Los Gobiernos de las diputaciones provinciales de España:composición e ideología

Abstract

This article focuses on the study of the government of Spanish provincial councils, addressing both its type of government and its ideological orientation. Drawing on the main theories of government formation at the national level, we examine how several institutional and political factors, such as the electoral system, the presence of local parties, and electoral volatility, explain the formation of provincial governments. Using a novel dataset covering the period 1987 to 2023, we conduct two analyses: first, we provide a detailed description of governmental dynamics at the provincial level; second, using regression analysis, we identify the factors that influence these government formation dynamics. Our results confirm the relevance of an electoral system that favors the formation of single-party majority governments and hinders the creation of left-wing governments.