Making Democratic Citizens in Spain: Civil Society and the Popular Origins of the Transition, 1960-78

Making Democratic Citizens in Spain Civil Society and the Popular Origins of the Transition, 1960–78

Pamela Beth Radcliff

Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

Also by Pamela Beth Radcliff FROM MOBILIZATION TO CIVIL WAR: The Politics of Polarization in the Spanish City of Gijón, 1900–1937 CONTESTING SPANISH WOMANHOOD: Female Identity in Modern Spain (co-edited with Victoria Enders)

Making Democratic Citizens in Spain Civil Society and the Popular Origins of the Transition, 1960–78 Pamela Beth Radcliff Associate Professor, Department of History, University of California, San Diego, USA

© Pamela Beth Radcliff 2011 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–0–230–24105–3 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

To my children, Olivia and Lucas

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Contents

List of Tables

xii

Preface

xiii

Acknowledgments

xv

List of Abbreviations and Glossary

xvii

Introduction

1

1 Dictatorship and Civil Society: Explaining the Roots of a New Associational Milieu Introduction: A multi-factor model—State policies, structural changes, and social capital The role of the state: Creating a new legal and discursive framework The Movimiento: From political defeat to reinventing mass participation A new associational framework: The Movimiento’s family associations The 1964 Law of Associations The role of structural change: Economic growth and urban crisis Social capital: The building blocks of mobilization Prototypes of associations: The first Asociaciones de Vecinos Prototypes: The homeowners’ associations Community infrastructure: The Catholic Church at the parish level Opposition activists as community leaders Conclusion 2 “Measuring” Civil Society: The Scope and Vitality of the New Associational Milieu Introduction: Associations and the revival of civil society vii

19 19 25 26 29 32 33 37 38 39 45 58 62

64 64

viii Contents

A point of departure: Associational life in the 1940s and 1950s The Catholic Church and associational life A new era of associationism: The 1960s–1970s Church associations: The Asociaciones de Padres de Familia Movimiento family associations The Asociaciones de Vecinos A provincial study of vitality: The Asociaciones de Vecinos of Madrid Conclusion 3 Gender and the Role of Women in the Associational Milieu Introduction: Gender, citizenship and the equality/ difference paradox Invisible citizens: Women in the Asociaciones de Vecinos Incorporating women into the AV’s: Wives or vecinas? The vocalias de mujeres: The difference/equality conundrum internalized Women’s participation in the AVs Women in leadership roles in the AVs Problematic citizens: Women in the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa Scope and regional distribution of the AAC The origins of the AAC: A “top-down” campaign of the SF and Movimiento Grass-roots origins: Conservative and dissident AAC Beyond the AAC statutes: “Still-born” or functioning associations? Leadership of the AAC “Location” of the AAC: State or civil society? The anti-Francoist AAC Conclusion 4 “What is a Family Association?”: The Civic Discourse of Familiarismo Introduction: The associational milieu as a discursive “field” Constituting the discourse of “Familiarismo”: Venues and media channels

67 69 70 70 72 90 92 108

109 109 114 114 116 120 123 128 129 131 134 136 139 143 152 153

155 155 158

Contents

The blueprint for Familiarista discourse: The ACF statutes Defining the boundaries of a culture of civic participation The horizontal axis of civic participation: Convivencia and community The vertical axis of civic participation: A political project? The family association movement during the transition Conclusion 5 Women and Familiarismo: The Civic Discourse of the Homemaker Associations Defining the subject of the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa: Family, homemaker or woman? Debating the role of women in society: Between feminism and “immobilism” Debating the role of women: In the labor force Debating the role of women: Legal status The AAC in civil society: Citizens and consumers Homemaker vs. consumer associations: A gendered division of labor? The AAC as spaces for civic education State/civil society relations: Debating the terms of the collaborationist model The homemaker association discourse in the “general” public sphere The “dissident” AAC associations The homemaker association discourse during the Transition Conclusion 6 The Civic Discourse of the Neighborhood Associations of Madrid: From Community Improvement to “Citizen Movement” The discourse of the Asociaciones de Vecinos: A conversation in statutes The roots of AV discourse in Madrid: From homeowners to vecinos Constituting the civic community in the AV Discourse: The horizontal axis Convivencia and the common good (Re)Defining membership

ix

160 164 165 173 186 188

190 193 197 199 201 202 204 206 209 215 221 226 233

235 236 240 244 244 246

x

Contents

Rights and responsibilities Internal organization: The language of self-government Constituting the civic community: The vertical axis Civil society and the state The end of experimentation: The boilerplate statutes of April 1977 The statutes of the AV versus the ACF The Asociaciones de Vecinos in the transition: The birth of the “citizen movement” Citizen movement theory: A “democratic alternative” Gender and the “citizen movement” Conclusion 7 The Civic Community in Practice: Family and Neighborhood Associations as “Schools of Democracy” Introduction: When did associations function as “schools of democracy”? The “private” functions of the associations: From mutual aid society to social club Homemaker Associations and “private” activities: A special case The “civic” activities of the associations: From community fiestas to Auto-Soluciones Civic activities of homemaker associations: The citizen–consumer The “civic” activities of the Associations: Performing self-government Making collective decisions in the Associations: Unity or pluralism? Electoral procedures in the Associations Rank and file participation in the Associations “Political” functions of the associations: Negotiating with the state Two models: Collaborationist vs. oppositional The collaborative model in practice: A relationship of mutual trust The homemaker associations and the state: Defending consumers, women and children

