Spanish Society After Franco

Spanish Society After Franco investigates the origins of collective social welfare from the early nineteenth century, to set the context for an analysis of contemporary social policy from the perspective of economic and political trends since the transition of democracy in the mid-1970s. The review of policy evolution is complemented by an examination of the critical impact of social change, particularly the decline of the power of the church, regional devolution, the gender dimension and social exclusion.

Spanish Society After Franco investigates the origins of collective social welfare from the early nineteenth century, to set the context for an analysis of contemporary social policy from the perspective of economic and political trends since the transition of democracy in the mid-1970s. The review of policy evolution is complemented by an examination of the critical impact of social change, particularly the decline of the power of the church, regional devolution, the gender dimension and social exclusion.

Most accounts of the Spanish transition to democracy have been celebratory exercises at the service of a stabilizing rather than a critical project of far-reaching reform. As one of the essays in this volume puts it, the “pact of oblivion,” which characterized the Spanish transition to democracy, curtailed any serious attempt to address the legacies of authoritarianism that the new democracy inherited from the Franco era. As a result, those legacies pervaded public discourse even in newly created organs of opinion. As another contributor argues, the Transition was based on the erasure of memory and the invention of a new political tradition. On the other hand, memory and its etiolation have been an object of reflection for a number of film directors and fiction writers, who have probed the return of the repressed under spectral conditions. Above all, this book strives to present memory as a performative exercise of democratic agents and an open field for encounters with different, possibly divergent, and necessarily fragmented recollections. The pact of the Transition could not entirely disguise the naturalization of a society made of winners and losers, nor could it ensure the consolidation of amnesia by political agents and by the tools that create hegemony by shaping opinion. Spanish society is haunted by the specters of a past it has tried to surmount by denying it. It seems unlikely that it can rid itself of its ghosts without in the process undermining the democracy it sought to legitimate through the erasure of memories and the drowning of witnesses' voices in the cacaphony of triumphant modernization.

Spanish Society After Franco investigates the origins of collective social welfare from the early nineteenth century, to set the context for an analysis of contemporary social policy from the perspective of economic and political trends since the transition of democracy in the mid-1970s. The review of policy evolution is complemented by an examination of the critical impact of social change, particularly the decline of the power of the church, regional devolution, the gender dimension and social exclusion.

A thorough look at social, political and economic aspects of Spain between 1939 and the sixties.

Using a rich variety of sources, this book explores how the historical memory of the Spanish Civil War influenced the transition to democracy in Spain after Franco's death in 1975.

This comprehensive survey of Spain’s history looks at the major political, social, and economic changes that took place from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the twenty-first century. A thorough introduction to post-Civil War Spain, from its development under Franco and subsequent transition to democracy up to the present day Tusell was a celebrated public figure and historian. During his lifetime he negotiated the return to Spain of Picasso’s Guernica, was elected UCD councillor for Madrid, and became a respected media commentator before his untimely death in 2005 Includes a biography and political assessment of Francisco Franco Covers a number of pertinent topics, including fascism, isolationism, political opposition, economic development, decolonization, terrorism, foreign policy, and democracy Provides a context for understanding the continuing tensions between democracy and terrorism, including the effects of the 2004 Madrid Bombings