La dimension simbolica de la representacion politica en el Parlamento espanol

In: Revista española de ciencia política, Heft 35, S. 91-112

Abstract

El estudio de la representacion politica suele centrarse en el analisis de sus dimensiones descriptiva y sustantiva, desatendiendo lo que se conoce como representacion simbolica, debido fundamentalmente a la dificultad de su tratamiento teorico y analitico. El objetivo de este articulo es realizar una propuesta teorico-metodologica para la medicion de la dimension simbolica y presentar su aplicacion practica al caso espanol a traves del analisis del discurso de representantes de las Cortes Generales en el periodo legislativo 2000-2004. Asi pues, se utilizo la tecnica de la entrevista en profundidad para conocer las percepciones que sobre la representacion politica tienen representantes de ambos sexos, cubriendo todo el espectro ideologico y con representacion en ambas Camaras. Por otra parte, se ofrece un marco teorico novedoso para el estudio cualitativo de la representacion politica que tenga en cuenta no solo los atributos del actor sino del contexto en el que se situan. De esta manera, la hipotesis principal que se verifica es que las variaciones en los discursos que los parlamentarios tienen sobre la representacion simbolica responden tanto a atributos propios del actor - 'masa critica' y/o 'actores criticos' - como del contexto institucional y legislativo - 'contextos criticos' - en el que se situan The study of political representation is usually centred in the analysis of descriptive and substantive dimensions, leaving behind what is known as symbolic representation, mainly due to the difficulty in its theoretical and analytical treatment. The aim of this article is to approach a theoretical and methodological proposal to measure the symbolic dimension and show its practical application to the Spanish case by means of the discourse analysis of MPs during the 2000-2004 legislative period. Hence, it is used the in-depth interview technique to know the perceptions that about the political representation have MPs of both sexes, covering the whole ideological spectrum and with representation in both Chambers. Moreover, the article offers a new theoretical framework for the qualitative study of political representation that takes into account not only the actors' attributes but also the context in which they are placed. In this sense, the main hypothesis verified is that the speeches that MPs have about symbolic representation would vary according to the actors attributes -'critical mass' and/or 'critical actors'- and to the institutional and legislative context - 'critical contexts' - in which they are located. Adapted from the source document.