In this article I am going to analyse the creation of a series of disciplinary and regulatory mechanisms aimed at increasing the State’s forces and decreasing the individual’s capacity to protest during the initial years of Franco’s regime. In order to do this, after an introductory section that presents certain concepts and methodologies, I am going to describe three areas of analysis in which the biopolitical mechanisms belonging to the Franco regime emerged: the economic sphere, the medical-social sphere and the (...) ideological-educational sphere. I will use the analysis of these mechanisms to present the training and functioning of the totalitarian governmentality during the first years of the Franco regime, and the creation of a subjectivity, which was considered to be the cornerstone on which the regime was supported for almost forty years.Finally, I will conclude with some considerations about the biopolitical interpretation of fascism and Francoism. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyze the meaning of the concept of empire during the first years of the Francoist regime and try to clarify the different meanings that the various political and ideological groups that were part of the dictatorship gave to this concept. As will be explained, it is possible to find two main meanings for the concept of empire . The first one was linked to the notion of Hispanidad and was developed by the Catholic (...) and counter-revolutionary groups; in this case, empire was defined through the Catholic religion and the missionary role that Spain had played in the discovery of America, the moment that marked the beginning of the Spanish Empire. The second meaning was developed inside the Falangist party. It contained fascist values and was linked to an ideal of expansionism that would support specific policies. The aim here is to differentiate these meanings by paying attention to the different contexts in which they were produced. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a crucial and insufficiently examined issue of the conflict between legality and legitimacy, seen as a key element in securing continuity and providing the intellectual justification of the Francoist regime. Without analyzing the tension between legality and legitimacy, it is impossible to comprehend and successfully dismantle the thesis of the regime's intellectuals, recently revitalized by revisionist historians, according to which Francoism succeeded in re-establishing historical continuity and political normalcy in Spanish society. In the context of (...) the Cold War, it was crucial for Spanish legal scholars to portray Francoism not as a bastion of anti-liberalism, but as a regime whose survival entailed an original interpretation of notions such as freedom, rule of law, sovereignty and authority. They argued that the significance of Francoism consisted not only in defeating liberalism in Spain but in offering an alternative interpretation of its main tenets. By aspiring to justify and overcome its own historical exceptionality, the Francoist regime sought to avoid the inevitability of its demise. By virtue of its failure to do so, Francoism remained outside the European political norm, to which only democratic Spain would be re-admitted. (shrink)

In this article I want to show the characteristic elements of the bio-politics in the developmentalist Francoism, from 1959 to 1975. For this, I will distinguish three fields of study – economic , health and the ideological – and I will analyze the most characteristic – disciplinaries and regulatories – bio-political devices for each of them. At the same time, the analysis of these devices will allow me to show the most distinctive elements of the governmentality of the last (...) Francoism , understanding this concept as “conduct of conducts” tried out by the Franco’s regime in this period. Finally, all of this will allow me to provide a new interpretation about the end of the Franco’s regime, indicating the effectiveness of its bio-political devices, and announce the birth of a new governmentality in Spain with the democracy arrival. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt is the most important anti-liberal political theorist of the European interwar period (1918-1939). His theories on the state of exception, dictatorship, and his criticism of parliamentary democracy are very well known. However, what remains unknown to this day is how his ideas had a remarkable influence on the ideologues of the Francoist state between 1939 and 1942. During these years, a debate developed among Francoist jurists about whether Francisco Franco was a “sovereign dictator,” that is, a dictator legitimized (...) by popular consent, or rather a new kind of “monarch” that emerged in the context of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). This paper aims to explain how two ideological factions formed in Francoist Spain. The “Decisionist Francoism” of Juan Beneyto Pérez, Francisco Elías de Tejada, and Luis Legaz Lacambra held that Franco emerged as a reaction to the process of “legalization” triggered by liberalism in Spain. The “Weberian Francoism” of Francisco Javier Conde held that Franco was a charismatic and traditional leader whose position emerged in response to the Civil War. I explain how three concepts of Schmitt's anti-iberalism inspired Francoist theorists: political theology, dictatorship, and the rejection of parliamentary democracy. (shrink)

