The Politics and Memory of Democratic Transition: The Spanish Model

Most accounts on the Spanish transition to democracy of the late 1970s are based on a false dilemma. Its simplest formulation could be: was it the pressure from below, i.e. the organized working classes, students and neighbors associations that triggered political change; or was the elite settlement reached by the regime soft-liners and the moderate sectors of the democratic opposition that established it? This new and innovative volume appraises the movement towards a more democratic Spain from a variety of important perspectives; the collection of essays sheds light on the wide range of crucial processes, institutions and actors involved in the political transformation that operated in the Spanish instance of the Third Wave of democratization.

By making comparisons to other democratic transitions, synthesizing the ideas of several leading Spanish History scholars, as well as incorporating new voices involved in creating the directions of research to come, The Politics and Memory of Democratic Transition offers a thorough and vital look at this key period in contemporary Spanish history, taking stock of critical lessons to be gleaned from the Spanish Transition, and pointing the way toward its future as a democratic nation.

Gregorio Alonso is Lecturer of Spanish History at the University of Leeds, and has previously taught at King’s College London. He has published on politico-religious conflict and secularization in Modern Europe in journals and edited volumes. His monograph La ciudadanía católica y sus enemigos. La cuestión religiosa en España will be published in 2010.

Diego Muro is Assistant Professor in Comparative Politics at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals. Prior to joining IBEI, he was Lecturer in European Studies at King’s College, London. He is the author of Ethnicity and Violence: the Case of Radical Basque Nationalism (Routledge, 2008) and of various articles on nationalism, political violence, social movements and democratisation.