State In Spain Research Articles

New models of urban governance in Spain during the post-crisis period: the fight against vulnerability on a local scale

ABSTRACTAusterity policies and the bankruptcy of the welfare state in Spain since the crisis of 2008 have mobilized the population to demand new models of urban governance, an improvement of basic services (work, health, education and housing) and the right to the city in a context of democratic deepening. The emergence of new leftist parties, a result of the Indignados social movement, is perceived as an alternative to the economic and social consequences of the neoliberal economic model implemented in Spain from the mid-1980s to 2008. Confronting the situation of economic, social and residential vulnerability in which society is immersed requires collaborative, multilevel and network governance. This paper examines the new urban governance models, reflecting on their objectives and challenges. The cases of Madrid and Barcelona, where mayors of leftist parties are carrying out a new plan of city government, are analyzed with a particular focus on supporting the most vulnerable and promoting more collaborative governance. In the medium term, it remains to be seen whether this new model is sustainable or is simply a post-crisis reaction.

Los últimos de Filipinas. Corporaciones locales en el tardofranquismo: reformas legales, elecciones y presupuestos precarios

Municipal government was under close scrutiny by the State in Spain since the nineteenth century, legally, financially and administratively. During Francoism scrutiny increased. Nevertheless, the reform of municipal life was debated within the regime since the 1960s, as part of a broader project of institutionalization and legitimization. The debate on reform was prolongued, yet for the most part fruitless. The new law of 1975 and the elections of 1976 are telling of the negligible results of Francoist reform. Municipal income remained insufficient. It became clear that reform of local administration was truly a Gordian knot. Municipal life was not a priority during the process of political change, its democratic renewal was delayed until the Spring of 1979. The priority were the autonomias and not the ayuntamientos.

The relationship between poverty and indoor temperatures in winter: Determinants of cold homes in social housing contexts from the 40s–80s in Northern Spain

The provision of proper indoor thermal conditions in winter is a requirement for health and comfort that is seriously compromised in Southern European countries by poverty and inadequate housing. According to Eurostat (EU-SILC, 2016), 10.1% of the population in Spain state they are “unable to keep their home adequately warm” in winter, unveiling one of the critical consequences of energy poverty. Although relevant field monitoring assessment have been conducted in other European countries, very little research has been carried out in the context of Spain. In this study we collected winter indoor temperature data, socio-economic, building and heating system characteristics from 112 multi-family dwellings in social housing built in the 40–80s in the North of Spain. The main building determinants of temperature variation were examined and assessed according to the socioeconomic situation through a mediation analysis. The principal findings showed that households living within district heating networks maintained temperatures above 18 °C on a continuous basis, whereas 54% of households living outside these heating networks presented temperatures below this threshold during night periods in bedrooms, while 25% had temperatures below 18 °C during both day-time and night-time occupied periods. Within this 25% of cold homes, 16.4% corresponded to households under the poverty threshold. As the mediation analyses showed, poorer households in the sample were associated with lower temperatures and higher temperature contrast throughout their dwellings for the following reasons: a lower incidence of vulnerable cases within district heating networks, heating restriction behaviours, higher dependency on room-heaters, lack of central heating and more thermally inefficient dwellings. The evidence presented in this paper offers a new framework for comparing the assumptions derived from other contexts to the situation in Spain about the effects of space heating and housing deprivation on thermal conditions, provides a basis for reviewing some possible intervention, and aims to raise social and political awareness further about this issue.

La organización territorial de España. Una reflexión sobre el estado de la cuestión y claves para la reforma constitucional

La organización territorial de España. Una reflexión sobre el estado de la cuestión y claves para la reforma constitucional

El franquismo y la construcción del Estado de Bienestar en España: la protección social del Estado (1939-1986)

More than four decades since the end of Franco’s dictatorship, part of the Spanish collective memory identifies the dictatorship as the first great promoter of the Welfare State in Spain. Historiographical research has dismantled the old, though effective, myths used to justify the origin of the military rebellion and the famine, as well as the myth intended to redeem the dictatorship based on the subsequent economic modernization. However, the myth of Franco’s dictatorship as creator of the social welfare system in Spain that anticipated the current one remains. Many investigations conducted by historians of medicine and economics on Franco’s dictatorship social policies demonstrate the exaggeration of this type of perceptions. They also reveal a more complex reality and the need for in-depth discussion to which this paper is intended to contribute.

