La ciudad es nuestra. La dimensione comunale della Transizione spagnola alla democrazia

Abstract

This article analyzes the municipal dimension of the Spanish Transition to Democracy, an aspect that only in recent decades has been visited more thoroughly by historiography. Since the mid-1990s and especially in the new millennium, the importance of the local political sphere in the more general dynamics of political change from dictatorship to democracy has been recognized. Spanish cities, particularly metropolitan areas, were, in fact, a decisive setting for the conflict between dictatorship and opposition since the mid-1960s. In this context, neighborhood committees (set up in 1964) represented a very powerful driving force in the process of erosion of Francoism. They politicized the struggles for essential services and acted as real “schools of democracy”, forming a new municipal ruling class, especially of leftist opposition parties. The first democratic municipal elections, held on April 3, 1979, marked a clear victory for the oppositions in the majority of large cities. The new governing majorities–often articulated by leftist and nationalist forces–inaugurated policies of strong discontinuity with the dictatorship in such important concrete areas as public services and urbanism but also in such symbolic dimensions as toponymy. This process represented the first experiment in political alternation in the very young Spanish democracy.