EU RO P E A N T R A DE U N I O N D I A LOGU E TRADE UNIONS AND RIGHT-WING POPULISM IN EUROPE Country Study Spain Holm-Detlev Köhler December 2022 THE POLITICAL PARTY SYSTEM IN SPAIN Spain’s modern democratic political and party system emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s during the democratic transition following the death of Francisco Franco in November 1975, bringing nearly 40 years of repressive dictatorship to an end. 1 Two parallel dy­namics played out during this process. On the one hand, the democratic opposition groups— the under­ground unions, numerous left-wing and liberal politi­cal movements, student and university groups, and re­gionalist movements, especially those in the Basque Country and Catalonia— gained considerable strength and organized long-term protests and mass actions de­manding an immediate and democratic break from the old regime. On the other hand, a system for negotia­tions between reform groups within the old regime and moderate opposition groups developed, with par­ticipants seeking to instigate a peaceful and orderly transition to democracy with free parliamentary elec­tions and a new constitution. Over the following years, the goal of making a radical, democratic break from the dictatorship gave way to the reality of a pact-based democratic transition with­in the monarchist framework imposed by Franco. The democratic opposition abandoned its more far-reach­ing aims of a republic that would prosecute the crimes committed by the Franco regime while the reformists 1 For a detailed discussion of the democratic transition and the democratization of industrial relations, see Köhler(1993). from the outgoing dictatorship submitted to demo­cratic rules. From 1976 to 1978, the dictatorship trans­formed itself into a parliamentary monarchy. The first free parliamentary elections in 1977 and the new con­stitution in 1978 were the two most important build­ing blocks for the construction of the new government. The transition years up until 1982 were marked by sig­nificant uncertainties and threats: An economic crisis caused record unemployment and high inflation; sev ­eral terrorist groups, including the Basque Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA; Basque Homeland and Liberty) and radical leftist groups such as Grupo de Resistencia Anti­fascista Primero de Octubre (GRAPO; Anti-Fascist Re ­sistance Group First of October) and Frente Revolu­cionario Antifascista Patriota (FRAP; Revolutionary An ­tifascist Patriotic Front), threatened security; and Francoist military groups constantly attempted coups against the fledgling democracy. The centrist govern ­ment of the Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD; Union of the Democratic Centre) never secured a stable par ­liamentary majority and finally dissolved in a govern ­ment crisis in 1981. On the left side of the political spectrum, the moder­ate social democratic Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE; Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) emerged as the clear hegemonic force over the Partido Comunista de España (PCE; Communist Party of Spain) and oth ­1