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Structure and Agency in the Spanish Transition to Democracy - Joe Foweraker: Making Democracy in Spain. Grass-roots Struggle in the South, 1955–1975, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, 289 pp., £25.00, $44.50; - Thomas D. Lancaster: Policy Stability and Democratic Change. Energy in Spain's Transition, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990, 238 pp., $26.15.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Abstract

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Reviews
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1991

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References

1 Amongst recent important studies are O’Donnell, Guillermo, Schmitter, Philippe and Whitehead, Laurence (eds), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986 Google Scholar; Santamaría, Julián (ed.), Transición a la democracia en el sur de Europa y America Latina, Madrid, CIS, 1982 Google Scholar; Baloyra, Enrique, et al., Lecciones para demócratas en transición, Argentina, Editorial de Belgrano, 1987 Google Scholar; Baloyra, Enrique (ed.), Comparing New Democracies, Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1987 Google Scholar. The macro-micro division is from Adam Prezworski , ‘Some Problems in the Study of Transition to Democracy’, in O’Donnell et al.

2 A few representative examples are Preston, Paul (ed.), Spain in Crisis, Hassocks, Harvester, 1976 Google Scholar, Maravall, José María, Trabajo y conflicto social, Madrid, Edicusa, 1967 Google Scholar and Dictatorship and Political Dissent, London, Tavistock, 1978; and Vilar, Sergio, La oposición a la dictadura, Barcelona, Ayma, 1976 Google Scholar.

3 The marginalization of the working class during the transition, which reflects the fact that its organizational importance in the struggle against Franco has often been overestimated, is very well covered in two important recent studies by English-speaking authors: Balfour, Sebastian, Dictatorship, Workers and the City, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989 Google Scholar and Fishman, Robert, Working-Class Organization and the Return to Democracy in Spain, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1990 Google Scholar.

4 Among the more surprising omissions, there is no reference to the central source on the opposition, Cuadernos de Ruedo Ibérico, set up by the late José Martinez Guerricabeitia and published in Paris between July 1965 and December 1979, as well as the multi-volume supplements Horizonte español (1966 and 1972). José Antonio Diaz’s important account of the Workers’ Commissions in Barcelona would have been useful for comparative purposes: Oiler, Julio Sanz [Díaz, J. A.], Entre elfraudey la esperanza, Paris, Ruedo Ibérico, 1972 Google Scholar and Luchas internas en Comisiones Obreras, Barcelona, Bruguera, 1977. Two further works of relevance to which no reference is made are Moran, Gregorio, Miseria y grandeza del Partido Comunista de España, 1939— 1985, Barcelona, Planeta, 1986 Google Scholar and Jáuregui, Fernando and Vega’s, Pedro Cronica del antifranquismo, 3 vols, Barcelona, Argos Vergara, 1983–85Google Scholar.

5 Foweraker, Joseph W., ‘The Role of Labor Organizations in the Transition to Democracy in Spain’, in Clark, Robert P. and Haltzel, Michael H. (eds), Spain in the 1980s, Cambridge, Mass,, Ballinger, 1987, p. 119 Google Scholar (n.5).

6 The most recent English-language accounts are all very clear on the importance of seeking the roots of the transition in socio-economic and political developments during the Franco regime. See Preston, Paul, The Triumph of Democracy in Spain, London, Methuen, 1986 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gilmour, David, The Transformation of Spain, London, Quartet, 1985 Google Scholar; Graham, Robert, Spain. Change of a Nation, London, Michael Joseph, 1984 Google Scholar. None of these works is referred to in Foweraker’s bibliography.

7 See the important studies by Moya, Carlos, Señas de Leviaidn, Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 1984 Google Scholar; Jerez, Miguel, Elites políticas y centros de extracción en España, 1938—1957, Madrid, CIS, 1982 Google Scholar; del Alcázar, Mariano Baena and Pizarro, Narciso, ‘The Structure of the Spanish Power Elite, 1939–1975’, EVI Working Paper, No. 55, Florence, 1982 Google Scholar.

8 Lindblom, Charles, Politics and Markets, New York, Basic Books, 1977 Google Scholar.