Intergovernmental relations in democratic Spain : interdependence, autonomy, conflict and cooperation

This volume is an important contribution to the political science literature on post-Franco Spain. It emphasizes some of the major features of intergovernmental relations (IGR) between the govemment of the state and the seventeen autonomous communities (AC), as a federal system in all but name has emerged since 1978. Most important, it maps out major state-AC formal relationships in a systematic analytical way as they contribute to the emerging concept of Spanish IGR. In this regard, the scholars who have compiled and analyzed the data reponed herein are to be congratulated for a work that is long overdue. This volume underscores the kind of solid political science work that is necessary to explain the operations of any federal country, along with those with substantial federal features. As such, the study's emphasis on such topics as the debate over the model of the state, positions of the key actors and protagonists in the unfolding of this model, the distribution and then overlapping of competencies, the stages of development, and most importantly, establishment of the pattems of linkages at state-AC levels lays important groundwork for explaining IGR. In fact, this study begins at similar points as did those related IGR studies in other federal countries, such as in Canada, Germany, the United States and Australia, and more recently in Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. Methodologically the study employs secondary source data analysis to electoral pattems and the control of AC govemments, mechanisms of collaboration, pattems of bilateral and multilateral interactions, trends in financial subventions and transfers, and in selected public policy arenas like environmental protection and tourism. The primary mode of analysis combines historical or epochal IGR evolution with supporting data explanation. The focus is distinctly institutional, identifying the initial and emerging roles, such as those of bilateral transfer commissions, multiple party collaborative commissions and vertical convenios. In doing so, the authors have made solid use of much publicly available data, most of which has not been previously analyzed. This volume will hopefully be the start of similar IGR projects in Spain. There is much that remains. For example, systematic analysis of the key actors and their actions at the AC level, to supplement the traditional coverage of the various elected governments in Madrid. Another issue is the role of the central bureaucracy in forming these relationships. Their representatives are hidden but no doubt primary actors. Yet another issue raised by this study but remaining relatively obscure are the tensions between bilateral and multilateral relations, so important in Spain. One could also add analysis of the developmental role of the Constitutional Tribunal in constructing the autonomic state. Finally, there are also important connections that are also part of IGR, with over ten thousand sub-AC governments: provinces, municipalities, comarcas, mancomunidades, vertical consortia, submunicipal governments, municipal corporations, and various public-private arrangements. Indeed, the IGR research agenda is quite extensive. This should not detract from this contribution, with its focus on the intensity, weight, hierarchical-nonhierarchical, nature of the symmetric and asymmetric IGR challenges. Like anyone of the number of countries that have experimented with federalism, the story is one of conflict, competition and cooperation all of which can contribute to diversity within unity through lasting self-rule and shared role. To paraphrase General Carl von Clausewitz, IGR is another means of continuation of political commerce designed to prevent more violent means.

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