Search

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]

Copyright of Studia Histórica: Historia Moderna is the property of Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca 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 Studia Histórica: Historia Moderna is the property of Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca 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 Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian & Latin American Economic History is the property of Cambridge University Press 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 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]

Copyright of Historia y Politica: Ideas, Procesos y Movimientos Sociales is the property of Departamento De Historia del Pensamiento y de los Moviemientos Sociales y Politicos (Madrid) 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 Cuadernos de Historia Moderna is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid 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.)

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]

This article discusses the creation of the frescoes located in the sacristy of the Cathedral of Toledo in Spain by Italian artist Luca Giordano. The author comments on the political conditions in Spain at the time, following the death of Charles II, which resulted in an undetermined successor. She also describes the relationship between the monarchy and the Catholic Church, citing the political power of Cardinal Luis Fernandez de Portocarrero, who commissioned the frescoes by Giordano. An examination of the reasons behind his commission in a religious space is provided.

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 article maintains a concept of democratic constitution that is opposed to the inquisitorial and totalitarian constitution. The supreme norms of the Constitution cannot become an element to prohibit any initiative of a "part" to be converted into a "whole" when the constitutional reform is impossible to be carried out. On the other hand, in the sovereignist catalan process, there is a political conflict and the Constitutional Court becomes an element of the political decision to suspend a parliamentary declaration that considered the Catalan people sovereign political subject, with no legal effect. Confusing politics and law is especially serious because it helps to forget the great responsibility of rulers, which is promising to give intelligent answers to citizenship. In a democratic system, metaphysics cannot be imposed constitutional popular will. The misunderstanding of the "madrileñismo politico" is dangerous because it exacerbates a latent problem in the history of Spain, which is producing a shock of legitimacy and emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the political environment during the Ancien Régime in Spain, during which time the Bourbon dynasty ruled the country. The author analyzes the widespread political corruption, which included the selling of offices and privileges. He also cites previous historical studies on the subject, with a particular focus on those of Antonio Domínguez Ortiz and Francisco Tomás y Valiente, who researched the effects of the selling of public office. These sales were made mainly to assuage the poor economic conditions suffered by the Spanish monarchy, according to the author.

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.