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Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies

Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies. SPPO 1400 Regional and National Diversity and the Spanish Political System Dr Pablo San Martin p.sanmartin@leeds.ac.uk. Nation-building and peripheral nationalism: 19 th Century-Civil War (i).

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Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies

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  1. Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies SPPO 1400Regional and National Diversity and the Spanish Political SystemDr Pablo San Martinp.sanmartin@leeds.ac.uk

  2. Nation-building and peripheral nationalism: 19th Century-Civil War (i) • Weak Spanish nationalism: contested by several nationalist alternative projects within Spain (Catalan, Basque, Galician…but also Valencian, Andalusian, Asturian, Canarian, etc.). Historical formation of ‘Spain’: Alliance and progressive union of several Christian kingdoms and territories. • Kingdom of Spain = Crown of Castile (Kingdom of Asturias and León, Kingdom of Galicia, Señorío of Biscay, County of Castile, Kingdom of Navarra, etc.) + Crown of Aragon (Catalan Counties, Valencia, Aragon, etc.). • No serious attempt to create a centralized administration until 18th century. Traditional institutions of ‘self-government’ of various territories: Fueros (Castile) and Cortes (Aragon). • Strong regional and local elites. Early 1800s: Napoleonic invasion and ‘Independence War’. Emergence of Spanish identity? 19th century: Failed process of nation-building. • Conservative liberals: linked to local and regional oligarchies and networks of power  Not interested in developing a more inclusive concept of citizenship. • Traditionalism (Carlism): Fuerismo, particularism and support of alternative king. ‘National regionalism’: idealization of the medieval ‘regional traditions’, attack of the central (liberal) state. • Republicanism: Centralist and Federalist. Spain as a nation composed of a collection of ‘nationalities’ (territories with their own culture, traditions, languages, laws, etc.). Defence of autonomy: Federal state.

  3. Nation-building and peripheral nationalism: 19th Century-Civil War (ii) Second half of 19th century: Romantic movement – Folkloric studies. Concept of ‘ethnic nation’ (opposed to the ‘civic nation’): Nation as a transhistorial, perennial community defined by language, culture, race, spirit. End of 19th / beginning of 20th century: Emergence of peripheral nationalism (and regionalism). • “[T]he later half of the nineteenth century sees the resurgence of cultural activities in languages other than Castilian in various parts of the peninsula (…). [W]hilst Castilian had by now come to dominate all walks of public life in Spain, (…), the other languages were still spoken (…) by their communities, (…) although in many areas they were in a classic diglossic situation vis-à-vis Castilian.” • “These cultural and linguistic ‘renaissances’ (…) were stimulated by the European-wide Romantic movement, (…)[which] espoused a particular form of cultural nationalism. (…) The essence of (this Romantic) nationalism (…) is the notion of a national spirit (Volksgeist), and of language as the soul of the nation.” • Mar-Molinero, C., ‘The Iberian Peninsula: Conflicting Linguistic Nationalisms’, in Barbour, S. and Carmichael, C. (eds.), Language and Nationalism in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),p.88. • Catalan: Lliga, ERC. History, culture and, especially, language, as the main markers of identity. • Basque: PNV. Race as central identity marker. • Galician: Race and culture (language) as identity markers. • Others: Asturian, Aragonese, Andalusian, Valencian, etc.

  4. Francoism and the Transition to Democracy • Francoism: Totalitarism, fascism, authoritarian regime…?  It was ‘Francoism’: a pragmatic blend of different ideological traditions: National-syndicalism (Falange), Military nationalist patriotism, Carlist traditionalism, National-Catholicism, Economic liberalism… • Several internal ‘families’ within Francoism: the Army, the Church, the Traditionalists (Carlist), the Monarchist, the technocrat Catholics (Opus Dei)…and the Francoists… Main features: Spanish Nationalism (at ideological/cultural level) and Centralism (at political / administrative level). • The Crisis of Francosim: Overlapping of several partial crisis during the late 1960s and early 1970s  Students mobilizations, working-class movements, new internal opposition,, terrorism, partial liberalization of the press, and peripheral nationalism/regionalism  failure of the Francoist nationalism project.. Nationalist/Regionalist tradition was too strong and rooted in Spanish history. • Spanish Kingdom: aggregation of different territories with different cultures, languages, political traditions, elites, etc. • Ninetieth century: failed process of state-building. Weak state, always contested. • Emergence of nationalist/ regionalist movements in the second half of ninetieth century. Consolidation of nationalist peripheral parties in first decades twentieth century.  II Republic: Decentralized State, with possibility of Regional Autonomy. • 1960s-70s - Opposition discourses: • Francoism = Centralism  therefore, Democratization = Decentralization. • Transition to Democracy: Democratization and Decentralization as inseparably linked in their mutual legitimization and that of the overall political process. • Objective: to articulate the principles of unity and diversity (to satisfy the demands of peripheral nationalists, mainly Basque and Catalan).