248 252 255 256 257 259 261 264 269 270

272 273 275 278 281 285 287 287 290 294 297 298 298 302

Contents

The breakdown of the collaborative model of relations with the state An evolving oppositional model of relations with the State Conclusion

xi

306 312 316

Conclusion/Epilogue Democratic citizenship in the constitution The demobilization of the citizen movement

319 322 323

Notes

332

Bibliography

396

Index

406

List of Tables

2.1 Constitution of family associations in Spain 2.2 Functioning vs. non-functioning family associations by province 2.3 Constitution of family associations in Madrid 2.4 Constitution of Asociaciones de Vecinos in Madrid 2.5 1975 Membership figures for Asociaciones de Vecinos in the province of Madrid 3.1 Membership in Asociaciones de Amas de Casa in Spain

xii

74 80 82 92 94 130

Preface

This book explores the grass-roots contribution of ordinary men and women to Spain’s much-celebrated democratic transition of the 1970s, through the lens of their participation in civic associations founded under the dictatorship. In neighborhood, family and homemaker associations established in an expanding civil society between the early 1960s and the late 1970s, I argue that participants experimented with new practices of civic participation that effectively constituted the building blocks of a future democratic citizenship. Thus, years before the 1978 Constitution endowed Spaniards with the legal status of democratic citizens, those in the associational milieu had been participating in an active process of re-constituting their civic rights, even under a dictatorship that formally denied them democratic status. The “making” of democratic citizens in Spain was thus a complex process of grassroots activism and legal changes that culminated in December 1978 with the new Constitution. As a result, the book argues that the “making” of democratic citizens was not simply a top-down product of the transition, but part of its multi-faceted origins. At the same time, the book argues that the broader process of “making” democratic citizens was also a contingent and contested process in which different ideas of democracy and democratic practice took shape. Even after 1976, when most Spaniards agreed that “democracy” was the inevitable outcome of the transition, not everyone agreed on what sort of democracy. Thus, the transition was a moment when different styles of democratic citizenship became openly contested. The major line of division ran between the participants in the associational milieu, who articulated a form of grass-roots participatory democracy based in the communitarian tradition, and the political elites, who envisioned a more rights-based representative democracy, in which citizenship was a more abstract and disembodied category to be protected, not empowered. In exploring the “popular” origins of the transition, the book contributes to the larger scholarship on the democratic transition in Spain, as well as democratization studies in general, in a number of ways. Of the major transition theories, the “civil society” model has been the least developed, both because of the dominance of “elite agency” narratives xiii

xiv Preface

and because of the difficulty of “proving” the impact of civil society activity on political events. Through a thick analysis of discursive practices and activities, this book seeks to develop a method for evaluating the density and pluralism of civil society associations, as well as “measuring” their contribution to broader political processes. With the help of several rich archival collections which have not been consulted by scholars, I have been able to go beyond vague claims for agency, define specific practices and discursive tropes, and frame their contribution to the broader political process. At the same time, the book situates the civil society contribution within a multi-factor framework that acknowledges the importance of structural changes in Spain’s economy and evolving state policies. It was precisely the presence of so many favorable factors, rather than a single “magic bullet”, that explains the apparent success of Spain’s transition to democracy.

Acknowledgments

This book has been many years in the making, with debts to more people than I can possibly acknowledge. I began the research for what became this book about 12 years ago, after my son Lucas was born. I had to wait several more years for the opportunity to spend a crucial year in Madrid doing archival research, which was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and sponsored by José Alvarez Junco at Madrid’s Complutense University. Later archival trips were funded in part by the University of CA, San Diego, and the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain and American Universities. I would like to thank all the archive personnel who made locating and consulting the wealth of primary materials possible. One of the major challenges was gaining access to recently produced documents without infringing on privacy laws protecting information about living people. In this vein, I would especially like to thank Maria Teresa Janini Tatay, whose willingness to find a workable solution to consulting the documentation at the Autonomous Government of Madrid’s Registro de Asociaciones made this project possible. Also at the Registro, Antonio Sanchez took time from his regular work to retrieve dozens of files from the basement. At the Archivo General del Estado, the archivists spent many hours previewing the hundreds of files that I requested, removing sensitive documents so I could consult the rest of the file. I also benefitted from the assistance of Victoria Ramos, the archivist at the Communist party archives, who helped me locate relevant materials on the party’s role in the associations, and Queta Bañon at the Fundación CIFEE, who provided me with open access to their rich documentation, and helped me locate specific materials in their as yet un-catalogued collection. Other individuals who gave me helpful assistance along the way were Marisa at the Biblioteca de Mujeres and Isabel Avila FernándezMonge, President of the Confederación Española de Organizaciones de Amas de Casas y Consumidores. Vicente Perez Quintana generously provided access to digital copies of a dozen photos owned by Madrid’s Federation of AVs, from which the cover photo of the book was chosen. This project would also not have been possible without all the suggestions and feedback from colleagues, both in the United States and in Spain, over the course of the last several years. Manuel Pérez Ledesma xv

