Contemporary Spain

Christopher Ross, Bill Richardson, Begoña Sangrador-Vegas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317751632
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Lingue

Contemporary Spain provides an accessible introduction to the politics, economy, institutions media and cinema of contemporary Spain.

This fully revised fourth edition includes new material that makes this the most comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date account of the situation in Spain at this juncture

Key features include:

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• accessible and authoritative background information ideal for the non-specialist language student

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• each chapter contains a Spanish/English glossary giving guidance on the use of specialist terms in context along with further reading

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• ideal starting point for more in-depth study.

New to this edition:

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• coverage brought up-to-date to include the current economic crisis, related austerity measures and social difficulties

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• new section on the changing public perception of the Spanish monarchy and significant new cases of corruption

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• several chapters expanded to include key topics such as the role of the Internet and social media, key economic issues currently facing the country, youth employment and civil discontent

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• 'Spain in the Contemporary World' thoroughly revised to include a more comprehensive account of the relationship between Spain and the EU and other parts of the world

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• new chapter on 'The Media and Film' covering covering the most relevant directors and films in contemporary Spanish cinema.. This chapter also includes a discussion on the regional differences and cultures of the various autonomous communities.

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• Suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter.

Contemporary Spain is an invaluable resource for all undergraduate students on Hispanic Studies courses. The authoritative background information provides a solid foundation and a springboard for further study.

1

The Spanish state

The basis of a country’s public life lies in the institutions and mechanisms by which it is governed, the state. The equivalent Spanish term (estado) is often used specifically to refer to Spain’s own central government institutions – the monarchy, the Parliament, the political executive made up of the Prime Minister and the cabinet, and the administrative apparatus subordinate to it – as opposed to the country’s various regional governments. The distinction has two bases, one being political rhetoric. The other is the fact that, unlike the central – and, indeed, local – institutions, whose features were established in the 1978 Constitution [0.2], the regions are the product of a process that may have begun with the Constitution but which was not delimited by it – and which is still going on today. Yet they are now such an established part of the country’s governing structures that it seems appropriate to deal with them, too, in the present chapter.

1.1 The monarchy

The Constitution accords a central role to the monarchy, or ‘Crown’ as it is called in the text. The king – there has been no female monarch since 1978 – is Spain’s head of state (jefe de estado). Constitutionally speaking, it is he who makes senior official appointments, including that of the Prime Minister; laws are issued and justice carried out in his name. However, these, like all his actions, are essentially formal in nature, and require the endorsement (refrendo) of another important constitutional figure – the government, its head, or parliament – from which the actions in practice emanate. Similarly, the requirement for royal endorsement of decisions such as legislation or the appointment of ministers is a pure formality. The monarch’s powers of initiative are, in fact, negligible.

Only in two areas might royal influence be seen as real. One is the king’s role in appointing a Prime Minister following a general election. Under normal circumstances, he has no discretion in this regard; he calls on the leader of the largest party to form a government and, once they have received the requisite parliamentary vote of confidence, swears them in. Theoretically, the role could acquire greater importance after a close general election, where no party enjoyed a clear parliamentary majority, a scenario that has become reality following the 2015 general election [2.2]. Nonetheless, on the only two occasions it has arisen so far, in 1993 and 1996, there was no evidence of any attempt at royal influence, which in practice seems inconceivable.

The second way in which the king is seen as possibly exercising real influence is through his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces (Mando Supremo de las Fuerzas Armadas). Here again there is no question of his exercising planning or operational control; these functions lie clearly with the appropriate institutions (government and parliament) and, like others, require only formal endorsement by the head of state. It is true that during the 1981 coup attempt, and on other occasions, the first constitutional monarch, Juan Carlos, may well have played an important part in preventing an insurrection. But his ability to do so depended not on his constitutional role but on personal connections built up during his own years of military training under the old regime.

Juan Carlos’s actions in 1981 – persistently portrayed by the media in as favourable a light as possible – earned him considerable praise as a defender of the new Spain. And for some twenty years his reputation remained good as he plotted a similar course, helping through his personal actions to consolidate both the country’s democratic order and the monarch’s role within that. Indeed, some detected less a revival of monarchism as such than a personal cult centred on the king himself (juancarlismo).

