INTRODUCTION

This chapter attempts to explain the Spanish Socialist Worker's Party's (PSOE) rapid shift from a policy-seeking party (as late as 1978) to an office-seeking party (by 1982). The PSOE emerged from the transition to democracy as a classic policy-seeking party: Its radical agenda was aimed more at party activists than at the electorate. After a loss in the 1979 general elections, the party moderated its image to enhance its electability, thus becoming more of a vote-seeking party. This strategy paid off in the 1982 elections, but the party entered government with some vestiges of a policy-seeking party. The Socialist leadership quickly eliminated these traits after the 1982 elections, and the PSOE subsequently became a largely office-seeking party. A new emphasis on economic modernization, efficient administration, and the desire to create “Things Well Done” (the PSOE campaign theme for the June 1987 elections) replaced the old concern for equality and participatory democracy (autogestión). The PSOE adopted a new image, based on its technocratic-administrative capability and the charisma of its leader, Felipe González, and it rapidly shed its social democratic skin.