THE ELECTORAL EFFECT OF THE SPANISH RADICAL LEFT COALITION FOR THE 2016 GENERAL ELECTIONS. A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF SURVEY DATA

Abstract

The effects of electoral coalitions on electoral behaviour remain an unexplored ield in political sociology. There are hardly any studies that analyse the effects of the transition from electoral confrontation to pre-electoral collaboration. Our research focuses on the Spanish case, analysing the effect of the formalisation of the coalition between Izquierda Unida and Podemos for the 2016 general elections, after competing in the 2015 elections. Taking advantage of the fact that the coalition was announced while a pre-election survey was being carried out, we study the effect of this announcement through a quasi-experimental design. We also analysed the factors that would be behind the decision not to vote for the reference party in coalition. We found that it was the minority partner’s voters who defected from following their coalition party and the importance in this decision of the valuation of coalition leaders, partisan sympathy and political closeness to challenger parties.