Symbol and Ritual in the New Spain
The Transition to Democracy after Franco

This book examines the role of culture in social change and Spanish democratisation post-Franco.

Laura Desfor Edles (Author)

9780521621403, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 April 1998

212 pages, 1 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.45 kg

"Edle's discussion of political rhetoric during the transition will be quite useful to students of Spain." Journal of Ritual Studies

This is a book about the role of culture in social change and the Spanish transition to democracy after Franco. Laura Desfor Edles takes a distinctively culturalist approach to the 'strategy of consensus' deployed by the Spanish elite and uses systematic textual interpretation (with a particular focus on Spanish newspapers) to show how a new symbolic framework emerged in post-Franco Spain which enabled the resolution of specific events critical to the success of the transition. In addition to uncovering underlying processes of symbolization, she shows that politico-historical transitions can themselves be understood as ritual processes, involving as they do phases and symbols of separation, liminality and re-aggregation.

Part I. Interpreting the Spanish Transition to Democracy: 1. Introduction
2. Theories of transition and transitions in theory
3. Spain: a history of divisions and democracy
Part II. The Symbolic Basis of Spanish Consensus: 4. The spirit of consensus: the core representations of the Spanish transition
5. The curtain rises: the first democratic elections
6. The 1977 Moncloa pacts and ritualization of communality
Part III. Conflict and Consensus in the Institutionalization of Spanish Democracy: 7. Democratic reaggregation and the 1978 Constitution
8. The Basque exception: questions of communality and democracy
9. Conclusion and epilogue.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC]