Not fond of democracy and politically discontent individuals: Assessing regime-related determinants of the vote for VOX/Individuos políticamente descontentos con la democracia: evaluación de los determinantes del voto por VOX relacionados con el régimen.

• Author: Zanotti, Lisa

INTRODUCTION

Both the decline of democracy and the emergence of populist and/or anti-establishment parties are on the rise in different regions of the world (Foa and Mounk 2016; Inglehart and Norris 2016; Oliver and Rahn 2016; Gamboa 2017; Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018). Although there seems to be at least of correlation between these two phenomena the relationship between democracy and populism is far from being settled. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that few studies have empirically addressed the effect of populist parties on the levels of democracy in a given country (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2012; Donovan 2019; Rama and Casal Bértoa 2020).

On the other hand, the findings regarding the attitudes towards democracy of those individuals with high populist attitudes are still inconclusive (Meijers and Zaslove 2020; Rovira Kaltwasser and van Hauwaert 2020; Zanotti and Rama 2020).

This theoretical and empirical issue is even more complicated by the fact that the most numerous and electorally relevant populist family is the populist radical right. The populist radical right is characterized by at least three ideological features: nativism, authoritarianism, and populism (Mudde 2007). In short, nativism is an ideology that maintains that the state should be inhabited only by those who belong to the nation, while authoritarism is the belief in a strictly ordered society and that the infringements to this order should be harshly punished (Adorno 1950).Last, populism is a thin-centered ideology that maintains that society is divided into two opposing and homogeneous groups the "pure people" and the "corrupt elite',' and that politics should be the expression of the general will of the people. In general terms we know that, at least in Europe, nativism, not populism is the core ideology of the populist radical right (Mudde 2007).

At this point is worth underlining that with the aim of differentiate between radical and extreme parties Mudde (2007; 2010) maintains that while the former do not reject democratic as a political regime the latter openly opposed to it. Even if the PRR does not oppose to democracy it does not mean that they do not represent a threat to the regime If it is true that PRR parties should not be thought of as bluntly authoritarian forces it is also true that these actors who play by the democratic rules of the game to gradually subvert the liberal democratic regime from within. By promoting illiberal ideas, the PRR can set in motion a process of democratic erosion that in some cases might even lead to democratic breakdown (Meléndez and Rovira Kaltwasser (2021:949). Furthermore, even if radical parties are different form extremist ones in the sense that the former do not reject democracy as a political regime, both nativism--a combination of nationalism and xenophobia--and authoritarianism--intended as the belief in a strictly ordered society--can attract those who are less loyal to the democratic regime. In this sense it looks like radicalism could be a more pernicious trait for democracy than populism.

In regard to the relationship between the PRR and democracy the case of VOX in Spain is particularly relevant. Spain is a relatively young democracy in which the PRR had not taken root until 2018 (Alonso and Rovira Kaltwasser,201S). Together with Portugal, Spain was defined an European exceptionalism since they were the only two countries in western Europe without a populist radical right party. Things changed in 2018 when VOX entered the system first at the regional level in Andalusia (Turnbull-Dugarte 2019) and then in 2019 becoming the third party at the national level. After the return to democracy the Spanish party system at the national level functioned as a two-party system with alternation between the social democratic Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) and the (conservative) right-wing Partido Popular (PP). The latter acted as a catch all party also attracting citizens that were previously loyal to the pre-democratic regime. However, in 2019 mainly as a result of the Catalan crisis the PRR VOX--that was formed in 2013 but until then had obtained irrelevant electoral fortunes--gained more than 10 percent and almost 16 percent in the snap election of April and November (Turnbull-Dugarte, Rama and Santana 2020; Rama et al.2019). It is worth mentioning that most of the votes cast for VOX in 2019 came from the Partido Popular (Santana, Zanotti and Rama 2022).

Besides nativism and authoritarianism and populism VOX displays a high level of nationalism (Heyne and Manucci 2021), which is an idiosyncratic feature and not a core feature of PRRs. This is relvant for at least two reasons. First nationalism was one of the ideological cornerstones of the pre-democratic regime (Aguilar,2001). Second, nationalism is discursively expressed by the party through discursive shortcuts that remind of those used by the Francoist regime.

