The ERC: from a single-issue to a mainstream party?

Abstract

AbstractThis article is a case study of how a single-issue party has been transformed into a mainstream party. Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, (Republican Left of Catalonia – ERC) secured the presidency of the Catalan government in 2021 but has a 90-year history. This article shows how such a long-established party, which preached little but independence at the beginning of the 1990s, has transformed into another type of party in 2021. The ERC has changed part of its ideological discourse in the last decade and incorporated new elites. All this has transformed what was once a single-issue party with a vote share of around 5% into a party that regularly achieves more than 20%. Through an in-depth study, based on the history of the party, its elites, discourse, and election results, this article discusses the concepts of single-issue and mainstream parties by looking at the evolution of the ERC.

Keywords

• ERC
• single-issue party
• catch-all party
• mainstream party
• Catalan politics
• regional parties