El apoyo al Estado Autonómico 35 años después de la LOFCA

Resumen:El Estado Autonómico ha sido una continua fuente de polémicas y de debates desde que se empezara a debatir la Constitución. Su naturaleza se ha sometido a numerosas presiones de diferentes sentidos y desde distintos ámbitos. El presente trabajo, traza el perfil de los apoyos que tiene esta forma de organización del Estado. Para ello empleamos los barómetros autonómicos elaborados por el Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas que son la principal fuente de información disponible. A partir de los mismos determinamos los grupos de población que constituyen sus principales apoyos y qué características tienen.Abstract:The State of Autonomies has generated controversies and debates since the inception of the discussion of the Spanish Constitution. Its nature has-been subjected to many different directions and Pressures from areas. This paper outlines the profile of the supports to this form of organization of the State and the way it has evolved over the crisis. To this end, article theoretically focus the issue and concludes that the studies that characterize, in a descriptive way, support for the Autonomous State in Spain are very scarce and this happens even despite ongoing debates that generated its existence and how it works. For this purpose the Regional Barometers developed by the Center for Sociological Research are used. These surveys are the main source of information available. We use the latest available waves (2010-2012) latest can be compared. We base our work on the answers given to the question referred to the form of state organization in preferred Spain. Specifically, we have analyzed in depth the answer "A state with autonomous regions as today". Additionally, we have also studied aggregation of the three responses that accept the Autonomous Communities even in a broad sense, considering both an increase and a reduction of powers they currently have. They help us with establishing the population groups that support the State of Autonomies, as well as some features that favor this form of government or run against it. To conduct this study, we proceed to make a descriptive analysis of the data in the first part of the article to study Autonomous State support in various population groups. In this study, we classify population by gender, age, place of residence, education level, Autonomous Community of residence or vote recall in the last election. In addition, we also consider the time evolution of such support. In a second part, we incorporate the econometric analysis to study these same issues. Thus, we get to perform an accurate description of factors that favor such support. At the same time, we get a quantitative measure of the importance of each of these elements. Logistic regression, also called logit model, is used because endogenous variables are dichotomous. Different models are estimated using sequential aggregations of variables to test estimated coefficients robustness and variation thereof. Explanatory variables included in the estimated models capture social and economic situations of individuals. Specifically, we have estimated models controlling for age and gender, education level, religion level, ideology, residence in rural or urban areas, public employee status and vote recall in the case of Autonomies Communities that tend to vote nationalist parties by majority. The main results obtained in the work are as follows. As regards the descriptive data analysis, Autonomous State as form of government remains as the main option, however we find a very important overall reduction in support. This decline is quantified in twelve percentage points. By population groups, support is higher among men than among women and tends to decrease with age; although the greatest reduction occurred among younger people. In general, supports tend to decrease with educational level. The biggest reduction in support has been experienced among people living in urban areas. While in 2010 there were no differences with rural areas, two years after, support in large cities had been reduced in an important way. Autonomous Community of residence is another factor that explains important differences in support for Autonomous State. There has been a significant reduction in all with the exception of the Basque Country. This fall becomes 35 percentage points in the case of residents of Autonomous Community of Murcia. Ideology is another factor that contributes to satisfaction with Autonomous State. Individuals with center-left-wing views are the most supporters of this form of state organization. Additionally, support drops when people move across the ideological spectrum towards a rightward direction. Vote in former elections confirms this find. Support among PSOE voters in former general elections increase, and also highlights significant setback experienced among PP and UPyD voters. On the other hand, Autonomous support becomes almost testimonial or non-existent among voters of Catalan nationalist parties, CiU and ERC. Finally, voters of PNV are the only ones that increased support for this form of government. Having described statistically props, the econometric analysis allows debugging these results. Likewise, it also allows inferring ultimate effects of each of explanatory factors. In this sense, the main obtained results are as follows: a) the estimated coefficients are quite robust. b) Economic crisis has caused a significant reduction in the support. The analysis quantifies the impact by 34% c) there is a lesser support level among men, older people and residents in rural areas. Econometric analysis finds evidence that educational level is not an important feature when explaining Autonomous support. The outcome is different to what is expected after descriptive approach. Public employees give preference to Autonomous State lesser extent than other groups and we can confirm the significant differences that exist between regions. Galician, Andalusians and residents in Foral CCAA support greater extent than the rest of the country. Most of the rejection to this form of government in Catalonia and the Basque Country is limited to nationalist parties’ voters, however in the latter case; there is significant support for the system. Econometric analysis also confirms a greater support among center-left wing people. Finally, we study Autonomous State from a broad perspective. The estimated results are not significantly different from the former case; however residence in rural areas is no longer an explanatory aspect. Canarias now make up the group of CCAA where there is strong support for Autonomous State and reside in Catalonia no longer reduces the supports. Centrist voters, in a very broad sense, are those who support the system and have been PNV voter is not an issue that adversely affect in supporting Autonomous State broadly.