Introduction

The transformation of the Spanish political system as well as the Spanish economy and welfare state has been dramatic since the advent of democracy 30 years ago. Because of the process of democratization, changes in the political domain have been the most salient.

Spain has been a parliamentary monarchy for the last 30 years. This is the longest historical experience of consolidated democracy. Since 1982, the party system is dominated by two major parties: the Social Democratic PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) and the Conservative PP (Partido Popular, called Alianza Popular before 1989). As Chulia (2006) notes, due to the key roles of the government and the Congress in the Spanish political system, during the periods in which a party enjoys an absolute majority, both institutions emerge as one and the same veto player; hence there is no veto to government proposals. Conversely, minority governments are very vulnerable to the veto power of the minor parties supporting them. Supporting parties to the central government have usually been ‘nationalist’ ones, that is, regional parties.

Since 1978, Spain has become a strongly decentralized country. The territory is split in 17 autonomous regions enjoying political and administrative powers. Therefore Spain has three levels of government , namely central, regional and local. The relations between the regions and the central state depend on the identities of the parties in power. Spanish autonomous regions enjoy responsibility over many social policies including education, health care , social services and social assistance . Autonomous regions spend one third of total public expenditure nowadays and around 60 percent of their budget on health care , social care services and education. The income-maintenance system remains in the hands of the central state.

The social partners enjoy high levels of representativeness in Spain. As regards unions , two big confederations, namely the socialist UGT (Union General de Trabajadores), and the communist CCOO (Comisiones Obreras) have come to represent the interests of virtually all workers . Although unions have not reached high levels of affiliation (15 percent of salaried workers ), this dual repartition of representation was consolidated through the results of elections of workers ‘ committees.