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Despite the widespread attention attracted by Spain's remarkable transition from General Franco's repressive dictatorship to a dynamic democracy, this is the first comprehensive study in English of the new Spanish political system. The book introduces the main institutions and features of the contemporary Spanish state and assesses to what extent these still bear the imprint of the Francoist legacy. Despite some remaining obstacles and difficulties, Paul Heywood argues, the country is now decisively in the political mainstream of the new Europe.
This book explores why some people become politicians, how they represent citizens in parliaments, and what they think about democracy and its institutions. It analyses the results of the first survey of a representative sample of Spanish MPs (580 cases) and citizens. The study covers areas such as: social profiles; recruitment and selection; women in parliaments; motivation for politics; perception of the representative function and how this is affected by corruption, disaffection and mistrust; national and regional identities; ideology; the functioning of parliamentary groups, and perceptions about the EU. The case of Spain is used to demonstrate how MPs' values, opinions and attitudes conflict and complement with those of the citizens they are supposed to represent. Through a systematic comparison between MPs and citizens, the contributions deal with topics that are key to understanding how democracies work and the role played by MPs.
With a focus predominantly on the two governments of José Maria Aznar between 1996 and 2004, and the José Luis Zapatero government after 2004, this book provides an introduction for students of Spain's history and its contemporary politics.
Essay from the year 2017 in the subject Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 5.50, Anglia Ruskin University, language: English, abstract: Spain was established as a social and democratic state, respecting the rule of law and advocating higher goals: establishment of the legal order, protecting freedom, justice, equality on all base and pluralism in politics. The people of Spain have their national sovereignty – from it are derived the powers of the state as such. Parliamentary monarchy is the political form of the Spanish state. The King is the symbol of the unity and perseverance of its country. As such he supervises the everyday functioning of the institutions. In the present paper, I will investigate the political system of Spain, its benefits, and flaws, as well as the future challenges posed in front of the country.
Contemporary Spain is virtually unrecognisable compared with what it was like when General Franco died in 1975. Since 1975 the country has undergone a dramatic political transformation. This book provides the first comprehensive assessment of the government and politics of democratic Spain, setting its distinctive features in both historical and comparative context. The book pays particular attention to the devolved and regional character of Spanish government, the role of the monarchy and the constitution and the evolution of the political parties since the downfall of the dictatorship.
The Politics of Contemporary Spain charts the trajectory of Spanish politics since the transition to democracy through to the present day, including the aftermath of the Madrid bombings.
Contemporary Spanish Politics gives fresh insight into the formal and informal workings of this dynamic southern European democracy. It thoroughly discusses the history, politics, institutions, parties, economy and foreign policy of Spain at an introductory level ideal for an undergraduate audience. Each chapter provides a research-based overview of the studied topic which can then be used as the basis for further research by students. The key themes of the book are: recent history of Spain after Franco's death the political culture of the country the institutional framework foreign policy including the reaction to the global anti-terrorist coalition the policy making process and the system of interest intermediation the party system and electoral process the dynamics of regional politics (emphasizing Catalan, Basque and Galician nationalism) the political economy the external relations of the country within and towards the European Union, the Mediterranean and Latin America.
The Oxford Handbook of Spanish Politics provides a comprehensive and comparative overview of the Spanish political system through the lens of political science. It aims to move away from a complacent analysis of Spanish democracy and provide a nuanced view of some of its strengths and challenges. The Handbook introduces Spanish politics to an international audience of scholars and practitioners. It is structured around six sections that cover Spain's political history, institutional changes, elections, civil society, policy-making, and foreign affairs. The volume brings together a distinguished group of 47 internationally renowned scholars who study Spain in its own right, or as a case among others in a comparative perspective. The contributors provide expert accounts of contemporary Spain, making the Oxford Handbook of Spanish Politics an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Spanish politics and government since the country's transition to democracy.
This book addresses the changing relationships among political participation, political representation, and popular mobilization in Spain from the 1766 protest in Madrid against the early Bourbon reforms until the citizen revolution of 1868 that first introduced universal suffrage and led to the ousting of the monarchy. Popular Participation and the Democratic Imagination in Spain shows that a notion of the “crowd” internally dividing the concept of “people” existed before the advent of Liberalism, allowing for the enduring subordination of popular participation to representation in politics. In its wider European and colonial American context, the study analyzes semantic changes in a range of cultural spheres, from parliamentary debate to historical narrative and aesthetics. It shows how Liberalism had trouble reproducing the legitimacy of limited suffrage and traces the evolution of an imagination on democracy that would allow for the reconfiguration of an all-encompassing image of the people eventually overcoming representative government. “Focused on the nation and identities, Spanish historiography had a pending debt with that other historical subject of modernity, the people. With this book, Pablo Sánchez León starts cancelling the debt with an innovative methodology combining conceptual history with social and political history. Brilliantly, this books also proposes a novel chronology for modern history and renewed categories of analysis. In many senses, this is an extraordinarily renovating senior work.” —José María Portillo Valdés, University of the Basque Country, Spain “This book by Pablo Sánchez León is an original and detailed study of one of the essential components of modernity, the relation between the concepts of plebe and pueblo. The author shows that plebe and people were shaped in a process of mutual differentiation and how the enduring tension between them deeply marked out the evolution of Spanish politics from the end of the Old Regime and throughout the 19th century. As the author brilliantly argues, such tension is tightly imbricated with the enduring dilemma between representation and participation underlying modern political systems. Through a historical analysis of the influence of people and plebe over Spanish, the book makes clear the degree to which the power of language contributes to shape political actors and institutional frames.” —Miguel Ángel Cabrera — Professor, University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain “Most accounts of Spain’s transition to modern democracy begin with the popular uprising against the French invasion in 1808, the creation of a national parliament and the promulgation of an advanced Liberal constitution in 1812. Pablo Sánchez León begins the story half a century earlier in the mass street protests in Madrid and other cities in 1766 sparked by Charles III’s sweeping reform programme. Sánchez León focuses unrepentantly on plebeian groups and crowd action – how they are described and conceived by contemporaries – as a key to understanding Spain’s precocious and troubled passage from absolutism to the promulgation of universal male suffrage in September 1868. This audacious and highly original interpretation will surely strike a chord with students of modern Spain.” —Guy Thomson, University of Warwick, UK “This is a book for exploring (from current needs) the history of political participation in Spanish society in order to rethink the very notion of modern citizenship.” —María Sierra, University of Seville, Spain “Motivated by the current crisis in political representation in parliamentary democracies, this work by Pablo Sánchez León departs from the process of construction of modern citizenship. Representation, participation and mobilization are put into play as an interactive triad whose dynamics and changing conceptualization have the key to the social, political and cultural changes between the Old Regime and the early establishment of democracy in 1868. The “They do not represent us!” and other current claims for deliberative democracy provide the guiding thread for a demanding research on the tension between representation and participation shaping the period 1766-1868. The work reflects on the relevance of popular participation and, in presenting the modern history of Spain as singular and relevant on its own, provides an account of the building of modern citizenship. —Pablo Fernández Albaladejo, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain This exciting book is both topical and historiographically valuable. It offers a fresh perspective on current debates about the limits of representation and the pros and cons of participation; it makes Spanish political culture in the age of revolutions accessible to anglophone readers, and it engagingly illustrates one way of doing the ‘history of concepts’. Recommended on all three counts. Joanna Innes, Oxford University