Populist contagion or anti-elitism in opposition? PSOE’s response to the emergence of Podemos

This article assesses the possible populist discourse contagion experienced by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) due to the irruption of Podemos. To this end, a content analysis has been carried out on a selection of PSOE manifestos for national and European elections, published between 2004 and 2019. The results show that the evolution of PSOE’s anti-elitism is not necessarily related to the competition with Podemos but to the party’s opposition status, especially in contexts of citizen discontent. Therefore, the main results suggest that the political decline of traditional parties could be a more decisive factor than the emergence and rise of new parties, when explaining the shifts in party identity. In addition, the article shows that populist messages have played three main functions in PSOE’s manifestos: i) to show empathy with and understanding of people’s unrest in contexts of citizen dissatisfaction; ii) to attack the main political competitor when the party is in opposition; and iii) to use economic powers and other elites as scapegoats, especially when the party is in government.