Spain in the 20th century: The end of the exception?

Observers of Spain, whether Spanish or foreign, have tended to interpret the last two centuries of the country’s history in terms of comparisons between what did NOT take place there but supposedly did take place in other European countries or in Europe as a whole. This habit of treating Spain as an exception – which, according to Charles Tilly, as far as violence goes, confirms the rule – aims to explain the ills of the patria, be they the caciquismo of the past or the democracy deficit of the present, not so much by means of an analysis of structures, institutions, cultures or internal events, but in terms of the absence or deficit of those factors which transformed our neighbors into democratic states built on flourishing economies, with a public awareness and broad social consensus. This has given rise to accounts of Spain’s past that treat it as an anomaly among the group of European nations. This was very much in vogue in the years immediately before, during and after the “Disaster” of 1898, when Spain lost the last vestiges of its colonial empire. And it was also the source of many of the criticisms of the transition to democracy in 1977 which saw it as the cause of the low quality of Spain’s democracy.