Administrative authoritarianism, demobilised society: Laureano López Rodó and the roots of Francoist developmentalism

Abstract

This article explains the «reinvention» of Franco’s regime as a developmentalist dictatorship. It reconstructs the scientific and philosophical origins of that legitimisation strategy through the figure of Laureano López Rodó, Technical Secretary of the Presidency of the Government (1956-1962) and Commissioner of the Development Plan (1962-1973). Through a biographical approach combined with the methods of intellectual history and the history of ideas, it examines the concepts of state and society that the architect of Franco’s development policy elaborated throughout his academic career in the 1940s and 1950s. It thus shows that these concepts were inspired by administrative legislation in France and in Salazarist Portugal. Besides, López Rodó was influenced by American scientific management theories, the work of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences and the reflections of the German jurist Ernst Forsthoff. It finally argues that the attempt to stabilise the regime through administrative efficiency and economic success was linked to a specific model of society, which was based on extensive depoliticisation and the conversion of citizens into administrados.