Between Autonomy and Federalism Spain

In contemporary Spain conflict between the central state and its decentralizing institutions is not bilateral; that is to say, it is not reflective only of tensions between, and identification with the political centre of Madrid on the one hand, and the seventeen autonomous communities or regions on the other. Instead the conflict is better seen as trilateral and encouraged by Spanish institutional arrangements, and in particular as a combination of the constitutional provisions for territorial decentralisation and the variety of available arenas for electoral competition. The tripartite nature of this conflict is grounded in divergent political orientations within Spain and can be generally categorised as: (1) state-legitimating centralist; (2) non-Spanish nationalist; and (3) Spanish-identified regionalist. In disagreement with much of the existing literature focusing on the non-Spanish nationalists on the state’s periphery in the Basque Country, Catalonia and, to a lesser extent, Galicia (see Beramendi 1992; Nunez Seixas 1993; Flynn 2001), this chapter argues that Spanish regionalism is becoming an increasingly important consideration for the state, particularly with regard to arbitrating between different political claims based on multiple nationalist and regionalist identities. The necessity for such arbitration is an especially pressing issue given the collapse, in late 1999, of the cease-fire declared by Basque militants and the subsequent killing, by October 2002, of over forty Spanish citizens (Manos Biancas).