Toward Federal Democracy in Spain: An Examination of Intergovernmental Relations

Intergovernmental Arrangements in Spanish and Swiss Federalism: the Impact of Power-Concentrating and Power-Sharing Executives on Intergovernmental Institutionalization

“…Also Switzerland and Spain are two democracies in which strong regional identities and national affiliation co-exist. Accordingly, besides the principle of democracy, federalism-albeit never mentioned in the Spanish constitution (Agranoff and Ramos Gallarín, 1997)-is considered as a constitutive feature on which the polities are built and out of which they derive their legitimacy (Linder, 1994;Beramendi, 2000;Neidhart, 2001;Moreno, 2002).…”

Which Internet Policy? Assessing Regional Initiatives in Spain

“…Spain was divided into 17 regions (autonomous communities), representative chambers were set up for each autonomous community, and they, in turn, selected and controlled the new regional governments. After a multifaceted process of decentralization that lasted more than two decades and created a complex web of intergovernmental relations, regional governments have taken on responsibility for many areas of public policy, especially broad social policies such as health care and education (Agranoff & Ramos, 1997).…”

A Step Backwards or a Step Forwards? The Politics and Policies of Decentralization under the Governments of thePartido Popular

“…As is already well known, the restoration of democracy in Spain was accompanied by a very particular process of political decentralization, which led to the development of a 'quasi-federal state' (Agranoff 1993;Agranoff & Ramos Gallarín 1997;Grau Creus 2000a;Máiz et al 2002). Although decentralization was initially conceived of as a target policy, which was designed specifically to accommodate the political claims of the Basque and Catalan nationalists through the creation of self-government entities, the fact is that a mere six years after the approval of the Spanish Constitution, the organisation of the whole country was already based on the territorial distribution of power.…”