Politics, morals and politicisation in the eighteenth-century Spanish monarchy. The creation of a public sphere and its enemies

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines the politicisation process that took place in the Hispanic monarchy towards the end of the Ancien Régime, with a special focus on analysing the actors involved in the Bourbon reformism. Our approach enables us to overcome the “upward politicisation/downward politicisation” dichotomy which is commonplace in current historiography. Based on this approach, we propose to reconstruct the connections between these actors and the circles in which modern forms of politics arose. Said connections transformed these actors culturally, and distanced them from the non-politicised culture of traditional communities. In that sense, throughout the 18th century the reformist endeavours of the crown were a major driver of politicisation but affected only a minority, coming as they did before the age of massive politicisation in the 19th and 20th centuries. We take a detailed look at the case of the traditional societies of the Basque Country and Navarre to demonstrate the scope of this first politicisation.