The Politics of Contemporary Spain

Sebastian Balfour

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9780415356770
• eBook ISBN: 9781134249794
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

While Spain is now a well-established democracy closely integrated into the European Union, it has suffered from a number of severe internal problems such as corruption, discord between state and regional nationalism, and separatist terrorism. The Politics of Contemporary Spain charts the trajectory of Spanish politics from the transition to democracy through to the present day, including the aftermath of the Madrid bombings of March 2004 and the elections that followed three days later. It offers new insights on the main political parties and the political system, on the monarchy, corruption, terrorism, regional and conservative nationalism, and on Spain's policies in the Mediterranean and the EU. It challenges many existing assumptions about politics in Spain, reaching beyond systems and practices to look at identities, political cultures and mentalities. It brings to bear on the analysis the latest empirical data and theoretical perspectives.

1 From consensus to competition
The changing nature of democracy
in the Spanish transition

Jonathan Hopkin¹

Introduction

The Spanish transition to democracy attracted a wave of scholarly interest in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and few aspects of the process remain unstudied. The juridical mechanisms and political negotiations underpinning the reform,² the emergence of parties and electoral politics,³ the role of the military,⁴ and the attempts to address territorial tensions⁵ all received extensive attention. Subsequent work focused on the concept of consolidation, with threats to democratic stability itself constituting the main concern.⁶

Now that the dust has settled and no one doubts the sustainability of Spanish democracy, it seems appropriate to look into what kind of democracy has emerged in Spain, and why. Despite the predominant role played by negotiation and consensus in the process of regime change, by the early 1980s the new political system had developed the key characteristics of a majoritarian democracy.⁷ In other words, although cooperation and negotiation between political forces was necessary to establish democracy in Spain, cooperation gave way to free, and sometimes intense, competition for power once democracy was perceived as consolidated. Rather than the coalitional form of government characteristic of countries such as Italy, Belgium or the Netherlands, Spain has been governed by single-party administrations, alternating between left and right: a qualified version of the ‘Westminster model’.

This shift from ‘consensus’ to ‘majoritarian’ democracy makes the Spanish case central to recent debates on building and consolidating new democratic regimes. The literature on democratization posits an intractable dilemma between democracy as cooperation and democracy as competition. On the one hand, scholars have argued that ideological polarization threatens democratic consolidation, and that institutions should therefore be designed in such a way as to avoid political competition becoming too conflictual.⁸ Juan Linz, for example, has argued powerfully that presidential democracies tend to polarize political positions, putting democracy at risk.⁹

On similar lines, much of the literature on transitions has emphasized the importance of elite pacts and consensus in building support for new democratic regimes.¹⁰ On the other hand, an alternative view emphasizes the dangers for democracy if political competition is restricted or suppressed. For example, Hagopian took issue with the ‘elite settlement’ route to democracy as adopted in Brazil, arguing that it entrenched non-democratic practices and protected the positions of privileged groups, undermining the quality of the emerging democracy.¹¹

The debate therefore seems to draw two conflicting conclusions: democratization is most likely to succeed if political competition is constrained, but the quality of the resulting democracy will suffer if collusion between political elites becomes institutionalized.¹² The process of democratization in Spain, however, has benefited from the ‘best of both worlds’. The Spanish ‘model’ of pacted transition has been lavishly praised for its success in overcoming what most observers believe was a significant potential for political conflict at the end of the Franco era. Yet this consensual transition to democracy quickly gave way to a competitive battle for power between government and opposition, averting the ills of collusive democracy that have afflicted Italy, for example.

This chapter is concerned with how the contest between competing types of democracy was resolved in post-Franco Spain. It shows how, as the transition period drew to a close, Spain underwent a shift from a ‘consensual’ mode of democratic government to a more competitive or ‘majoritarian’ kind of democracy, to use Arend Lijphart’s terminology. It explores the reasons for this shift, emphasizing the importance of contingent strategic choices made by political and social elites, and concludes by assessing the implications of the Spanish case for theories of democratization.

The rise and fall of consensus in the Spanish transition

Lijphart’s definition of consensus and majoritarian democracy is based on two dimensions: the executive-parties dimension, which looks at the nature of party competition and government formation, and the federal-unitary dimension, which focuses on the territorial structure of the state and the type of constitution. Lijphart found that democracies tended to cluster into two types: consensus democracies, characterized by multi-party systems, balanced executive-legislative relations, and decentralized constitutional structures, and majoritarian democracies, in which a smaller number of parties compete for control over a relatively strong executive in a basically centralized, unitary state.¹³

In the Spanish case, there has been movement on both the executive-parties dimension and the federal-unitary dimension in the quarter of a century of democratic government. There is little dispute that Spain has become a more ‘federal’ state since the transition to democracy, as the 1978 constitution provided for the transfer of significant powers from the centre to the autonomous regions.¹⁴ On this dimension Spain is closer to the consensual end of the scale. However on the executive-parties dimension Spain has moved in the opposite direction, to such an extent that it appears closer to the majoritarian than to the consensus model, with a pattern of ‘government and opposition’, in which two large parties alternate in power. This shift has taken place without constitutional changes, and under the same electoral system (a form of proportional representation with a majoritarian bias which penalizes small parties with dispersed support).¹⁵ This can be seen in three areas: the composition of government, the pattern of executive-legislative relations, and the party system.