xvi

Acknowledgments

has given much helpful feedback, at various conferences and in reading drafts of chapters, and all the collaborators in the “citizenship” book he edited created an intellectually stimulating conversation about the nature and evolution of citizenship in Spain. I also received lively feedback on an early formulation of the project from the Contemporary Spanish History Seminar held at the Instituto Ortega y Gasset, and I always learned much from attending their monthly seminars, as well as those organized by Pérez Ledesma at the Autónoma, whenever I was in Spain. Ismael Saz, Inmaculada Blasco, Ferrán Archilés, and Nigel Townson all read drafts of chapters and invited me to present portions of the research at conferences, in Valencia, Tenerife, and Madrid, that stimulated further refinement of the conceptual framework. In the last phases of writing and revision, my colleagues Michael Monteon and Robert Edelman read draft chapters, and David Gutierrez and Carolyn Boyd read through the entire manuscript. More generally, my colleagues in the UCSD History department have always been supportive and encouraging, while setting high standards for faculty research. Outside the department, members of the Southwestern Symposium of Spanish history and the Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historians have provided helpful feedback over the years, in providing ongoing venues for the presentation of scholarship on Spanish history in the United States. I am also grateful to my graduate students, past and present, who have challenged me, kept me engaged in the field, and taught me equally as much as I taught them about modern Spanish history. Finally, I am deeply indebted to my children, Olivia and Lucas, who were plunked into a foreign school system at a young age so their mother could have a precious year of research in the archives. It has been one of my greatest joys to watch them develop their own deep connections as we have returned over the years.

List of Abbreviations and Glossary AAC AC ACF AEMJ AF AGE APA

AV

CCOO

DL

DN DNA DNF DP

Asociaciones de Amas de Casa: Homemaker associations Acción Católica: Catholic Action Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familia: Head of household associations Asociación Española de Mujeres Juristas: Spanish Association of Women Jurists Asociación Familiar: Family association Archivo General del Estado: State Administration Archives ama de casa or ama de hogar: Homemaker or housewife Asociacion de Padres de Alumnos: School parent associations asembleismo: Assemblyism, or large meetings where collective decisions are made auto-soluciones: Self-help solutions to community problems Asociaciones de Vecinos: Neighborhood associations colonia: Housing development comunidad cristiana: Popular Christian communities convivencia: Peaceful co-existence Comisiones Obreras: Workers’ commissions Confederación Católica de Padres de Familia y Padres de Alumnos: Catholic federation of parents Coordinación Democrática: United opposition coalition (March 1976) Cultura: Ministerio de Cultura curas obreros: Worker priests Delegado Local: Municipal Head of the Family Movement familiarismo: The principles of the family association movement fiestas patronales: Annual saint’s day festival Delegado Nacional: National leader of the Family Movement Delegado Nacional de Asociaciones: National Bureau of Associations (1957) Delegado Nacional de la Familia: National Bureau of Family Associations (1969) Delegado Provincial: Provincial Leader of the Family Movement xvii

xviii List of Abbreviations and Glossary

FNAC

HOAC JDE

JL JOC

MDM

ORT PCD PCE PSOE PTE RACM SF UNAF

Federacion Nacional de Asociaciones de Amas de Casa: National Federation of Homemaker Associations Fuero de los Españoles: Francoist regime “bill of rights”, 1945 gestiones: Negotiations, working to get things done Gob: Ministerio de Gobernación (Interior Ministry) Hermandad Obrera de Acción Católica: Catholic Workers’ Organization Junta Democrática de España: PCE-led opposition coalition (1974) Ministerio de Gobernación: Ministry of the Interior Jefe local del Movimiento: Local Movimiento leader Juventud Obrera Católica: Catholic Workers’ Youth Organization Jornadas: Workshop/conference Junta: Governing board Movimiento Democrático de Mujeres: Democratic Women’s Movement Movimiento: The unified political organization of the Nationalists formed in 1937 Mutualidad: Pension fund (for homemakers) Organización Revolucionaria de Trabajadores: Revolutionary Organization of Workers Plataforma de Convergencia Democrática: PSOE-led opposition coalition (1975) Partido Comunista de España: Spanish Communist Party Plan de Desarollo: Development Plan Partido Socialista de Obreros Españoles: Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party Partido de Trabajadores Españoles: Spanish Workers’ Party Registro de Asociaciones de la Comunidad de Madrid: Provincial register of associations in Madrid Sección Femenina: Female Section of the Movimiento Unión Nacional de Asociaciones Familiares: National Organization of Family Associations vecinos: Residents linked by ties of geography and neighborliness vocalía de mujeres: Women’s section of an AV

Introduction

Spain’s transition to democracy in the late 1970s has become a crucial reference point, not only for Spaniards recovering from a legacy of civil war but also for scholars seeking models for successful transitions in the contemporary global “democracy project”. After the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in October 1975, it took less than 3 years for Spain to hold its first democratic elections in June of 1977 and to approve a new democratic Constitution in December of 1978. In a recent assessment of the status of this project, transition experts concluded that only the Southern European democracies could be considered “consolidated”, with Spain at the forefront even of these success stories.1 Thus, the Spanish transition to democracy has emerged as a global model, really as the model, for both democratization and consolidation. This interest in the Spanish case has generated a large body of comparative scholarship that seeks to explain how, 40 years after a bloody civil war, Spain was able to create a consolidated democratic regime.2 Despite all the attention focused on the “Spanish model”, there is still no consensus as to why. In fact, the “Spanish model” has been summoned at various points to exemplify all of the major scholarly frameworks of democratization, from the structural approaches of modernization and globalization theories, to the agency-based approaches of elite actor and social movement theories.3 What is beginning to emerge from this wealth of competing analyses is that Spain’s successful transition cannot be reduced to any single factor, and that it is precisely the presence of so many favorable long and short-term conditions that produced the final outcome.4 Even so, the general acknowledgment of a multi-factor framework does not resolve all the interpretive problems, from creating a hierarchy of factors to explaining how they interacted over time to produce a specific path of democratization. 1

