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8 results

  • The Franquist Regime and the Dilemma of Succession

  • Donald Share
  • Journal:
    The Review of Politics / Volume 48 / Issue 4 / Fall 1986
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    05 August 2009, pp. 549-575

  • This article explores the Spanish franquist regime's attempts to resolve a succession crisis, as the death of Francisco Franco appeared imminent in the late 1960's. It argues that Franco established the mechanisms for a smooth succession to the posts of head of state and head of government. However, these mechanisms failed to achieve Franco's major goal: the continuation of authoritarian rule after his death. Ironically, Franco's apparently ingenious “solution” to the dilemmas of succession facilitated a democratic transition that would have horrified the dictator.

  • Chapter 4 - From Policy-Seeking to Office-Seeking: The Metamorphosis of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party

  • Edited by Wolfgang C. Müller, Universität Wien, Austria, Kaare Strøm, University of California, San Diego
  • Book:
    Policy, Office, or Votes?
    Published online:
    05 May 2010
    Print publication:
    28 August 1999, pp 89-111

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    From being a party of militants, who in theory at least were expected to be disciplined, thoroughly committed, active, and schooled in the theory and practice of socialism, the PSOE went a long way towards an alternative electoralist model in which the role of the militant was relegated and party leaders sought direct communication with an electoral clientele by means of mass media and marketing techniques.

    GILLESPIE (1989a: 300)

    This chapter attempts to explain the Spanish Socialist Worker's Party's (PSOE) rapid shift from a policy-seeking party (as late as 1978) to an office-seeking party (by 1982). The PSOE emerged from the transition to democracy as a classic policy-seeking party: Its radical agenda was aimed more at party activists than at the electorate. After a loss in the 1979 general elections, the party moderated its image to enhance its electability, thus becoming more of a vote-seeking party. This strategy paid off in the 1982 elections, but the party entered government with some vestiges of a policy-seeking party. The Socialist leadership quickly eliminated these traits after the 1982 elections, and the PSOE subsequently became a largely office-seeking party. A new emphasis on economic modernization, efficient administration, and the desire to create “Things Well Done” (the PSOE campaign theme for the June 1987 elections) replaced the old concern for equality and participatory democracy (autogestión). The PSOE adopted a new image, based on its technocratic-administrative capability and the charisma of its leader, Felipe González, and it rapidly shed its social democratic skin.