Guillem Vidal Lorda

Welcome! I am a social science researcher at the Joint Research Center, where I am part of the DIGCLASS project focusing on the interaction between inequality, digitalization and social policy.

I obtained my Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute. I have also been a postdoctoral researcher at the Berlin Social Science Center and at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institut.

With a background in economics and international relations, I have a multidisciplinary approach to my areas of interest, which span across the fields of comparative politics, political economy, and political sociology.

My work has been published in West European Politics, Party Politics, Nations & Nationalism and Cambridge University Press, among others. You can have a look at my publications and my profile on Google scholar and Researchgate, where most of my work can be dowloaded in open access.

selected publications

WEP

Challenging business as usual? The rise of new parties in Spain in times of crisis

Vidal, Guillem

West European Politics, 2018

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The two-party system in Spain collapsed in the aftermath of the Great Recession with the appearance of two new parties, Podemos and Ciudadanos. How are we to understand the sudden emergence of these new formations? Using 2015 and 2016 post-electoral survey data to map the ideological space and model voting behaviour, it is shown that economic voting is only part of the story. This article contends that the transformations in the Spanish party system are best understood through the prism of the crisis of representation that unfolded alongside the severe economic crisis. It is dissatisfaction with the political system that drives the vote for both new parties. The results also show that a unidimensional ideological structure and a generational divide cut across these critical attitudes. The young and politically dissatisfied are more likely to vote for new parties, each on different sides of the ideological spectrum.
Party Politics

Old versus new politics: The political spaces in Southern Europe in times of crises

Hutter, Swen, Kriesi, Hanspeter, and Vidal, Guillem

Party Politics, 2018

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The article focuses on the party political spaces in four Southern European countries (i.e. Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) since the onset of the Euro crisis. To understand the emerging conflict structures, it argues for the need to consider that these countries simultaneously face an economic crisis and a political crisis and that both crises have strong domestic and European components. Moreover, the major driving forces of change tend to be social movements and political parties that forcefully combine opposition to austerity and to ?old politics.? This leads to a complex conflict structure shaped by struggles over austerity and political renewal. In this structure, divides over economic and political issues are closely aligned with each other. While this pattern emerges everywhere, there are distinct country differences. Empirically, the article relies on original data from a large-scale content analysis of national election campaigns in the four countries in the period 2011 to 2015.