Rule by women: the incorporation of women into Spanish local government (1924–1975)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the way in which women gained access to local government in Spain between 1924, when they were first appointed as councillors and mayors, and 1975, when dictator Francisco Franco died. The Spanish case involves a political history that includes two dictatorships separated by a republic and a civil war. Most female representatives were not chosen by ballot, but gained access to local governments by other means, such as governmental appointment, the replication of the national balance of power at the local level, corporative elections and the like. In sum, the variegated ways in which women became local councillors and mayors under the different political regimes, and the way in which they performed, must be interpreted in light of the construction of citizenship in twentieth-century Spain.