MaquetaciŠn 1 - Fundación FAES

12/09/2005
Nº 20
NATIONAL
NATION, STATE AND CONSTITUTION
AP Photo/Markus Schreiber
This issue of the Papeles FAES brings together the ideas and conclusions of the course called
‘Nation, State and Constitution’, which was held during the FAES Campus 2005 from 8 to 10 July.
The experts taking part in the course were Carmen Iglesias, Professor of the History of
Political Ideas; Alain Lancelot, former Member of the Constitutional Council of France; Edurne
Uriarte, Professor of Political Science; Ferran Gallego, Lecturer on Contemporary History at
the Autónoma University in Barcelona; Manuel Jiménez de Parga, former President of the
Constitutional Court; Arcadi Espada, journalist; Jon Juaristi, writer; Roberto Blanco, Professor
of Constitutional Law; César Alonso de los Ríos, journalist; Javier Corcuera, Professor of
Constitutional Law; Josep Piqué, former Minister for Foreign Affairs; Emilio Lamo de
Espinosa, former Head of the Elcano Royal Institute; and Alejandro Muñoz-Alonso, Professor
of Public Opinion and Spokesman for the Partido Popular Group on the Senate Defence
Commission. The course director was Javier Zarzalejos.
This issue was coordinated by Santos Villanueva.
It is with growing concern that we are witnessing how the ideas, regulations and institutions which form the very foundations of our model of society are being called into
question, though they have guaranteed the longest and most fruitful period of freedom
and progress in Spain’s history.
Recently, the Government has initiated a series of debates dealing with issues
such as Spain’s character as a nation; the continued need for a State with sufficient
power and authority to guarantee unity, equality and solidarity among its citizens and
regions; and the initiative to revise the current constitutional framework. These
issues are rather more than mere semantic and denominational digressions, as
some would have us believe. They are debates of considerable importance, and they
affect the very pillars of the institutional and territorial architecture of our State
model.
This concern arises from both the scope and magnitude of the debates that have
been initiated, and the lack of any kind of specific or defined approach to these matters up until now on the part of the Government. The current situation has at least
two consequences. The first is that this reckless initiative has been exploited by
those who are least committed and loyal to the current constitutional model,
enabling them to make proposals that are as daring as they are selfish; such proposals have been a daily feature of the political debate. The second is that the lack
of definition has created a climate of institutional instability, which is becoming
increasingly widespread, and is doing nothing to promote the quality of life and welfare of the general public.
In view of this situation, and bearing in mind the current agenda of reforms and
initiatives featuring measures that will soon begin to take shape, it is especially
important that we reflect upon our idea of Spain and our idea of the State and the
Constitution, and that we do so from a range of different perspectives, uncovering
erroneous and self-interested approaches and offering society new ideas.
The Nation within the Current Context
If we wish to engage in a series of reflections on the nation, the State and the
Constitution within the current context, our point of departure can be none other
than the model or archetypal nation described in political theory, integrating all three
ideas. We are referring to the republican model, in other words none other than the
French model.
According to Alain Lancelot, former Member of the Constitutional Council of
France, the doctrinal foundations of the new French nation, as a centralized and unitary republican-type model, date back to the 18th century and the protagonists of
the French Revolution of 1789, who made utopia a reality. In this respect, the utopian idea of national unity was transformed into a State conceived as ‘a grand whole’
in which the individual would define himself solely by way of belonging to the same
nation, gaining access, according to Rousseau’s theory, to a supreme state of
humanity in which citizenship obliged society’s members to place the general interest above their specific interests. This absolutist model of the general will prevents
the ‘grand whole’ from splitting apart. According to Sieyès, ‘France must not be an
assemblage of small nations…; she is not a collection of states; she is a single
whole.’ Furthermore, it was understood that the cornerstone of the new French
nation was the Law, this being the universal expression of the general will. In this
sense, the primacy of the Law over the individual and his rights explains the weak
and rather secondary role of the Constitution in creating the nation, unlike in other
countries. It is the centralizing State that plays the most prominent role –one it has
enjoyed since the 19th century and right up until the present day– in integrating the
Republic’s citizens, seeking to ensure their active participation through universal
suffrage and guaranteeing their equal access to primary goods through a highlydeveloped public sector.