Thus for a long time there was widespread agreement that Juan Carlos’s official visits abroad (viajes oficiales) represented a highly effective form of ‘marketing’ for Spain. Internally, the deliberately ostentatious exercise of his right to vote (derecho de voto) reminded any Spaniards who harboured lingering doubts about democracy that the contemporary monarchy is a pillar of that form of government, not an alternative to it. Perhaps, too, maintenance of a relatively modest lifestyle and royal household (casa real) served to underline the constitutional aspiration to greater equality.

Another important factor in Juan Carlos’s popularity was the respect felt for his wife, Queen Sofía, because of the personal sympathy she repeatedly displayed in consoling the victims and survivors of serious accidents. Conversely, one of the first causes of the king’s fall from grace was the realization that Sofía was increasingly being left to perform such duties alone. Gradually, rumours of Juan Carlos’s serial infidelities, long suppressed by the sycophantic media, began to emerge. Matters came to a head when he was flown home injured from a lavish hunting trip to Botswana in the company of an aristocratic German millionairess in early 2012 – a time when many Spaniards were suffering severe economic hardship [5.1.3].

Meanwhile, the monarchy’s problems had been accentuated by events surrounding the two eldest children of the royal couple (los reyes), the princesses (Infantas) Elena and Cristina. In 2009 Elena finally divorced her husband of fourteen years, Jaime de Marichalar, a singularly unsympathetic banker of aristocratic stock. By comparison, Cristina’s choice of husband – Iñaki Urdangarín, a player with the national handball team – seemed a popular one. However, in 2011 he was revealed to have been abusing his position to divert public funds to private accounts outside Spain. The resultant Nóos affair [9.5.1] has not only led to Urdangarín being accused of various offences; in early 2015 his wife was also charged with tax evasion. On 2 June 2014, faced with this plethora of problems, Juan Carlos announced his intention to abdicate, officially confirmed sixteen days later. The event, and its circumstances, gave rise to a brief rise in republican feeling (republicanismo). However, for the moment at least, this has been blotted out by Juan Carlos’s successor, his third child and only son. Previously the Prince of Asturias, as the official heir is known, he is now King Felipe VI.

For long a relatively low-profile figure, Felipe came into the public eye in 2004, when he married Letizia Ortiz, a commoner and divorcee already well-known as a TV journalist. Subsequently, and especially since ascending the throne, he has attempted to confirm the impression of greater closeness to ordinary Spaniards that his marriage suggested. In this he has been greatly assisted by his wife, and by the generally favourable, not to say fawning, coverage accorded to the royal couple in the Spanish media.

The reason that Felipe, rather than his eldest sister, inherited the throne is that the 1978 Constitution retains the historic precedence of sons in this regard – in direct contravention of the general gender equality guaranteed under its own Article 14. For some years there has been discussion about amending the relevant Article (57), which intensified when Queen Letizia gave birth to two daughters, Leonor (born 2005, the Princess of Asturias) and Sofía (2007). Doing so could entail a highly complex process, involving both a referendum and a general election, and would also bring pressure to deal with other, much more controversial changes to the Constitution at the same time. It has dimmed again as the prospects of further royal offspring have receded, but there does seem to be consensus that, should a son indeed be born, legislation would be introduced to ensure Leonor’s succession.

1.2 Parliament

The subordinate nature of the monarchy’s role in today’s Spain is made clear in the oath of loyalty sworn both by the monarch and – on coming of age – by his or her official heir. The oath’s wording explicitly acknowledges the Crown’s subordination to the law of the land and, above all, to the Spanish people as a whole. They it is who wield sovereignty under the 1978 Constitution, which ascribes the central role in the state to the body that represents their common will; indeed, the political form of the Spanish state is defined not as a constitutional but as a ‘parliamentary’ monarchy.

1.2.1 Election, structure and composition

The key role of parliament (Cortes Generales) in securing the fundamentally democratic nature of the state derives from the fact that it is directly elected by the people. This takes place by means of a general election (elecciones generales), at which all Spaniards aged 18 and over may vote. The maximum period between elections is set by the Consti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Preface to second edition
• Preface to third edition
• Preface to fourth edition
• Tables
• Map of Spain
• Introduction The historical context
• Chapter 1 The Spanish state
• Chapter 2 Political parties
• Chapter 3 Nationalism and regionalism
• Chapter 4 Spain in the contemporary world
• Chapter 5 The Spanish economy
• Chapter 6 Social challenges
• Chapter 7 Social security, health and education
• Chapter 8 The environment
• Chapter 9 Justice, defence and public order
• Chapter 10 The media and film
• Index