El Estado nación y la producción del conocimiento social sobre <em>emigración española</em> a finales del siglo XIX

Este artículo se centra en analizar la relación que se establece entre el Estado nacional español a finales del siglo XIX, y la producción de conocimiento social sobre el movimiento de la población a través de sus fronteras internacionales. Bajo una perspectiva histórico-antropológica, apoyada en la historia cultural, la sociología del conocimiento y la antropología política, este trabajo intenta poner en evidencia la existencia de una relación estructural y estructurante entre diversos campos sociales (políticos, económicos, militares, etc.), la implementación de políticas estatales de control del movimiento de la población y la producción de conocimiento sobre los denominados emigrantes españoles. En este contexto, se examina cómo se genera y difunde dicho conocimiento a cargo de una élite intelectual, perteneciente a la burguesía, en el marco de una ideología liberal y nacionalista, con el que dialogarán y confrontarán por un largo periodo los cuadros técnicos del Estado y los saberes científicos académicos autorizados para hablar de lo social.

БАСКСКИЙ ЯЗЫК И БАСКСКАЯ ТОПОНИМИЯ: МЕЖКУЛЬТУРНЫЕ КОНТАКТЫ И СТАНДАРТИЗАЦИЯ

The Basque language (euskera) is an isolate language spoken by about one million people in northeast Spain and southwest France. According to the most common version about its origin the Basque language is of Aquitanian origin. The aim of this article - to study the modern Basque toponymy, to outline its space and boundaries, to consider its current state in Spain in the light of contacts with the Spanish language applying the methods of onomastic and linguocultural research. An important feature of modern Basque toponymy in Spain is the existence of double names (Basque and Spanish), reflecting the centuries-old contacts of the Basque and Spanish languages. Double names are in the process of standardization in the framework of state policy, and the unification of the literary standard Basque language (euskara batua). Language consciousness of modern Basque population preserves the original Basque toponymy as an essential part of national heritage, although in some cases the Spanish toponyms are preferred to the Basque ones (Bilbao, not Bilbo, for example).

Decentralisation at a Time of Harsh Austerity: Multilevel Governance and the Welfare State in Spain and Italy Facing the Crisis

Decentralisation was one of the most relevant trends in the institutional development of the Spanish and Italian welfare states up to the onset of the economic crisis. The present article tries to answer two questions. How have central government – subnational government relationships and models of welfare governance evolved? What has happened to territorial inequalities in access to welfare state provision before and after the onset of the crisis and the introduction of austerity policies?. Before the crisis, territorial differences in the operation of the welfare state across regions were more pronounced and intense in Italy than in Spain. With the onset of the crisis and austerity, the differences between territorial clusters in Spain have remained relatively stable or have decreased, whereas in Italy they have often increased. In both cases, regional governments have, in recent years, been more dependent on central government. In fact, to receive support or extra funding, regional governments have accepted the conditions imposed by central government. Sub-national governments have been forced to accept significant cuts and greater control or supervision of their budgets. As the largest part of the regional budget is spent on social policies, regional welfare systems have inevitably been affected both in scope and in the way in which decisions are made.

War and Society in Spain

This article offers a new historiographical overview of the military history of Spain in the early modern period, covering recent works published by English-speaking scholars as well as the latest studies by Spanish and Italian historians. Differences tend to focus on whether the rival paradigms of ‘decline’ or ‘resilience’ offer the better insights into the period after the end of Spanish military supremacy (c. 1648). A survey of recent work on this topic leads us to some very significant observations about factors underpinning power, such as a common or shared culture and identity, as well as the more obvious and traditional components of military and naval power. The nature of royal power and monarchy are analysed, as are the structure of the army and the construction of the state in Spain. The relationship between the state and civil society, and the debate about the militarization of Iberian society and the study of cultural and religious values, are also examined. On balance, recent literature leads us to a more positive assessment of the resilience of Spanish military power in the second half of the 17th century.

Worker Resistance to “Social” Reform and the Rise of Anarchism in Spain, 1880–1920

AbstractThis article focuses on the relationship between the labor movement and the state in Spain. Its main object of analysis is unionized Spanish workers’ indifference or hostility to state intervention in labor relations during the period when the first set of social reforms was discussed and implemented (1880–1923). The article shows that unionized workers’ and reformist politicians’ contradictory attitudes toward social reforms derived from their irreconcilable perspectives about the nature of labor conflicts and the role of the state. These attitudes were in turn based on different notions of “society” (contractual and organic) that prefigured the actions workers and reformists took to deal with labor conflicts. In analyzing this issue, the article builds from the main results of recent studies on the rise of “the social” and examines a heterogeneous array of primary sources (including union manifestos, official inquiries, and intellectual and political debates about social laws).

