Liberalism and radicalism in Spain


This article gives an overview of liberalism and radicalism in Spain. It is limited to liberal and radical parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having been represented in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in that scheme. For inclusion in this scheme it is not necessary that parties label themselves as a liberal or radical party.

Background

In the nineteenth century, liberalism was a major political force in Spain, but as in many other continental European countries care must be taken over the use of labels as this term was used with different meanings.
As in much of Europe, the nineteenth-century history of Spain would largely revolve around the conflicts between the three major liberal currents – radicalism; progressive classical liberalism, or conservative classical liberalism. While all three rejected the Catholic, traditionalist, and absolutist Old Regime, each had a different perspective on the urgency and degree to which state and society needed reforming to modernize the values and institutions.
  • The term 'liberal' itself was usually used to signify classical liberalism. It had a progressive-liberal wing as represented by the Fusionist Liberal Party ; and a conservative-liberal wing as represented by the Liberal Conservative Party. Its various currents were broadly united by a set of shared beliefs:
  • # In political affairs, parliamentarianism, though of a socially-conservative kind ;
  • # In economic affairs, free-market capitalism;
  • # In social affairs, conservatism
  • # In constitutional affairs, flexible towards the type of constitutional regime.
  • For the left-liberal and social-liberal currents, 'liberal' was rarely used as the single defining label. Instead such currents rather used labels such as radical, democratic or republican. The shared beliefs that generally unified its various factions included:
  • #Universal manhood suffrage;
  • # Sovereignty to be vested in the people of the nation rather than in the royal parliament;
  • # A root-and-branch reform to remove the political influence of monarchical, religious and aristocratic patronage;
  • # A certain degree of social democracy, as the nineteenth century progressed;
  • # An active role for an administratively-centralized state in carrying out these tasks.

History

Each of the following sections describes an element of Spanish liberalism and radicalism, mostly beginning with the 19th century.

From Liberals to Liberal Fusionist Party

Democratic Party

  • 1843: The left-wing of the ⇒ Progressives established the Democratic Party as a rally of left-wing liberals and moderate socialists
  • 1868: The republican wing formed the ⇒ Federal Republican Party
  • 1871: The party disappeared and remnants of the party continue as a monarchist party

Liberal Union

Federal Republican Party

From Democratic Radical Party to Centralist Party

Possibilist Democratic Party

Democratic Progressive Party

Dynastic Left

Liberal Democratic Party

Republican Union (1906)

Monarchist Democratic Party

Radical Republican Party

Liberal Left

  • 1918: A faction of the ⇒ Fusionist Liberal Party seceded to form the Liberal Left
  • 1923: The party disappeared due to the Primo de Rivera coup

From Republican Action to Republican Left

  • 1926: Manuel Azaña established the Republican Action, as a cross-party thinktank which initially worked closely alongside the Radical Republican party.
  • 1931: Republican Action was converted into a political party.
  • 1934: The party merged with a politically similar Galician regional party and the left-wing faction of the ⇒ Radical Socialist Republican Party into the Republican Left
  • 1939: The party is banned, though there were later attempts to revive the party after 1976

Radical Socialist Republican Party

From Democratic Radical Party to Republican Union

  • 1933: Due to the development of the ⇒ Radical Republican Party, the liberal wing seceded as the Democratic Radical Party
  • 1934: The party merged with a faction of the ⇒ Radical Socialist Republican Party into the Republican Union
  • 1939: The party is banned

Democratic Convergence of Catalonia

Democratic and Social Centre

Citizens

Union, Progress and Democracy

Liberal leaders

Liberal thinkers

In the Contributions to liberal theory the following Spanish thinkers are included: