Elecciones municipales en España. dimensiones analíticas y aspectos distintivos de ocho procesos electorales (1979-2007)

Abstract

The literature on electoral politics has shown a long standing interest in measuring and explaining national and local patters of electoral behaviour over the time but in different degree. National elections have been the main theme of study leaving local elections in a second place. Only when they appear as influential events local elections are taken into account. Conventional wisdom has it that elections other than national ones are “second order elections” driven by political conditions in the first-order national arena. It has not yet been shown that sub-national elections can exhibit qualities similar to those of firstorder elections but recently they share some common features linked with political cycles. This paper examines the main dimensions of the municipal elections held in Spain focusing on the subnational shift in electoral support across parties and elections, parliamentary and those simultaneously convoked.