From government by consensus to single-party rule

Clearly Spain’s transition was not the work of a broad multi-party coalition. On Franco’s death in November 1975, a single-party authoritarian state was in place, and none of its institutions were composed of freely elected representatives – indeed, political parties were at that time illegal. The transition was initiated and implemented by a government nominated by the dictator’s successor King Juan Carlos in July 1976. But in spite of its undemocratic origins, the government of Adolfo Suárez in fact consulted widely with all the relevant political forces. Suárez had secret talks with opposition leaders, including the leader of the banned Communist Party (PCE), Carrillo, to convince them that he intended to establish full democracy in Spain. At the same time, he convinced the components of the Dictatorship that his plans would respect the constitutional order and maintain political stability. A Law for Political Reform was passed, within the Francoist constitutional framework, which envisaged free elections with an electoral law designed in consultation with both regime conservatives and opposition leaders. Such was the degree of consultation on the reform that the text was described as ‘cross-eyed’ (estrábico), since it appeared simultaneously to satisfy incompatible demands: full democracy for the opposition and constitutional continuity for regime conservatives.¹⁶

This consensual theme continued after the first democratic elections. Adolfo Suárez’s hastily organized party, the Union of Democratic Centre (UCD), won the elections, allowing him to remain in power to direct the remainder of the transition. Although the UCD governments of 1977–82 were not formally coalitions, they fell into the ‘consensus’ category in a number of ways. The party itself was heterogeneous, originating as a coalition and following a broadly factional dynamic in the distribution of power both in the party and in the government.¹⁷ Moreover, especially in the 1977–9 period, a number of prestigious independents served in the UCD governments, undermining its ‘partisan’ quality. The high levels of cabinet instability – five mid-legislature reshuffles in as many years – and extensive policy disagreements reflect a lack of party discipline inside the government.

Moreover, as minority administrations, the UCD governments were obliged to build coalitions in order to pass legislation. In the 1977–9 period, supermajorities integrating virtually all the parliamentary groups were commonplace (this has been described as a ‘consociational model of transition’).¹⁸ Despite the sometimes fractious nature of interparty relations in the 1979–82 parliament, analyses of legislative votes reveal a persistently high level of interparty collaboration in parliamentary votes.¹⁹ This was partly a response to the need to update Spanish legislation in a variety of areas, but partly a consequence of the UCD’s vocation as a centrist party seeking to govern ‘for all Spaniards’.

The PSOE governments from 1982 to 1993 were, in contrast, almost exclusively partisan, highly cohesive and supported by solid single-party majorities which allowed them to push through very partisan legislative programmes. Although, like any party, the PSOE had its own internal factional dynamics, there was no detectable pattern of proportional allocation of portfolios to structured party factions. Although a degree of interparty cooperation on some legislation persisted, governments in this period followed a party programme and rarely bothered to seek support from other parliamentary groups.²⁰ Between 1993 and 2000, first the PSOE and then the PP fell short of parliamentary majorities, and were forced into pacts with ‘peripheral nationalists’ to maintain their minority administrations, although the executive remained strongly partisan in both cases. In the 2000–4 parliament the PP enjoyed an overall majority, and the pattern of single-party majority government returned.

Executive-legislative relations: the weakening of parliament

The constitutional framework governing executive-legislative relations in post-Franco Spain has facilitated executive dominance over parliament, both under the Francoist Fundamental Laws, but also under the democratic 1978 constitution.²¹ However, there has been considerable variation in the balance of power under the democratic institutional framework: the executive-legislative relationship was relatively balanced between 1977 and 1982, whilst the executive has clearly dominated since 1982 (again with a parenthesis in 1993–2000).²²

The 1977–9 parliament was in effect a constituent assembly, and Suárez used his party’s plurality status to negotiate consensual solutions to divisive constitutional issues, rather than imposing a partisan text. The pattern of executive-legislative relations was therefore rather balanced, although Suárez used his dominant position within the UCD to deny his own parliamentary group any real inf...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Spain Since the Transition to Democracy: An Overview
• 1. From Consensus to Competition: The Changing Nature of Democracy In the Spanish Transition
• 2. The Monarchy of Juan Carlos: From Dictator’s Dreams to Democratic Realities
• 3. Corruption, Democracy and Governance In Contemporary Spain
• 4. Using Terror Against Terrorists: The Spanish Experience
• 5. Terrorism and Nationalist Conflict: The Weakness of Democracy In the Basque Country
• 6. Convergència I Unió, Catalonia and the New Catalanism
• 7. From National-Catholic Nostalgia to Constitutional Patriotism: Conservative Spanish Nationalism Since the Early 1990s
• 8. The Reinvention of Spanish Conservatism: The Popular Party Since 1989
• 9. The Socialist Party In Government and In Opposition
• 10. Between Ambition and Insecurity: Spanish Politics and the Mediterranean
• 11. Spain In the New European Union: In Search of a New Role and Identity