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THE WEAK UNDERPINNINGS OF THE POLITICAL LEFT-WING CULTURE IN SPAIN
Abstract
This article analyses the characteristics and evolution of the left-wing political culture in Spain over the last thirty years of democracy. The analysis takes us along two lines: Firstly, we study its attempts to re-appropriate the cultural codes of Spanish democracy. But we also provide various empirical data to identify the cultural bases around which the left-wing political identity has been articulated. The main argument is that the Spanish left very soon identified with the modernising agenda of Spanish democracy, adapting to it. This explains much of its success, but also the difficulties it has had in developing its own specific vision of political reality. Following the crisis at the end of the nineties, there has been a certain re-definition of the political and cultural foundations of left-wing activity, albeit without any clear pattern having emerged yet.
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En este artículo se estudia en detalle el proceso histórico de construcción de la ciudadanía en España desde el inicio de la experiencia democrática hasta las últimas elecciones generales. Este proceso histórico sólo puede entenderse adecuadamente si se analiza la estrecha relación que mantiene con el desarrollo de la cultura democrática y la intensa modernización vivida en todos los ámbitos de la vida social española. La contraposición entre la persistencia del legado de la transición y el cambio en las pautas político-culturales, se argumenta en el artículo, ha dado como resultado un modelo de ciudadanía poco definido, donde el alto grado de institucionalización de los derechos cívicos contrasta con unas prácticas ciudadanas bastante limitadas, aunque con interesantes signos de transformación. /// This article examines the historical process of construction of citizenship in Spain from the beginning of the democratic experience up to the last general elections. This historical process can only be understood properly if we analyse its close relationship with the development of democratic culture and the huge modernization of Spanish social life. The contrast between the persistence of the transition legacy and the change in political cultural patterns, as argued in the article, has produced a model of citizenship that is not entirely clear, where the high degree of institutionalisation of civic rights contrasts sharply with civic practices that are quite limited, although there are interesting signs that this situation is undergoing transformations.
Although historians have frequently employed political culture in their writings, they often seem unaware of the long-standing controversy that has engaged social scientists regarding its theoretical grounding, its methods, and its substantive findings. Moreover, cultural historians who have pioneered new ways of looking at symbolic and expressive forms of power have tended to slight the more traditional dimensions of powersuch as persisting elite hegemony and control of material resourcesthat ought not be excluded from the concept's domain. Historians would do well to attend more fully to the implications of political culture, especially its inherently comparative logic.
This article seeks to show empirically the importance of cultural aspects in the understanding of political events and the impact of cultural structures on the development of political life in contemporary societies. It uses as a case study the democratization process that has been taking place in Spain for the last 25 years. The Spanish case is especially interesting because of the powerful cultural framework established around the process of transition to democracy; a framework from which most political symbols and meanings of the new Spanish democracy emanate. After analyzing the basic categories of this cultural structure and the main consequences for the functioning of political life, the article goes on to argue that these cultural elements have shaped a special relationship between citizens and politics.
El articulo estudia, a nivel teórico, empírico y político, el cambio en el significado del autoposicionamiento ideólogico en España, partiendo de la aparente contradicción de que los españoles se autoposicionen mayoritariamente en la izquierda y voten a un partido socialista que no practica una política de izquierda tradicional. La explicación que se ofrece es la de que la polarización politica entre derecha e izquierda se basa actualmente mas en cuestiones no económicas (morales-sociales) que en cuestiones económicas. Las hipotesis han sido verficadas mediante técnicas de análisis factorial confirmatorio (LISREL), habiéndose especificado, además que la dimensión moral-social es aún más importante que la económica entre las generaciones mas jóvenes.