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The anti-austerity movement that emerged in the wake of the 2008 global economic crisis and 2010 Eurozone crisis, and which forms part of the 'age of austerity' that came after those crises, was underpinned by a set of ideas and practices that we refer to here as 'pragmatic prefigurativism'. Whilst the anti-austerity movements typically rejected formal ideologies such as Marxism and anarchism, nevertheless pragmatic prefigurativism can be understood as a 'left convergence' of sorts. The paper explores the features of this pragmatic prefigurativism, comparing the anti-austerity movements in the UK and Spain. In particular, we note the role of unresponsive institutions of democracy in prompting the move towards pragmatic prefigurativism, the adoption of techniques of direct democracy and direct action as the means through which to express a voice and to refuse austerity, and the pragmatic nature of the subsequent (re)turn to political institutions when this became a possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tele-revista was a biweekly Swiss television broadcast for Spanish immigrants living in Switzerland. It dealt with labour and migration-related issues in Switzerland, information about Spanish cultural manifestations, political rights and interviews with committed immigrants and key figures of Spanish politics in transit on Swiss soil. First aired in 1973, in the final years of General Franco's authoritarian regime, the TV magazine, initially broadcast on the three Swiss TV channels, is an unique source of the Spanish transition to democracy, seen through the eyes of Swiss TV-makers with the collaboration of some Spanish journalists. Tele-revista was aimed for a better integration of Spaniards within Swiss society, who were considered worse integrated than the Italians. The paper pursues to present a general portrayal of the broadcast with a special attention to the years of the Spanish transition to democracy by means of focussing on the information about social, cultural and political issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The military is an important factor for the success or failure of democratisation processes. Portugal and Spain provide two paradigmatic cases. Despite their socio-economic, political and cultural similarities, these countries developed very different civil-military relations which significantly impacted their transitions. After having handed power over to a civilian dictator, Salazar, the Portuguese military eventually caused the downfall of his authoritarian Estado Novo regime and steered the transition to democracy. In contrast, the Spanish military, which had helped Franco defeat the Second Republic, remained loyal to the dictator's principles and, after his death, obstructed the democratisation process. Drawing on primary and secondary sources, this interdisciplinary article contrasts the challenges posed by the military and the policies implemented by the Iberian governments to depoliticise and control it. It shows that the failed coups d'état in these countries helped tighten civilian control and paved the way for democratic consolidation. Using a policy instruments comparative framework, this paper demonstrates that not only the attitudes of the military but also the tools used to keep them under control were substantially different in Portugal and Spain. Historical legacies from the Spanish Civil War, Second World War and Colonial conflicts, as well as contextual factors, serve to explain this variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the role of Digital Grassroots Innovation (DGI) in the construction of a more participatory smart city. 18 DGIs from four Spanish cities (Santander, Valencia, Bilbao, and San Sebastián) were analysed. They belong to 4 different types of digital innovation: Open Hardware: understood as projects inspired by the maker movement; Open Knowledge: large groups of citizens who join through online platforms to collectively create a new type of knowledge or social projects; Open Data: innovative ways of opening, capturing, using, analysing and interpreting data; and Open Networks: networks of citizens who are developing new networks and infrastructures, to collectively share resources and solve problems. In all cases, the DGIs constitute a varied repertoire of initiatives where the purpose of digital innovation is not only to solve problems that affect citizens, but also to make spaces for the creation and empowerment of critical citizens that are vigilant of the actions of public and private powers. In this sense, innovation not only refers to the design and materialisation of new products or processes, but also to the contribution that the DGI is making to the construction of citizenship and, therefore, to the construction of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this research is to identify the determinants that intervene in the transitional justice choices made in general, and those made in the Spanish case in particular. The construction of a linear regression model containing 83 transitions was developed to identify the significant explanatory factors in the transitional justice choices. The analysis enabled us to place Spain at some distance from the countries considered as successful in terms of transitional justice to classify it as an exception that is not adequately explained by the general model, while also identifying the main reasons for this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of populist parties across Europe is shaking the foundations of Representative Democracy, of which Spain is a particular example: decades