Introduction

The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) remains Spain's most electorally successful political party, having been in office between 1982 and 1996 under Felipe González, and between 2004 and 2011 under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. An indication of the straitened circumstances in which the party currently finds itself is provided by the following stark fact: when it last won office at the 2008 general election, the PSOE obtained over 11 million votes, more than at any time in its near 130-year existence. By the time that it went down to its third successive general election defeat in June 2016, the party won less than half this amount, a result that constituted a historic low since democracy was re-established following Franco's death. Although the PSOE has avoided the fate of its Greek sister party, PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) at the hands of the radical-left Syriza, it has struggled to cope with the emergence of Pablo Iglesias's Podemos (‘We can’) in 2014. Hitherto all-conquering on the left of the political spectrum, the PSOE has good reason to be concerned about the implications of being overtaken by Podemos. While, up until now, the PSOE has been able to avert this much-feared sorpasso (‘overtaking’), the party leadership is sufficiently realistic to acknowledge that some, perhaps more gradual, form of Pasokification awaits it over the coming years unless it can re-establish its credentials as a credible party of government.

The dilemmas faced by the PSOE are hardly unique. The party nevertheless serves as a case study of the challenging situation in which social democratic parties currently find themselves. With a significant proportion of the electorate having lost confidence in both the way it is governed and in the traditional parties of government, the PSOE has struggled to maintain its credibility, regarded as being stale, irrelevant and incapable of responding to the sense of insecurity felt by many at a time of economic uncertainty. The alternative offered by a new, attractive, media-savvy Podemos, capable of appealing to sections of the electorate that have deserted the PSOE, poses a very real threat.