10 - Contemporary Galizan Politics: The End of a Cycle?

Summary

The term ‘Spanish transition’ is conventionally used to refer to the historical period between the end of Franco's dictatorship in November 1975 and the subsequent consolidation of the Spanish state as a parliamentary monarchy. In Galiza, as in the rest of the state territories, the break between the Francoist regime and the new political and administrative structures was not fully achieved, a fact that is today viewed as one of the most debilitating aspects of contemporary politics in the Spanish State. In this chapter, I shall offer a historical overview of Galizan politics, understood as the particular configuration of political power specific to the Galizan territory, from the 1970s to the first decade of the twenty-first century, when the historical period that started with the Spanish transition may be considered to have come to an end. I shall focus particularly on the emergence, development and gradual configuration of the various political groups that have marked Galizan politics during this period, although as we shall see, they have exerted different degrees of influence on contemporary Galizan society. In parallel, I shall discuss a much-neglected area in the history of Galizan politics, both within and outside Galiza: the history of Galizan independentismo (the pro-independence movement). Although repeatedly treated either as an anomaly or a historical nonentity, the history of Galizan pro-independence politics offers an invaluable perspective from which to understand the specific claims and pressures that shape contemporary politics in Galiza, a subaltern historical reality on the Spanish State map still struggling to maintain its national status and difference today.