Con el presente estudio se pretende analizar el conjunto de fotografías incluidas en la obra Causa General. La dominación roja en España. Avance de la información instruida por el Ministerio Público, publicada por el Ministerio de Justica en diciembre del año 1943, para averiguar su posible influencia en el constructo del imaginario colectivo.De dicha obra se desprenden tres conceptos que serán las imágenes asociadas a aquel período: la anarquía, la persecución de la iglesia y la vinculación del gobierno republicano a (...) Rusia. Así como la idea transversal de la inevitabilidad del golpe de Estado. (shrink)

This paper takes Franco's Spain to be a powerful case study for analyzing the ways in which power shapes science and technology and is shaped by them in return. Spain was the last country in Western Europe to establish closer links with any of the international cooperative institutions emerging after WWII. As such, developments internal to Spanish society were quite autonomous and relatively free from foreign influences. The paper focuses first on the brand new, powerful institution that the Francoist regime (...) created to promote scientific research under tight political control, the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Next it turns to applied science and technology, top priorities for the regime's state-supported programs of industrialization. They were implemented through the politically and financially powerful Instituto Nacional de Industria. Using diplomatic sources, the paper next argues that, until the late 1950s, Spain maintained substantial political and economic isolation essentially because the regime bet on autarkic policies and a model of largely isolated development. In this model, it was crucial for the regime to develop its own technological and scientific resources. Finally, the paper examines how the regime fostered a new Spanish identity in which science had a new role. (shrink)

The Spanish Federal Council of the European Movement (SFCEM), founded as a Spanish organization to favour the integration of Spain in Europe, was composed of representatives of various political organizations of the Republican government in exile. Correspondence between the President, Salvador de Madariaga, and the members of the Basque and Catalonian delegations discloses one of the most critical issues of the time: how to organize the Spanish regions after the fall of Franco’s regime. This article explores how the ideas of (...) a Spanish federation – defended by Madariaga – and the interest of the nationalist groups collided during the decades of 1950s and 1960s. The result was a harsh debate on separatism between the Basques and Catalans, who saw Franco’s Spain as the representation of centralism and repression of their identities, and other Spanish exiles. (shrink)

Trente ans après la fin définitive de la dictature et l'approbation de la Constitution de 1978, après trente-sept ans de franquisme, le moment semble venu pour l'Espagne moderne de revenir sur les années de dictature. L'ombre du franquisme n'avait jamais disparu, mais elle revient, puissante, avec l'opposition des partis de droite à la « Loi sur la mémoire historique » et le refus de l'Église de reconnaître une quelconque responsabilité dans les exactions du franquisme. La rencontre entre la Mémoire et (...) la Loi est au cœur de cet article.Thirty years alter dictatorship finally came to an end with the adoption of the 1978 Constitution and after thirty seven years of Francoism, the time seems to have come for modern Spain to look back on those years. The shadow of Francoism had never entirely disappeared, and it has returned, powerfully, with oppo­sition from the right-wing parties to the "Historical Memory Law" and the Church' s refusal to admit to any responsibility in the abuses of power meted out by the Franco regime. The encounter between Memory and Law is the core issue of this article. (shrink)

Today the definition of Spain as a national, historical and sovereign entity is in crisis. This situation has been reached because the Spanish left has assumed as its own many of the ideas about the concept of the Spanish nation of peripheral nationalisms. In this article we try to discover the causes of this identification through the study of the propaganda texts that the opposition to the Franco regime had on the national concept, rescued in the rulings of the Public (...) Order Court. In them we will observe how the opposition to Francoism in the Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia and the Canary Islands mixed Marxist and nationalist ideologies in their messages, but with great fundamental differences in each of these regions. Furthermore, we certify that the "Burgos Process" was the turning point that cemented the identification of the Spanish left throughout the country with the nationalist movements. (shrink)