2

Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

Within the general problematic of creating a more nuanced understanding of the democratization process, this study focuses on what is still the least understood element of the transition, the contribution of ordinary Spanish men and women. In contrast to the structural economic changes, which can be measured in statistical units, or the role of elite actors during the formal institutional transition of 1976–1978, which is visible in concrete decisions, the agency of ordinary Spaniards has been more difficult to document and measure, except when they participated directly in the anti-Francoist opposition.5 Moreover, the few available studies have been contested by recent assertions of Spain’s participatory deficit, which have undermined attempts to define mass agency in the transition.6 Hampering these debates about popular participation in Spain’s transition are a lack of data, especially on the longer term origins during the Franco dictatorship, as well as confusion about what constitutes participation and how to frame its contribution to the process of political change. Through an examination of new archival sources within a conceptual framework that integrates the concepts of civil society and citizenship, this study seeks to re-frame the case for mass agency in the democratization process. The recognized site where ordinary people contribute to broader processes of political change is civil society, the contested terrain between the state and the private realm where individuals come together to collectively pursue public affairs.7 As one theorist puts it, the state seeks to constitute the boundaries of the political, but these boundaries are constantly transgressed. This site of transgression is civil society, where society enters into a relationship with the state. Thus, the dynamic relationship between state and civil society establishes the framework for social and political change.8 Transition theorists who highlight the contribution of civil society have argued that a plural and vibrant civil society can undermine the stability and legitimacy of dictatorial regimes, and promote the creation of an alternative democratic culture that provides a solid foundation for the formal political transition crafted by elites.9 Such a framework implies a longer chronological view of the transition than one which focuses on the elite decisions, of the King Juan Carlos, the Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez, and other party leaders that transformed the institutional structure of Spain between 1976 and 1978. As Ruth Collier and James Mahoney have argued, the moment when elites begin to make the crucial institutional decisions should be seen as the final phase of the transition, not its beginning.10 From the civil society perspective, the origins of the transition lay in the increasing articulation of

Introduction 3

collective voices either against or simply independent from, the official regime discourse, and the extent to which this growing pluralism undermined the sense of overwhelming unity that makes stable dictatorships seem impregnable and created a sense of citizen empowerment among the population. This book argues that one of the most important turning points in this process was the emergence of a new generation of civic associations after the mid-1960s.11 The numbers were not large compared to a dense civil society like the United States, but when compared with the earlier decades of the Franco regime, the visible expansion and growing pluralism of the associational milieu in the latter decade of the regime were dramatic. The size and visibility of the associational milieu also contrast with the smaller and largely clandestine milieu of the anti-Francoist opposition, which has been the usual focus of studying the popular origins of the transition. While acknowledging that anti-Francoist activism played an important role in mobilizing against the regime, this book turns the focus to a broader realm of practices and discourse that add both depth and complexity to our understanding of the revival of civil society and its contribution to the transition. Until now, we have known little about the origins and development of these associations in the Franco regime, with most existing studies focused on the burst of mobilization in the mid- to late-1970s that becomes identified as the “citizen movement”.12 While this burst of mobilization between Franco’s death in 1975 and the institutionalization of the new democracy in 1978 had the most visible and direct impact on the political process, this book argues that the “citizen movement” marked the culmination of a gradual but steady expansion of civic associations that began in the early 1960s and culminated during the transition. One might even argue that the turning point of the 1960s signaled a revival of an, albeit uneven, tradition of civic organization and associationism that went back at least to the Restoration period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and included the habits of interest representation, the appeal to “rights”, the expectation of pluralism, along with channels for maintaining conversations between citizens and between social groups and the state. The upshot of framing the “citizen movement” in the longer term context is a more substantial and sustained role for mass participation in explaining the origins of the transition. At the same time, exposing the deeper roots of the “citizen movement” suggests that effective popular mobilization during the transition drew, not only on incipient civil society development under the dictatorship but also perhaps even on earlier

4

Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

patterns that developed in response to the again, uneven, emergence of mass society and politics in early twentieth century Spain.13 Locating the origins of the citizen movement in the (re)emergence of a new generation of associations after the mid-1960s means that the story is as much about the dictatorship as it is about the origins of the transition. The question of what factors opened the “space” for a new generation of public sphere associations goes directly to debates over the nature of the Franco regime, and more broadly, whether certain kinds of dictatorships offer more fertile soil for democratic transitions than others. There seems to be general agreement that “totalitarian” style dictatorships make for more difficult transitions, since the more the state has truly “colonized” civil society, the less space there is for autonomous mobilization, pluralism, and the emergence of alternative civic or political projects. Without such an articulated civil society to prepare the ground, goes the argument, the population doesn’t know how to behave and participate like democratic citizens, even after the crafting of new democratic institutions. Defining the nature of the Franco regime has been a challenge for scholars because of its significant evolution over the course of 40 years. In the first decade after the Civil War ended in 1939, the regime was characterized by massive repression, including up to 200,000 killed and many more incarcerated in concentration camps and prisons. Until 1945, the regime was also characterized by fascist trappings, such as the salute, the military uniforms, the corporatist syndicates that would vertically integrate the population into the regime, and the coordinated mass spectacles, showcased by the fascist-dominated Movimiento, the single party created by the Nationalists in 1937 and a prominent face of the regime in these early years. Above the party was the leader, Francisco Franco, who promoted a messianic vision of his role as savior of the Spanish nation that placed him in the company of other fascist leaders. His belief system was more militaristic and catholic than fascist, but his ambition to purify a Spain corrupted by the “foreign” ideologies of liberalism and Marxism went well beyond an authoritarian “restoration of law and order”. As part of this purification, the regime also tried to impose ideological unity through a marriage of nationalism and Catholicism, disseminated by the Church and the Movimiento. While the regime never approached the totalitarian or fascist pretensions of Nazi Germany, in the 1940s it belonged in the same family as the other new mass dictatorships.14 By the early 1950s, however, the regime was already evolving, spurred by the defeat of fascism, the onset of the Cold War, and the economic

