International Journal of Iberian Studies - Volume 20, Issue 3, 2007

Out of a desire to prompt a reconsideration of Spanish nationalism and regionalism in the post-Francoist period, this article seeks to use the example of Madrid to expose the inadequacies of the widely accepted centre-periphery model that is often used to explain geographical identity formation in the period after 1975. Contrary to this model, which posits regional identities forming in response to a strong national centre, an examination of Madrid finds no evidence of a unified national identity, or Spanishness, articulated in the capital during this period. At the same time, there is evidence to suggest that the local and regional administrations of Madrid articulated their own regionalist project between 1979 and 1986, which implies a more global process that escapes the constraints of the centre-periphery model of identity formation and points to the creation of a multiple, or postmodern, democratic identity after the dictatorship.

With the Spanish general election approaching, this article considers the political lessons for social democratic parties to be drawn from the PSOE's experience in government and argues that its strategy has been based on contrasting approaches in the economic and non-economic policy areas. Continuity has characterised the PSOE's economic policy orientation, as it has broadly maintained the policy inherited from the previous PP government. In contrast, the PSOE has put in place a number of innovative reforms in areas beyond the economic policy arena, particularly with respect to policy on civil and gender rights. This combination has allowed the government under Rodrguez Zapatero to prioritise macroeconomic stability whilst at the same time distinguishing itself from previous PSOE and PP governments via a package of reforms which, it argues, has formed the basis of a distinctive national social democratic agenda founded on economic efficiency, social justice and individual freedoms.

This article studies two competing discourses of one of the most emblematic events of recent Spanish history: the failed 23 February 1981 coup d'etat. It maintains that through the recourse to the metaphors of therapy and rite of passage, the dominant discourse (disseminated by an ample majority of the Spanish press) interpreted the coup and its consequences as a moment of redemption in which Spain had left behind its Francoist past. This interpretation will be contrasted with the conceptualisation of the coup offered by the divergent discourse (as disseminated by Avui), for which the coup partially triumphed in its political consequences and therefore constituted not a moment of redemption of Spanish democracy but rather a moment in which the fledgling Spanish democracy was derailed.

Thousands of men and women from all around the world flocked to join the International Brigades believing that to fight for the Spanish Republic was to fight for the very survival of democracy and civilisation against the assault of fascism. And alongside the regular troops sent by Hitler and Mussolini to support Franco and the military rebels, a smaller number of volunteers also went to fight for what they perceived as the cause of Catholicism and anti-Communism. A similar range of sentiments can be found among the nearly one thousand newspaper correspondents who went to Spain. Along with the hardened professional war correspondents, and others still to win their spurs, came some of the world's most prominent literary figures. This article shows how, as a result of what they saw, even some of those who arrived without commitment came to embrace the cause of the beleaguered Republic. Underlying their conversion was a deep admiration for the stoicism with which the Republican population resisted.

Catalan Nationalism: Francoism, Transition, and Democracy, Montserrat Guibernau (2004) Caada Blanch Studies on Contemporary Spain, 12. Abingdon: Routledge, xii+ 200 pp., ISBN 0-415-32240-5 (hbk), 80

Vanguardia espaola e intermedialidad: artes escnicas, cine y radio, Mechthild Albert (ed) (2005) Estudios de Cultura de Espaa, 7, Madrid: Iberoamericana-Vervuert, Casa de la Cultura, ISBN 848489200X, ISBN 3-86527-210-X, pp. 615, (pbk), 24.00

Carmen: From Silent Film to MTV, edited by Chris Perriam and Ann Davies (2005) Amsterdam: Rodopi, 224 pp., ISBN 90-420-1964-6 (hbk), 55

Gibraltar, Identity, and Empire, E.G. Archer (2006) London and New York: Routledge, 233 pp., ISBN 0-415-34796-3 (hbk), 70