de este artículo es analizar en qué medida la ideología interviene en la confianza delos ciudadanos en las noticias que aparecen en los medios tradicionales y sociales durante la COVID-19. Metodología: Para ello se utiliza un enfoque cuantitativo basado en la técnica de la encuesta online. El cuestionario se lanzó en julio de 2021 a través de la plataforma Qualtrics y fue respondido por 2.803 ciudadanos residentes  en  Brasil  (726),  España  (682),  Estados  Unidos  (694)  e  India  (702).  Resultados:  Encontramos  una  conexión entre ideología y confianza en los medios tradicionales, fuertemente condicionada por el contexto sociopolítico. Además, los ciudadanos de derecha tienden a confiar más en la información que reciben de plataformas digitales como Twitter, Facebook, Instagram o WhatsApp que los ciudadanos de izquierda. Este impacto desigual de la confianza en los medios podría resultar en un efecto heterogéneo de las noticias falsas, con ciudadanos de derecha con una mayor confianza en las noticias políticas que aparecen en las redes sociales. Discusión y Conclusiones: Este artículo contribuye a ampliar el conocimiento previo sobre la confianza en las redes sociales y los medios convencionales haciendo énfasis en los factores que tienen una influencia predominante en cuatro países con diferentes estructuras sociales y políticas, y distintos sistemas mediáticos. En este contexto, se ha observado cómo la ideología es un factor esencial en todos ellos. Cuando se controla por esta variable, y a pesar de lo que habían determinado estudios previos (Newman et al., 2021), factores como el nivel educativo o los ingresos no parecen jugar un papel significativo.

The 2015 General Election (GE) marked the end of the two-party system that had existed in Spain since the restoration of democracy. Two new parties, ‘Podemos’ and ‘Ciudadanos’ entered the national arena for the first time and together obtained 34.6 percent of the vote. This paper describes this election's context and electoral results by analysing the individual determinants behind the change to the Spanish party system. Our results indicate that economic factors predominantly explain the votes for the traditional parties, the PP and PSOE. On the other hand, political factors help distinguish why some voters remained ‘loyal’ to the traditional parties and others switched to the new formations. While Podemos’ switchers were mainly politically disaffected left-wing voters, electoral support for Ciudadanos came from younger and ideologically moderate voters who had lower levels of political trust.

This article analyses the contextual determinants of parliamentary elites’ methods of selection. Using survey data from a representative sample of 500 Spanish MPs, we empirically demonstrate that different district characteristics generate different ways of MPs’ selection. Specifically, parties implement more exclusive ways of candidate selection in more competitive districts and in regional chambers. On the contrary, selection processes are more participative at the national level¬ and where electoral competition is low.

We examine the impact of the current economic crisis on the accuracy of responsibility attribution between levels of government within States. Using individual-level data from Spain, we show that learning about responsibility attribution depends on the saliency of the issue (in our study, unemployment) and economic self-interest. The (unintended) positive consequence of economic crisis is that citizens are now more able to accurately attribute the responsibility for political decisions than some years ago. Learning is particularly significant among those individuals more affected by the economic crisis.

Spanish religious indicators have experienced one of the most drastic declines in Europe. The low levels of church attendance and religious denomination contributed to reject the perception of religiosity as a relevant explanatory factor of electoral behavior. However, leaders continued introducing debated related to secular education, divorce and abortion not only during the eighties, but also more recently from 2004 to 2011. The facts encourage us to reconsider the strength of the religious vote. Is the political elite able to mobilize religious voting through the inclusion of such issues in the electoral debate? In this paper I demonstrate that religiosity has been and still is a key element to understand Spanish electoral behavior, especially in those elections in which the political elite has focused the debate on issues related to moral issues.

En Cataluña existe un renovado interés por conocer el origen de la activación del debate nacionalista. Las encuestas de opinión muestran en los últimos años un incremento en el porcentaje de catalanes que apoyan aumentar el nivel actual de autonomía o la independencia de Cataluña. ¿Pero los partidos reflejan los cambios en las actitudes e identidades de sus votantes o las dirigen? Desgraciadamente, no disponemos de datos suficientemente precisos para responder a esta pregunta, pero a continuación presentaremos algunos elementos que contribuyen a aportar un poco de luz a la cuestión (...)

A pesar de la popularidad de los modelos de voto religioso durante los años sesenta y setenta, el intenso proceso de secularización sufrido en Europa contribuyó a que los escasos estudios sobre el tema señalaran el fin de la religiosidad como determinante del voto. La anarquía presente en dichas contribuciones a la literatura se tradujo en una extendida falta de acuerdo sobre los propios modelos teóricos, la definición de los conceptos y también sobre su análisis empírico. Por todo ello, y teniendo en cuenta que cada vez hay más trabajos que apuntan a un resurgir de la importancia de la religiosidad en el comportamiento electoral de los europeos, este análisis persigue poner orden en los estudios existentes hasta el momento y revisar el conocimiento acumulado para destacar cuáles son las deficiencias más extendidas. Despite the popularity of religious voting models during the sixties and seventies, the intense process of secularization in Europe contributed to insist on the end of r...