Introduction 5

stagnation caused by the regime’s isolationist autarchic policies. After 1945, the regime began to downplay the fascist rhetoric and symbology, while Franco defined the regime as an “organic and catholic democracy”.15 By the 1950s, the fascist-style Movimiento was increasingly pushed to the margins among the “families” of the regime, which included monarchists, Catholics, and the military. An important turning point in the re-fashioning of the regime’s image was the 1953 agreement with the United States, which exchanged military bases for foreign aid and welcomed Spain into the democratic West as a partner in the Cold War. By the late 1950s, the regime abandoned its autarchic policies and pursued economic liberalization, opening its markets to foreign goods as well as tourists and unleashing the most dramatic economic boom in modern Spanish history from the early 1960s to the oil crisis of 1973. These economically driven decisions opened the door to further changes, from an increasingly plural cultural milieu to social transformation and urbanization. The dislocations unleashed by these transformations helped generate renewed social conflict, among workers in liberalizing industries, students in expanding universities, and regional nationalists. This conflict both nurtured and was nurtured by a political opposition that began to re-formulate itself around the call for democracy and “national reconciliation”, as articulated by the Communist party. By the early 1970s, although the regime still repressed any direct expression of political opposition, its further control over society and culture was weakening dramatically, leading some to define this period as a “soft” dictatorship, in contrast to the “hard” early years.16 By most accounts, Franco himself only reluctantly agreed to these changes, supported by a new generation of so-called technocratic advisors, who convinced him that economic prosperity was the path to continued stability. But his pragmatic concern with the survival and stability of the regime and his own power made him flexible about specific policies. Given this evolution, it seems clear that the Franco regime was not a totalitarian or fascist-style regime in the 1960s–1970s, in so far as the state maintained only limited control over both the discourse and the practice of sociability and associational life. On the other hand, the classic authoritarian definition proposed by Juan Linz in the 1960s, precisely to distinguish the Franco regime from the Cold War-driven totalitarian model, also seems inadequate.17 As many critics have pointed out, Linz’ definition seems to downplay both the brutal repression and the fascist trappings of the regime’s origins, especially in the Cold War context in which authoritarianism was being re-classified as the “good” form of dictatorship in the war against Soviet totalitarianism.18

6

Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

In response, many anti-Francoist scholars countered by re-affirming the fascist nature of the regime, rejecting the totalitarian/authoritarian dichotomy, and locating the regime’s essence in its origins rather than its evolution. Those who defended and continue to defend this position acknowledge that the Franco regime lacked many of the classic features of a strictly fascist regime, but argue that the level of political violence, coupled with its functional role in defending the upper classes against the challenge of working class mobilization, justifies a capacious definition of “fascism”. Critics of this position have pointed out that many other right-wing regimes performed the same “function”, with varying levels of violence, and that without a dominant fascist ideology and party, the Franco regime stretches the limits of the fascist typology beyond recognition.19 Unresolved in the fascist vs. authoritarian debate is the problem of how to make sense of the evolution of the regime. Thus, the fascist position suggests that the regime’s origins in the “fascist era” should fix its identity, while the authoritarian defenders base their case in a snapshot of a later stage of the regime.20 One way out of this conundrum is to highlight the coalition of nationalist forces that provided both continuity and change in the nature of the regime.21 That is, the regime began and ended with the same coalition of conservatives and fascists, manipulated and juggled by the politically astute and pragmatic leader, Franco, but the balance of forces within the regime coalition shifted over time. It was this type of coalition that placed the regime in the “fascist era” at its inception, as a “modern” response to the pressures of mass society and popular mobilization.22 And it was this same coalition and function that made the regime more than a conservative authoritarian dictatorship, even in the 1960s–1970s when the fascist element had been clearly subordinated. Whether this insight leads to a hybrid or an evolving definition,23 the key element that shaped the regime’s attitude toward civic participation was the ongoing search for a new model of political and social integration that would channel the disruptive potential of mass society into a successful version of what Michael Mann calls the “dominant political ideal of modernity”, the strong nation-state.24 How, then, does the emerging “space” for civic associations in the 1960s fit into these debates over the nature of the Franco regime? In the authoritarian framework, it was precisely the growing pluralism of civil society that illustrated the lack of a totalitarian or fascist project to mobilize the population. Within this model, then, the regime was content to allow intermediary forces to be the main agencies of social control, with the goal being general demobilization, not vertical integration into the state’s project. The defenders of the fascist perspective on the regime

