The historic defeat of the PSC in the elections of 28-N forces the Catalan Socialists to open an internal debate to chart a new political course. And most likely, in that debate, questions of identity has a special importance. The PSC must decide whether or not to strengthen their profile "Catalan", which is undoubtedly a real handicap for the party. Indeed, this is a particularly difficult issue for the PSC, since he live two distinct constituencies in their level of nationalism. On the one hand, the sector "English" (mostly Castilian and Catalan origin) is characterized by hostile attitudes and nationalistic policies, especially to some elements of the Catalan language policy. On the other hand, the "Catalans" (Catalan and Catalan origin) are defined mostly as a moderate nationalist.
Thus, the PSC always face the inevitable dilemma of having to meet the demands of a group at the expense of defrauding the other. Against this background, what traditionally has been decided collectively satisfy the PSC? Digital logic would have us believe that this party would choose to meet the demands of the Spaniards, as two of every three votes received by that party often come from this group. However, to date, the PSC has chosen to present with a profile closer the Catalan minority and, therefore, to disregard the preferences of the majority of their constituents.
This traditional lack of representation of the PSC is not a topic fueled by conservative media trenches of Madrid. Skeptics need only demoscopic use surveys to find out. For example, according to data from the previous CIS Catalan elections, the PSC is just 0.4 points away from home constituency in the traditional Catalan nationalist scale (0-least 10-nationalism, the nationalism maximum-), but the distance was three times higher (1.5 points) with respect to their constituencies of origin Castilian Catalan. This phenomenon is not new, but the remoteness of the PSC of its English bases seems to have deepened after the experience of the tripartite government and reform of the Statute.
Why traditionally PSC has decided to disregard the preferences of the vast majority of their constituents? Experts usually offered two explanations. The first, perhaps the most journalistic and anecdotal, to find their causes in how this game was conceived in the late seventies. The PSC was born mainly from the merger of three parties: the Congrés PSC, PSC-Reagrupament (both Catalan trend) and the Catalan Federation of the PSOE (the English nationalist trend.) For different reasons, the merger of three political parties, won the Catalan sector to sector from the old Catalan Federation of the PSOE. Former members of the PSC-occupied Congrés greater presence among delegates and leading cadres and thus marked the Catalan nationalist party profile that we know today.
A second explanation is that the PSC has taken advantage of the existence of a fault in the Catalan electoral market supply. Traditionally there has been no non-nationalist leftist party, which allowed the PSC approach Catalanists positions without losing excessive English voters. The other political parties of the political landscape Catalan (including Initiative-Verds) were unattractive to the electorate, as it moves further away from their preferences. At best, English voters could choose to stay unhappy at home and not go to the polls.
These two arguments do not seem to help at all to explain why the PSC is more "Catalan" of what the majority of their constituents wanted.
First, the explanation that the PSC Catalan is the result of a historical quirk does not seem to move from anecdote. This explanation does not help us understand why the socialist elite of English-who enjoy majority support, have not fought election over 30 years with greater role to impose their views.
Second, the explanation for the existence of a market failure seems no longer tenable in the current climate. The Catalan political scene in recent years has changed dramatically with the emergence of new left parties not as Ciutadans or UPyD Catalan. And despite this, the vast majority of voters unhappy English Socialists appear to have found refuge in these new political formations.
The most convincing explanation on the traditional profile of the PSC Catalan is the existence of different "elasticities" between Catalan and Socialist voters Spain. For flexibility I mean the propensity of citizens to change their vote based on ideological approaches offered by political parties. There are strong indications that the English Socialist voters have a higher elasticity than the Catalans. Or put another way, the Spaniards would vote to PSC regardless of whether this party towards or away from their ideological positions. Instead, the Catalans are more sensitive to the ideology of the PSC, these easily cease to vote for this party if it decided to move far from their ideals.
The different elasticities of these two groups are reflected in recent data from the CIS. For First, the English Socialists declared just before the elections of 28-N who were willing to vote only at the PSC. Although they felt ideologically closer UPyD Ciutadans or nationalist dimension in virtually all of them shared the view that they would never vote for these parties. Moreover, almost half of them claimed that, surely, always vote the PSC. On the other hand, the Catalan Socialists were less loyal to the party, and the percentage of those who always vote the PSC was reduced to only 20%. As a result, this group was less reluctant to change their vote in favor of other political formations (whether ICV, CiU and ERC). Only a minority of the Catalan Socialists (about one third) will ensure that they would never vote for these three games.
Ultimately, the data suggest that the Catalans are more prone to condition their vote on the basis of ideological offer the PSC offers. In contrast, the English are captive voters: do what the PSC, you probably would vote.
The low elasticity of the English electorate is a product of high degree of party identification of this group. Indeed, this group has a greater emotional attachment to the PSOE (and by extension with the PSC). While the feeling of belonging to this party represents a value ingrained in its political identity, not the case between the Catalan nationalists. These issues PSC would vote for or follow more rational cost-benefit criteria (as if the party offers the policies they want) rather than with emotional issues or political identity.
It is too early to assess how they behaved English and Catalan voters in the election of 28-N. However, a preliminary analysis of election results seem to indicate that this time the PSC has been leaks everywhere. Among his English voters, some decided not to go to the polls and some others were seduced by the anti-immigration discourse PP (And xenophobic PXC). However, most of the leak probably came from the Catalan area, which this time would have chosen to vote CiU. In fact, a glance at the district level data shows that losses of PSC are particularly correlated with the proceeds of CiU, which suggests that the socialist debacle is due in large part to the unfairness of the Catalan industry.
The PSC is now the difficult task of redefining its ideological profile of the electorate to recover lost. And the results indicate that this will be more difficult in the case of the Catalan vote. This is and will be less loyal to the PSC and condition their vote over the proposals that the party put on the table.
is anticipated therefore, that the socialist leaders come to perceive as a more rational strategy to raise the profile of the Catalan nationalist party. And with that, the PSC will be forced once again to disregard the preferences of the majority of their constituents. Lluís
Orriols is Professor of Political Science at the University of Girona.
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