Radical Left Parties and Policy Outcome

• In Event: Politics Beyond the Left-Right Spectrum

Abstract

To what extent does the rise of radical left parties (RLPs) influence policy outcome? For the purpose of this paper, I use laws approved by Spanish regional parliaments to evaluate whether the increase in RLPs’ electoral strength incentivizes mainstream parties to approve legislation with augmented left-wing nuances. For the analysis, I am using a newly collected dataset that includes all the laws approved by 17 Spanish regional parliaments from 1990 to 2019. The findings point to the influence of RLPs’ electoral rise on macroeconomic and welfare legislation. However, for other policy areas such as environment or civil rights, the rise of RLPs presents limited or no influence.

Author

• Eva Hoxha, University of Gothenburg, Political Science Department