Xavier Coller

National University of Distance Education | UNED · Department of Political and Administration Sciences

This chapter provides key points for conducting research on political representatives from an applied perspective. The authors have each spent over 30 years researching different aspects of political elites in Spain and Latin America, namely, their careers, vocationism, social profiles, opinions and attitudes, and propensity to conflicts. They have...

Despite the alleged increasing importance given to politicians’ personalities, the similarities and differences between citizens and politicians regarding their personality traits have been insufficiently studied. This research analyses the personality similarities and differences between citizens and politicians in Spain across party allegiances a...

In some countries public opinion is consistently highly supportive of redistribution, while policy outcomes do not always produce high levels of redistribution. According to the political congruence literature this might be due to a biased representation of policy preferences, as those of high socio-economic status are expected to be better represe...

Despite academic interest in the negative effects of primaries on gender descriptive representation, we have little evidence on how this impact varies across territorial levels, especially among women with family responsibilities. We focus on Spain as a multilevel polity (national, regional, local chambers) with mandatory quotas to show that very f...

This chapter looks at how well different age groups are represented in the parliaments of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. We focus on three periods – before, during and after the ‘Great Recession’ – assuming the economic turmoil has generated new demands channelled by new parties that have recently entered parliament or have had a surge during t...

The economic and institutional crisis has produced a big change in the party system. New parties have emerged, with a very critical discourse against the old elites. However, the new parliamentary elite is not so different from the old one: family connections are still an important part in the socialisation process of politicians and MPs consider t...

MPs play an essential role in the quality of representation in democracies. However, there is little evidence available on how political parties select them and the impact of that process on MPs’ profiles. This chapter analyses two original surveys conducted in 2018 on samples of Spanish national, regional and local MPs, to respond to a number of k...

Democracy globally suffers an important erosion according to different accounts. Political representatives are usually held responsible although we know little who they are or what they think about crucial matters for the functioning of democracy. This chapter introduces a book that deals with Spanish MPs comparing them with citizens, MPs elected b...

This chapter comparatively examines left-right ideological congruence in Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) between members of parliament and their constituents, through contrasting periods before and after the Great Recession. The study finds that Greece is an outlier, with the lowest level of congruence. Diverse trends in both pa...

This article looks at how well different age groups are represented in the parliaments of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. We focus on three periods – before, during and after the ‘Great Recession’ – assuming the economic turmoil has generated new demands channelled by new parties that have recently entered parliament or have had a surge during t...

The Great Recession has deeply affected the political system. Extensive political disaffection in most European countries and the steady erosion of the representative link have opened a window of opportunity for a variety of new socio-political movements and parties to enter politics. In Spain, the economic crisis was firmly shaped in the public op...

This chapter provides an account of the positions of the Spanish authorities towards the major debates related to the recent European crisis and, furthermore, how these positions were developed through interactions with the leading actors. The chapter focuses on the Greek bailout, the creation of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), and the inco...

This chapter provides an account of the positions of Spanish policy-makers towards the major debates related to the recent Eurozone crisis and, furthermore, how these positions were developed through interactions with leading actors. The chapter focuses on the Greek bailout, the creation of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the incorporati...

El estudio de las instituciones políticas, en general, y particularmente en España, ha dedicado una atención limitada al análisis de las élites políticas, aunque se percibe un interés creciente en la literatura reciente. No obstante, las decisiones que emanan de tales instituciones están condicionadas por los perfiles, preferencias y disposiciones...

This chapter examines descriptive and substantive representation in the Iberian Legislatures from two perspectives: historic and territorial. We ground our comparative analysis in two historical periods—before and after the Great Recession. Focusing on two of Pitkin’s four dimensions of representation we explore whether the level of ideological con...

This book studies the challenges to conventional politics posed by new ways of selecting candidates for legislative elections. The recent economic crisis had profound political consequences on politics, generating an upsurge in the demand for more participative ways of decision-making in politics channelled through social movements and individuals...

Previous works have argued that candidate selection is an important determinant of party cohesion in parliamentary groups. Candidates selected by party elites tend to form more disciplined parliamentary groups than those selected following more participative processes. This idea has usually been tested by measuring voting blocs (as a proxy of party...

