Abstract
How can the extraordinary stock of social capital that underpinned the consolidation of democracy in Spain be explained? Certainly, it cannot be attributed to a vibrant and robust civil society. Nor can it be explained away as a product of Spanish history. Prior to the transition to democracy in 1977 there was no history in Spain of autonomous cooperation between the state and actors from civil society such as organized labor. Contemporary Spanish history is, after all, a long, tortuous tale of entrenched social conflict, especially class strife, which was at the heart of the Spanish Civil War and the collapse of the Second Republic. Moreover, the history of the labor movement in Spain, one of the pillars of the social concertation process, hardly predisposed it to engage in trust-based interactions with the state and the employers. The successful deployment of social concertation in Spain is more compelling still because attempts to erect analogous policies of negotiation and compromise by other democratizing societies have failed to get off the ground and have had the unintended out-come of exacerbating rather than alleviating social conflict. As shown in chapter 5, a dearth of trust among the social partners explains the failure of social pacts as a means for assisting in consolidating democracy in Brazil.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Peter McDonough, Samuel H. Barnes and Antonio Lôpez Pina, The Cultural Dynamics of Democratization in Spain (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998), pp. 167–168.
See Charles T. Powell, El piloto del cambio: El rey, la monarquia y la transición a la democracia (Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1991)
and Joel Podolny, “The Role of Juan Carlos I in the Consolidation of the Parliamentary Democracy,” in Richard Gunther, ed., Politics, Society and Democracy.: The Case of Spain (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993).
José M. Maravall, The Transition to Democracy in Spain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977), p. 10.
Stanley Payne, “Introduction,” in Stanley Payne, ed., The Politics of Democratic Spain (The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, 1986), p. 4.
Edward Malefakis, “Contours of Southern European History,” in Richard Gunther et al., eds., The Politics of Democratic Consolidation: Southern Europe in Comparative Perspective (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. 75.
The source of this quote from Suarez is Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 93.
Carlos Fernández, Los militares en la transición (Barcelona: Argos Vergara, 1982), p. 105.
Javier Tussell Gómez, “The Democratic Center and Christian Democracy in the Elections of 1977 and 1979,” in Howard R. Penniman and Eusebio Mujal-Leó, eds., Spain at the Polls: 1977, 1979 and 1982 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1985), p. 95.
Omar G. Encarnación, “Federalism and the Paradox of Corporatism,” West European Politics 22 (April 1999), p. 96.
On the technocratic pragmatism of the late Franco period see Richard Gunther, Policy-Making in a No-Party State: Spanish Planning and Budgeting in the Twilight of the Franquist Er (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980)
and Nancy Bermeo, “The Politics of Public Enterprise in Portugal, Spain and Greece,” in Ezra Suleiman and John Waterbury, eds., The Political Economy of Public Sector Reform and Privatization (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990).
Jordi Capo Giol, “Estrategias para un sistema de partidos,” Revista de Estudios Politicos 23 (September-October 1981), p. 159.
José M. Zufiaur, “El sindicalismo espanol en la transición y la crisis”, Papeles de Economía Española 22 (1995), p. 213.
Luis Enrique de la Villa and Juan Antonio Sagardoy y Bengoechea, “Social Concertation in Spain,” Labour and Society 12 (September 1998), p. 387.
For a broader discussion of this point see Andrea Bonime-Blanc, Spain’s Transition to Democracy: The Politics of Constitution-Making (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987).
Charles W. Anderson, The Political Economy of Modern Spain: Policy-Making in an Authoritarian Regime (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970), p. 223.
Joseph Harrison, The Spanish Economy: From the Civil War to the European Community (London: Macmillan, 1993), p. 18.
On the rise of the Opus Dei within the Franco regime see Stanley Payne, The Franco Regime, 1936–1975 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987).
Robert Fishman, Working Class Organization and the Return to Democracy in Spain (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 94.
For a broader view of collective bargaining under Franco see Jon Amsden, Collective Bargaining and Class Conflict in Spain (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1972).
For a broader view of the works councils in Spain see Juan N. Garcña Nieto, Workers’ Participation in Management in Spain (Barcelona: Institute of Labour Studies, 1978) and Modesto Escobar, “Works or union councils? The Representative System in Medium and Large Spanish Firms,” Working Paper (Madrid: Instituto Juan March, 1993).
Peter McDonough and Antonio López Pina, “Continuity and Change in Spanish Politics,” in Russell J. Dalton, Scott Flanagan and Paul Allen Beck, eds., Electoral Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 392.
See José Félix Tezanos, Crisis de la conciencia obrera (Madrid: Editorial Mezquita, 1982).
Leonardo Morlino and José R. Montero, “Legitimacy and Democracy in Southern Europe,” in Richard Gunther et al., eds., The Politics of Democratic Consolidation: Southern Europe in Comparative Perspective (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), p. 259.
For a more extensive treatment of Spain’s party system since 1977 see Richard Gunther, Giacomo Sani and Goldie Shabad, Spain After Franco: The Making of a Competitive Party System (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
Juan J. Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and Reequilibration (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), p. 36.
For an overview of the role of the PCE in promoting clandestine groups before the transition see Guy Hermet, Los comunistas en España (Paris: Ruedo Ibérico, 1972).
On the PCE in the transition to democracy see Eusebio Mujal-León, Communism andPolitical Change in Spain, (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1983).
Patricia Hipsher, “Democratization and the Decline of Urban Social Movements in Chile and Spain,” Comparative Politics 27 (April 1996), p. 288.
David Gilmore, The Transformation of Spain (London: Quarter Books, 1985), p. 93.
Manuel Contreras, El PSOE en la II República: Organización e ideologia (Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 1981).
For a more expansive view of the role of the PSOE in advancing a state-sponsored feminist agenda see: Monica Therelfall, “State Feminism or Party Feminism? Feminist Politics and the Spanish Institute of Women,” European Journal of Women’s Studies 5 (1998) and Monica Therelfall, ed., Feminist Politics and Social Transformation in Spain (London: Verso, 1996).
Unemployment figures come from Omar G. Encarnación, “A Casualty of Unemployment: The Breakdown of Social Concertation in Spain,” in Nancy Bermeo, ed., Unemployment in Southern Europe: Coping with the Consequences (London: Frank Cass, 2000), p. 32.
Sebastian Balfour, Dictatorship, Workers and the City: Labour in Greater Barcelona (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 248.
José M. Maravall, Regimes, Politics and Markets: Democratization and Economic Change in Southern and Eastern Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 95.
Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 187.
Guillermo de La Dehesa, “Spain,” in John Williamson, ed., The Political Economy of Economic Reform (Washington, D.C.: Institute of International Economics, 1994), p. 136.
Copyright information
© 2003 Omar G. Encarnación
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Encarnación, O.G. (2003). Political Institutions and Democratization in Spain. In: The Myth of Civil Society. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981646_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981646_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-52686-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4039-8164-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)