Contemporary Transformations of the Relations between Politics, Culture and Religion in Western Europe. Some Notes on the Spanish Case

According to Tilly, two laws shaped the process of transformation undergone by Western European societies since the Peace of Westphalia until the end of the 20th century: their increasing inner homogenisation and their growing heterogeneity between them. Cultural inner homogenisation affected, fi rst, those ethnic groups living within the territories of the said states. The second phase of homogenisation impinged on those groups that immigrated after World War II. This process followed different models according to the country considered, but the 1973 oil crisis revealed their general lack of success. During the last quarter of the 20th century and onwards, these European societies have been altered by two progressive and contradictory global logics: a process of cultural homogenisation at the world level (rather than society level) and a process of cultural re-creation led by those groups with an immigrant background, who have reacted against their integration shortcomings by searching for new sources of social and personal esteem in their respective cultural and religious traditions. This paper seeks to clarify these processes from a social differentiation and political representation theory perspective. The latter becomes indispensable, as the said processes have happened in a context in which the structure of relations (i.e. communication) between civil society and the democratic political sphere have experienced a radical crisis. In this way, the complex relations that exist between civil society, culture, religion and politics in these Western European societies are depicted.

Social Transformations and Survivals in the Spanish Navy: The Midshipmen’s Access Requirements (1717-1869)

This work studies the creation, development and evolution of the Spanish midshipmen, through their requirements, from the early 18th century to the second third of the 19th century. The aims are: to know deeply an essential post in the Navy –naval cadet- that still requires an exhaustive review; and, primarily, to link the transformations of the candidates’ requirements to the social debates which were proposed in Spain during this two centuries. The so-called transition from the estates society to the class society, or the step from a society of inheriting criteria to a society based on achieving variables, did not occur linearly; changes and inertia went hand in hand with contradictions and conflicts, thus in this paper the Spanish midshipmen are analysed by several relationally variables.