Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2021
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (BA)
Advisor(s)
Javier Jimenez Belmonte, Ph.D.
Second Advisor
Caley Johnson, Ph.D.
Abstract
Populist radical right parties succeeded electorally across Europe since the start of the 1980s. However, until 2018, the populist radical right was electorally irrelevant in Spain even as the populist radical right gained traction in the rest of Western Europe. There is very little literature explaining how Vox overcame obstacles in Spain to be the first party of its kind to have success in Spain. In this thesis, I examine how Vox fits into previous academic literature that explains the populist radical right and whether that literature applies to the case of Vox. I argue that the previous literature cannot completely explain the case of Spain. The reason that Vox has had electoral success is that Vox is the first party since the death of Francisco Franco to use the same narratives about Spanish identity and national origins to mobilize the imagined community of people that Franco created that believe in his conceptions of the nation.
Recommended Citation
Berenston, Daniel Robert, "Vox and the Legacy of Franco: A Study of the Rise of the Populist Radical Right in Spain" (2021). Senior Theses. 78.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/international_senior/78