of bipartisanship have been broken amidst a territorial, economic and social crisis, with new parties rising on the left and the right side of the spectrum. The aim of this paper is to analyse the Spanish political scenario and find which (if any) parties classify as populist and what are the other ideological traits of this (or these) parties, by means of both content and discourse analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to resolve one of the key tensions in the literature on populism: whether populism is a threat to democracy or the best means of renewing and deepening democracy. The author argues that, rather than defining populism in terms of certain definite outcomes, we should view populism as a symptom of crisis, and one capable of producing a variety of possible effects, some positive and some negative. The argument is pursued in terms of highlighting certain shortcomings in terms of the dominant approaches to the issue, and also through exploring recent Spanish politics, which has seen an increase in various kinds of populist parties and movements. The renewal of democracy in Spain is offered as an example of how populist initiatives can have beneficial outcomes, as well as detrimental ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the survival of a form of historical memory in modern Spain that dates back to the nineteenth century. The prevailing form of Spanish national identity at that time was completely dependent on Catholicism; the medieval Iberian past was understood as a struggle of national liberation against invading Muslims, culminating in a final Christian victory in 1492. This approach generated an exclusionary vision of al-Andalus as alien to Spanish identity, expressed through the notion of "Reconquista," which reached its peak during the Franco dictatorship, the heyday of National Catholic ideology. Although the idea of Reconquista lost its historiographical hegemony after the arrival of democracy in 1978, recent events show that, despite its strong ideological connotations, or perhaps because of them, it remains the key concept in defining the medieval period within the most conservative sectors of academia, politics, and the media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of Podemos, a political force that is ideologically and organizationally new, has shaken Spanish politics. Only three years old, and taking advantage of the dual economic and political crisis, it has managed to put an end to the two-party political system, while becoming a source of inspiration (or grounds for concern) outside of Spain. The aim of this paper is to analyse the origins of Podemos, its main characteristics (its ideology, its organization and its social bases) and the impact it has had on Spanish politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a hypothesis for understanding democratic stability based on the distinction between politicized and meritocratic bureaucracies. We argue that in a politicized administration, the professional careers of large numbers of government officials depend directly upon which party wins the elections. This increases the likelihood that the government will take opportunistic actions aimed at surviving in office at any cost; that is, benefiting core supporters at the expense of other groups. In turn, this may foster pre-emptive actions from the opposition, such as military coups. Conversely, in democracies with meritocratic administrations, incumbents are credibly constrained from undertaking partial policies because their hands are tied in terms of managing the staff policy of the state apparatus. Consequently, countries with meritocratic bureaucracies have greater prospects for democratic stability. Empirically, we illustrate the mechanisms with two well-documented cases of democratic transitions that enshrined a politicized administration – Spain (1876–1936) and Venezuela (1958–1998) – and one transition that kept a meritocratic bureaucracy, Spain (1975–). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses the case of Rosa Sensat teachers' movement in Catalonia during the final years of Francoism and the transition to democracy in Spain (1965–1990). This movement was a key actor in education reform debates in that period. Based on the perspective of political process theory, the article focuses on the contextual, organisational and discursive dynamics that define the Rosa Sensat movement, and its role as a sociopolitical actor in three historical periods: (i) the moment of emergence, linked to the dissident schools (1965–1970); (ii) the process of transition to democracy and educational decentralisation, marked by the difficulties in reforming public education (1970–1977); and (iii) the post-transition period, marked by the new constitution, the integration of dissident schools into the public system (1978–1990) and the marginalisation of the movement. The conclusions highlight its influence and subsequent decline as a sociopolitical actor in education reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 2015 local elections, political formations with their roots in social movements took control of several Spanish city councils, including Madrid and Barcelona. The wave of protests that began with the 15-M movement in 2011 gave way to an electoral model that aspired to promote transformative politics and new ways of 'doing politics'. The aim of the present study is to examine the scope and the limits of this move into the institutions in Madrid and Barcelona (2015–2019). The case studies involved in-depth interviews and a documentary review. Results reveal significant differences between the two cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom about the European sovereign debt crisis and its handling defends that fiscal austerity is unpopular and that external conditionality and/or imposition on national democracies generates backlash. However, not enough research has addressed this question: How willing are citizens to accept unpopular policies imposed on their national governments by European institutions? Would they object to unpopular policies less if these were coming from their national representatives? In this article, we propose a survey experiment, complemented by four focus groups, to test whether citizens' willingness to accept economic policies varies depending on whether the decision originates in the national parliament or in EU institutions. The experiment was conducted in Spain in 2017. Our results show that agreement with a particular policy does not depend on the policy-making actor but on the policy's content. The bitter pill of austerity is no less bitter because elected politicians decide it at home. Similarly, EU 'diktat' does not make a popular policy less popular. Our conclusion is that Spanish citizens during the Euro crisis objected to the policy of austerity due in large part to its content and not to the EU intervention in favour of implementing it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article defines contemporary social patriotism as a type of welfare nationalism, with characteristics of an achievable civic form of maintenance nationalism. It investigates the presence of this type of nationalism in contemporary Spain, pointing out the novelty of the explicit linkage of patriotism and a reformist agenda by leftist parties. It also argues that social patriotism has the leverage for creating transversal identities within a multinational democracy such as Spain. After testing our hypotheses using qualitative and quantitative data, we discuss the implications of these findings within a wider European context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the early uses of the term democracy in Spain and in Hispanic America during the 19th century. It is mainly built on the collaborative research conducted in the region in the field of conceptual history in recent years, especially on the publications of the Iberconceptos network. By grouping all the Spanish-speaking countries of the Western Hemisphere into a single block, my comparative approach is schematic, for it is clear that this part of the world is far from being a homogeneous sociopolitical space. Even so, the contrast between the two poles – Spain and Latin America – has proved to be heuristically productive, since it enables us to identify certain similarities and differences between the respective conceptualizations and practices associated with democracy that occurred on both sides of the Atlantic between 1808 and 1875, approximately. From some common features, patterns and milestones that this essay reveals it is possible to draw a schematic chronology that could serve as a general framework to subsequent more specific historical studies on the evolution of the concept of democracy in this or that particular country belonging to this cultural area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The local arena provides an excellent framework for the study of practices linked to the reproduction of national identities in interwar Europe. This article analyses the transmission and reproduction of a democratic and secular national identity on a local level during the Spanish Second Republic (1931–6). Using a micro-historical approach, the study examines the processes of nationalization of the population in the town of Alagón, an industrial locality 15 miles north of Saragossa. More specifically, the article explores how municipal institutions in Alagón nationalized residents in the public sphere, paying special attention to policies concerning education, political and religious symbols, and holiday celebrations. The text also investigates how private associations transmitted identities, including folk groups, religious brotherhoods, and the local theatre and cinema. Finally, the article explores how the nation was reproduced in the family and the domestic realm. Drawing comparisons with other European cases, the investigation shows the limits of government-controlled, top-down nationalizations and underlines the importance of material culture and daily consumption in the transmission and assimilation of national identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feudal structures and power relationships that Spanish universities inherited from Franco's dictatorship have damaged the quality of educational research. However, the emergence of initiatives aimed to address these limitations have been identified. In this article, we analyze the impact of the Multidisciplinary International Conference on Educational Research (CIMIE). Specifically, we analyze how CIMIE is contributing to overcome some of the feudal constraints affecting educational research in Spain, such as fragmentation of areas of knowledge, limited international research efforts, and precarious and unstable employment situations of many researchers. Grounded in the communicative methodology of research and using mixed methods, we have conducted a longitudinal study of this research initiative (2012-2016), comprising interviews and communicative observations, analysis of documentation and quantitative data. The results show that participants understand that their involvement in CIMIE is contributing to make them feel released from the constraints of university feudalism by building solidarity networks and egalitarian