Nevertheless, these doctrinal foundations have witnessed recent developments
that have now brought them into line with the models that characterize developed
democracies. The unstable governments of the Fourth Republic led France to set up
a ‘governing democracy’, strengthening the right of the people to elect the President
and the National Assembly. At the same time, real constitutional control over the
country’s laws was introduced in 1958 with the creation of the Constitutional
Council, which was also given the task of monitoring and protecting fundamental
freedoms and rights.
According to Alain Lancelot, the French centralized model has been subject to two
parallel processes of change, which have preserved the system’s essential characpapeles@fundacionfaes.org
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teristics whilst reforming its traditional make-up. First, decentralization has become
a legitimate tool for management within the public sphere, although always in a format that respects the idea of national unity. Second, sovereignty has been ceded to
a number of supra-national bodies, mainly European (although the recent ‘No’ to the
draft European Constitutional Treaty reveals a somewhat backward step for Jacobin
ideology).
However, this twofold process is not exclusive to the French Republican model.
We can observe how all traditional models of the nation state are being transformed
as much by a context of change dictated by the dynamic of globalization as by the
needs of their internal structures. Spain is no exception.
If we focus on the first aspect, i.e. the phenomenon of globalization, we must
start, according to the sociologist Emilio Lamo de Espinosa, with the fact that,
although states continue to be the main actors on the international stage, there has
been a progressive loss of sovereignty to emerging supranational bodies. At the
same time, as highlighted by Josep Piqué, former Minister for Foreign Affairs, the
phenomenon of globalization has given rise to a multiple foreign-policy approach featuring an increasing number of representatives and interests, and overcoming the
traditional pairing of diplomacy and force.
“Foreign policy is a reflection of a country’s national strength,
which is why current developments are not good for Spain’s
position abroad. If we are witnessing a process in which the idea
of nation is being weakened domestically, it is difficult to believe
that this will not be felt within the sphere of international relations
or that it will not be reflected in the country’s foreign policy. The
fact is that a government’s weakness is also transferred to the
diplomatic sphere”
However, this does not mean, as highlighted by Senator Alejandro Muñoz-Alonso,
that the national interest has disappeared as the main guiding principle for foreign
policy. Since the Peace of Westphalia, the national interest, defined in one way or
another, has been the governing criterion for states’ actions on the international
stage. It replaced the medieval idea of the common good, as dictated by Christianity,
which had regulated relations between monarchs over the centuries. Initially, the
idea of national interest came to embody the rule of reason through the State, but
it soon became associated with the balance of power that replaced the nostalgic
model of universal monarchy.
The prototypical formulation of the concept of national interest was coined by
Palmerston in the mid-19th century in reference to England: ‘We have no eternal
allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual,
and those interests it is our duty to follow.’ For centuries, territorial and economic
interests constituted the main substance of relations and rivalries between states.
However, foreign policy has obviously acquired new aspects in recent times, such as
security, stability and peace, human rights, and democracy, and public opinion has
come to play an increasingly important role in defining that policy. But none of this
can affect the duty that all governments have to place their priority on defending the
national interest, whose definition and determination constitutes the supreme exercise in sovereignty. Thus we cannot subordinate this national interest to an evanescent international legality, which does not result from a true legislative process (as
is at the heart of all states governed by the rule of law) but from complex diplomatpapeles@fundacionfaes.org
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ic negotiations and the changing opinions of majority groups in international organizations, not to mention the influence of certain superpowers. Nor can a government
be run on the basis of volatile public opinion that not only lacks expertise with
regard to international affairs but is very often at the mercy of partisan interests.
The best anchorage for foreign policy is an appropriate definition of the national
interest.
In the words of Josep Piqué, foreign policy is a reflection of a country’s national
strength, which is why current developments are not good for Spain’s position
abroad. If we are witnessing a process in which the idea of nation is being weakened domestically, it is difficult to believe that this will not be felt within the sphere
of international relations or that it will not be reflected in the country’s foreign policy. The fact is that a government’s weakness is also transferred to the diplomatic
sphere.
As history demonstrates, Spanish diplomacy has been especially effective when
the country’s political forces have agreed great matters of State by consensus.
However, at the present moment, not only is this consensus conspicuous by its
absence, but various forces that maintain the Government in power have questioned the very idea of Spain as a nation. This means that the Spanish Government
is not currently in the best position to take appropriate decisions on matters relating to the European Union (as witnessed at the last European Council meeting), or
to face new threats such as Islamic terrorism that should oblige it to redefine its
foreign and defence policies and maintain its sense of unity with Spain’s Atlantic
allies, instead of proclaiming and defending some ethereal ‘alliance of civilizations’.
