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

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