This is a book about the effects of Intra-Party Democracy (IPD) practices on candidate selection. The book begins with a discussion of primaries and its extension to semi-presidential democracies, and then it turns to four usually uncovered and relevant topics on the effects of implementing inclusive methods on candidate selection—the use of the In...

In this chapter, we assess the impact of candidate selection mechanisms on the sociopolitical profile of MPs from four key political actors (Five Star Movement, SYRIZA, Ciudadanos and Podemos) elected after the latest general elections in Italy (2013), Greece (September 2015) and Spain (2016). In particular, we want to see how candidate selection a...

In the middle of the 2010s, Spanish parties are in a transition towards a more inclusive candidate selection system. Until now, traditional parties had maintained opaque and tightly controlled selection systems. However, despite the lack of democratic zest among the traditional elites, diverse factors, such as the sharpened representation crisis, c...

The recent economic crisis has had profound consequences for politics around the world: higher levels of volatility and disaffection, the upsurge of populism, the emergence of new parties, and the new relevance of formerly minor parties. At the same time, there has been an increase in the demand for more participative ways of decision-making in pol...

Despite the increasing attention paid to candidate selection in the recent literature, this subject can still be considered “the secret garden of politics” (Gallagher, 1988). There are at least three reasons for this. Firstly, most of the contributions on the field have analysed the formal procedures of candidate selection, forgetting the informal...

One of the most important phenomena in Spain’s recent history is the expansion and transformation of collective identities. After several decades of centralised government, the democratisation in Spain ran parallel to the country’s decentralisation as it became a semi-federal state (Lijphart, 1999, p. 189) or one of imperfect federalism (Moreno, 19...

This chapter focuses on a hardly known matter: how individuals are chosen for the electoral list. The analysis relies on the causation funnel model by Norris (1997) and the inclusiveness and centralization dimensions by Rahart and Hazan (2001) to conclude that the MPs candidates are selected in a centralized and exclusive way; that is to say, far a...

This chapter explains the rationale of the book and outlines the chapters. There are two basic motivations for the book. Firstly, there is a widespread phenomenon of political disaffection, which is particularly important in the case of Southern European countries such as Spain, reflecting a deep divide between citizens and their representatives. S...

This chapter summarizes the main findings of the book. Four gaps between citizens and representatives are identified throughout the book. Firstly, the social extraction of MPs over-represents groups of high socio-economic status, which is in line with previous comparative research. Secondly, MPs tend to appear more leftist than their voters for eve...

Drawing from a constructivist approach this chapter analyzes MPs’ collective identities. Despite the obvious differences between parties and territories, most of the MPs show a dual identity (the same as their electors) feeling as Spanish as from their own region. Nevertheless, it is proved that the younger MPs, the more left-wing ones and the regi...

This book explores why some people become politicians, how they represent citizens in parliaments, and what they think about democracy and its institutions. It analyses the results of the first survey of a representative sample of Spanish MPs (580 cases) and citizens. The study covers areas such as: social profiles; recruitment and selection; women...

This paper explores the factors determining collective identities in the Basque Country and Catalonia, paying special attention to language and birth as key domains of ethnolinguistic divide. We will also make a comparison to the case of Valencia, a region with a native language that nevertheless has not developed a nationalist movement. We have pe...

As in other countries, the Spanish upper chamber is facing harsh criticisms. It has failed to fulfil its constitutional task as a chamber of territorial representation. Notwithstanding a number of proposed reforms, the Senado has remained almost unchanged since its creation in 1978. So why is it so difficult to restructure this chamber? This resear...

The gender gap in political ambition is an important explanation for the absence of women in legislative assemblies. However, previous research on this matter is limited by two facts: it is conducted mostly in the United States and does not pay much attention to cultural and institutional factors. In this article, we test the extent to which establ...

Using systematic criteria, this article offers a descriptive analysis of the evolution in the percentage of women MPs in the 17 Spanish regional parliament from 1980 to 2011. The fluctuating gender composition of these parliaments is analysed in terms of thresholds, patterns of evolution, and paucity of the changes. These dimensions, under-studied...

This article analyzes the evolution in the proportion of women representatives in the 17 Spanish regional chambers along 1980-2011. We test whether the attainment of the ?critical? threshold of 30% of women in a chamber implies that the share of women is not going to fall below this threshold. Two hypotheses about the political presence of women ar...

The late 2000s economic crisis has transformed Europe. Scholars and politicians concur with the longstanding economic, political, and social consequences of this crisis. The financial meltdown shrunk traditionally large economies and left a few of them at the verge of bankruptcy. The South of Europe, in particular, is one of the regions in the worl...

Previous literature has argued that MPs selected by party elites in a central and exclusive way are more disciplined than those belonging to parties with more inclusive and participative mechanisms of candidate selection. This hypothesis has been usually tested measuring the existence of voting blocs in parliamentary groups (taking for granted that...

This article spells out the methodological and technical problems that arise when building a database on politicians holding a position in representative institutions. Using the example of an existing database of Spanish MPs (1980-2011), the authors discuss the criteria they have used and the solutions applied to solve several challenges: parsimony...

As we were finalizing the introduction to this symposium in late May, a controversy about the academic evaluation system in Spain made headlines internationally and became the topic of discussion in social media. A thirty-year old Spanish physicist had applied for the Ramon y Cajal scholarship—designed to repatriate national scientists—and his appl...

This article studies the restructuring process following a cross-border merger between two pharmaceutical companies. Mergers and takeovers make a favourable scenario for researching the capacity that multinationals have for disseminating their policies and practices beyond the frontiers of their countries of origin. Four comparable plants in four c...

By examining two case studies in Spain's automobile industry, this article analyzes the part played by the multinational corporation (MNC) in the historical transformation of Spanish trade unionism at shop-floor level. The literature on organizational change, often aimed at explaining the ability of MNCs to diffuse human resource policies and pract...

MPs from subnational parties (PANE) show a different social profile than those MPs from national parties elected for regional parliaments. They incorporate less women in parliaments, less internal migrants, older politicians, less workers and educators (but more owners and managers) and a similar proportion of lawyers. There are relevant difference...

After 25 years of regional politics, little is known of those politicians that have held a seat in regional assemblies, especially their social profile, its evolution and whether or not this social profile mirrors the structure of society. For the first time, data presented in this article sheds some light over these issues. The author uses the ind...

After 25 years of regional politics, little is known of those politicians that have held a seat in regional assemblies, especially their social profile, its evolution and whether or not this social profile mirrors the structure of society. For the first time, data presented in this article sheds some light over these issues. The author uses the ind...

Este artículo estudia la reestructuración que siguió a la fusión de dos multinacionales del sector farmacéutico. Los procesos de fusión y adquisición constituyen un buen escenario para la investigación de la capacidad de las multinacionales para difundir sus políticas y prácticas más allá de las fronteras de sus países de origen. Se seleccionaron c...

Este artículo estudia la reestructuración que siguió a la fusión de dos multinacionales del sector farmacéutico. Los procesos de fusión y adquisición constituyen un buen escenario para la investigación de la capacidad de las multinacionales para difundir sus políticas y prácticas más allá de las fronteras de sus países de origen. Se seleccionaron c...

Résumé Cet article cherche à expliquer une anomalie. Un des résultats attendus de le fédéralisation est l’émergence et la consolidation des identités périphériques, soit en conflit soit en accord avec l’identité nationale. C’est bien ce que nous trouvons en Espagne vers la fin des années 1970. À Valence, néanmoins, les conditions propices au dévelo...

This article examines the restructuring process following a cross-border merger in the pharmaceuticals sector. We show how national industrial relations systems account for some aspects of cross-national differences in the process and outcomes of restructuring. However, we also argue that institutionalist approaches to comparative analysis must be...

Cet article cherche a expliquer une anomalie. Un des resultats attendus de le federalisation est l'emergence et la consolidation des identites peripheriques, soit en conflit soit en accord avec l'identite nationale. C'est bien ce que nous trouvons en Espagne vers la fin des annees 1970. A Valence, neanmoins, les conditions propices au developpement...

The means by which multinational companies (MNCs) develop and diffuse transnational industrial relations practices are the focus of this article. It elaborates different channels through which international management exercises influence over local practice in operations across different countries. Drawing on survey findings, it identifies the kind...

La interacción entre cultura y estructura informal de la organización tiene efectos diversos en la vida diaria de las instituciones. Algunos de ellos son el desarrollo de una cierta identidad organizativa y la aparición de relaciones de poder informal. Este artículo avanza varias líneas de investigación sobre estos dos aspectos aprovechando algunas...