Women and children versus domestic violence. Legal reflections, needs and challenges in Spain today

Violence against women and girls or gender-based violence is a form of discrimination that constitutes ‘violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately’. Violence against women has carelessly become a significant global public health problem affecting one-third of women in the world in 2013. Killings of women and girls by their male partners or ex-partners are not isolated incidents, but constitute ‘the ultimate act of violence that is experienced in a continuum of violence’. Gender-based domestic violence remains the most prevalent form of violence against women and girls that affects women of all social strata across the world. Violence against women, in the private sphere and in its different manifestations, is tantamount to violations of the rights to life, equality, dignity and non-discrimination, the right not to be subjected to torture and to other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, the right to liberty and security of person, the right to equal protection under the law, and the right to equality in the family, among other human rights. In addition, children who are victims and witnesses of that gender-based domestic violence suffer adverse effects on their health and in other ways also are ‘severely negatively impacted by [that] violence’. However gender-based domestic violence measures to protect child victims and witnesses of gender-related domestic violence remain weak in spite of the undeniable consensus among States on rights applicable to child victims and witnesses of crime. This article provides an overview of the issue of gender-based domestic violence and analyses the consideration given to the woman and child (of that woman) – both victims of intimate-partner domestic violence under international law and regional European law, and, in addition, under Spanish domestic legislation. The article highlights the latest developments in those three legal settings, including the forthcoming entry into force of the challenging and most comprehensive legal instrument on violence against women in the world today, the Istanbul Convention. The Convention provides at last formal (through judicial practice and legal instruments) recognition of children who witness gender-based domestic violence as victims of that gender-based violence. Also reviewed are recent jurisprudence/judicial practice, legal developments and challenges on this important subject in Spain. Final recommendations based on the aforementioned international, regional and domestic analysis are made to the State of Spain, recommendations applicable indeed to the practice in any country seeking international human rights compliance, good practices and redress, in an effective fight against gender-based domestic violence.

Nación de un solo hemisferio: Las fronteras americanas de la representación a través de la vida de un exiliado

A biographical approach is used in this article to inquire into the complex relationship between Spanish peninsular liberalism and Hispanic liberalism. With that aim, the life of Antonio González is reconstructed: he was one of the liberals who, after he took part in the revolution against the Ancien Regime, suffered political exile with the restoration of absolutism in Spain. After getting rich and establishing himself in Perú, he came back and contributed to the institutional and legal implementation of Liberal State in Spain. But, at the same time, he played a major part in the expulsion of American deputies from Spanish Parliament and the constitutional dismissal of those territories. The political culture of his generation, tasked with a cultural complex of inferiority in comparison with European models, explains this paradox.

Nothing like the Sun: Shakespeare in Spain Today

Today is more present in Spain than ever as a result of critical interest and spectacular growth of his popularity among Spaniards who recognise him as embodiment of cultural and literary values. Since celebration of Seventh World Congress in Valencia in April 2001, Shakespearean scholarship in Spain has provided new ways of understanding playwright. It has opened up debates on issues which have made possible new scholarly studies, translations and performances that have proved more active and vigorous than ever, and whose effects can be seen in different facets of Spanish culture and life.Which Shakespeare/ Which Spain?Who is today? Or, in Balz Engler's words, Does term refer to a person, to a set of printed texts, to a cultural icon, to a theatrical tradition, or to a combination of all these? (Engler 27) What does mean now? One can only say that means different things to different people: is constantly reshaped and refashioned in different places and situations; it is not but rather Shakespeare that really matters in Shakespace (Hedrick and Reynolds 3) where it is written and rewritten in an unending process of cultural reproduction. As no longer merely continues to signify Englishness (Joughin 1), it is possible to read within a distinct context without his language (Kennedy) for the meanings of Shakespeare's works (and of author) can constantly respond to needs, fantasies, preoccupations, and conflicts of moment (Lanier 230).Shakespeare's appropriation and adaptability become more problematic in new political mapping of Spain whose identity as a multilingual nation has become a burning issue today (Bejar). The debate about Spanish nation, its identity and language in new democracy, as both a historical and a contemporary political problem, is particularly complex due to legacy of Franco dictatorship which deeply eroded legitimacy of Spanish nationalism. During and since transition, Spanish nationalist discourse has evolved to meet challenge of new concepts of nation, identity and culture, and proposes different configurations of relationship between nation, state and language, as minority languages have co-official status with Spanish. While Constitution of 1978 defines Spain as a nation of nationalities, many politicians and intellectuals now claim that Spain is a nation of nations, while others that it is a post-national state (See Balfour). But what is really at issue is not whether Spain exists or not as a nation; rather, it is traditional ways of seeing Spain from both centre and margins, ways in which Spanish and other nationalities are projected and how they influence idea of Spain as a nation. It shows comparative rivalry between Spanish national identity and historic nationalities or regions like Catalonia, Basque Country and Galicia deriving from peculiar architecture of state in Spain, and their effect on social and political cohesion. We are witnessing a transformation of Spain from Spain of tambourine and Don Juan to multiple Spains, to a fragmented, multi-cultural society which nonetheless still (on whole) conceptualises itself as sum total of its long and rich cultural and political history (Gies 4). This radical change produces tension and conflict as a result of confrontation of two Spains, of traditional and conservative in contrast with modem and postmodern.Zara, Almodovar, and ShakespeareShakespeare's plays -like Zara's fashion house and Almodovar's movies- have been locally and universally accepted. They combine commercial and popular success. They represent values and aspirations that influence society and its institutions in various ways. They are cultural icons that remain in wide cultural circulation once the old division between high and low culture has been erased (Smith 2). …

