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The Spanish Left: Statewide Political Dominance and the Regional Challenge

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The Regional Politics of Welfare in Italy, Spain and Great Britain

Part of the book series: Comparative Territorial Politics ((COMPTPOL))

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Abstract

This chapter aims to demonstrate that the main party of the Left, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), has had a rather ambiguous position on the process of decentralisation and on the creation of region-specific welfare regimes. On the one hand, it supported the process of federalisation of Spain after the collapse of the Francoist regime. On the other, it has opposed excessive fragmentation and differentiation in social governance at the sub-state level. This is mainly due to the fact that this party has controlled the central government for most of the time since the transition to democracy. Over the years, the PSOE organisation has been subject to tensions between territorial pressures and the need to promote statewide redistribution and equalisation of social conditions. This has prevented the party from becoming the driver of welfare building at the sub-state level, while playing a central role in social policy-making at the statewide level.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Politics and Public Policy, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

      Davide Vampa

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    1. Davide Vampa
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    Vampa, D. (2016). The Spanish Left: Statewide Political Dominance and the Regional Challenge. In: The Regional Politics of Welfare in Italy, Spain and Great Britain. Comparative Territorial Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39007-9_8

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