Party Responsiveness and Governmental Responsibility: The Conflicting Roles of Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party Between 2008 and 2011

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyse the dramatic decline of voters’ support for Spanish Socialist Workers‘Party (PSOE), a long-term established political party, between 2008 and 2011 parliamentary elections. It focuses on the government policy of PSOE during the outbreak of economic and financial crisis and attributes the drop of support to the conflicting roles of PSOE as a representative of voters‘interests on the one hand and as the governing party with corresponding responsibility to the state and also to the international community on the other hand. Moreover, it links the decision-making on the national level to the supranational level. The austerity policy, pursued by PSOE in given period, was heavily influenced by the EU institutions, and made impossible to comply with the electoral promises, concentrated on the improvements in employment and social policy. The drop of support pursued the PSOE in 2011, 2015 and 2016 parliamentary elections. Therefore, the party is a case study of the decline of social democratic parties in Europe, however temporary in her case.