This article discusses the diffusion of employment practices across borders in multinational companies (MNCs). Case study data are used to address two central questions: whether all MNCs attempt to engage in diffusion, and how this process occurs. We argue that diffusion is not a universal tendency but is promoted or retarded by such factors as the...

Although the sociology of organisations and work increasingly focuses on multinational firms, we still know very little about the impact of the internationalisation of production on the tendency for isomorphism observed in the plants operated by multinational firms. Drawing from a study of three multinational firms, the authors contend that transna...

Las teorías sobre nacionalismo e identidades colectivas, especialmente la escuela neoinstitucionalista, prevén la emergencia y consolidación de las identidades regionales como consecuencia de la federalización de los estados. Es más probable que este fenómeno ocurra cuando las condiciones políticas, culturales y/ó económicas promueven un cierto sen...

Aunque la sociología de las organizaciones y del trabajo se ocupa cada vez más de estudiar las empresas multinacionales, todavía se conoce poco el impacto que la internacionalización de la producción tiene en la tendencia al isomorfismo que se observa en las plantas operadas por multinacionales. Con los resultados del estudio de tres multinacionale...

En: Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas Madrid 1999, n. 86, abril-junio ; p. 79-94 En este artículo se hace un estudio del impacto que la internacionalización de la producción tiene en la tendencia al isoformismo observado en las plantas operadas por multinacionales. Con los resultados del estudio de tres multinacionales, los autores s...

Este artículo toma como temática central el mundo productivo y más concretamente la segmentación del mercado laboral, construyendo una tipología en esta dirección. Dicha tipología es la base de referencia, dentro del ámbito productivo, para establecer y analizar las relaciones entre dicho ámbito y el reproductivo a partir de la información provenie...

Multinational companies are often seen as (potential) agencies for disseminating similar employment practices across countries and hence encouraging industrial relations convergence. The relationship between centre and periphery helps determine the extent to which they perform this role. This article reports findings from research in the Spanish an...

The intraparty mechanisms for Members of Parliament (MPs) selection has been only partially analyzed by the literature. Most works focus on parties’ written rules regarding the selection of candidates for the national chamber(s). However, party statutes hide other informal procedures. In this article, we analyze how candidate selection is implement...

Ressenya de l'obra de Howard S. Becker apareguda el 1986, Writing for Social Scientists. How to Start and Finish Your Tbesis, Book or Article. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 180 p.

Ressenya de l'obra de Luis Sarries Sanz apareguda el 1993, Sociología de las relaciones industriales en la sociedad postmoderna. Zaragoza: Mira Editores. 435 p.

Ressenya de l'obra de F. Miguélez i C. Prieto (Ds.) apareguda el 1991, Las relaciones laborales en España. Madrid: Siglo XXI. 426 p.

Ressenya de l'obra de Royston M. Roberts aparecida en 1992, Serendipia. Descubrimientos accidentales en la ciencia. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. 377 p.

Reseña de la obra de P. K. Edwards aparecida en 1990, El conflicto en el trabajo. Un análisis materialista de las relaciones laborales en la empresa. Madrid: Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social. 344 p.

La diferent posicio dels individus en el mercat de treball sembla convertir-se en una variable (no l'unica) amb un fort pes explicatiu de determinades practiques familiars que s'analitzen en aquest article. Aixi; les desigualtats viscudes a la familia per rao de sexe poden explicar-se per la desigual situacio d'homes i dones en l'esfera laboral; un...

Obra que plantea una visión de conjunto de la sociología a través del análisis de las principales teorías que han ido generando los más importantes científicos sociales desde el nacimiento de esta disciplina hasta la actualidad. Entre ellos destacan Saint-Simon, Comte, Herbert Spencer, Tocqueville, Marx, Pareto, Durkheim, Ferdinand Tönnies, Simmel,...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Yale University, 2002. Microfilm. s

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Yale University, 2002.

This paper explores the social profile of the regional elite that has emerged in Spain since the de-mocratization and federalization of the country. For the first time, researchers present data about crucial variables like gender, place of birth, age, education, and profession. They make inter-regional comparisons, put their data on an internationa...

Flexibilidad y relaciones laborales -- Nuevos modelos productivos -- El problema de la flexibilidad -- La transformación productiva en Tecosa -- La cara oculta de la relación laboral -- Estrategias de los actores -- Empresa, relación laboral y cambios en el trabajo