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This article addresses the debate about the relative utility of accommodative federalism as a method of conflict management in multinational states. Comparative scholarship on this issue assumes that territorial reform translates into political stability or instability through policy substance. This article tests that assumption against processes of institutional accommodation of Catalan and Quebecois demands for autonomy and recognition. The comparison demonstrates the absence of a linear relationship between institutional change and political instability. When autonomy for minority regions is extended without symbolic recognition, subsequent majority response unfolds in the policy arena, mostly through attempts to symmetrize autonomy arrangements (self-amplifying sequence). However, when the extension of territorial autonomy is combined with formal symbolic recognition, it paves the way for majority political backlash (reactive sequence). Open political opposition by a segment of majority political community, in turn, stimulates secessionist sentiment among members of minority community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article responds to the following research questions: How and why have victims of ETA’s terrorism in Spain become an interest group with significant influence on the political and legislative agenda of the country. The evolution of the associative movement of victims of terrorism is assessed in order to explain the process by which their influence and impact on the political agenda has gradually grown throughout the years. It analyzes the transition from the isolation suffered by victims of terrorism in the early days of ETA’s campaign to the prominent social and political role played at later stages. The factors that motivate and explain their active role as interest groups are looked into, demonstrating different claims and interests with varying degrees of coherence and leverage. The relevancy of victims of terrorism within the anti-terrorist policies of various Spanish governments will be established, as well as the achievements and limitations of such a significant interest group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article analysed the electoral system in elections to the Spanish Congress, its proportionality and impact on the shape of the party system. It is based on the assumption that long-standing dominance of two political parties is the result of settings of the electoral system. The main aim was to identify the key factors that influence the final results of elections. By analysis of the individual components of the electoral system, the paper identified the size of constituencies in combination with the electoral formula that have key impact on election results. Based on quantitative data the text showed that the adjustment of the system does not generate two party system format. However, under certain circumstances it can produce results with a significant disproportionality. The article also explained the institutional factors that allow the relevant representation of parties in third and fourth place. By knowing the facts, paper reviews previous theories that pointed to the direct closeness of the electoral system and the Spanish form of the two party system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the public communication of Norwegian Prime Minister Stoltenberg after the attacks of 22 July 2011 and Spanish Prime Minister Aznar after the Madrid train bombing on 11 March 2004. These two political leaders opted for very different styles of crisis communication in the direct aftermath of the attacks. There is also a great difference in how the attacks influenced their political support. By focusing on these two cases, the article asks whether political leaders can make a difference when it comes to the public response to terrorist attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose theoretically that the government partisan effect on institutional welfare state reforms is significantly stronger than on policy reforms. Policy reforms impose losses or gains on electoral sub-constituencies and therefore are driven by an electoral logic. Institutional reforms redistribute institutional power resources between political actors, but are inconsequential for voters in the short run. Without clear electoral repercussions, partisan governments are relatively free to seek long-term policy goals through institutional re-arrangements. We evaluate these propositions in a cross-country comparative analysis of all major policy and institutional reforms in labour market policy in Sweden, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands in the period between 1982 and 2011. We find the expected pattern of especially strong partisan effects in institutional welfare state reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spain has a highly partisan media system, with newspapers reaching self-selected partisan audiences and espousing explicitly partisan editorial preferences. Do the newspapers of the left and right differ in how they cover politics in ways that can be predicted by their partisan leanings? We review theories of issue ownership, journalistic standards, and information scarcity and test hypotheses derived from each. We find that the parties converge substantially in virtually every aspect of their coverage. Few differences emerge when we look at what topics are covered or in the dynamics of which topics gain attention over time. However, we confirm important differences across the papers when they make explicit reference to individual political parties. Journalistic norms result in a surprising focus on the faults of one’s enemies, however, rather than the virtues of one’s allies. Our assessment is based on a comprehensive database of all front-page stories in El País and El Mundo, Spain’s largest daily newspapers, from 1996 through 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a case study of the information ecosystem used by Spanish diplomats during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Particular focus is given to the professionalization and informationalization of Spanish diplomacy. According to the author, the information superstructure available to Spanish diplomats allowed them to perform their functions despite disruptive events such as the occupation of the nation's capital. Diplomatic history and information technology are also discussed.

This paper analyses Spanish infrastructure policy since the early 1700s: road building in the eighteenth century, railway creation and expansion in the nineteenth, motorway expansion in the twentieth, and high speed rail development in the twenty-first. The analysis reveals a long-term pattern, in which infrastructure policy in Spain has been driven not by the requirements of commerce and economic activity, but rather by the desire to centralise transportation around the country's political capital. As commerce has been unable to sustain the development of this policy, regulation and subsidies from the national budget have regularly been used to decide the priorities regarding infrastructure creation and to fund the development, maintenance, and operation of the networks. When high roads, bridges, canals, etc. are in this manner made and supported by the commerce which is carried on by means of them, they can be made only where that commerce requires them, and consequently where it is proper to make them. Their expense too, their grandeur and magnificence, must be suited to what that commerce can afford to pay. They must be made consequently as it is proper to make them. A magnificent high road cannot be made through a desert country where there is little or no commerce, or merely because it happens to lead to the country villa of the intendant of the province, or to that of some great lord to whom the intendant finds it convenient to make his court. Adam Smith, The wealth of nations (1776, vol. III.V.I, pp. 95-96) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explain why certain substate national movements tend to develop as "association-seeking" national movements, while others develop a "sovereignty-seeking" orientation. An association-seeking national movement is a national movement that has developed a strong autonomist or federalist orientation. I illuminate the causal mechanisms that help to explain across-case variation in national movements' political orientation by contrasting the origins of the associationist tendency of the Puerto Rican (1930s-1950s) and Catalan (late 19th century-1936) national movements with the origins of the sovereigntist tendency of the Québécois (1960-1980) and the Basque (late 19th century-1936) ones. Substate national movements tend to develop as association-seeking movements if they are framed by a mode of development that creates structural incentives for maintaining close political and economic ties with the central state. Sovereignty-seeking national movements tend to occur if a mode of development has resulted in displacement or dislocation, and the substate nationalists perceive that this poses a threat to the national or cultural integrity of their society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses constitutional government and historical memory as factors in Spanish politics after the rule of military dictator Francisco Franco. It addresses the relation between the permanence of Spain's 1978 Constitution and the potential for political reforms. Topics noted include philosopher Jürgen Habermas's notion of constitutional patriotism, the legacies of Franco's Republican dictatorship and of the Spanish Monarchy, and the historical relation of the political party Partido Popular to Franco. Also addressed are the role of emotion in nationalism, a comparison of U.S. and Spanish approaches to constitutional government, and comparisons of Spain with other European monarchies.