Introduction 7

focus more on the continuing repression, which severely limited certain types of mobilization, especially those associated with class struggle or regional nationalism, and link the expanding civil society with a growing anti-Francoist opposition.25 At stake in these two narratives is an implicit judgment of where the “credit” for the democratic transition lies: with an anti-Francoist democratic opposition that pushed the dictatorship into crisis, or with a liberalizing regime that let go of a society it no longer wished or was able to control. This case study of associational revival reveals a more complicated story, which combines elements of both narratives. To return to the concept of the regime’s shifting coalition forces, it seems clear that these forces maintained distinct ideas about how to achieve social and political integration of the masses. As a result, elements of the regime continued to pursue a (shifting) balance between repression and mobilization, as well as a new path of more “laissez-faire” integration/consensus through economic development, which had not been available in the first decade. The combined impact of these coterminous projects helped create the space for a new generation of civic associations in the 1960s, but not through any simple process of “liberalization” or “letting go”. First, the regime continued its unwavering repression of any political alternatives, especially those linked with Marxism and class struggle. Thus, the regime arrested and persecuted many of those who signed the 1962 democratic declaration at the IV Congress of European Movements. After 1967, it crushed the emerging “workers’ commissions” that had developed in the early 1960s, as well as the attempt by students to form independent organizations like the Democratic Union of University Students. Around the same time, the Catholic workers’ organizations linked to Catholic Action (HOAC and JOC) were decimated by pressure from both the Church hierarchy and the regime. Although this repression did not eradicate the anti-Francoist opposition, it generally kept it confined to clandestine spaces of operation that limited its capacity to expand into a mass movement. At the same time, the dis-articulation of party cells, the repression of student and worker organizations as well as dissident clerics kept activists on the lookout for alternative spaces and discourses of mobilization, which the legal realm of civic associations would offer. Finally, the regime was shifting its emphasis to a new integrative strategy, spearheaded by the “technocrats” who sought to generate consent through economic development and raising standards of living and consumption. But there was another integration strategy that remained on the table, embodied by the fascist part of the governing coalition, the Movimiento, which was still invested in actively mobilizing, not

8

Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

demobilizing, the rest of the population. While the Movimiento had lost most of its power within the national ruling coalition, it still had the task of managing the regime’s relationship with the masses, and continued to generate projects predicated on mobilizing the masses, not repressing or letting them go.26 These included the university and labor syndicates, which dated from earlier in the regime, but were the subject of reform projects in the 1960s, in the hopes of better capturing the loyalties of students and workers. While both these reform projects ended in failure when they were infiltrated by regime opponents and disbanded by the regime, the Movimiento had another less well-known mobilizing project: the so-called family associations. These were launched in 1963 as intended channels of participation and dissemination between the family and the state, as part of the “organic” participation of the “natural” social groups, the family, the municipality, and the labor syndicate. The bottom line is that all these (modern) projects were designed to integrate the masses, either passively, through economic development, or actively, through state-sponsored associations, or coercively, through keeping the costs of opposing the regime high. Moreover, while the regime passed through phases in which one of these strategies was more dominant, the others were never completely abandoned. At the same time, each of these projects, or perhaps the interaction between them, opened liminal spaces for popular participation and mobilization in civil society that could transgress the boundaries of the regime’s goal of reinforcing state authority. Thus, while the pursuit of economic development did seem to increase at least passive acceptance of the regime, it also had the unintended impact of promoting unplanned and chaotic industrial development and urban migration that destabilized the social order in growing urban centers. One of the better known consequences of this process was the growth in labor unrest, which moved quickly from economic demands to political ones as the regime responded with harsh, if uneven, repression.27 Less well known were the Asociaciones de Vecinos (AV), literally neighbor associations, which were formed from a grassroots effort to improve their local communities with needed services and infrastructure. At the same time, these associations provided a new space for anti-Francoist activists to mobilize, allowing them to help develop a set of issues and an alternative language of collective action that didn’t activate the regime’s surveillance radar as quickly as did the explicitly class-based labor movement. The Movimiento family associations were supposed to be less permeable and flexible, but in practice the Movimiento had neither the

Introduction 9

resources nor the clout to control its associational network. The result of all these dynamics was not the seamless vertical integration desired by the regime, but the gradual emergence of an increasingly diverse, visible, and pluralistic civil society, at the center of which lay an expanding milieu of civic associations. While there were various categories of association in the expanding milieu, this book focuses on two types of lesser-known civic associations that dated from the mid-1960s, both usually organized within neighborhood or small town geographical boundaries. The first category encompassed the so-called family associations, authorized by the Movimiento in 1963 and divided by gender and category into “Head of Household” (Cabeza de Familia), homemaker (Ama de Casa), and school parent (Padres de Familia) associations, and affiliated with the Movimiento. The second category were the Asociaciones de Vecinos (AV), constituted legally through the 1964 Law of Associations and open to both men and women.28 Because of the assumed ideological chasm between the “official” family associations and the independently organized AV, scholars have rarely seen them as occupying the same civic space. As one contemporary editorial put it, the Movimiento associations belonged to the “official Spain”, contrasted with “the real Spain represented by the independent associations, the citizen associations— of neighbors, homemakers, consumers, or small businessmen—which were registered under the 1964 law, the only channel that permits some independence”.29 While there is some validity to the differentiation between the two types of association, it is precisely their distinct ideological orientations that make them ideal subjects of comparison in this study. By analyzing both the commonalities and differences between the two types of organizations, it is possible to trace the outlines of a broader conversation with many shared goals, including a common interest in legitimating greater popular participation in public affairs. Both types of associations also have rich and virtually unplumbed archival sources available.30 The main archival source for the Asociaciones de Vecinos is the register maintained by each autonomous government, which includes files on all the associations constituted in their province since the 1964 associational law and even before.31 The files of the Madrid Registro de Asociaciones contain everything from statutes to minutes of meetings, budgets, police informant reports, and so on. For the family associations, archival documentation is held at the National State Archives, catalogued under the Ministry of Culture department that administered and monitored them. Several hundred associations of both kinds were constituted between about 1964 and 1978 in the

