Presentation. 2013-2014 (1st class Sept. 9. 2013)

HISTORY OF SPANISH INSTITUTIONS  

In this course we will look at the history of Spain through the development of its institutions. For giving a unity to such a broad subject we will concentrate in the formation of the Spanish State, as its development has been the central pillar of Spanish institutional history. Spanish history is made of diversity and looking at the forging of its main institutions will give us a quite accurate idea of Spanish peculiarities. We will follow a diachronic approach, and for this purpose students should familiarize themselves with the chronology of every period, knowing the essential periods and the dates of the most relevant events. Then we will look at the essential features of constitutional history of the period in a comparative way. That means that we will analyze first the European institutional reality of the period before concentrating in what happens in Spain, trying to figure out to what extent Spain follows the general tendencies or has its own and peculiar development. By the end of the course students should not only have broadened their culture but will be able to understand the present Spanish reality according to the origins of its essential institutions.

1. SYLLABUS

First lesson: Spain before the Romans

a) Timeline.

b) General ideas about the constitutional history of the period:

1. Prehistory and history. 2. The Neolithic revolution. 3. The first great oriental civilizations: theocracy vs meritocracy. 4. The origins of Western societies: from family to city. 5. Synoecism and the origins of the first politically organized society: the Greek polis. 6. Aristocratic Sparta vs democratic Athens. 7. Unity and division in Ancient Greece) Institutions of the pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian : 1. Authoctons and immigrants in pre-Roman Spain. 2. The indoeuropean social structure in the Iberian peninsula. 3. Were there polis in pre-Roman Spain? 3. Hesperia, Iberia and Hispania.

Second Lesson: Roman Spain

a) Timeline.

b) General ideas about the constitutional history of the period:

1.The shortcoming of the polis model. 2. The Indo-European structure of roman society: gentilitates, curiae and tribes. 3. Republican Rome: an aristocratic polis that tried to avoid dictatorship. 4. On how did Rome consolidated its territorial expansion through Provinces and Cities. 5. The consequences of territorial expansion: the crisis of the republican system. 6. On how Augustus preserved the Republic destroying it. 7. From diarchy to monarchy, or how appeared the Roman empire. 8. The era of the Dominate or the triumph of imperial absolutism. 9. Did Romans invented the state? 10. Roman citizenship: History’s first nationality?

c) Spain from 218 B.C to 573 A.D. Roman Spain, an example of romanisation.

Third lesson: Christians and Germans

a) Timeline.

b) General ideas about the constitutional history of the period:

The origins of Christianity

1. Church and state in the western tradition. 2. The origins of Judaism: from Moses to king Solomon. 3. The origins of Christianism: from Jesus (Christ) to St. Paul. 4. Christianity and the Roman empire: from persecutions to officiality. 5. Christianity’s political dimension: a state within the state. 6. From Christian churches to Catholic church.

From Germanic tribes to Germanic kingdoms.

 7. Diversity vs unity. 8. The origin of European nations. 9. Roman monarchy vs German Royalty. 10. The gradual assimilation of the Roman imperial tradition by the Germanic kingdoms. 11. The structural weakness of the Germanic kingdoms: patrimonial possession, inheritance and protofeudalism. 12. Christianity and the Germanic peoples: the Church and the preservation of the Roman “state” tradition.

c) Institutions of Christian and Visigothic Spain.

1. The origins of Christian Spain: from council of Elvira to the Toledo councils. 2. The most structured Germanic Kingdom: the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo from Leovigild to Roderic (573 to 711).

Fourth lesson: The medieval origins of the Spanish State

a) Timeline.

b) General ideas about the constitutional history of the period: Christian Universalism, Feudalism and monarchy in the origins of Western State traditions.

 Popes vs emperors.

1.The papacy from spiritual to temporal power. 2. The Gregorian reform and the separation of the Church from secular powers. 3. The popes as the legitimate arbiters of divine authority: the era of papal theocracy 4. Charlemagne and the resurgence of the imperial idea in the West. 5. From the Carolingian Empire to the Holy Roman Empire. 6. A virtual empire? 7. The medieval origins of the supranational principle. 8. The decay of papal supremacy and the evolution of imperial idea.

Feudalism.

9. The Carolingian monarchy and the origins of feudalism. 10. From lifelong to hereditary benefits: the era of classic feudalism. 11. The Church as a bulwark against disintegration of public power. 12. Feudalism and the origins of the “pactist” concept of power. Late medieval monarchy and the origin of the Western state. 13. From kings to monarchs. (The consolidation of the hereditary principle as the basis of royal legitimacy.

A territorial monarchy. The triumph of monarchy over Christian universalism).

14. The late medieval origins of the “rule of law”. (The rise of state assemblies and the origins of the representative principle. The internal limits on the authority of medieval kings: A king subject to the law. Europe’s first “constitutional” texts?

c) Medieval institutions of Christian Spain.

1. Reconquest and repopulation. 2. Christian universalism in medieval Spain. 3. The non- reception of Feudalism and the Catalan exception. 4. The rise of Spanish kingdoms (Asturias. Leon. Castile. The Basque territories. Navarre. The county of Barcelona. Aragon) 5. The Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon.

