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PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY
The average number of positive votes by opposition parties on
decree laws and organic laws fell from 85% to 45% between
President Zapatero’s two terms in office and
Mariano Rajoy’stwo terms.
The percentage of bills on which amendments to the totality are
presented increased from 25% to 60% between President
Zapatero’s two terms in office and
Mariano Rajoy’s two terms.
Most of the regulations with the status of law passed in Spain since
2016 have been decree-laws. In 2016, this percentage was 70%.
Between 1996 and 2019, IU/UP and CiU were the groups proposing
the most legislative amendments (an average of 22 and 21 per
bill) and CC and PNV the least (6 and 9 respectively).
It was between 1996 and 2019, under Mariano Rajoy's
absolute majority government, that the parliamentary groups
proposed the greatest number of amendments to draft laws.
There is little mention of interest groups in parliamentary
amendments. These amendments are mostly made by the
parliamentary groups with less representation in Congress.
Few interest groups contact parliamentary groups on a
daily basis to propose amendments to legislative initiatives.
Most interest groups contact only the groups with
the highest number of MPs in Congress and only
regarding one specific legislative initiative.
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Political institutions
PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY
Institutions determine the objectives and strategies of actors in the political system. Q-Dem
develops data and reports to analyse the impact of institutional factors on the activity of
members of parliament and government at national and sub-national levels. Are there limits to
the number and type of questions that each parliamentary group can introduce in scrutiny
sessions? To what extent does the division of work in parliamentary committees affect the
productivity of MPs? How are the hearings of interest groups in parliamentary committees
organised? Is there a limit to the length of speeches by the Spanish Prime Minister?
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Political elites
PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY
Q-Dem develops data and information on how the socio-economic characteristics of political
elites – gender, social class, educational level, type of studies, seniority, electoral vulnerability
– determine the dynamics of the agenda and the quality of political representation. Are there
differences in the issues that men and women prioritise? To what extent do economic elites
take into account the ideas and understanding of the problems of people with fewer
resources? What issues do more established MPs, who occupy positions of responsibility in the
political party, prioritise in social networks?
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Parliamentary behaviour
PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY
Q-Dem analyses the patterns of prioritisation of issues for members of parliament from the
consolidation of democracy to the present day. Some of Q-Dem's members analyse the
parliamentary behaviour of political parties and the conditions under which parliamentary
consensus or confrontation is more likely to predominate. In doing so, we take into account
the impact of institutional factors, such as the type of government, but also contextual factors,
such as the effect of the economic crisis.
We pay special attention to changes in the behaviour
of majority parties, with aspirations of government, and minority parties, excluded from the
circles of power and more willing to carry out a compromising opposition. To this end, Q-Dem
has developed databases on parliamentary votes (on organic laws and decree laws) and
amendments proposed to bills. Both indicators provide information on parties' positions on
specific policies. They also allow for an analysis of the process of increasing polarisation of the
political debate.
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Political agenda
PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY
One of Q-Dem's goals is to explain the dynamics of the political agenda, i.e. how and why the
actors in the political system prioritise issues in comparative perspective. To this end, Q-Dem
has created databases that allow us to analyse the agenda of the Prime Minister of Spain and
his Government, the agenda of parliamentary groups, members of parliament, political parties
and the agenda of the written press in Spain over the past few decades.
These databases
provide detailed information on the problems that the Spanish Prime Ministers discuss in their
inaugural speeches and their State of the Nation addresses, the Government's legislative
proposals based on bills, the issues that are the object of attention in parliamentary sessions
aimed at controlling the Government's action, the legislative proposals of the parliamentary
groups, the news published on the front pages of El País and El Mundo and the issues that
citizens identify as most important (see the section on databases for more information). On
the basis of this data, we analyse issues related to agenda dynamics, parliamentary behaviour
and political representation.
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