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

province of Madrid alone, while thousands more were formed around the country, especially in urban centers like Barcelona and Sevilla. While this study does not claim to provide a comprehensive picture of either neighborhood or family associations in Spain, it tries to offer an introduction to the national scope of associational life, while at the same time delving deeper into the “thick” description of practices and discourses at the local level. Instead of focusing on particular case studies of individual associations, the book highlights common themes, language, and activities drawn from dozens of examples, in an attempt to define the broad participatory and discursive parameters of what could be said and done in the associational milieu.32 But how did this associational milieu contribute to Spain’s democratic transition? This question has been particularly vexing for civil society theorists, who don’t always agree on how to “measure” contributions to an incipient “democratic culture”. Thus, some scholars have argued that the evidence of an emergent democratic culture can be measured in terms of direct political and ideological opposition to the dictatorship; that is the history of anti-Francoism.33 The problem with this framework is its narrow ideological criteria, which only values activities explicitly directed against the regime. The other extreme in the interpretive spectrum is Victor Pérez Díaz’ diffuse portrait of the “unconscious” decisions of millions of individual Spaniards as they pursued their economic interests in the expanding liberal marketplace.34 The weakness of this framework is that it casts too broad a net, making it difficult to distinguish the relevant connections. Meanwhile, skeptics point to opinion polls and questionnaires that seem to indicate that few Spaniards thought of themselves as “democratic”, at least in the Western liberal sense of the word, before the mid-1970s, and use these to cast doubt on the role of civil society in the transition.35 To resolve this “measurement” problem, this study seeks to identify a set of discursive and social practices that lie somewhere between a coherent ideology and unconscious behavior, and which together formed the constituent parts of an incipient democratic culture. While those who struggled against the Franco regime should certainly be recognized for their courageous and explicit contribution to the political transition, I would like to argue that the popular contribution was not solely the product of those who sought to overthrow the regime. Instead, a broader framework is necessary to recognize how civic associations like the AV and even the politically loyal Movimiento associations could engage in practices that constituted building blocks of an incipient democratic culture, whether or not they were consciously working

Introduction 11

toward such an end. In order to frame such a set of constituent practices, I have drawn on recent theories of citizenship that emphasize its empowering grass-roots potential. In contrast to the traditional scholarship on citizenship as a passive status granted “from above” by the liberal democratic state, recent scholars have redefined it as a set of practices and meanings that are actively contested and constructed, “from below”, through performance and participation, the so-called thick conception of citizenship.36 While other scholars have rightly warned against taking the passive rights of citizenship for granted, at a moment when international migration and a shrinking welfare state demonstrate the fragility and exclusionary nature of such rights, distinguishing between the passive and active axes of citizenship need not diminish the importance of both.37 Thus, the status bestowed by new sets of rights forms the “passive” axis of citizenship, while the ways individuals come together in civil society, in demanding new rights or in performing existing ones, form the “active” axis of citizenship. Mediating between the legal context and participation is the discursive dimension of citizenship, which refers to the collective meanings generated through the relationship between laws and actions.38 Rather than a fixed category, then, citizenship is a dynamic and historical process, the “outcome of legal, political and symbolic practices”.39 Within this dynamic process, the active face of citizenship provides a language of agency and empowerment that links abstract concepts to ordinary lives and everyday practices. Not only can ordinary people be agents in the process of becoming citizens, but furthermore, their actions help define what constitutes democratic practice and participation in any specific context. While most of the citizenship theory is clearly aimed at analyzing participation in mature democracies, this study will adapt its principles in order to analyze the significance of that participation in the emerging civil society of a dictatorship. Thus, instead of viewing democratic citizenship simply as a legal status granted by the Constitution of 1978, this book frames the construction of democratic citizenship as a historical and grass-roots process that began well before the institutional transition in the associational milieu that emerged during the last decade of the Franco regime. Operating without a pre-determined blueprint, participants and observers struggled to define the parameters of this new area of public participation, including “horizontal” relations with each other and “vertical” relations with the state authorities.40 This process occurred at the discursive level, in a wide-ranging conversation about the role and purpose of associations in public affairs, and at the level

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

of action, in the ways in which associations organized themselves and their collective interventions. Even though the discussion was not necessarily framed in the name of citizenship, or of a future democratic regime, the associational milieu was effectively developing a repertoire of participatory practices and frameworks that provided the building blocks or the “social capital” for democratic citizenship and for a future political culture in which democratic institutions could flourish. The point is that these building blocks did not have to be linked to a specific ideology in order to contribute to an emerging democratic culture. In the process of carving out an expanded role for collective participation in the pursuit of what was framed as the common good, participants helped create the “norms of reciprocity” and “networks of civic engagement”41 that could develop what scholars call “generalizable” social capital.42 From this perspective, the institutional transition when these practices became explicitly linked to a democratic political project was indeed the culmination of a process in which many ordinary Spaniards had participated and struggled. In framing the creation of democratic citizens and culture as an active struggle rather than a fixed outcome, it is also easier to see competing and contradictory practices, with different visions of a democratic polity. Even during the dictatorship, many groups talked about democracy but meant different things, from the Movimiento’s invocation of “organic” democracy to the communists’ calls for social democracy. Even after 1976, when most Spaniards agreed that “democracy” was the inevitable outcome of the transition, not everyone agreed on what sort of democracy. Thus, the transition was a moment when different styles of democratic citizenship became openly contested. The major line of division ran between the proponents of the “citizen movement”, who articulated a form of grass-roots participatory democracy based in the communitarian tradition, and the political elites, who envisioned a more rights-based representative democracy, in which citizenship was a more abstract and disembodied category to be protected, not empowered.43 While the empowering potential of citizenship as an active process is a crucial theme of the book, so is its exclusionary flip side. At a fundamental level, there has always been an unresolved tension between citizenship’s simultaneous claims to universality and the boundedness and particularity of membership in a specific, usually national, community. Contemporary theorists highlight the deleterious impact of this exclusion on the rapidly expanding migrant and immigrant population

