Nación Española y Estado Autonómico en el Partido Socialista Obrero Español(1974-1982)

Laburpena

ABSTRACT This doctoral thesis addresses the question of how the Spanish Socialist Party contributed to the definition of the model of nation and State that succeeded in Spain during a crucial stage of our recent history: The Transition and democratic construction. In particular, we have focused on the period between October 1974, the celebration of the XIII Party Congress in Suresnes and the socialist victory in the October 1982 general elections, reaching the party to power. Apparently, between those dates there was a radical change, going from the defense of the right of self-determination in the Resolution on nationalities and regions, of the 1974 congress, to the culmination and closure of an autonomous model that was rationalized from mid-1981 and which saw that policy sanctioned with the approval of LOAPA in July 1982. Furthermore, this research aims to observe socialist influence in defining the State of Atonomies and analyze the continuities and changes that were taking place in socialist thought. Issues such as what they understood by federalism, self-determination, autonomy, nation, nationalities, regions, or solidarity and how they imagined the application of such concepts in the Spanish context cannot be disconnected from the concrete conjuncture in which they were used. The PSOE, adapted to each circumstance based on its ideological tradition and a changing framework that required adapting some theoretical approaches to the practice of an autonomous development surpassing the expectations of the main political parties. From this point of view, we have understood the Constitution as a turning point but not a breakthrough, which in fact connects seemingly many more radical postulates with the harmonization that gradually underwent the process of construction of the State of Autonomies, the culmination of which produced the Autonomous Agreements of July 1981. Agreements established between the Socialist Party and the Union of Democratic Center, prevailed the state stability and unity over the recognition of the national difference.