Bonnie Field, Ph.D.
bfield@bentley.edu
Bentley University
About Me:
Bonnie N. Field has a doctorate in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is professor of political science in the department of global studies at Bentley University in Massachusetts. Her research interests center on political parties and political institutions in transitional and institutionalized democracies in Europe and Latin America. She has particular expertise in contemporary Spain. She investigates territorial politics, legislative politics and governance in parliamentary regimes, processes of candidate selection and political appointments, and regime democratization. Her recent book, Why Minority Governments Work: Multilevel Territorial Politics in Spain (Palgrave), examines the performance of minority parliamentary governments in conjunction with the territorial distribution of state power and the territorial interests of political parties. She is a local Affiliate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University and an affiliated researcher at the Observatory of Coalition Governments in Spain, University of Barcelona. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard, a visiting researcher at the Universities of Barcelona and Oslo, Faculty Fellow at the University of California, Irvine, Visiting Fellow at UCI's Center for the Study of Democracy, and Fulbright Senior Researcher in Spain.
Research Interests
Comparative Political Institutions
Comparative Democratization
European Politics
Legislative Politics
Political Parties and Interest Groups
Parliamentary Regimes
Minority Governments
Territorial Politics
Candidate Selection
Governance
Catalan Politics
Countries of Interest
Spain
Publications:
Journal Articles:
Political links between labor unions and leftist political parties have weakened over the last four decades in Western Europe, reducing the former’s influence on the latter. Unions’ prolonged organizational decline suggests that their capacity to pressure left parties should become more limited. We examine whether unions can use general strikes to influence public opinion when left parties in government pursue austerity policies. Executing a distributive lag time series analysis of quarterly public opinion data from 1986 to 2015 in Spain, we find that Socialist governments incurred significant public opinion penalties in the wake of a general strike. Not only did PSOE prime ministers lose confidence from the public, but they also witnessed a significant reduction in voting intentions. In contrast, Spain’s conservative governments incurred no such public opinion penalties in response to general strikes. We conclude that general strikes carry significant political costs for left governments that stray from union ideals. (with Alison Johnston & Kerstin Hamann)
This article examines the organisation of VOX, a new radical right party in Spain. It shows that the party has taken early and uneven steps to build a mass organisation and initially opted for open membership recruitment with participatory organisational elements. Also, the party’s rapid growth and quick entrance into political institutions at different state levels led the party leadership to establish more centralised control and limit members’ prerogatives, though recruitment continued. Centralisation in part responds to organisational needs given the party’s quickly acquired political relevance, but also to the desire of the central party leadership to forestall the articulation of territorial interests, or prevent them from escaping their control. Today, VOX exhibits elements of mass party organisation and highly centralised decision-making in the hands of national party leaders. (with Astrid Barrio and Sonia Alonso Sáenz de Oger)
This study examines whether the sex of the selector matters for advancing women's inclusion in politics and how the political context shapes selectors’ preferences and behaviour. It focuses on an under-researched area – the political appointments ministers make in their ministerial departments – and thus sheds light on the conditions under which women access appointed office. It analyses six governments in Spain between 1996 and 2018, using a mixed methods approach that includes statistical analyses of political appointments and interviews with former ministers. It finds that women ministers, as individuals, did not appoint more women than men ministers did at any time. However, women's presence is highly relevant. In more gender-balanced political contexts, men and women ministers appointed more women. Moreover, the context changed, in part because critical political actors pushed for it. This imbued a new political sphere, subcabinet-appointed offices, with representational significance.
In 2017, Catalonia unilaterally declared independence from Spain. The independence push was not simply a bottom-up process wherein citizens increasingly demanded independence. Catalan political elites were more radical than voters and competitive outbidding to win hegemony in the pro-independence camp fuelled the independence push.
This article analyzes the strategies parties employ during the inter-electoral phase of party competition. It focuses on Spain’s multi-national democracy and how regional-nationalist parties frame their policy proposals in the statewide parliament (Congress of Deputies) for the period 1979–2011. Using the Catalan Convergence and Union (CiU) and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), it examines how frequently the parties rhetorically connect their bill proposals to the center-periphery dimension of party competition, and their justifications of these proposals in parliamentary debate. Challenging the niche party thesis, our findings indicate that the parties frame a small share of bills in center-periphery terms. They most frequently justify their center-periphery bills with reference to legal-constitutional compliance and administrative efficiency and less frequently with reference to culture, citizen rights, and economic performance. This can in part be explained by the fact that these parties are mainstream parties within their regions and operate in a clearly demarcated two-dimensional space in a multilevel state.
This contribution examines party competition between the Catalan Convergence and Union (CiU) and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), two substate nationalist parties, and the statewide governing party based on the degree to which they ally in Spain's statewide parliament. It demonstrates that party competition during statewide minority governments is quite cooperative, though with variation, and statewide majority governments are associated with less cooperation. The weight of properiphery stances in the nationalist parties’ manifestos does not explain the patterns of party competition. In part, their behavior is associated with opportunities to influence policy and interparty competition in their respective regions.
