International Journal of Iberian Studies - Volume 35, Issue 2, 2022

This article inquiries about the use of Twitter by the two radical right-wing populist Iberian parties, the Spanish VOX and the Portuguese Chega, during election campaigning. Using quantitative and qualitative methodologies, it analyses the tweets posted on their official accounts during the campaign running up to the last general elections held in Spain and Portugal. The results indicate diverging uses of Twitter and differences in their thematic political agendas. VOX chiefly exploits people’s feelings of national unity in the face of Spain’s peripheral nationalism and stirs up fear of illegal immigration. Chega cultivates a sense of insecurity to legitimize its punitive legalistic proposals, such as applying the life sentence and the chemical castration of paedophiles. VOX more frequently employs colloquial and aggressive language. These differences reflect the asymmetric positions of power occupied by the two parties but do not jeopardize the development of an Iberian-inspired radical-right populism.

Este artículo analiza la utilización de Twitter por los dos partidos ibéricos de derecha radical: VOX (España) y Chega (Portugal) en periodo de campaña electoral. La investigación, desde una metodología cuantitativa y cualitativa, incluye los tuits publicados en sus perfiles oficiales durante las últimas elecciones legislativas de Portugal y España. Los resultados indican usos muy diferenciados de Twitter e divergencias con respecto a la temática de sus agendas políticas. VOX explota los sentimientos de unidad nacional frente al nacionalismo periférico y agita el miedo a la inmigración ilegal. Chega construye la sensación de inseguridad para legitimar sus propuestas legalistas punitivas, como la aplicación de la cadena perpetua y la castración química de pedófilos. El lenguaje coloquial y agresivo está más presente en la comunicación de VOX. Estas diferencias traducen la asimetría de las posiciones con respecto al poder ocupado por los dos partidos y no comprometen el proyecto de un populismo de derecha radical de inspiración ibérica.

In the summer of 1965, several youths were arrested and publicly shamed by the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR) in Lagos, on the Algarve, for the ‘crime’ of homosexuality. Despite the silence of official and press channels on the events, the arrests were analysed by two foreign sources, one a German police science journal and the other a British volume on homosexuality in society. What the sources reveal is that rather than public opprobrium against the youths, indignation was expressed at the GNR’s actions. Sympathy for the young men was engendered in on-lookers in what this article terms an act of ‘emotional rescue’ and resistance against the norms, values and practices of the dictatorship. By means of the contextualization of the events as part of the rising tourist economy and recent queer theory, the article contributes an alternative understanding of LGBT history and resistance to authoritarian regimes.

No verão de 1965, vários jovens foram presos e publicamente envergonhados pela GNR (Guarda Nacional Republicana) em Lagos, no Algarve, pelo ‘crime’ de homossexualidade. Apesar do silêncio dos canais oficiais e da imprensa sobre os acontecimentos, a detenção dos jovens foi analisada por duas fontes estrangeiras, um jornal de ciência policial alemão e um volume britânico sobre homossexualidade na sociedade. O que as fontes revelam é que mais do que o opróbrio público contra os jovens, manifestou-se a indignação pública perante a actuação da GNR. A simpatia pelos jovens foi engendrada nos espectadores no que este artigo denomina um ato de ‘resgate emocional’ e resistência às normas, valores e práticas da ditadura. Por meio da contextualização dos eventos como parte da economia turística em ascensão e da teoria queer recente, o artigo contribui para uma compreensão alternativa da história LGBT e da resistência a regimes autoritários.

In spite of significant interest in British responses to the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), the raft of eyewitness accounts which hitherto anonymous Britons relayed to the regional press during the opening months of the conflict are yet to receive systematic attention. By using Britons who were present in Catalonia between July and September 1936 as a case study, this article seeks to reconstruct the multifaceted process by which numerous eyewitness testimonies came into existence, as well as their subsequent relationship to broader debates about the Civil War in Britain. It argues that the lived encounters which were sustained between both tourists and long-term residents with the revolutionary events which took place in Catalonia following the military rising in July were fundamentally circumscribed by their status as foreigners, as well as their tendency to rationalize their experiences with the aid of pre-existing, culturally rooted stereotypes and assumptions. British reactions generated ‘on the ground’ in Spain were subsequently converted into supposedly authoritative first-hand testimonies in close cooperation with local journalists eager for sensational ‘human interest’ content, before going on to form an early input into the widespread attitude that the Spanish Civil War amounted to little more than incomprehensible anarchy.

A pesar del interés que existe respecto las reacciones británicas a la Guerra Civil Española (1936–39), los testimonios que docenas de personas de origen británico transmitieron a la prensa regional durante los primeros meses de la contienda, nunca han sido un objeto de investigación sistemática. A través de un estudio de caso sobre aquellos británicos que se encontraron en Cataluña entre julio y septiembre de 1936, este artículo pretende reconstruir el multifacético proceso a partir del que surgieron dichos testimonios. Asimismo, también se pretende indagar en la relación que estos tuvieron con los debates más amplios que se estaban desarrollando sobre la guerra en Reino Unido. Se sostiene que los encuentros que tuvieron lugar entre los británicos en Cataluña con los acontecimientos revolucionarios que sucedían a su alrededor fueron circunscritos por su estatus como extranjeros y una tendencia a racionalizar sus experiencias a través de varias suposiciones preconcebidas. Sus experiencias se convertían, después de volver a Gran Bretaña, en testimonios escritos como consecuencia de una íntima colaboración con periodistas en busca de contenido sensacionalista. Aquellos testimonios formaron una primera contribución a la actitud predominante de que la Guerra Civil no representaba más que una especie de anarquía incomprensible.

Review of: Following Franco: Spanish Culture and Politics in Transition, Duncan Wheeler (2020)

Manchester: Manchester University Press, 401 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-52610-518-9, h/bk, £25.00

Review of: Envejecimientos y cines ibéricos, Barbara Zecchi, Raquel Medina, Cristina Moreiras-Menor and María Pilar Rodríguez (eds) (2021)

Valencia: Tirant Humanidades, 565 pp.,

ISBN 978-8-41880-220-1, p/bk, €37.91, e-book, €24.00

Review of: Iberian and Translation Studies: Literary Contact Zones, Esther Gimeno Ugalde, Marta Pacheco Pinto and Ângela Fernandes (eds) (2021)

Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 384 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-80085-690-5, h/bk, £100.00

ISBN 978-1-80085-740-7, e-book, £100.00