Álvaro Sánchez-García

Área de Ciencia Política y Administración

Paseo Tomás y Valiente, S/N

Salamanca, 37007

I am a PhD Candidate (ABD, June 20) in the Area of Political Science and Administration at the University of Salamanca. Previously, I studied for a Master’s Degree in Political and Electoral Analysis at the Juan March Foundation (UC3M) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Salamanca. I have been a visiting researcher at the University College Dublin (UCD) School of Politics and International Relations (SPIRe), Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, and Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS) da Universidade de Lisboa.

Currently, I am a member of the research projects “Geography, Polarization and the Rural-Urban Divide in the XXI Century” (UPF) and “Feelings Of left behindness, electoRal behavior, and chanGes in pOliTical compeTition in European couNtries (FORGOTTEN)” (USAL) both funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain. I was also a member of the project “Populism, Policy Preferences and Political Representation” (USAL).

Research lines: political geography, populist radical parties, economic geography and rural-urban studies.

selected publications

Where has everyone gone? Depopulation and voting behaviour in Spain

Álvaro Sánchez-García, Toni Rodon, and Maria Delgado-García

European Journal of Political Research, 2024

Abs Bib HTML PDF

In many European countries, people increasingly leave rural or small municipalities to live and work in urban or metropolitan environments. Although previous work on the ?left behind? places has examined the relationship between the rural?urban divide and vote choice, less is known about how depopulation affects electoral behaviour. Is there a relationship between experiencing a loss in population and support for the different parties? We investigate this question by examining the Spanish case, a country where the topic of depopulation has become a salient issue in political competition. Using a newly compiled dataset, we also explore whether the relationship between depopulation and electoral returns is moderated by municipality size, local compositional changes, the loss of public services and changes in amenities. Our findings show that depopulated municipalities give higher support to the main Conservative party, mainly in small municipalities. Yet, municipalities on the brink of disappearance are more likely to give larger support to the far-right. Results overall show that the effect of depopulation seems to be driven by compositional changes, and not as a result of losing public services or a deterioration of the vibrancy of the town. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of the relationship between internal migration and electoral behaviour.
@article{sanchezwhere_2024, title = {Where has everyone gone? Depopulation and voting behaviour in Spain}, author = {S{\'a}nchez-Garc{\'i}a, {\'A}lvaro and Rodon, Toni and Delgado-Garc{\'i}a, Maria}, journal = {European Journal of Political Research}, doi = {10.1111/1475-6765.12702}, pages = {296-319}, volume = {64}, number = {1}, year = {2024}, }
Different sides, same story. Common factors that contributed to the success of the populist radical parties in Spain

Álvaro Sánchez-García, and Imanol Negral

Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 2023

Abs Bib HTML PDF

Voting for Populist Radical Parties (PRPs) in Europe has been a frequent subject of study in recent decades. However, little research has analysed the common factors between ideologically opposed PRPs. In this article we fill this gap in the literature from an ecological perspective at the municipal level. Using the cases of Podemos and Vox in Spain, we analyse whether the same characteristics at the municipal level explain the electoral perfor mance of both parties. To address this question we use the results of the four general elections in which both parties have run. The results confirm an archetype of municipal-level characteristics that explain the success of both PRPs in Spain. These parties had more support in (sub-)urban contexts; with high levels of political disaffection and high incomes. Furthermore, we compare these findings with the pre-existing literature for their European peers and test the peculiarity of the Spanish case.
@article{sanchezdifferent2023, title = {Different sides, same story. Common factors that contributed to the success of the populist radical parties in {Spain}}, author = {S{\'a}nchez-Garc{\'i}a, {\'A}lvaro and Negral, Imanol}, journal = {Journal of Contemporary European Studies}, doi = {10.1080/14782804.2023.2230158}, pages = {228–245}, volume = {32}, number = {1}, year = {2023}, }