The debate about decentralization in the Spanish Parliament. What does affect the deliberative quality of the discourses?

Abstract

This article aims at continuing the tradition of empirical studies of deliberative democracy. With this purpose, it applies the Discourse Quality Index (DQI) developed by Steiner et al (2004) to the analysis of the Debate sobre el Estado de la Nación in the Spanish Parliament. This work places Spain in a comparative context (comparisons ad extra) and analyses differences among the specific issues addressed in the chamber (comparisons ad intra). Comparative analyses in this article show that institutional elements have important effects on deliberation levels, and also that the ideology of parliamentary groups plays a stronger role in deliberative practices than the relative size of such groups or the specific issues included in the debate.

Keywords

• deliberación
• democracia deliberativa
• descentralización
• Debate sobre el Estado de la Nación
• DQI