The Spanish Civil War in the twenty -first century peninsular narrative: Narrative endeavors towards a national reconciliation?

This dissertation analyzes six twenty-first century novels that reflect Spain's current intellectual trends on the Spanish Civil War, Francoism and the transition to a democratic system. These novels deal with the complex correlation between memory and amnesia caused by the traumatic events of the Civil War. Despite the abundance of literature on this topic, these writers insist on the need for the recovery of historical and collective memory in order to halt the negative historical revisionism of recent years. Beginning with the death of Francisco Franco, this work focuses on the historical-theoretical framework that leads to the development of this mnemonic narrative and outlines the politics of memory effectuated during the transitional period, a lieu de mémoire frequently revisited and examined by new generations of writers. The novels analyzed also call for the retelling of history from the perspective of everyday people and address the need to pay overdue homage to victims of the post-war era.^ This work concludes that, while the texts may be considered settings for posthumous tributes, they could likewise advocate for a national reconciliation. Thus, as this narrative reveals, by focusing more on the need for a work on memory than on political and ideological polarizations, the memory of restitution does not interfere with the memory of reconciliation. The writers in question are nonetheless aware that reconciliation cannot be based on a spurious amnesia. The first step, therefore, towards reconciliation is to achieve a legitimate dialogue with regard to the traumatic past, and literary works may offer a tenable path. ^

From Pro-Franco to Anti-Government. The Evolution of the "Sur" regarding National Politics during the Spanish Transition (1975-1978)

The Spanish transition, the political process through which Spain ceased to be a dictatorship to become a democracy, was accompanied by the dissolution of the National Movement, the institutional support for the chain of the Movement Press from its beginnings, in April 1977. This fact, among others, contributed to the /Sur/, the regional reference newspaper for the chain in Andalusia, evolving both structurally and ideologically to adapt itself to the new political regime. This study applies content analysis to editorials, articles and columns published by the newspaper between 1975 and 1978, exploring the process through which the regional newspaper edited in Málaga abandoned its propaganda function with regard to the Government, considering it undemocratic, and supported the PSOE, presenting it as the best alternative to the UCD in the Spanish Executive, thus taking on its role as a political agent.

Spanish Photography Yearbooks between the Autarchy and the Transition A Documentary Analysis (1958-1980)

The first yearbook on Spanish artistic photography was published in 1924 and following the Civil War of 1936-1939, Madrid’s Real Sociedad Fotográfica, through its Sombras magazine, published two others in 1946 and 1948. There would not be another publication until 1958, when the Agrupación Fotográfica Almeriense put out the third yearbook, during a period of economic recovery following the country’s admission to the U.N. at the end of 1955. However, it was not until 1972 when Spanish photography resumed the publication of annual summaries of the authors and their works. From then on until 1980, nine yearbooks were published by two institutions: The Consorcio del Libro Técnico (Cotec) and the Editorial Everest publishing company. The object of this study is to analyze the contents of these yearbooks in order to determine and furnish new data on the history of Spanish photography: authors, works, publications, national and international relations and the purpose of their publications as a means for supporting photography.

Spanish monarchy and the Portuguese Republic: two routes to democratization

From 1974 to 1986 the Iberian Peninsula was the arena of major political changes. The process then undertaken was characterized by the transition from two Iberian authoritarian regimes to two democracies, which enabled both countries to join the European Economic Community (EEC) on 1 January 1986. However, the political vicissitudes until full membership of what became the European Union (EU) was achieved were very different and were decisively, although not exclusively, influenced by the fact Portugal was a republic and Spain a monarchy. In Portugal the 1974 revolution took place with consequent shift of the head of state while in Spain the engine of change was precisely the head of state: King Juan Carlos I. It is also true that despite the dangers to democracy (terrorism in Spain and some radicalism in Portugal) both societies supported the political parties committed to the democratic process in elections, which helped avoid tensions that could have defeated the process. Likewise, it is possible to argue that in Spain a plan to achieve democracy within the rule of law (an archetypal transition) was designed by the head of state, while in Portugal there was no pre-established plan – the programme of the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das Forças Armadas [MFA]) was a weak and precarious compromise between different visions of the road to follow, enabling an intense political struggle that almost led to civil war and a dangerous state of crisis.

