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Conventional wisdom has it that the food economy has transitioned from organized to disorganized capitalism. An era of extensive state intervention between around 1930 and 1980 would have been followed by an era of deregulation and increasing coordination through markets after around 1980. This article uses the case of Spain's dairy chain to propose an alternative view. In the case under study, there certainly were elements of state‐coordinated capitalism between 1952 and 1986, as well as elements of deregulation and liberalization from 1986 onwards. However, the structure of economic coordination involved some combination of market and nonmarket mechanisms all the way through. The organized capitalism of the first period was not really so tightly organized, whereas much of its later "disorganization" was in fact a transition towards a different mode of "organization": one in which the control of nonmarket coordination shifted from political to corporate hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite women being increasingly engaged in labor-platform activities, little of the research conducted on this topic to date has included a feminist perspective. However, the platform economy has direct impacts on the social organization of social reproduction and is changing the main dimensions of the world of work with crucial gendered effects. This study deploys a feminist political economics approach to assess the impacts of digital labor platforms on the reconfiguration and regeneration of intersectional inequalities. The findings of this analysis of digital platforms in the care sector in Spain reveal how they profit from regulatory contexts that perpetuate existing gender, race, and migrant status inequalities, as well as labor market vulnerability, with migrant women segregated into lower-paid and more insecure jobs. JEL Classification: J3, J5, J7, O3 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focus on a critical analysis of a discursive formation in Spanish academic libraries: social responsibility and sustainability. The concepts that make up the discourse are historically contextualized in order to clarify their origin and social affiliation. Although the enunciation of social responsibility and sustainability content is formulated ambiguously, its articulation as a discursive practice within the framework of the new corporate management university libraries leads us to infer bias in their rhetorical formulation. We consider that, from a fuzzy concept and its integration into technocratic practices, the discourse can be used as a tool for legitimizing the deregulation of public educational institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of financialisation is being widely used to describe certain structural changes in advanced capitalist economies. The main approaches to this concept are discussed in this paper. Firstly, the causes of the financial expansion that are synthesised in innovation, liquidification and deregulation processes are identified; secondly, the indicators concerning these processes relative to the structure of the balance sheet and profit and loss account of the main economic actors are empirically analysed for the Spanish case. The results of the analysis show a trend consistent with all capitalist economies, in which financial capital gains increase not only when the net profits of companies rise, but also when they collapse in a context of severe economic crisis and high unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the evolution of Spain's capitalism during the last decades in order to unveil the factors underlying the harshness with which the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted Spain. We present a twofold thesis. On the one hand, we argue that Spanish capitalism has harbored certain internal vulnerabilities, relative to its productive specialization, its labor market, its welfare institutions, and indebtedness levels, which successive boom and busts have reproduced and ultimately exacerbated. On the other hand, we contend that these various vulnerabilities have abruptly come to the fore with the irruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, thus accounting for its singularly dramatic consequences. In order to substantiate our hypotheses, we provide a political economy analysis of the recent trajectory of Spanish capitalism. The economic boom initiated in the 1990s developed various vulnerabilities, which the years following the onset of the Great Recession did not attenuate and to which various others were added during the last expansion phase, all coming to the fore with the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using as a case study the consequences of the recent generalized economic crisis in Spain and Europe (2008-14), I propose to analyze the role of uncertainty as a key and recurrent ingredient needed by market economies to generate high levels of profitability at the cost of extremely high levels of social inequality. The present article examines the relationships between crises and uncertainty as socially constructed realities that have been instrumental in the political reshaping of entire societies. The "crisis" narrative has succeeded in explaining extreme levels of profit generation as economic "failure" and, consequently, in legitimating further profit by dismantling the welfare state and appropriating public resources via loans to repay the debt incurred by a financial system that relies upon the collection of interest. Throughout history, economic uncertainty has been an important characteristic of capitalism and its labor market and has been actively sought after or fought against by decision-makers and regulators of different historical periods. The experience of daily economic uncertainty and anxiety about the future pushes individuals to be willing to work for less. Social policies and workers' rights are the balancing forces that counteract the "natural" volatility and the mercilessness of the market; such policies also diminish uncertainty and generate social cohesion. The current crisis in Spain and Europe is characterized by exacerbated uncertainty, contraction of public social protection, and, inevitably, the rampant increase of inequality and poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What conclusions can we draw from an analysis of transnational capital and classes, if we want to understand the State and its relations with society in contemporary Italy and Spain? The article reconstructs the interactions between the expansive waves of the 'heartland' of Western capital and the 'State/society' configurations in the two countries, and argues that in both of them transnational factors have played a key role. Some clear differences emerge. Italy's State had its origins in complex negotiations between transnational and national elites, and an often concealed 'state class' has usually provided the link between the 'heartland' and the country. Spain, on the other hand, underwent long periods of isolation, which she has mainly overcome with the help of a developmental authoritarian state. Both cases, however, illustrate