Governing By Consensus? Government-Opposition Relations in Spain (2001-2013)

Previous research has analyzed the behaviour of opposition parties in Spain considering the impact of institutional factors like the type of government, the content of legislation, variations in the economic situation or the popularity of governments. Most of these analyses rely on the final voting for legislation but no research has systematically investigated the input sphere namely the amending activity of opposition parliamentary groups. In parliamentary democracies opposition groups can accept or reject legislation but also affect its content depending on the opportunities provided by the institutional context. This paper is oriented to fill this gap. Relying on quantitative data about the final voting for all decree-laws and organic laws and also the amendment activities of opposition groups regarding all the executive bills introduced from 2001 to 2013, we analyze to what extent institutional and contextual variables affect government-opposition dynamics in Spain. Has the actual economic and fiscal crisis affected the behaviour of the Spanish opposition? Are there differences between mainstream parties and those that rarely govern? Special attention is paid to analyze whether parliamentary groups adapt their voting and amending strategies to variations in the saliency of issues and the preferences of their voters over time.