The political show: How theatricalized is the hostility in the Spanish parliament?

This study tests the theatricalization hypothesis in the Spanish Parliament, defined as the difference between the rhetoric employed by Members of Parliament in frontstage (Plenary Sessions) and backstage (Legislative Committees) settings. Drawing on a balanced random sample from a corpus of over 200,000 speeches delivered between 1996 and 2023, we apply natural language processing tools to compute a Negative Sentiment Index and an Anger Index. Results statistically demonstrate an increase in theatricalization from 2017 onward, with large effect sizes. This effect is moderated by party affiliation and by the party’s power position (government or opposition).