A Spanish “yes, we can!” against the two-party system

Abstract

this article develops an analysis of the internal functioning of the Spanish party Podemos and its structural make-up. the used methodology consists of: 1) a descriptive analysis of the development of Podemos, based on the available information in the media; 2) an analysis centered on the presence of Podemos in social networks and the mainstream media, in addition to electoral results and polls. the analysis attempts to determine the following: the party’s decision-making process, along with the type of relationships established between leaders and supporters; to what extent the internet is used as a primary tool for organization, mobilization and political propaganda; and the extent of the clash or harmony within the interparty’s dynamics: on one hand, the bottom-up structure of the citizen assemblies and, on the other, the top-down structure inferred from Pablo iglesias’s hyper-leadership and the media presence of the party’s principal leaders.1