The Lack of Partisan Conflict over the Welfare State in Spain

One of the most striking facts of recent Spanish political debate has been the relatively little partisan and ideological conflict over the size of the welfare state. To explain this puzzle, we rely on the idea that support for the welfare state and support for redistribution are not necessarily the same thing. Our analysis of welfare policy preferences in Spain reveals that a significant proportion of Spaniards favour welfare state expansion along with non-redistributive programmes, and welfare state retrenchment along with pro-poor policies, and that partisanship is only barely related to these combinations of ‘non-standard’ policy preferences.

Aesthetics and the ‘Other’ in Recent Novels of the Spanish Civil War

This essay considers the nature of the contribution made by contemporary Spanish novelists to the process of the recovery of historical memory and the construction of a democratic state in Spain specifically from within the literary field. It begins by reviewing some current thinking in critical theory on the role of literature in society and the relationship between the arts and democracy before moving on to an analysis of two novels published in 2006: Tres cipreses by Manuel Ramos Ramos and La higuera by Ramiro Pinilla. The purpose of this analysis is to show how even today some novels continue to offer one-sided accounts of the Spanish Civil War while others offer a more complex account of the events and to argue that while the first does little to further understanding of the conflict, the latter can be read in a literary mode which, by offering an encounter with ‘the other’, deepens understanding and so makes an essential contribution to a maturing democracy.

Personal and interpersonal value system, self-perception and identity of Spanish nurses: a cross-sectional study

The aim of this research is to identify the predominant values system among a sample of Spanish nurses, to identify how values are tied to professional nursing identity and determine differences in values and identity between socio-demographic variables as a gender, citizenship and/or nursing service. Cross-sectional study was performed with a randomised sample of 337 staff nurses who had worked for a minimum of one year in adult or paediatric services in the public or private health care system in the Northern State in Spain. Gordon’s Personality Inventory was administered to measure the personal, interpersonal and self image of sample. The study found differences in personal and interpersonal values across generational cohorts, gender and ethnic group. Evidence of feminisation of values among male nurses was also found – in terms of age and professionally, they may take fewer risks and show a tendency toward congruence with the predominant organisational culture.

De-Constructing the Familist Welfare State in Spain. Towards Reconciliation through Europe?

This article assesses the main reform episodes that have taken place in Spain in the field of reconciliation between work and family life. It addresses the different phases of the political reform of reconciliation, tackling the usage of European recommendations, references and standards by the actors involved. The analysis covers the period from the early 1980s to the present. The focus of the article is on assessing how European political resources have been used to shape expectations, positions and strategies in the policy-making process at national level. The Spanish case is of much interest, given the fact that, on the one hand, Spaniards have traditionally been strongly in favour of the European Union and its policies, and, on the other hand, when considering Spain, we are dealing with one of the evident examples of a familistic welfare state in Europe. The article seeks to explain how this apparent contradiction is resolved when taking into account the deeply shared aspiration of both elites and the public to modernise the country, and the prominent role assigned to the EU in this transformation.