Even within this changing international context characterized by the existence of
a variety of new representatives and players, and the emergence of unanticipated
phenomena and threats, the Spanish nation must be able to take the necessary
measures in order to continue defending its national interests.
In addition to having to adapt to changes resulting from the process of globalization, nations must also face the conditioning factors that derive from the needs of
their own internal structures, which in the case of Spain means addressing the fact
that it is a plural nation. We shall devote the observations that follow to this question.
Spain as a Nation
The first principle we should clarify is that Spain is a nation. In this respect, there
is nothing like a little knowledge of Spanish history to identify the emergence of
Spain as a nation and dispel all the clichés that attempt to distort this fact for purely partisan interests.
Historically, it is worth recalling, as pointed out by the historian and academician
Carmen Iglesias, that ideas such as Spain and the fatherland are not new inventions. In fact, these ideas are much older than it seems. It is enough simply to look
in an 18th-century dictionary in order to discover the meanings of terms and uses
that are called into question today but have lasted over time, such as ‘nation’,
‘nationality’, ‘national character’ and ‘fatherland’, and even certain other terms that
have fallen into disuse, such as ‘nacionista’ (‘nationalist’), a term that identified
those who were against the Spanish nation.
This enables us to state that the term ‘nation’ was unequivocally associated with
Spain in the 18th century. It was in the 18th century that the rational concept of the
Nation State was formulated (though we should not forget the significance of the
dynastic union represented by the Catholic Monarchs and the debates of the 16th
and 17th centuries), and the idea of the nation or fatherland emerged, under the
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influence of enlightened French reformism, to shape Spain as a nation: the Spanish
nation.
According to Carmen Iglesias, it is also important to clear up some of the errors
that have led a number of old clichés being bandied about with the sole intention
of distorting and disrupting the process of Spain’s development as a nation. We
might mention the War of Spanish Succession, which, far from being the first civil
war, as some would have us believe, was no more than a dynastic struggle for control over Europe; or the Decretos de Nueva Planta (‘New Regime Decrees’), which
promoted integration and rationalization throughout the country, but did not entail
the abolition of the Basque and Navarrese fueros (special privileges), as has sometimes been claimed, since these privileges were maintained.
In short, we must not fall into the error of believing the claims of certain groups
that seek to promote self-interested interpretations of Spanish history whilst stripping away the meaning of essential concepts. We should demand a better and deeper understanding of the past and accept Spanish history exactly as it is.
The Spanish Nation Enshrined in the Constitution of 1978
If our first principle is that Spain is a nation, our second affirmation must be that
the Spanish nation is currently enshrined in the Constitution of 1978, the result of
a consensus achieved by all Spaniards. The Spanish nation is the result of period
of centuries of living together, with all its highs and lows, and a joint national undertaking that is now embodied in the Constitution of 1978. This historic agreement
settled an historical dispute and established a pact based on freedom, territorial
harmony and coexistence. The constitutional law professor Roberto Blanco has
pointed out that Spain has witnessed profound changes since this pact was agreed,
becoming one of the most decentralized countries in the world. We might argue over
the degree of decentralization that is desirable, as occurs in other countries, but this
does not mean that we should constantly call into question the validity of the model
of Spain as a nation.
At this point, it is important to highlight an essential aspect that should never be
forgotten, but which has nevertheless been ignored or relegated to a secondary
role. We are referring to the importance and meaning of the idea of nation in the
Spanish Constitution of 1978.
According to the constitutional law professor and former President of the
Constitutional Court, Manuel Jiménez de Parga, it is true that if we adopt a literary,
propagandist or merely analytical approach to the history of political thought, the idea
of nation permits a variety interpretations and meanings. However, ideas cannot be
separated from their context or the reality to which they correspond. Thus, within the
constitutional context created by all Spaniards and within the legal and political situation inaugurated by the ‘State of Autonomous Regions’, ‘nation’ has a very precise
meaning that should not be constitutionally distorted. The nation is the repository of
sovereignty and constitutional power, in the same way as it embodies the shared and
indivisible fatherland of all Spaniards. In this respect, it is not correct to state, as
some have done based on a non-existent plurinational idea of Spain, that the current
Spanish Constitution makes it possible to apply the concept of nation to territories
that have been created by the sovereign decision of an entire people. Sovereignty, as
the Constitutional Court has made clear on numerous occasions, is not equivalent
to autonomy, which is why the autonomous regions are not sovereign and their
autonomous statutes cannot be considered to be real constitutions.
