Networks of governmental power in recent democracy. Spain: 2004-2012

This paper aims to analyzing two recent Spanish democratic governments: the Popular Party government in 2012 and the Socialist Party executive in 2004. Both governmental agencies are studied and understood as social networks that emerge from the links their members established in the past when they coincided in different power groups: executive, legislative, political, business and bureaucratic institutions. This study reveals two types of structural elements in both cases: firstly, a high degree of cohesion within each government and, secondly, a relevant set of links that relate the executive to several power groups of the social structure. These "Ëœstructural similarities"„¢ represent potential bias and limitations to democratic action that can be understood as one of the causes of the political crisis that is being currently experienced in Spain.