Lisa Zanotti, Stuart James Turnbull-Dugarte: Surviving But Not Thriving: VOX and Spain in Times of COVID-19
Cambridge UP’s Government and Opposition journal published a paper on the Spanish VOX party’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic written by our Fellow Lisa Zanotti and James Turnbull-Dugarte.
According to the abstract, in this article, the authors triangulate qualitative data regarding the framing of the pandemic and the strategic decisions taken by Spain’s new populist radical right-wing party, VOX, with a quantitative analysis of aggregate polling data and individual-level survey responses to answer three questions: how has VOX framed the politics of the pandemic? What actions has VOX taken in response to COVID-19? Have the events of the COVID-19 crisis affected VOX’s electoral chances? The authors argue that VOX’s response to the pandemic has focused on augmenting the antagonistic relationship between itself and the political establishment, especially the left-wing government. Strategically, VOX has sought to leverage the health crisis to engage in legislative manoeuvres aiming, without success, to position itself as the primary party-in-waiting for right-wing voters. The authors also demonstrate that VOX has proven to be resilient against the potential for electoral decline that was widely prophesied at the beginning of the pandemic.
Read the article here.
