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RESEARCH PRODUCT

A Spanish 'Yes, we can!' against the two-party system: the development of political party Podemos

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This article develops an analysis of the internal functioning of the Spanish party Podemos and its structural make-up. The used methodology consists of: 1) a descriptive analysis of the development of Podemos, based on the available information in the media; 2) an analysis centered on the presence of Podemos in social networks and the mainstream media, in addition to electoral results and polls. The analysis attempts to determine the following: the party’s decision-making process, along with the type of relationships established between leaders and supporters; to what extent the Internet is used as a primary tool for organization, mobilization and political propaganda; and the extent of the clash or harmony within the interparty’s dynamics: on one hand, the bottom-up structure of the citizen assemblies and, on the other, the top-down structure inferred from Pablo Iglesias’s hyper-leadership and the media presence of the party’s principal leaders.