Carolina Bescansa is a Spanish politician and political scientist who co-founded the political party Podemos. She was a representative for Madrid in the Spanish

Congress of Deputies The Congress of Deputies ( es, link=no, Congreso de los Diputados, italic=unset) is the lower house of the Cortes Generales, Spain's legislative branch. The Congress meets in the Palace of the Parliament () in Madrid. It has 350 members elect ...

from 2016 to 2019.

Academic work

Bescansa is from

Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of S ...

. She studied Sociology and Political Science in Grenada and Madrid, focusing specifically on political sociology and the study of constitutional law. After graduating in 1994, she did a specialist degree in constitutional law at the

Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies The Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies (, CEPC), previously known as the Institute for Political Studies (), is an autonomous agency associated with the Ministry for the Presidency of Spain. Its mission is to analyze the internation ...

. She then became a doctoral student at the

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid ( es, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; UCM, links=no, ''Universidad de Madrid'', ''Universidad Central de Madrid''; la, Universitas Complutensis Matritensis, links=no) is a public research university loc ...

, and in the 1999–2000 school year she participated in an Education Abroad Program at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

. In 1995, she began to teach political science classes at the Complutense University of Madrid, where she became a member of the political science faculty specializing in the methodology of political science research.

Political career

Bescansa was a co-founder of the political party Podemos, officially registering it as a political party on March 11, 2014 together with

Pablo Iglesias Turrión Pablo Iglesias Turrión (; born 17 October 1978) is a Spanish political scientist and former politician. During his political career, he served as Second Deputy Prime Minister and as Minister of Social Rights and 2030 Agenda of the Government ...

and

Juan Carlos Monedero Juan Carlos Monedero Fernández-Gala (born 12 January 1963) is a Spanish political scientist and writer. He is a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid and a host of '' La Tuerka''. He was one of the leading members of Podemos until ...

. In 2014, Bescansa was not on the party list of Podemos, but that year she was elected to the Citizens' Council of the party with about 85% of the votes. This made her the most powerful woman and one of the three most powerful people in the party organization. Bescansa also used her expertise as a political science methodologist in her partisan work, heading the party's political analysis unit and analysing its surveys. In the

2015 Spanish general election The 2015 Spanish general election was held on Sunday, 20 December 2015, to elect the 11th Cortes Generales of the Kingdom of Spain. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 266 seats in the Senate. At exac ...

, Bescansa was ranked second on the Podemos party list to the Congress of Deputies for the Madrid constituency, and she won the seat. She launched a candidacy for

President of the Congress of Deputies The president of the Congress of Deputies ( es, Presidente del Congreso de los Diputados) is the speaker of the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Cortes Generales (the Spanish parliament). The president is elected among the members o ...

, but lost the race to

Patxi López Francisco Javier "Patxi" López Álvarez (; born 4 October 1959) is a Spanish politician serving as Member of the Congress of Deputies and chair of the Constitutional Committee. Previously, he has served as President of the Autonomous Communi ...

. In 2017, Bescansa publicly split with the leadership of Podemos, and left her positions within the party. She was subsequently affiliated with a coalition of

Más País Más País, or More Country, is a political party in Spain. It was an electoral platform formed by Íñigo Errejón around Más Madrid in order to contest the November 2019 Spanish general election. The party is positioned on the left-wing of the ...

and

Equo Greens Equo (and formerly Q or eQuo) is a Spanish political party founded on 4 June 2011, when 35 Spanish green parties agreed to merge into Equo. It began as a foundation on 24 September 2010 with the goal of becoming "the seed and source of deb ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bescansa, Carolina Living people 21st-century Spanish women politicians Members of the 12th Congress of Deputies (Spain) Complutense University of Madrid alumni Academic staff of the Complutense University of Madrid University of California, San Diego alumni Podemos (Spanish political party) politicians Women political scientists Spanish political scientists Year of birth missing (living people)