  5. The new Spanish 1978 Constitution and the new political system • First democratic elections in 1977.  Representatives of the mail political forces formed a working group to elaborate a new Constitution (passed in 1978) • New Constitution based upon the principle of consensus, trying to integrate all the different political sensibilities in the text. • Objective: to integrate into the system all the political forces, not to exclude them. Problematic issues treated with calculated ambiguity in the text to allow for future interpretations and debates. Open text. • How to integrate the principles of territorial unity and diversity? State of Autonomies: Unity of Spanish nation and autonomy of ‘nationalities’ and regions. Nationalist resistance: ‘Café para todos’ • Spanish political system structured in two main levels: • 1. Spanish / National level. • 2. Autonomous Communities. • + 3. Municipalities. • National level • Bicameral system: Congreso and Senado. • Congreso as representative of national sovereignty. Electoral constituencies follow the autonomic map. • Senado as representative of the ‘territories’. • Primacy of the Congreso over the Senado. Formation of Government and election of President. Spanish system is not Presidential. • Party system: ‘Imperfect Bipartidism’  Two parties dominate the voting and representation…but, there are other smaller parties that – although not in a position to form governments – can influence the formation of government by the two major parties. • Two main State-wide parties. PSOE and PP. • Third State-wide party: IU. • Non State-wide parties: CIU, PNV, BNG, PAR, CC, PA, etc. (in a position to form governments at autonomic levels)

  6. The ‘Estado de las Autonomías’ • Autonomic State: one of the most original aspects of the Spanish Constitution and political system. • One of the highest levels of decentralization in the Western Democracies. • 17 Autonomous Communities (+ 2 Autonomous Cities), with their own parliaments, elections, governments,…and party systems. • [At the time of the Transition, it was thought that NSWP would be limited to Catalonia and Basque Country, as expressions of nationalist ideas. However, it is a ‘state-wide’ phenomenon. • Electoral system: Proportional representation (D’Hont system). Proportional system favours the smaller parties, while the Majority system favours the main parties. ONLINE DEBATE about the State of the Autonomies: Is it a solution to the regionalist/nationalist demands? Or…Is it encouraging the development of regionalist/nationalist demands (and political parties, etc.)?

  7. Non State-wide Parties (NSWP) in Spain • Why NSWP instead of regionalist or nationalist parties? Non a homogeneous phenomenon: • Ideology: Left (ERC, HB, BNG, etc.), right (PNV, CIU, CC, PAR). • Territorial scope: one or more autonomous communities, province, localities/areas within autonomous communities, etc. • Level of ‘nationalism’: radical nationalists (independentists), moderate nationalists (consensus with State), regionalists • Level of acceptance and legitimation of political system: anti-systemic (HB), systemic (PNV, CIU, etc,). • Strength: central parties with possibility to form government (PNV, CIU, CC), significant parties with possibilities to participate in coalition governments (PAR; BNG, PSM/UM, PRC), small parties (PA, UV, CE, UPL, PAS, etc.). Nations or Regions? Open to Debate. Autonomic Arenas: Example 1: Basque Country See: www.ehu.es/euskobarometro

  8. Dual Identity in Spain

  9. Spain: a multilingual state (i) • Several languages spoken: approximately 40% of the total Spanish population live in a territory where more than one language is spoken. • Spanish (also called Castilian) is spoken all over the current territory of Spain and is the only official language in the whole Spanish territory. • There are other languages also recognised as official (or at least protected in some way) in 8 regions. [Only in these regions, not in the rest of Spain] • This means that Spain can not be strictly considered an ‘institutionally plurilingual state’, since only Spanish has the status of state-wide language. • The strength of these regional languages (Asturian, Galician, Catalan, Aragonese, etc.) varies significantly within their respective historical linguistic areas.

  10. Spain: a multilingual state (ii) Fuentes: Siguan, M., Conocimiento y Uso de las Lenguas (Madrid: CIS, 1999). Llera, FJ. y San Martín, P., II Estudio Sociolingüístico de Asturias. 2002 (Uviéu: Academia de la Llingua Asturiana, 2003). Llera, FJ. y San Martín, P., Estudio Sociolingüístico de las Hablas del Alto Aragón (Zaragoza: Consejería de Cultura del Gobierno de Aragón, 2001, unpublished report).

  11. Spain: a multilingual state (iii) Fuentes: Siguan, M., Conocimiento y Uso de las Lenguas (Madrid: CIS, 1999). Llera, FJ. y San Martín, P., II Estudio Sociolingüístico de Asturias. 2002 (Uviéu: Academia de la Llingua Asturiana, 2003). Llera, FJ. y San Martín, P., Estudio Sociolingüístico de las Hablas del Alto Aragón (Zaragoza: Consejería de Cultura del Gobierno de Aragón, 2001, unpublished report).

  12. Spain: a multilingual state (iv) • “Lenguas minoritarias son aquellas que en ninguna parte ocupan una posición dominante en la sociedad donde se encuentran. En este grupo existen lenguas que poseen un estatus de lengua oficial (irlandés, vasco o catalán) o nacional (el romanche en el cantón italiano de Suiza) y no están, sin embargo, en situación dominante.” • Etxebarria, M., La Diversidad de las Lenguas en España (Espasa Calpe: Madrid, 2002), p. 21.

  13. Any Questions?

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