Preferences for political coalitions in Spain

Abstract

Spanish parties evaluate whether or not to close deals with other parties for a number of reasons, the coalition preferences of their voters being a likely one. This work explores to what extent party preferences and ideological proximity in the two main dimensions of political competition in Spain affect voters' coalition preferences. Using survey data from 2009, we find that voters' coalition preferences are greatly affected by ideological proximity especially in the left-right axis, whereas preferences for decentralization happen to be much more salient for the supporters of regionalist parties. However, this general pattern varies depending on the assessed coalition.