Fifth Lesson. The era of Spanish Catholic Monarchy (1474-1700)

a) Timeline.

b) General ideas about the constitutional history of the period: The Absolute monarchy and the origins of Modern State.

1. The State of the prince: the concentration of public power in the hands of the king. 2. The prevention of anarchy as a justification for monarchs’ absolute power (Machiavelo, Bodin and Hobbes). 3. The legal limits of royal absolutism (divine and natural law, the limits of “fundamental laws”, respect for traditional customs, relative autonomy of the Ancien Regime’s judges). 4. Absolute monarchy, an essential phase in the consolidation of the state: the technical and political advantages of absolutism.

c) Institutions of the Spanish Catholic Monarchy.

1. Do the Catholic Kings found Spain? 2. The Composite monarchy as a constitutional model. 3. The fabulous heritage of Charles V and the origins of the Spanish empire. 4. Philip II and the consolidation of polisinodial system of government. 5. Why the Catholic monarchy became a Castilian monarchy? 6. Olivares and the importance of being “king of Spain”. 7. The idea of Spain between 1474 and 1700.

 Sixth Lesson: The Eighteenth-century Revolution in Spain (1700-1808)

a) Timeline.

b) General ideas about the constitutional history of the period: Enlightened absolutism.

1. The crisis of classic absolutism. 2. Enlightened “absolutism” and the transformation of the state (The state: from guardian of order to protector, educator and reformer. Secular monarchs. The “depatrimonialization” of the monarchy). 3. The expansion of enlightened absolutism in 18th century Europe: the great Enlightenment monarchs.

c) The transformation of Spanish political constitution from 1700 to 1808:

1. The change of dynasty and the Spanish Succession war. 2. The consequences of the conflict: from composite to unified monarchy: the New Plant Decrees. 3. Spain and the 18th century revolution: reformism and the consolidation of Spanish monarchy as a world power. 4. From Kingdom to State: the Spanish National symbols: the flag and national anthem.

Seventh Lesson: Spain during the Revolutionary period (1776-1814)

a) Timeline.

b) General ideas about the constitutional history of the period: From old to new regime: the American and French Revolutions and their aftermath.

1. The American war of independence: a revolutionary war?. 2. What is left from French Revolution? 3. The crisis of democratic assembly-based governments: presidential regime vs Napoleonic state.

c) The rupture with “Ancien regime” and the beginning of constitutionalism in Spain.

1. Spain and the American revolution. 2. The French revolution and its consequences in Spain. 3. “Peninsula war” (Spanish war of independence) and its constitutional impact: from the Bayonne’s Statute to the Cadix constitution.

Eighth Lesson: Rise and crisis of the Liberal State in Spain (1814-1923)

a) Timeline.

b) General ideas about the constitutional history of the period: the golden era of the liberal state model (1814-1914).

1. The Europe of the Restoration. 2. The liberal reaction: 1820, 1830 and 1848’s revolutions. 3. The triumph of the nation-state model: Italian and German unification. 4. The global rise of nation states during the golden age of colonialism. 5. The essence of

the liberal state model: constitutions and censitary suffrage.

c) Spain from constitutional to administrative State.

1. Ferdinand VII and the restoration of absolutism. 2. The dynastic question and the Carlist wars. 3. Liberals save Elisabeth’s II throne. 4. The triumph of constitutionalism. 5. The failure of parliamentarism: Narvaez, Prim and Canovas. 6. The building of an administrative state. 7. The end of the Spanish empire. 8. Between centralism and regionalism.

 Ninth lesson: From Liberal State to Dictatorship: Spain between 1923 and 1975.

a) Timeline.

b) General ideas about the constitutional history of the period. The social question and its consequences: from liberalism to totalitarianism and interventionism.

1. The middle class and its access to political representation. 2. The appearance of the "proletariat". 3. The origins of “the social question". 4. The demands of labor and the crisis of the liberal State. 5. 5. The return of the interventionist state. 6. World War I and the crisis of the liberal state model. 7. The reappearance of a strong state: from Liberalism to totalitarianism. 8. The expansion of Social State model in the Interbellum period. 9. From Totalitarism to World War II. 10. The appearance of Welfare State.

c) The dictatorial origins of contemporary Spanish state.

1.The non-parliamentary monarchy of Canovas. 2. The origins of the social question in Spain: anarchism vs socialism. 3. From regionalism to nationalism. 4. The crisis of the liberal State: the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and the Second Republic. 5. The Spanish revolution: the Civil war and the Franco’s New State.

Tenth lesson: Spain from democracy to European integration

a) Timeline.

b) General ideas about the constitutional history of the period. The crisis of the nation state and global government in 21^st century.

1. War and nationalism. 2. Supranational integration as a remedy for European decay (models of states integration: the European tradition and the US formation. Europe after World War II. From federalism to comunitarism) 3. Will state and nations disappear?

c) Spain in the era of European integration.

1. The Transition from dictatorship to democracy. 2. The Spanish territorial question: the basque and catalan problem. 3. Spain in Europe and in the world.

2. EVALUATION PROCEDURES

a) Oral interventions in class: 25%

b) Class notebook 25%

c) Exam 50%

The exam contains four parts that each counts for 25% of the total mark. 1) Chronology; 2) Concepts explanation; 3) Questions and 4) Text analysis.