Debating the local transition: Contested visions of democratizing municipal Government in the 1970s-1980s

  • Pamela Beth Radcliff University of California San Diego
Keywords: Transition, Democratization, Municipalism, Local Government

Abstract

This article contributes to the efforts to problematize the democratization of municipal government as a discrete phenomenon, rather than as a subset of the state-level process of transition. Not everyone agreed on the parameters of local democracy, and this article highlights the contested visions that were articulated by the major actors, including the citizen movement activists, the political parties and the federation of municipalities. It argues that there were features specific to the discourse on municipal democratization and that these constituted part of a fundamental ongoing debate in Spanish constitutional culture since the early 19th century. In broad terms, the field was divided between those who viewed municipal democratization as a secondary and subsidiary process that would be implemented from above and those who framed it as a distinct and constituent feature of a substantive democratization. Even though all parties formally rejected the old centralist model, in practice, the centralizing and municipalist traditions still shaped the terms of the debate.

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Published
2026-06-09
How to Cite
Radcliff P. B. (2026). Debating the local transition: Contested visions of democratizing municipal Government in the 1970s-1980s. Historia y Política, 55, 409-439. https://doi.org/10.18042/hp.2026.AL.06