En 1941, deux ans après la fin de la guerre civile, le gouvernement espagnol a signé un accord avec le St-Siège par lequel le Chef de l’État, le Général Francisco Franco, intervenait directement dans la nomination des évêques et des archevêques diocésains. L’accord a été inclus dans le Concordat de 1953, qui a scellé les relations de coopération entre les deux États. Après le Concile Vatican II, le pape Paul VI a personnellement demandé au Général de renoncer à ce privilège, (...) mais Franco refusa, subordonnant son renoncement à une révision totale du Concordat. Le Roi Juan Carlos Ier a renoncé à ce privilège quelques mois après son couronnement ; ainsi les relations Église-État, compliquées pendant les dernières années du franquisme, se sont normalisées.In 1941, two years after the end of the civil war, the Spanish government signed an accord with the Holy See under which the Head of State, General Francisco Franco, intervened directly in the nomination of diocesan Bishops and Archbishops. The accord was included in the Concordat of 1953, which cemented cooperative relations between the two States. After Vatican Council II, Pope Paul VI personally asked the General to renounce the privilege, but Franco refused, linking his renouncement to a total revision of the Concordat. King Juan Carlos I renounced the privilege a few months after his coronation, thus normalizing Church-State relations, complicated during the last years of Francoism.1941, zwei Jahre nach dem Ende des Bürgerkrieges, unterzeichnete die spanische Regierung ein Abkommen mit dem Heiligen Stuhl, durch das der Staatschef, General Francisco Franco, direkt an der Ernennung der Diözesanbischöfe und -erzbischöfe beteiligt wurde. Die Übereinkunft wurde in das Konkordat von 1953 eingefügt, das die Kooperationsbeziehungen zwischen den beiden Staaten besiegelte. Nach dem Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil hat Papst Paul VI. den General persönlich gebeten, auf dieses Privileg zu verzichten, doch Franco lehnte ab und ordnete seinen Verzicht einer umfassenden Revision des Konkordats unter. König Juan Carlos I. hat schon wenige Monate nach seiner Krönung auf dieses Privileg verzichtet, so dass sich die in den letzten Jahren des Francoregimes schwierig gewordenen Beziehungen zwischen Kirche und Staat normalisierten. (shrink)

Since at least 1945, the Franco regime conditioned its existence on the ability to adapt to the demands of the postwar Western world, in various political and social aspects. The most visible changes in the Franco regime were both the progressive disappearance of purely fascist elements and the assumption of a Catholic and anti–communist role that made the face of the Regime more affable, which corresponded to a rapprochement with the recent American ally. However, these transformations must be seen in (...) a broader context, encompassing a historiographic perspective that gives them full meaning. The thesis defended here is that the economic–political line that Francoism followed, especially from the 50s was legitimized by a concrete discourse –hegemonic in the Western part of Europe– which is based on an hegemonic vision: the history of cold war economic liberalism, as well as the idea of ​​modernization that derives from it. (shrink)

The paper analyzes a book written by Volodymyr Yarymovych, Oleksandr Bilyk, and Mykola Volynskyi, entitled Narys istorii ukrainskoi studentskoi hromady ta Ukrainskykh poselen v Espanii 1946–1996 (An Overview of the History of the Ukrainian Student Community and Ukrainian Settlements in Spain, 1946–1996), which tells about the Ukrainian students who arrived in Madrid in 1946 and formed part of the early Ukrainian Diaspora in Spain. The book proves to be an important source of information, previously unknown to scholars, which describes the (...) dramatic and controversial process of constructing Ukrainian identity in the aftermath of World War II. The authors of the study consider the historical and cultural context of the Ukrainian emigration in the second half of the 20th century, its connection with Francoist ideology, and its integral role in the Spanish-Ukrainian cultural dialogue. (shrink)

La entidad NO-DO cumplió un papel de primer orden en la interpretación del territorio español (paisajes, costumbres, tradiciones, monumentos, etc.), a través de sus producciones cinematográficas durante el franquismo y la Transición. Este artículo analiza la imagen y la identidad que se forjó del legado artístico y monumental de Murcia, desde la metodología de los estudios visuales. Las conclusiones demuestran que si bien la catedral y la vista urbana de Murcia configuraron la imagen-marca de la ciudad, como ya había sucedido (...) en el siglo XIX, los escultores Salzillo y Planes fueron los principales representantes del arte murciano en el cine oficial franquista. (shrink)

En esta investigación estudiamos los filmes españoles, más taquilleros, rodados en la capital de España durante los años sesenta, sin considerar los largometrajes musicales y las coproducciones internacionales o de terror. Se escogen para ello cuatro películas, todas ellas comedias, que retratan Madrid (y sus afueras), representando un espacio cinematográfico durante el franquismo. Los títulos seleccionados son: Atraco a las tres (José María Forqué, 1962); La ciudad no es para mí (Pedro Lazaga, 1966); Un millón en la basura (José María (...) Forqué, 1966-1967) y No desearás al vecino del quinto (Tito Fernández, 1970). (shrink)