1. Comparative Extension Projects: Spain Types of data We are developing a comprehensive dataset including information from the late seventies to present, a period long enough to obtain reliable data and results about the functioning of the Spanish democracy. The dataset includes indicators to measure policy decisions (passed laws); the degree of europeization (parliamentary activities); the direction of polity and legislative priorities of the executive and parliamentary groups (bills, annual speeches); symbolic discussions about policy issues (oral questions, bills); and the correspondence between bills and prioritization of issues by the general population (most important question). The indicators can be summarized as follows (more information is included in the tables 1 and 2 attached to this document): Bills (introduced by the government and parliamentary groups) Laws Oral Questions Annual speeches (by the prime minister) Public opinion Media Detailed information about these indicators is included in the tables 1 and 2. Most of the information we plan to code in the first stage of the project (this is for the period 1996 to 2006) is already available in electronic format. There is a database about parliamentary activities of the Spanish Parliament but it follows a completely different coding system which means that we have to recode all the entries. Most public opinion data and media data is also available in electronic format from 1996 to present. Electronic databases make data collection and coding a little bit easier, and reduce the collection of data manually, going through paper versions of parliamentary activities. Project Summary The Spanish political agendas project is aimed to contribute to the analysis of issue prioritization and policy dynamics –how and why the Spanish political agenda changes over time— from transition to democracy to present. The main goal is to identify the variations of the list of problems that are the objects of considerable public attention within the Spanish political system; and to give an explanation of why these variations occur, to what extend issue prioritization follow public preferences, and how policy actors –especially mass-media— contribute to explain the variations of the prioritization of issues across time. This can be summarized as follows: (1)Policy dynamics in Spain: issue prioritization, flows of information and policy actors One of the goals is to contribute to the analysis of issue prioritization, focusing on the following research questions: to what extend transformations at the macro level (transition to democracy, European integration) are related to variations in the prioritization of issues across policy subsystems, and how these variations occurs. The project is aimed to contribute to the analysis of policy dynamics and to test the punctuated equilibrium model for the Spanish case. how policy actors contribute to the transformation of the Spanish political agenda. More specifically, we focus on the role of the media as a new scenario or policy venue in which political actors content or ally in order to impose their ideas, proposals and understandings of policy issues. (2) Public preferences and political decisions The analysis of issue prioritization is an excellent point of departure for the analysis of quality of political representation. The project is aimed to explain to what extend variations in issue prioritization follow public preferences, and whether policymakers are attentive to the prioritization of issues by the public. This line of research is aimed to increase our understanding of how political representation in Spain diverge form other countries and varies among issue areas; and how institutional factors –level of federalism, the relative power of the executive and the Parliament, European integration— explain these differences in political representation and issue prioritization. The Spanish policy agendas project builds on the work done by Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones (1993, 2005) about policy dynamics. It is enclosed in the Policy Agendas Project, an international network of scholars from USA and several European countries aimed to the analysis of issue prioritization and policy dynamics in a comparative perspective. Anna Palau Roque Professora Ajudant de Ciencia Política Universitat de Barcelona apalau@ub.edu Text Resources Most of the information we plan to code in the first stage of the project (this is for the period 1996 to 2006) is already available in electronic format. There is a database about parliamentary activities of the Spanish Parliament but it follows a completely different coding system which means that we have to recode all the entries. Most public opinion data and media data is also available in electronic format from 1996 to present. Electronic databases make data collection and coding a little bit easier, and reduce the collection of data manually, going through paper versions of parliamentary activities. Coding Progress The Spanish Policy Agendas team has already coded by hand all the annual speeches of the prime minister from 1982 to 2006 (25 documents). Features of the coding process: 1.April-may 2007: Adaptation of the USA and Danish codebook to the Spanish case. 2.May-June 2007: Coding the annual speeches Database developed in EXCEL (although we plan to develop the rest of the databases using a special editor compatible with Excel and SPSS) List of variables used are detailed in table 3 attached to this document. 3.All annual speeches are available in electronic format, from 1982 to 1993 in PDF and from 1993 to 2006 in PDF and HTML. legislative activities 1977- 19791979-19821982-19861986-19891989-1993 1993- 1996 1996- 20002000-2004 2004- 2008Total% Popular initiave 3 2 7 6 11 6 350,08 Governments bill 173 347 209 125 137 130 192 175 86 1.5743,39 Parliamentary Groups bills 68 193 108 139 165 140 300 322 198 1.6333,51 other Bills Popositions 11 23 20 21 35 38 39 60 50 2970,64 Decree-laws 63 73 40 20 30 40 85 42 31 4240,91 Other - 2 17 18 6 5 2 12 3 650,14 Total legislative activities 315 638 397 325 380 359 629 611 374 4.0288,67 Control activities Urgent interpelation 143 177 198 136 199 337 193 1.3832,98 Interpelations 129 389 67 37 27 6 4 1 1 6611,42 Oral question plenary meeting 28 12 1.583 1.510 2.003 1.610 2.112 2.280 1.344 12.48226,86 Oral question in committies 120 745 244 1.593 2.464 1.865 2.829 4.016 2.204 16.08034,60 Non-legislative proposals (plenary meetings) 75 21 96 164 272 261 439 849 483 2.6605,72 Non-legislative proposals (commissions) 51 421 128 245 514 692 1.800 2.396 1.710 7.95717,12 Motions 35 75 37 194 145 108 175 242 135 1.1462,47 Other 4 16 11 9 6 10 7 9 7 790,17 total control activities 442 1.679 2.309 3.929 5.629 4.688 7.565 10.130 6.077 42.44891,33 Total 757 2.317 2.706 4.254 6.009 5.047 8.194 10.741 6.451 46.476100,00 Government's billParliamentary Groups' billsothersdecree-lawstotal Legislaturesubmitted % total submittedpassed % total passedsubmittedpassed 1977-197917471,011192,571963183 1979-198234263,923789,419328102367 1982-198620565,918393,410613340239 1986-198912547,010891,514110320141 1989-199312845,410186,315416130148 1993-199613061,011288,98314340169 1996-200019240,417288,728322585284 Total 1.29655,7 1.02490,1 1.031 112 15 380 1.531 Luz Muñoz Marquez Research assistant University of Barcelona luzmunozma@ub.edu Laura Chaqués Bonafont Profesora Titular de Ciencia Política Universidad de Barcelona Avgda. Diagonal 690 08034 Barcelona laurachaques@ub.edu Tel. 34 93 402 1924 Parliamentary activities 1977-2006 Legislative activities, 1977-2000