This blog post is based on an article published in the Journal of Social Policy by Llorenç Soler-Buades.
The Puzzle of Consensus in Fragmented Systems
Under what political and institutional conditions can inclusive social policies secure consensus amid ideological and territorial fragmentation?
Spain illustrates this puzzle. For decades, Spain operated a minimum income system that was both fragile in institutional terms and fragmented across regions. Social assistance remained in limbo: neither wide-reaching nor effective in addressing poverty and social exclusion. This changed in June 2020, when Spain’s first left-wing coalition government introduced the Ingreso Mínimo Vital (IMV). Widely regarded as one of the most ambitious minimum income schemes in recent EU history, the IMV has extended coverage to nearly 400,000 additional households, although non-take-up has remained high.
Yet, on theoretical grounds, this reform should have been difficult to achieve. In ideologically and territorially fragmented party systems, reaching consensus on rights-based minimum income schemes is typically difficult. This is especially true given the IMV’s design: a comparatively generous national benefit, without work-related conditionality, and with broad eligibility for immigrants. Conservative, radical-right, and regionalist parties all had political incentives to resist such reform. The radical right Vox was expected to oppose the IMV on welfare-chauvinist grounds, while conservatives were anticipated to echo demands for stricter conditionality. At the same time, territorial polarisation gave regionalist parties their own reasons to resist, since authority over social assistance is central to their institutional autonomy and political legitimacy. And yet, broad cross-party support emerged. How and why did this occur?
This article builds on the ‘explaining-outcome process tracing’ method and finds that reform unfolded through a two-step process: agenda-setting and inter-party negotiation among national and regional cabinets.
Agenda-Setting (2014–2019)
Strong socio-political demand pushed a national minimum income scheme onto the political agenda. Trade unions, alarmed by unemployment and poverty, highlighted the failures of Spain’s dual labour market and pressed for a non-contributory minimum income to support the long-term unemployed. Anti-poverty organisations intensified their advocacy, nudging left-wing parties to endorse a stronger safety net. The EU added momentum through country-specific recommendations. Party politics amplified these pressures: Podemos, entering the scene in 2014 with a universal basic income proposal, forced the Socialist Party (PSOE) to sharpen its own agenda. By 2019, both parties had embraced statewide, means-tested minimum income schemes as a policy priority.
Multi-Level Negotiations (2019–2020)
The 2019 elections brought PSOE and Unidas Podemos into coalition. For the first time, a minimum income scheme was written into a governing agreement. Still, securing parliamentary approval remained the main obstacle. The coalition controlled only 153 of the 176 votes needed for a majority. Support from Basque and Catalan parties was far from guaranteed, since in highly decentralised systems regionalist parties often guard their autonomy and use social policy to strengthen regional legitimacy. How, then, did the coalition succeed?
Multi-level institutions enabled unexpected but fluid interactions between national and regional executives, offering two paths forward: (1) integrating the national scheme into existing welfare structures without undermining regional authority—often shifting costs from regions to the state—or (2) delegating policy competencies to regional governments. In this way, decentralisation did not block reform but instead provided the “institutional toolbox” for multilevel governance, enabling strategic exchanges between national and regional cabinets. For example, the Basque Nationalist Party secured the transfer of social security competencies in exchange for supporting the measure. Other regionalist parties with less bargaining power—and not decisive for the parliamentary majority—did not oppose the reform because the compatibility of the IMV with existing regional schemes allowed regional governments to save resources at a moment of fiscal pressure.
Explaining Consensus on Welfare Expansion
Meanwhile, the pandemic reshaped welfare politics on the right. Some conservative and far-right actors softened their opposition, choosing to support or abstain from the reform. Their backing, however, came with caveats, reflecting ongoing debates over benefit conditionality and welfare chauvinism. Therefore, the Spanish experience demonstrates that party system fragmentation does not preclude inclusive welfare expansion. Instead, it becomes possible when societal pressure and left-party competition align with institutional channels that facilitate productive bargaining across levels of government.
Reference
Soler-Buades, Llorenç. 2025. “The Politics of Minimum Income Reform in Spain: Explaining Unexpected and Consensual Path Departure.” Journal of Social Policy: 1–18. doi: 10.1017/S0047279425000078.
About the Authors
Llorenç Soler-Buades is a Max Weber Fellow, European University Institute, Florence, Italy.
