Making Democratic Citizens in Spain: Civil Society and the Popular Origins of the Transition, 1960-78 (review)

This well-researched book discusses a topic about which we knew, until now, too little. Yet it starts with an obvious mistake—that Francisco Franco's death occurred on October 1975 (1). It actually occurred in November. This mistake, and other minor errors, which a good editor should have easily detected, does not obscure the author's achievement. Radcliff has devoted a good deal of archival research—in often sparse and elusive documents—as well as considerable skill, to provide a comprehensible, well-written, and convincingly argued portrait of how ordinary people, and obscure and sometimes ephemeral institutions, changed Spanish society and made the arrival of democracy possible. Radcliff's search for information about such organizations, such as the much-neglected and (often) maligned Housewives Associations, is admirable. Her use of the information that she gathered is wise and insightful.

Radcliff's main argument is that the Francoist regime encouraged the creation of civic associations, most notably after 1964, in an attempt to reconnect with society. Although this policy ultimately failed, those associations helped to school their members in both participation and diversity, transforming Spaniards into citizens. Some of those associations remained controlled by Francoist supporters well after the dictator's passing; others were independent; and others changed hands during the mid-1970s. From this vantage point, Radcliff provides a different vision of the transition to democracy in Spain during the 1970s. Although many authors continue to focus too much on the role of the elites and the big parties and unions, Radcliff provides a portrait of how ordinary people in Spain have worked to improve society since the early 1960s, within a wider process of collective political learning. Notably, she pays attention to the women's groups that both female and male scholars have tended to neglect, in part because they declared themselves to be non-feminists.

With this book, Radcliff provides historians, political scientists, and sociologists a valuable analysis of Spain's transition to democracy. The fact that her documentation centers largely on Madrid, however, forces her to omit issues specific to regions that not only had to cope with the inefficiency of the Francoist authorities to address social problems but also with the arrival of immigrants and their different cultural backgrounds and languages. Such was the case in Catalonia (mainly Barcelona province) and the industrial areas of the Basque country. An analysis of inter-community relations and the role of associations in those places would have been a plus in what is nonetheless an excellent book.