relationships, and by rethinking research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The intersection between journalism and political transitions in contemporary history is a research field which has begun to flourish in recent years. From the “Carnation Revolution” in Portugal in 1974 through to post-apartheid South Africa in the early 1990s and up to the so-called “social media revolutions” of the Arab Spring of 2011, both historical and comparative political studies have considered the international press to play an integral role in these processes of democratic change. In this context of regime change, the Spanish transition to democracy (1975–1978) is often portrayed as the most exemplary case study. This article analyses the role played by the foreign correspondents of the British and American broadsheets and wire services sent to cover events in Spain as well as the contribution made by the Anglo-American press through its editorial stance on key issues and its commitment to the story both in terms of journalistic output and human resources. The article suggests that the role of the international press not only offers a useful connecting route to those charged with making foreign policy decisions and monitoring the state of public opinion in their respective capitals—in this case London and Washington—but can also make an indirect contribution to the sway of political events at a domestic level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the mid-nineteenth century European radicals developed contacts, relationships and networks. They organized activities and plans and propagated discourses and projects that transcended national borders. This article explores this transnational dimension of European democracy by analysing the case of Spain from around 1840, when the first Spanish self-proclaimed democrats began to organize, to the 1870s, when a certain national withdrawal took place among European democratic activists. It examines the journeys and contacts made by Spanish democrats as well as the extensive coverage of leading European activists that was published in Spanish newspapers, and considers how these connections were perceived by Spanish democratic activists. It is argued that contacts and networks contributed to configure a European democratic transnational political culture characterized by interrelations, exchanges and processes of cross-fertilization, through which the feeling of belonging to a national democratic community co-existed with a strong link to a wider European democratic family. The speeches, manifestos and projects of activists of various origins affected and greatly influenced each other, as well as shaping their socio-political views and strategic options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that patterns of civil society in post-authoritarian democracies are the result of divergent pathways to democracy. Through a comparison between contemporary Portugal and Spain, it is shown that revolutionary pathways to democracy have a positive impact on the self-organizing capabilities of popular groups. Two mechanisms contribute to this. First, the fact that the masses are the key actor in the revolutionary process results in greater legal recognition and institutional embeddedness between civil society organizations and the state. Second, as a consequence of changes in the social and economic structure, revolutions engender more inclusive democracies. This all leads to greater opportunities and resources for the civic action of the common people during the subsequent democratic regime. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article compares the role of tripartism during and after democratic transitions in Spain and Poland. In both countries it emerged after a negotiated transition from dictatorship, but it was poorly institutionalised. While it fell short of ‘neocorporatist’ levels of governance, it had a ‘foundational’ function in stabilising both political and economic transitions, and despite its limitations, it endured for decades in the frequent, if unregular, practice of negotiating ‘social pacts’. The comparison reveals some striking similarities despite the contrasting economic systems of origin, and identifies some structural constants in the evolution of post-democratic tripartism, up to the recent crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Spanish 15-M/Indignadoshave drawn global attention for the strength and longevity of their anti-austerity mobilizations. Two features have been highlighted as particularly noteworthy: (1) Their refusal to allow institutional left actors to participate in or represent the movement, framed as a movement of ‘ordinary citizens’ and (2) their insistence on the use of deliberative democratic practices in large public assemblies as a central organizing principle. As with many emergent cycles of protest, many scholars, observers and participants attribute the mobilizations with spontaneity and ‘newness’. I argue that the ability of the 15-M/Indignadosto sustain mobilization based on deliberative democratic practices is not spontaneous, but the result of the evolution of an autonomous collective identity predicated on deliberative movement culture in Spain since the early 1980s. My discussion contributes to the literature on social movement continuity and highlights the need for historically grounded analyses that pay close attention to the maintenance and evolution of collective identities and movement cultures in periods of latency or abeyance in order to better understand the rapid mobilization of networks in new episodes of contention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]