Nonlinear refraction and absorption through phase transition in a Nd:SBN laser crystal

Time-resolved Z-scan measurements were performed in a Nd(3+)-doped Sr(0.61)Ba(0.39)Nb(2)O(6) laser crystal through ferroelectric phase transition. Both the differences in electronic polarizability (Delta alpha(p)) and cross section (Delta sigma) of the neodymium ions have been found to be strongly modified in the surroundings of the transition temperature. This observed unusual behavior is concluded to be caused by the remarkable influence that the structural changes associated to the ferro-to-paraelectric phase transition has on the 4f -> 5d transition probabilities. The maximum polarizability change value Delta alpha(p)=1.2x10(-25) cm(3) obtained at room temperature is the largest ever measured for a Nd(3+)-doped transparent material.

Spanish pension system: population aging and immigration policy

There is a widespread consensus in the literature that, as consequence of the demographic transition, the current Spanish pension system will become unsustainable in the next decades. In this article we evaluate the sustainability of the contributory pensions' sub-system, taking into account the demographic projections by the Spanish Statistical Office (INE). A baseline scenario is projected as well as several reforms are simulated, focusing on: (i) selective immigration policy, (ii) changes in the way of setting the pensions and (iii) increase of the legal age of retirement up to 68. The main results are the following. The current system would not incur deficits until 2018, from then deficits will begin to be accumulated. The expenditure in pensions practically would double (from 8.3 % in 2005 to 17.2 % in 2050). A selective immigration policy -towards foreign young people- would help, but does not solve the long-term sustainability of the current system. A policy that combines a pensions' growth at a pace lower than productivity growth and extends the legal age of retirement up to 68 would give solvency to the system beyond 2029

Leaving the labour market: event-history analysis of the female workers' transition to housework in Denmark, Germany, Great Britain and Spain

This paper is aimed at exploring the determinants of female activity from a dynamic perspective. An event-history analysis of the transition form employment to housework has been made resorting to data from the European Household Panel Survey. Four countries representing different welfare regimes and, more specifically, different family policies, have been selected for the analysis: Britain, Denmark, Germany and Spain. The results confirm the importance of individual-level factors, which is consistent with an economic approach to female labour supply. Nonetheless, there are significant cross-national differences in how these factors act over the risk of abandoning the labour market. First, the number of trnasitions is much lower among Danish working women than among British, German or Spanish ones, revealing the relative importance of universal provision of childcare services, vis-à-vis other elements of the family policy, as time or money.

Recognition and political accommodation: from regionalism to secessionism. The Catalan case

Having lived through a bloody civil war in the 1930s followed by four decades of General Franco’s dictatorship, the Spanish state carried out a transition to a democratic system at the end of the 1970s. The 1978 Constitution was the legal outcome of this transition process. Among other things, it established a territorial model – the so-called “Estado de las Autonomías” (State of Autonomous Communities) – which was designed to satisfy the historical demands for recognition and self-government of, above all, the citizens and institutions of Catalonia and the Basque Country .In recent years support for independence has increased in Catalonia. Different indicators show that pro-independence demands are endorsed by a majority of its citizens, as well as by most of the political parties and organizations that represent its civil society. This is a new phenomenon. Those in favour of independence had been in the minority throughout the 20th century. Nowadays, however, demands of a pro-autonomy and pro-federalist nature, which until recently had been dominant, have gradually lost public support in favour of demands for self-determination and secession. This paper analyses the massive increase in support for secession in Catalonia during the early years of the 21st century. After describing the different theories of secession in plurinational liberal democracies (section 1), we analyse Catalonia’s political evolution over the past decade focusing on the shortcomings with regard to constitutional recognition and accommodation displayed by the Spanish political system. The latter have been exacerbated by the reform process of Catalonia’s Statute of Autonomy (2006) and the subsequent judgement of Spain’s Constitutional Court regarding the aforementioned Statute (2010) (section 2). Finally, we present our conclusions by linking the Catalan case with theories of secession applied to plurinational contexts

Voting after the bombing: Can terrorist attacks change the outcome of democratic elections?

Economists have recently turned their attention to the effects of terrorism. One much debated effect of terrorist attacks is its impact on the results of democratic elections. We use the electoral consequences of the terrorist attacks of the 11-M in Madrid to analyze this issue. We consider this particular experiment since the attack took place only three days before the 2004 Congressional Election, which allows the use of credible identification criteria. In particular, we use the advance voting by Spanish residents abroad, who cast their vote before the terrorist attack, to identify the effect of the bombing. We exploit this macabre natural experiment to run a difference-in-differences estimation using data on three consecutive Congressional elections. Our empirical results indicate that a terrorist attack can have a large impact on the outcome of democratic elections.

