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Copyright of Revista Catalana de Dret Públic is the property of Revista Catalana de Dret Public and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Spanish Journal of Comparative Education / Revista Española de Educación Comparada is the property of Editorial UNED and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In modern democratic states, citizen participation is promoted through representative channels. In recent years, at the different institutional and political levels in Spain, some classic parameters of democracy have been called into question, such as citizen representation, deliberation, and the responsibility of the rulers towards the citizens. This crisis coincides with a decline in bipartisanship in Spain and the appearance of new parties. Some of this parties championed the regeneration of democracy, committing themselves to encouraging transparency and citizen participation in public management. As local entities are the institutions closest to citizens, both transparency and participation become key elements to comply with these parameters, providing the technologies of information and communication (ICT) with new tools such as websites and portals, which can contribute to strengthening them. This research aims to analyze the use of these channels to promote transparency and citizen participation, by the municipalities of 4 autonomous communities (Catalonia, the Community of Madrid, the Valencian Community, and the Region of Murcia), placing special emphasis on how the left-right axes and old-new parties could influence, along with the population size of the municipalities. The method used consists of a categorical content analysis, based on the Infoparticipa Map indicators and two linear regression models using ordinary least squares. The results and conclusions of the study show that the size of the population and the autonomous community are determining factors in the transparency indices. In addition, the political formations aligned to the left of the ideological spectrum, together with some of the new parties, influence the greater transparency and participation of the websites of the municipalities governed by them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the nature of intergovernmental relations (IGR) on immigrant integration in Spain, a relatively recent immigration country, with a focus on Catalonia. By means of qualitative document analysis and semi-structured interviews at both levels of government, the paper demonstrates that despite the formal existence of multilateral and institutionalized fora for intergovernmental relations, most intergovernmental relations on immigrant integration tend to be informal and bilateral. The paper also highlights that the conflictual nature of IGR on integration varies across sub-policy areas and over time. The paper contributes to strengthen existing hypotheses regarding institutional features (the distribution of competencies and the territorial organization of power) and party politics for explaining the patterns of IGR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on tensions between the governments of Catalonia and Spain, using as a proxy the number of instances of litigations per year between these two bodies brought before the Constitutional Court between 1984 and 2014. On the one hand, descriptive statistics demonstrate that Catalonia is the most conflictive region in Spain. On the other hand, inferential statistics indicate that periods of absolute majority in the Spanish Parliament, the presence of a nationalist government in Catalonia, and funding problems of the Catalan Government tend to increase the number of inter-governmental conflicts with the Spanish Government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Económicas CUC is the property of Corporacion Universidad de la Costa, CUC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The recent sentence of the Constitutional Court 6/2002, of 18 January 2012, which has solved to positive conflict of jurisdiction raised between the Autonomous Communities of Catalonia and Aragon, there is been pronounced on the conservation of artworks temporarily deposited in institutions museum. Specifically, it has been argued that the regional administration competent for conservation is the one in whose territory they it plows located such work. However, the scope of such to statement cannot be separated from the unique characteristics of the factual marries on which is pronounced the TC and the object of the constitutional process itself delimited in the STC 6/2012. Scope that is discussed in this commentary jurisprudential and from which it is clear that the statements contained in the STC 6/2002 may only be applied to the assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When we are present at the 32nd. Anniversary of the Constitution, can be said that, on one hand, our constitution is no more a normative constitution, but a nominal constitution, with the terrible threat that it could become purely a semantic constitution, and, on the other hand, it's evident that it is not fulfilled in the whole territory and that it presents various problems, partly because the past of time. It is necessary to include new fundamental rights, to give a more adequate regulation to some of them, to modify some aspects of the electoral system and of the parliamentary organization, to modernize the succession to the crown, to enforce the unitary judicial power, and, specially, it's necessary to finish the design of the territorial organization of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'accommodation' refers to the capacity of states to contain conflict within the mechanisms and procedures embedded in existing institutional arrangements. During the first government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (2004-8), the Socialist government had to accommodate the Catalan proposal to reform the statute of autonomy and the controversial plan to turn the Basque Country into 'an associated free state' with Spain. Whereas the Basque initiative was rejected, the approval of the Catalan statute impelled several regions to apply for greater autonomy. Statute reform is a complex multilevel negotiation process characterised by intense party competition and heterogeneous policy results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The uninterrupted undergoing process of devolution in Spain since 1979 ("autonomic process") has required ever since an intense adjudication activity by the Constitutional Court. Three years ago the legal norms defining the scope of the devolved competences (Statutes of Autonomy) have been deeply altered, notably in Catalonia and Andalusia. Particularly in the first case, and for the first time, these Statutes have been challenged before the Constitutional Court. The Court is having considerable trouble in dealing with the matter. The author points out to the necessity and urgency of a simplification of the model, in order to facilitate a sensible constitutional adjudication on the matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Spain is ranked 10th in scientific production, it is 22nd in impact. The distribution of scientific production across the 17 Spanish regions is analyzed. Madrid and Catalonia account for 49% of total production and for 58% of excellence as reflected in impact, defined as publications within the 10% most cited worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]