This is the first idea that those currently in government should be clear about,
since it is their duty to protect and guarantee unity, equality and solidarity within
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Spain as a whole. However, it does not appear that the position of the current
Government of this nation –which is still called Spain– is characterized by clear
ideas, a clear programme or the strength to tackle any problems that may arise.
Attacks on the Spanish Nation: The ‘Basque People’ and the ‘Catalan Nation’
Thus we can see that one of the essential characteristics of nationalist movements,
their very raison d’être, is a desire and an attempt to reinvent our history and abolish or alter the meaning of certain ideas that are rooted in a past dating back several centuries. They are motivated by a will to negate or call into question the existence of Spain as a Nation State, so that by refusing to recognize its existence, they
are able to construct an historical national identity of their own.
This is why nationalist movements seek to keep the debate regarding concepts
and identity alive based on various causes and origins. Many people regard such
debates as nonsensical and seriously damaging to society as a whole, but others
are intent on reviving these issues on a constant basis.
In the case of Basque nationalism, the historical point of reference, as highlighted by the writer Jon Juaristi, has always been the ‘Basque people’ in the form of an
‘eternal’ community that makes up an ethnic group and race, a people that possesses its own special privileges, as opposed to a ‘Basque nation’ whose rights
would be transient and not eternal. This was the idea espoused by Sabino Arana, a
‘mistaken’ patriot who advocated ‘God and the old law’ and who, like many other
nationalists, was the son of a Spanish patriot. It was not until 1910 when, in opposition to their party’s alliance with the Carlists, the youth section of the Basque
Nationalist Party (PNV) began to talk about the ‘Basque nation’, and the same idea
was adopted by ETA in the 1960s as part of its terrorist philosophy.
However, this preference for the idea of the ‘Basque people’ has persisted right
up until the latest episode in the Basque nationalists’ strategy to win sovereignty,
the Ibarreche Plan. This initiative had been brewing for some considerable time.
Under the guise of claiming an alleged right for all Basques to decide their own
future, it actually entails the break-up of the harmonious progress that has been
made by this ‘Basque people’, whilst also sweeping away any remnant of the special privileges that might remain.
In the case of Catalan nationalism, according to the journalist Arcadi Espada, we
cannot distinguish between nation and people. Those espousing the ‘Catalan
nation’ base it on a series of historical and geographical details, along with a separate language, which is the ‘nation of nationalists’. In this respect, Catalan nationalism, according to the historian Ferran Gallego, was founded by Prat de la Riba and
Francesc Cambó as an ambitious project aimed at building a nation and slowly and
progressively ensuring its uniform character.
Arcadi Espada argues that it is irrelevant to nationalist intellectuals that
Catalonia has incorporated more than three million inhabitants who imported a language and a culture that is as valuable, or more valuable, than the culture that existed there before, at least in terms of exchange and communication. In their view, the
important thing is to promote recognition of Catalonia as a nation. In fact, the
immense majority of these nationalists are the sons and daughters of those on the
winning side in the Spanish Civil War, an aspect they have always tried to conceal,
and in their attempt to claim an untainted past even claim that the Civil War was
also a war between Spain and Catalonia.
It is these nationalist intellectuals and politicians who use the term ‘nation’ as
a means of intimidation and who, according to Ferran Gallego, have exploited all of
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the resources and means facilitated by the constitutional framework of 1978 to
ensure a steady stream of emotional and symbolic elements in favour of a Catalan
nation and against the idea of Spain and its central authority. These same voices
have found an ally in the current left-wing Government in supporting their idea of
nationalism as the compulsory means of doing politics in Catalonia.
Meanwhile, as pointed out by Arcadi Espada, they seem to be little aware of the
social feeling that exists with regard to this matter, given that recent surveys indicate that only between 25% and 30% of Catalans consider Catalonia to be a nation.
In spite of this, the historical process undertaken by the Catalan nationalist
project has continued and given rise, in Ferran Gallego’s words, to three situations
of real ‘cultural danger’. They must be highlighted in order to understand what is
actually happening. What is more, it is our duty to identify threats wherever they
exist.
The first relates to the role that nationalism has played in turning Catalonia into
a laboratory in which experiments are being carried out to determine the best way
of achieving a homogenous and closed society that forces all those with different
approaches into exile. Catalan nationalism is not presented as one option among
many, but as the only possible option, the only way of being a true Catalan.
