Dictatorships and absolute monarchies concentrate power in one person or a small elite; nobody disputes that. What is disturbing is that many formal democracies reproduce the same logic behind a pluralist facade: leaderships that decide, subordinates who obey and tamed checks and balances. Concentrated power, corruption and no accountability. Is Spain a horizontal democracy or a disguised hierarchy?
Facade democracies
Some regimes make no secret of their hierarchical nature: autocracies and theocracies where power flows from the top down without any control. But there is a category that is harder to detect: States that hold elections and proclaim the separation of powers while, in practice, maintaining chains of command that drain pluralism, transparency and oversight of any meaning. International reports on the quality of democracy show that this drift is not confined to distant countries. The question is whether Spain is safe from it.
The executive: obedience before independence
The government directs the civil and military administration and, through it, deeply hierarchical structures such as the Armed Forces and the State security forces. That hierarchy is reasonable in an operational chain of command, but it becomes dangerous when it reaches institutions that ought to act impartially.
The clearest case is the Public Prosecution Service: organised on the principle of hierarchical dependence and headed by a Prosecutor General appointed on the government's proposal. International bodies such as GRECO have recommended strengthening the prosecution service's autonomy from the executive. When whoever decides what gets investigated depends on whoever governs, the suspicion of political subordination is inevitable.
The legislature: pluralism hijacked by party leaderships
Parliament should be the natural home of pluralism and debate. Yet it suffers from a structural problem: the major parties share an interest in staying in power or taking turns in it, which makes almost impossible any reform that would put their privileges at risk.
- Closed, blocked lists reward loyalty to the party leadership rather than ties with voters.
- Voting discipline turns MPs into executors of decisions taken at the top.
- The result is a legislature that often operates as an extension of the executive instead of scrutinising it.
The judiciary: independence in question
The judiciary should be the ultimate guarantor of legality. But its very structure fuels doubts. The special jurisdictional privilege of judges and magistrates creates a sense of impunity, and the election of members of the General Council of the Judiciary by Parliament has turned the judges' governing body into an object of partisan carve-ups, as the European Commission's Rule of Law Reports have repeatedly warned.
This politicisation at the top projects a devastating image: that of judges more concerned with securing support for promotion than with applying the law impartially.
A democracy does not die only in a coup: it also fades when every check learns to obey.
Tamed checks and balances
In a healthy democracy, other actors keep watch over power. In Spain, their capacity for oversight also appears compromised:
- The press: dependence on institutional advertising and public subsidies limits the independence of a good number of media outlets, which go from watching power to accompanying it.
- The Ombudsman: elected by Parliament, the office is often perceived as closer to inter-party bargaining than to the uncomfortable defence of citizens.
- The Constitutional Court: its twelve judges are appointed by the Congress, the Senate, the government and the General Council of the Judiciary, a system that has encouraged reading its decisions along bloc lines and feeds the image of a guardian of immobility rather than of the Constitution.
From pyramid to network
Hierarchical structures, whether explicit or concealed, are a serious danger to any democracy. Spain faces the challenge of turning them into more horizontal, transparent and participatory systems. That requires:
- A prosecution service with real autonomy from the government.
- A system for electing the judiciary's governing body and the Constitutional Court free from partisan carve-ups.
- Open electoral lists and a stronger link between representatives and the represented.
- Media and oversight bodies free from financial dependence on those in power.
Real progress does not mean changing who sits at the top, but dismantling the pyramid. Those who benefit from it will not do so of their own accord: the task belongs to organised, demanding citizens.