Dorotea’s Displacement: Performing the Possible in Early Modern Spain

Este ensayo combina la teoria de performativity de Judith Butler con los acercamientos materialistas la subjetividad masculina de la temprana modernidad espanola (Maravall, Mariscal, Rodriguez) para analizar las innovadoras representaciones de clase y genero hechas por Dorotea en Don Quijote. Aunque Dorotea entra en la novela como una desplazada labradora enganada, dentro de sus representaciones en la Sierra Morena y la venta de Juan Palomeque, Dorotea no solamente se redime si misma sino que tambien redime don Fernando, el noble desocupado responsable por su desplazamiento social. En el presente ensaco, demuestro que Dorotea usa los discursos que circulaban en los manuales de Vives y Fray Luis, ademas de los tratados economicos de arbitristas como Cellorigo y Guzman para resistir su triple marginalizacion como mujer, como no-virgen y como rica labradora. Gracias sus astutas selecciones y recombinaciones de los discursos disponibles, Dorotea logra construirse una subjetividad femenina viable basada en la virtud incipiente de las buenas obras--y no las tradicionales de sangre y linaje. Al final, el exito personal de Dorotea tiene criticas implicaciones politicas: para salvar la republica, las virtudes tradicionales de sangre y linaje tienen que ser reemplazadas por la industria mercantilista. ********** And doubtless it sometimes happened that leaving position occupied in beginning could be means of finding, somewhere else, another position that was longed for ... JOSE ANTONIO MARAVALL The thought of possible life is only an indulgence for those who already know themselves to be possible. For those who are still looking to become possible, possibility is necessity. JUDITH BUTLER BY THE BEGINNING OF seventeenth century, it was obvious to those both inside and outside of Spain's borders that country was experiencing profound change; and not for better, by most accounts: there were series of national bankruptcies, rampant inflation, decreasing population, plague, loss of Invincible Armada, and revolts from various corners of Empire. 91) Politicians, moralists, arbitristas (economic reformers; literally, projectors/project planners), and novelists were all putting pen to paper in order to discuss, analyze, and prescribe what they perceived to be Spain's state of and decline. (2) One of most famous fictional texts to come out of this conflictive period is Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quijote de la Mancha. The two-part novel is keen representation of economic, social, and psychological displacement that was experienced by early modern Spanish subjects as result of what Jose Antonio Maravall termed the diphasic schema of social crisis (From Renaissance 2). The phenomenon of displacement--conceptualized here as movement away from normative subject position to another, alternative subject position--could and did occur (both by coercion and choice) as people reacted to and dealt with and absolutist State's increasingly restrictive response to expansive tendencies of sixteenth century. Indeed, Cervantes's novel is sustained exploration of displacement of Alonso Quijano as he attempts to distance himself from restrictive subject position of hidalgo and create an alternative space in which he can construct himself as an individual. In other words, normative role of hidalgo available to Alonso Quijano within dominant discourses of Habsburg Spain (primarily, through blood and lineage) had ceased to produce what Judith Butler terms a livable life, life in which physical and psychic survival--or both--of subject is possible. (3) Although Quijano is wandering subject par excellence, he is not only character in text with dream of distancing himself from an unviable subject position, with fantasy of being something or someone else. …

An Exceptional Response? Security, Development and Civil Society in Spanish Policy after 11-M

This article considers the ways in which Spanish state institutions responded to the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004 in the context of the global 'War on Terror'. It examines three inter-related arenas of Spanish policy after 9/11 in which security and civil society are invoked in ways that impact upon the country's development agenda toward its southern Mediterranean partners. The first relates to Spain's external relations with its North African neighbours, and in particular the place of migration in shaping these relations over the last decade. The second concerns Spain's political relations with the representative organizations of its own Muslim populations. A third area of analysis pertains to the juridical-institutional reactions of the state to the 11 March attacks: how have public authorities and civil society been affected and refashioned in the face of jihadist terrorism on the peninsula? The author argues that in each of these domains, the post-9/11 context generally, and the 11 March attacks in particular, have elicited a securitization of civil society, which has in turn been associated with the country's international relations and domestic politics. Such securitization, however, has only been partially successful, thus vindicating the continuation of 'politics as usual' among Spain's state officials and its civil society.

Constitutional organization of the regional state in Spain

The author explores distinctiveness of the regional state mostly in Spain as third model of territorial organization. Unlike unitary and federal, regional state is not wide-spread and broad accepted concept of vertical organization although modern Spain and Italy represents examples of good practice. Having in mind diversity of regional identities and strong cultural distinctiveness in Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia and other areas, author is wondering if any other model of territorial organization could be sustainable in such socio-cultural environment. After the period of Franco?s dictatorship, which had been trying to exterminate cultural and historical particularities among Spanish nations, decentralization demands have become more stronger resulting with the new constitution adopted in 1978. This act has set the corner-stone of modern Spanish democracy based on Autonomous Communities as specific forms of decentralized state and territorial autonomy.