This article analyzes how multilevel territorial politics impact the performance of minority parliamentary governments. It tests whether the governing status of a regional party at the regional level—whether it is governing, and, if so, in which type of cabinet—affects its level of support for a statewide party governing in minority at the national level. Using the Spanish case, it concludes that governing dynamics at the regional level affect regional parties' behavior in the national parliament. Furthermore, a regional party's support for the national government is, in part, dependent upon its own need for support to govern in its region. Both findings suggest that particular regional governing dynamics can assure or complicate a minority government's ability to attain the parliamentary support necessary to govern.
Books Written:
This book is an examination of minority government performance in conjunction with the territorial distribution of state power and the territorial interests of political parties. It examines political institutions, and the reconcilability of party goals and the contingent bargaining circumstances, in multilevel and territorial perspectives.
This edited volume examines the political, social, and economic developments in contemporary Spain, with a particular focus on the period of the Socialist government (2008-11), the 2011 elections, and the challenges facing Spain and the new Popular Party government.
Few would have imagined the developments and the extent of reforms that occurred under Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero between 2004 and 2008. Under Zapatero, Spain rapidly withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq, held a very public political debate on the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship, passed very progressive social legislation that included gay marriage and adoption as well as a sweeping gender equality act, and expanded autonomy in six of Spain’s 17 regions. It has become quite common to refer to some or all of these developments as a ‘second transition’ that alters or revisits policies, institutional arrangements and political strategies that were established during Spain’s transition to democracy. This book analyzes the patterns of continuity and change and provides a nuanced, critical evaluation of the concept of a ‘second transition’. Three broad questions are addressed. First, to what degree do the developments under Zapatero’s Socialist government represent a departure from prior patterns of Spanish politics? Second, what accounts for the continuities and departures? Finally, the project begins to assess the implications of these developments. Are there lasting effects, for example, on political participation, electoral alignments, interparty and inter-regional relations more broadly?
This book analyzes Spanish political parties and institutions in comparative theoretical perspective. Two primary themes are addressed: institutionalization and the distribution of institutionalization in the polity, and the relationship between institutional design and representation .
Media Appearances:
Radio Appearances:
Interview on the results of Spain's parliamentary elections
5 minute interview on the vote of no confidence against the Popular Party government in Spain
Newspaper Quotes:
Comments on the polarized political discourse in Spain.
Quote on the difficulty of forming a government in Spain.
Quote in anticipation of the parliamentary elections in Spain
Quoted on failed government negotiations and elections in Spain
Comments prior to Spain's November 2019 general elections. Also, in Spanish, as, “España vota de nuevo, crisis catalana impulse a ultraderecha.”
Comments on the results of Spain's November 2019 elections
Comments on Spain's November 2019 elections
Quoted on the vote of no confidence against the Popular Party government in Spain
Quoted on the Catalan crisis in Spain
Published interview on the Catalan crisis
On Catalonia & Spain
News article on party discipline in Spain
Blog Posts:
Should governments worry about general strikes? (with Alison Johnston & Kerstin Hamann). Unions can weaken public support for governments they oppose through general strikes—but not if the government is of the right.
Gender, ministers and political appointments. Women fronting governments sends an important signal. Having them in the backrooms of power is however also crucial.
“Is Spain’s Popular Party caught between a silent revolution and a silent counter-revolution?” With Sonia Alonso. On the challenges facing the mainstream right in Western Europe.
Ministros, género y nombramientos políticos en España
¿Deberían los gobiernos preocuparse por las huelgas generales?, with Kerstin Hamann and Alison Johnston.
"Is something wrong with Spain's political leaders?" On the difficulty of forming a government in Spain.
"El consenso y la unidad constitucionales, en cifras." On consensus and unity during Spain's transition to democracy (in Spanish)
“Funcionen els governs minoritaris a Espanya?” On minority governments in Spain. Post in Catalan and in Spanish at the link.
“Do Spain’s minority governments work?”
“Can Spain’s elections on Sunday deliver a functioning government?” with Juan Rodríguez Teruel
"El PNV con los gobiernos en minoría en España." On the behavior of the Basque PNV during minority governments in Spain. Post in Spanish.
"Framing the 2018 Elections: #TrustBlackWomen", with Kristin J. Anderson. On gender, framing and the US elections.
"Finding a way out of the Catalan labyrinth," with Astrid Barrio.
"Is Spain Francoland? No. Has the Catalan crisis damaged Spanish democracy? Yes.", with Astrid Barrio
“What’s Going on in Catalonia?”, with Astrid Barrio
“Without a drastic change in approach, further conflict appears inevitable in Catalonia,” with Astrid Barrio
“Spain is trying to block Catalonia’s independence referendum tomorrow. What’s going on?”, with Astrid Barrio
“Will the new Rajoy minority government in Spain work?”
“Do regional-nationalist parties emphasize the territorial divide in the national parliament? Some lessons from Spain,” with Kerstin Hamann
“Forming a government in Spain: The influence of Spain’s first experience with mass democracy”
“How the next Spanish government might be formed after Spain’s election”
Other:
La derechización del PP en el contexto Europeo, with Sonia Alonso Sáenz de Oger and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser. Newspaper article.