Furthermore, it is presented as an expression of the general will, which is why it is
the only possible way of being a good democrat in Catalonia. In short, it has become
a belief, an all-encompassing ideology, a form of being that is not only undisputed,
but has encountered no resistance on the part of the political elite, intellectuals or
civil society, imbued as they all are by a kind of Stockholm syndrome. This leads us
to the paradox that those who demand a plural Spain have created a Catalonia that
is no longer plural. Nor is there any political alternative, it is a mere changing of the
guard who implement the nationalist project.
The second situation of danger relates to the manner in which nationalism is distorting the relations between Catalonia and the rest of Spain, presenting what it
calls the ‘Spanish State’ as an artificial project which is now in its last stages, one
that the peoples of Spain have been forced to join. Of course, these peoples are
not safe from the same danger imposed by nationalism either.
The third danger, in Ferran Gallego’s opinion, is directly linked to the current political situation. Nationalism has destroyed the former model of government based on
give-and-take between the majority national parties, sacrificing it to the interests of
a Left that believes its 2004 electoral victory marked the restoration of democracy,
rather than a normal alternation in government. This attitude also puts a brake on
the regular alternation between the left-wing and centre-right parties at the helm in
Spain.
Will Spain Continue to be a State?
In accordance with the historical development of the Spanish nation, the
Constitution designed a decentralized State as the most appropriate political instrument and, in spite of the constant attacks perpetrated by nationalist movements, it
is a system that has survived to the present day. However, according to the political
scientist Edurne Uriarte, when it comes to analysing the Spanish situation, in which
a nation has become a State, the question we should ask ourselves is whether
Spain is going to continue being a State, especially in view of the new political and
institutional context. This context is determined by the fact that the PSOE has
assumed the reins of power, marking a return to the ‘permanent crisis of the
Spanish nation’, which Spain appeared to be leaving behind for good. It also marks
the beginning of a process in which the State is being seriously weakened.
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Although there are historical factors that explain this ongoing sense of crisis,
such as the association between Spanish patriotism and the Spanish nation on the
one hand and Francoism on the other, the link between the Left and ethnic nationalist movements in their belligerence towards Spanishness, or the critical stance of
the intellectual elites with regard to nationalist movements, the current situation is
aggravated by a Left that has become subordinate to nationalist interests. In fact,
we are witnessing a process of involution that is leading us back to a stage in our
development we thought we had overcome, namely the Transition.
“The process of weakening the State has already begun. It seems
unlikely to have any favourable consequences for Spain, either in
the present or the future”
The journalist César Alonso de los Ríos agrees that the Socialist Government
appears to have initiated a Second Transition, a second assault on the State, having opened a series of debates and a reform process in which the actors involved
are prepared to fight for power at any price and in which there is an overriding desire
to satisfy the nationalist parties. All these developments have been set in motion
without providing any clear boundaries that must not be crossed (the offer to negotiate with ETA is an obvious example of this).
According to Edurne Uriarte, this is a form of government typical of a Prime
Minister who represents the least enlightened section of the Left, a faction that still
harks back to the Franco period, and whose strategy of confrontation with the
Partido Popular means that it must form pacts with the nationalist parties to ensure
the apparent governance of the State and the various Spanish regions. There is also
the perverse effect of the current State model in which demands for greater autonomy are necessarily answered with the granting greater benefits to the regions. This
need not be the case. It is not surprising that some voices, such as that of Jiménez
de Parga, have raised the possibility of the State actually recuperating some of the
powers it has ceded in the past.
Nevertheless, in order to address this problem, certain commentators such as
the constitutional lawyer Javier Corcuera have indicated that the solution should be
tackled through political agreement between the majority national parties, the
Partido Popular and PSOE, based on a clear definition of the basic framework for
the kind of State we would like to see and a clear outline of what it would be like.
Other voices, such as that of Edurne Uriarte, believe that the Spanish nation needs
a form of strong leadership to help strengthen those aspects that justify the need
for Spain to continue being a State, and to ensure the State has sufficient support
within society.
In short, the process of weakening the State has already begun. It seems unlikely to have any favourable consequences for Spain, either in the present or the future.
papeles@fundacionfaes.org
FAES, the Foundation for Social Studies and Analysis, does not necessarily identify with the opinions expressed in the
texts it publishes. © FAES, Fundación para el Análisis y los Estudios Sociales and the authors. D.L.: M-42391-2004
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