Spanish democracy is increasingly marked by polarisation. Rubén Díez García argues that protests in Spain over the last three decades reveal this polarisation stems from a persistent constitutional cleavage rooted in Spain’s democratic transition.
For decades, Spanish politics has been shaped by more than left-right competition. Beneath the usual partisan tensions lies a deeper divide about the very foundations of the political community.
This underlying cleavage – between those who defend the constitutional framework born from Spain’s democratic transition and those who challenge it – has resurfaced in today’s polarised politics. Large-scale civic mobilisations reveal how persistent rival discourses continue to mirror that fracture.
Terrorism and nationalism in Spain
In a new study of 235 large-scale demonstrations held in Spain between 1996 and 2020, I show that the issues with the greatest power to mobilise citizens – and to divide them – have been terrorism and nationalism. Movements against ETA’s violence in the late 1990s, and later against government negotiations with the terrorist group, generated a “civic-constitutionalist” network of organisations that defended the rule of law and democratic accountability.
This civic movement was rooted in the experience of the democratic transition: it saw the rule of law and civic responsibility as the moral core of democracy. When ETA declared its definitive end in 2011, that same discourse reappeared in demonstrations against Catalan separatism, which again framed the defence of the constitutional framework and national unity as civic imperatives.
These mobilisations therefore reveal a continuity in the symbolic order that has shaped Spain’s democracy since 1978. The black holes of the transition to democracy – such as a lack of a genuine federal culture, institutional political co-optation and political corruption – remain unresolved and continue to influence how political elites and citizens run and understand democracy itself.
Spain’s crisis of legitimacy
The 2008 financial crisis marked the start of a new cycle of mobilisation. The 15M/Indignados protests in 2011 expressed widespread disillusionment with the political class and the economic system. Their slogan – “They don’t represent us” – encapsulated a crisis of legitimacy that went far beyond economic grievances.
Some actors within these mobilisations ultimately questioned not only government policies but also the system of representation, which was labelled as the “regime of 1978”.
Their demands for the people’s voice and moral renewal channelled popular frustration into new political projects such as Podemos and Sumar on the left, the populist turn of nationalist forces in Catalonia, and finally Vox on the radical right. These political spectrums draw on emotions of grievance and moral urgency, reflecting opposite performances of the same crisis.
This fragmentation has eroded the space for broad parliamentary agreements. Spanish politics has become increasingly locked into two opposing blocs, unable to generate a stable cross-party consensus. The loss of a shared constitutional narrative lies at the heart of this impasse.
Rival discourses and the constitutional cleavage
The analysis of protest cycles shows that since the end of ETA, nationalist and identity-based claims have dominated Spain’s public sphere. The 2017 Catalan independence referendum, declared illegal by the courts, exposed and materialised that legitimacy chasm more starkly than ever.
On one side stood the regional government and pro-independence organisations that justified unilateral action in the name of “democratic self-determination”. On the other hand, civic-constitutionalist associations, supported by parts of the political opposition, rallied behind the Constitution and the rule of law.
Since then, Spain’s politics has increasingly revolved around this constitutional divide between those who advocate a confederal conception of the state and those defending the unity of the political community and the supremacy of the constitutional order. However, in both blocs, some political actors frequently use populist rhetoric that risks radicalising their own discourse.
This realignment has intensified with the current legislature. The government’s reliance on pro-independence parties has revived the question of constitutional limits. This is especially true in relation to the Amnesty Law for those involved in the 2017 Catalan secessionist crisis, which involved an illegal proclamation of independence. The law was passed as part of the bargain Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez struck to retain power after the 2023 Spanish general election.
Civic organisations and opposition parties have once again taken to the streets, echoing past mobilisations in defence of the rule of law. These demonstrations are the latest chapter in a long story of rival civic discourses reflecting Spain’s constitutional fault line.
However, political parties have increasingly invaded civic life. This blurring of boundaries between civic and partisan spheres has eroded civil society’s autonomy and vitality – a key pillar of liberal democracies – and deepened the cross-cutting distrust underlying today’s political and affective polarisation.
Spain’s eroded, fragmented democracy
During Pedro Sánchez’s two terms, governance through bilateral deals with nationalists, secessionists and radical-left forces has further exposed these tensions. Measures such as pardons, exceptional negotiations and fiscal assignments, as well as the proposed Amnesty Law, have been framed as gestures of reconciliation but amount, in practice, to illiberal manoeuvres that undermine constitutional norms, reflecting Sánchez’s strategic use of populist rhetoric.
Their political feasibility depends on institutional capture, political corruption and a persistent disregard for parliamentary democracy. It has now been almost three fiscal years that Spain has been living under the same budget since its last approval by the Spanish Parliament. Spain is now witnessing the collapse of broad consensus and growing public disaffection. Such strategies tend to activate a civic-constitutional discourse aimed at persuading citizens about the meaning of the rule of law and civil institutions.
Yet the demagogy promoted by the radical right in response risks linking civic discourse with another form of populist confrontation, fostering the government’s entrenchment in power. Sánchez has repeatedly called for “building a wall” between the two blocs – rhetoric that deepens the political divide rather than fosters constitutional reconciliation.
Rebuilding Spain’s civic culture
As the European Commission has warned Spain, political decisions that blur the separation of powers or treat legality as negotiable threaten to weaken democratic institutions.
Yet a purely reactive populist nativism risks transforming civic vigilance into partisan identity. The challenge for Spain is therefore not only to defend the rule of law but to rebuild a civic culture that transcends antagonism – a culture grounded in responsibility, dialogue and mutual recognition.
However, current corruption charges surrounding the Prime Minister’s inner circle and his party offer little incentive for such a regeneration. Rather than fostering accountability, they are likely to sustain a strategy of permanent confrontation and institutional siege.
They may even use elections as an electoral gambit in a highly polarised environment designed to minimise personal and political costs. In this sense, Spain’s democracy risks remaining trapped in a cycle in which power becomes an end in itself: an illiberal regime, rather than a means of constitutional stewardship.
For more information, see the author’s new study in the Journal of Civil Society.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: MSCT Pics / Shutterstock.com
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