This study tries to assess the relationship between support for democracy and the vote in a country with a relatively recent authoritarian past. In more detail we are interested in assessing the determinants of the vote for a populist radical right that exploits some of the discursive repertoires of pre-democratic regimes in a young democracy.

VOX AS A POPULIST RADICAL RIGHT PARTY

In general terms we can state that there is a consensus that VOX belongs to the populist radical right (see Norris, 2020; Vampa,2020; Turnbull-Dugarte,2019; Turnbull-Dugarte et al.,2020; Rama et al.,2021; Mudde, 2020; Rooduijn et al, 2019; Olivas-Osuna, 2021; Olivas-Osuna and Rama, 2021). As the literature on the populist radical right has pointed out, within this party family, the radical component is much stronger than the populist one (see Mudde 2007; Zaslove and Meijers 2021).

As mentioned before, PRRPs share at least three ideological features: nativism, authoritarianism, and populism (Mudde 2007). At least concerning the populist radical right in Western Europe, nativism appears as the core ideology. Nativism, as a combination of xenophobia and nationalism, is an ideology that maintains that the state should be inhabited only by natives (Mudde2007).This usually results in a constant anti-immigration rhetoric as well as in policy proposals that seek stricter immigration rules (Ivarsflaten 2008). In this sense, VOX is not an exception (Vampa 2020). In fact, the party claims for the "deportation of illegal immigrants to their countries of origin','newrequirements and barriers for nationality and establishing quotas based on linguistic and cultural criteria (VOX, 2019:5-6).

Authoritarian features are also evident in VOX discourse. It is worth noting that with the term authoritarianism we do not refer to a preference for any political regime instead to the as the belief in a strictly ordered society and to that any infraction to this order should be sanctioned (Mudde 2007).

Authoritarianism tends to translate in preference for stricter law and order policies (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 2017). Both VOX electoral manifesto and public discourse reflect the party favorable attitude towards strict law enforcement and tougher actions against domestic crime (see Rama et al. 2021). While in the party manifesto of 2019 the percentage of the document dedicated to positive assessments of law and order policies is 9.5. which is in line with other PRR in Europe and outside (see Rama et al.2021:61).

It is relevant to point out that as other PRR parties, VOX leaders discursively link immigration with an (alleged rise) in crime rates (1) Furthermore, VOX's ideological authoritarianism besides being expressed though preference for harsher public security measures, also calls for a strictly order society by defending traditional moral values such as gender roles or heteronormative family. This point is quite interesting since the defence of traditional moral values is not a core ideological feature of the PRR at least in Europe. However, some PRRPs that have gained electoral relevance in the last years have showed this ideological trait, such as the Brothers of Italy, (Zanotti and Meléndez, 2022a). Moreover, other PRR parties and leaders outside of Europe heavily rely on these issues such as the Republican party in the United States and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil (Rennó 2020; Zanotti et al. forthcoming) and José Antonio Kast in Chile (Zanotti and Roberts 2021).

Finally, VOX leaders display a populist discourse (Rama et al. 2021; Norris 2020). Even though as for other PRR in general radical (nativist and authoritarian) features are much stronger than the the populist ones (see Mudde 2007; Marcos-Marne et al. 2021), it is also true that VOX does display a populist element. As we show in Figure 1, based on experts' surveys, VOX level of populism is the same of other well-known populist parties both on the left and the right such as the Sweden Democrats (SD), the Progress Party (FrP) in Norway, or the Danish People's Party (DF) but below the Party for Freedom (PW) in the Netherlands, Alternative for Germany (AfD), DF, the Finns (PS) and the Five Star Movement (Norris 2020).

All in all, VOX fits well in the populist radical right party family featuring all three core ideological elements: nativism, authoritarianism, and populism. However, as various scholars pointed out, the party has at least one decisive idiosyncratic ideological feature: its nationalism (De Cleen and Stavrakakis 2017). As we show in the following sections, this is a feature that VOX shared with the Spanish pre-democratic regime (see Rama et al. 2021). Moreover, some of the rhetoric shortcuts employed by the party's leaders reminds of the discourse of pre-democratic elites.

Context-related elements in VOX discourse

As mentioned before, PRRPs share, at least, three ideological traits: nativism, authoritarianism, and populism. However, different PRR also displays other ideologies. This for example, holds true for the economic...