Subcontracting and vertical integration in the Spanish cotton industry

This paper examines changes in the organization of the Spanish cotton industry from 1720 to 1860 in its core region of Catalonia. As the Spanish cotton industry adopted the most modern technology and experienced the transition to the factory system, cotton spinning and weaving mills became increasingly vertically integrated. Asset specificity more than other factors explained this tendency towards vertical integration. The probability for a firm of being vertically integrated was higher among firms located in districts with high concentration ratios and rose with size and the use of modern machinery. Simultaneously, subcontracting predominated in other phases of production and distribution where transaction costs appears to be less important.

Fiscal decentralization in Spain: An asymmetric transition to democracy

Asymmetric fiscal decentralization, by which we mean different fiscal arrangements between the central government and different groups of, or individual, lower-level governments, may be justified from an economic efficiency perspective. As argued by Tiebout (1956), Oates (1972) and others, a decentralized system of regional and local governments is better able to accommodate differences in tastes for public goods and services. This efficiency argument calls for decentralization of fiscal authority to regional and local governments, but not necessarily asymmetric decentralization. However, when the differences in tastes for public goods and services arise out of differences in history, culture and language across regions of a country, asymmetric treatment may be justified. History, culture and language may influence how a group of people (a region) views autonomy, independence and fiscal authority. Some regions may have had experience with autonomous government in the past, they may have a culture that is strongly reliant upon (or leery of) the central government, or they may be fearful of losing their separate languages if they do not have special arrangements. To accommodate differences in taste for independence, autonomy, and fiscal authority, it may be necessary to have different fiscal arrangements between the central government and the different regions comprising the country.

Identification of two novel mutations in CDHR1 in consanguineous Spanish families with autosomal recessive retinal dystrophy.

Inherited retinal dystrophies present extensive phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity, posing a challenge for patients' molecular and clinical diagnoses. In this study, we wanted to clinically characterize and investigate the molecular etiology of an atypical form of autosomal recessive retinal dystrophy in two consanguineous Spanish families. Affected members of the respective families exhibited an array of clinical features including reduced visual acuity, photophobia, defective color vision, reduced or absent ERG responses, macular atrophy and pigmentary deposits in the peripheral retina. Genetic investigation included autozygosity mapping coupled with exome sequencing in the first family, whereas autozygome-guided candidate gene screening was performed by means of Sanger DNA sequencing in the second family. Our approach revealed nucleotide changes in CDHR1; a homozygous missense variant (c.1720C > G, p.P574A) and a homozygous single base transition (c.1485 + 2T > C) affecting the canonical 5' splice site of intron 13, respectively. Both changes co-segregated with the disease and were absent among cohorts of unrelated control individuals. To date, only five mutations in CDHR1 have been identified, all resulting in premature stop codons leading to mRNA nonsense mediated decay. Our work reports two previously unidentified homozygous mutations in CDHR1 further expanding the mutational spectrum of this gene.

Pork Barrel politics in semi-democracies: the Spanish 'Parlamentary roads', 1874-1915

This paper analyzes the effects of parliamentary representation on road infrastructure expenditure during the Spanish Restoration. Using a panel dataset of Spanish provinces in 1880-1914 we find that the allocation of administrative resources among provinces depended both on the delegation characteristics (such as the share of MPs with party leadership positions, and their degree of electoral independence), and the regime"s global search for stability. These results point to the importance of electoral dynamics within semi-democratic political systems, and offer an example of the influence of government tactics on infrastructure allocation.

Pork Barrel politics in semi-democracies: the Spanish 'Parlamentary roads', 1874-1915

This paper analyzes the effects of parliamentary representation on road infrastructure expenditure during the Spanish Restoration. Using a panel dataset of Spanish provinces in 1880-1914 we find that the allocation of administrative resources among provinces depended both on the delegation characteristics (such as the share of MPs with party leadership positions, and their degree of electoral independence), and the regime"s global search for stability. These results point to the importance of electoral dynamics within semi-democratic political systems, and offer an example of the influence of government tactics on infrastructure allocation.

Análisis del discurso político de los líderes de la transición española y su papel en la construcción democrática en el marco de la teoría de Teun van Dijk. Periodo 1976-1982

En la presente monografía se propondrá responder a la pregunta ¿De qué manera los discursos políticos de los líderes de la Transición española, Adolfo Suárez, Felipe González, Manuel Fraga y Santiago Carrillo, jugaron un papel en la construcción democrática durante las coyunturas políticas vividas entre los años 1976 y 1982 en España? Ante esto, se planea responder que los discursos políticos de los líderes de la Transición española jugaron un papel en la construcción democrática mediante la elaboración de consensos sociales alrededor de los valores democráticos y la construcción de disensos sociales en torno a las ideologías partidarias, que fluctuaron en intensidad según el Modelo de Contexto elaborado a partir de la coyuntura política respectiva.