Why Democracy Failed: The Agrarian Origins of The Spanish Civil War

James Simpson and Juan Carmona, Why Democracy Failed: The Agrarian Origins of The Spanish Civil War (Cambridge Studies in Economic History – Second Series), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2020.

 

This book argues that Spain’s democratic experiment failed because the Second Republic (1931–6) inherited weak state capacity and an ineffective party political system, which severely constrained attempts by governments to resolve the social problems caused by economic depression. It challenges the ideas of those historians that believe Spain was a poor, backward society in 1931. It also claims that too much attention has been dedicated to the role of the landed elites in blocking democratic change, and not enough on why family farmers and their organisations were unable to exploit more effectively their newly found political voice. In particular, it suggests that a combination of natural resource constraints and institutional restrictions limited the economic and political development of small farmer organizations, which significantly reduced the possibilities that the democratic Republic would survive.

 

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