how States, far from being monolythic, clear-cut entities, are rather complex historical agglomerations of 'domestic' and 'external' dynamics and interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the evolving interests of Spanish capital and the structural and political constraints within which employers define and defend their interests. It shows that institutional change is a political matter; it is therefore possible to develop coordination capacities in the absence of many defining features of ‘coordinated market economies’. The central argument is that successful coordination depends not only on the organization of the social actors but also on their interests and strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proponents of globalization contend that European countries are now converging on an Anglo-American model of capitalism. Contrary to this prediction, this article shows that in Spain, globalization and the European Monetary Union have promoted rather than undermined cooperation among economic actors. Unable to escape from economic interdependence, they have developed coordinating capacities at the macro and micro levels to address and resolve tensions between economic interdependence and political sovereignty. In particular, this article analyzes the resurgence of national-level social bargaining in Spain in the 1990s. This development was partly the result of the reorientation of the strategies of trade unions. They have supported social bargaining as a defensive strategy to retake the initiative and influence policy outcomes. This article shows that successful social bargaining depends on not only the organization of the social actors, the main claim of the neocorporatist literature, but also the interests and strategies of the actors themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many societies demand that independent professionals (e.g. auditors) certify the performance of firms. The value placed on such certification (i.e. the public perception of reliability/unreliability that may impact on an organization's success/failure) is not uniform, however, but contingent upon changing political contexts. This study presents and analyses data on the entire population of newspapers in Spain from 1966 to 1993, a time of peaceful transition from military dictatorship to capitalist democracy. Our results highlight the contingent nature of institutional life, demonstrating how changes in political contexts are associated with varying understandings of institutions. In particular, our findings support the prediction that, under a dictatorship, independently certified performance is not instrumental in organizational success or failure whereas, in a modem democracy, the certification process has a positive effect on the survival chances of firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes use of one of the last concepts developed by Basil Bernstein (the Totally Pedagogised Society, TPS) to understand some of the forces and contradictions underlying today's teachers' work in Spain. In his last written work, Bernstein (2001) pointed out some arguments to illustrate the emergence of a TPS. Always interested in uncovering the sociological basis of pedagogy, Bernstein refers to the TPS as a society that introduces pedagogy in all possible spheres of life. Somewhat paradoxically, the shorttermism and the constant change in the knowledge base of society, where careers are replaced by jobs, require the emergence of the TPS. The TPS appears as a crucial regulator and legitimation strategy to translate uncertainty, risk and precariousness into a socialisation characterised by endless learning. 'Trainability' is referred as the key concept through which the TPS emerges. That is 'the ability to profit from continuous pedagogic re-formations and so cope with the new requirements of work and life'. The concept of trainability colonises educational policies and practices, and has a strong power in defining students' and teachers' work and identity. Flexible and global capitalism--the social base that regulates the pedagogic discourse--requires a specific type of pedagogic expression that erodes commitment, certainty and that is therefore socially empty. Interestingly, as Bernstein argues, the weak state of the global economy requires a strong state in the pedagogic field. The TPS is state driven and state funded. The state uses different type of strategies to make and distribute new forms of pedagogic 'knowledge' through owned or controlled agencies. Cadres of pedagogues become significant agents in the symbolic control field and produce and distribute new discourses and its ways of legitimation. That is, the official field 'captures'--through practices of co-option--key agents from the pedagogic field to construct and maintain the TPS. This paper develops two aspects related with the construction of the TPS as it is being developed in Spain. Firstly, it shows the state practices in the process of designing, planning and implementing the latest Curriculum reform (ERA, 1990) to understand the relationship between the official and the pedagogic fields and to illustrate the redefinition of teaching in this reform. Secondly, using data from two research projects, it shows some of the consequences that the TPS is having on teachers' work and identities. The capturing of teachers within the TPS has a number of implications on teachers' representations of their role in the new educational mandate, their understanding of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment and their professional identities. These movements, it is argued, have significant consequences on the relationship between teachers' practices and ideology and the reproduction and legitimation of educational inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the network of intercorporate relationships in Spain in the context of advanced capitalist economies. Economic development patterns and the three main models of corporate structure - Anglo-Saxon, Continental European, and Japanese - are discussed. On the basis of an analysis of the network of director interlocks among the 100 largest industrial corporations, 50 largest banks and 30 largest insurance companies in 1993,1 conclude that Spain approximates the Continental European model. Three main findings result from this analysis: (1) Spanish domestic banks coupled with utility companies are located at the core of the intercorporate network; (2) capital-intensive industrial corporations belong to the inner circle of the network, while foreign- owned and light industry enterprises are isolates in the network; and (3) directorship interlocks in Spain tend to take place across industrial sectors rather than within them. I argue that bank-led economic development, high state intervention, and delayed but intensive foreign capital penetration explain the three corporate network outcomes. By combining historical-structuralism and social-network analysis, this study contributes a new empirical case to the existing literature, showing how historical structural factors help to explain intercorporate relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]