Introduction 13

who live in places where they are defined as “outside the empowering framework of the citizen community”.44 But even before the era of massive global migration, the inclusion/exclusion binary surfaced in internal boundaries, whether explicit or implicit, around such categories as race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion.45 Thus, claims to universal inclusion have always been qualified by particular characteristics that exclude or marginalize certain groups. In the Spain of the 1960s–70s, one of the most salient examples of the inclusion/exclusion paradox within citizenship discourse revolved around gender. The relationship between women and citizenship has been contentious in the western European democratic tradition from its inception. From the debates over women’s participation in the sections during the French Revolution through more than a century of formal exclusion from the suffrage to more recent discussions about the substantive social rights of citizenship, the category of the female citizen has always been problematic, torn between the universal language of citizenship and the “difference” associated with women.46 What gender historians have defined as the “difference/equality paradox” is clearly visible in the Spanish case, in the ambiguous presence of women in the emerging associational milieu. It is not that women were absent or formally excluded from participation, but that their participation was shaped by the difference/equality paradox. On the one hand, they could join the “gender neutral” neighborhood associations, in which they and their specific interests remained invisible. On the other hand, they could join the gender specific homemakers’ associations within the family association movement, in which women were visible, but at the cost of isolation and ghettoization from the rest of the movement. In both contexts, women’s participation has been largely ignored, either because they are hidden behind universalistic claims and rhetoric, or because their gendered claims have been viewed as private, not public concerns. In more abstract terms, the “rights” associated with democratic citizenship are usually conceived of in universalistic terms that ignore the parallel language of difference that marks women. Thus, for example, “special” rights like abortion or birth control, or even the interests of homemakers, are marginalized as private concerns, not citizen rights. In general terms, the classic rights and responsibilities of citizenship have been constrained by a restricted definition of the “public interest”. Likewise, the classic views of active citizenship focus on participation in formal political activities in which women are less likely than men to take part. The result, as Susan James has argued in theoretical terms, is that, generally speaking, citizenship has excluded all that

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

is traditionally female: “the cluster of activities, values, ways of thinking and ways of doing things which have long been associated with women are all conceived as outside the world of citizenship”.47 In particular, feminist scholars have noted that women are more often found in informal social movements organized around household, neighborhood, or human rights issues than in the political parties and associations that are commonly recognized as “political” actors in conventional models.48 At the same time, scholars have noted that women’s proclivity for joining these sorts of local and “non-political” organizations works to their advantage under dictatorships, since most of the conventional political channels are unavailable anyway. The problem, in the Spanish case as in others, is that many contemporary observers and scholars have too easily accepted the “non-political” label proclaimed by the women and assumed by the regime, making it difficult to “frame” their role in the political transition.49 While recognizing the exclusionary impact of the equality/difference conundrum, this study seeks to recover and re-frame women’s participation in the process of “making” new democratic citizens. The debate over democracy and democratic citizenship concluded with the institutionalization of the new democratic state, which ended the fluid phase of construction and narrowed the parameters of the possible. What emerged in the dominant consensus was the liberal rights-based vision of democratic citizenship in which plebiscitary acclamation of elite decisions was the preferred mode of participation. From this perspective, the “outcome” of the transition was not the granting of democratic citizenship by the state but its placement along the passive/active axes, after a struggle that involved tens of thousands of ordinary Spaniards in dialogue with the elite managers of the transition. Similarly, from this perspective, Spain’s “transition” to democracy was also a struggle over the nature of democracy itself.50 In order to analyze the contribution of neighborhood and family associations to this struggle, the book will be organized along largely thematic lines, with some chronological threads running through the overall narrative. A thematic structure permits greater theoretical and conceptual clarity than a chronological one. The analysis centers on the last decade of the Franco regime, from the mid-1960s to the mid1970s, with separate sections dealing with the associations during the period of the institutional transition in the late 1970s. After the first two chapters exploring the origins and scope of the associational milieu, the remaining chapters are dedicated to a close examination of what the associations did and thought they were doing in the emerging civil society of the dictatorship. At the heart of these chapters is the

Introduction 15

challenge of how to measure and evaluate the contribution of civil society mobilization as an important factor leading to a successful democratic transition. Chapter 1 sets the stage by elaborating a multi-factor model that explains the new “space” for a revival of civil society and, in particular, for a new generation of public civic associations under the dictatorship. The chapter analyzes how this space opened at the juncture between competing policy decisions made by different groups within the regime coalition, the consequences of economic development, and the availability of pre-existing forms of social capital. Thus, the destabilizing consequences of economic liberalization created new motives for mobilization, at the same time as elements of the regime created a new framework, both institutional and discursive, for civic participation. Finally, the new generation of associations could draw on the existing social capital provided by several sources: the institutional models provided by an older prototype of the community organization, the resources and networks of the most extensive local institution in the country, the parish church, and finally, the pool of potential community leaders among anti-Franco activists, either inside or outside the church. In analyzing the complex interplay of factors needed to create a favorable environment, the chapter makes clear that it was neither a simple process of “liberalization” by an authoritarian state, nor of heroic opposition to a monolithic and immobile state. Turning to the space opened by these conditions, Chapter 2 sketches out the broad quantitative and qualitative parameters of the new associational milieu, and makes the case for a significant revival of civil society during the last decade of the dictatorship. In contrast to those who have argued for the weakness of civil society throughout the dictatorship (and beyond), the chapter makes the case for a substantial increase in the diversity and density of associational life after the mid-1960s. Beginning with this context as the point of comparison, the chapter examines a set of criteria for evaluating the strength of civil society associations, in terms of size, autonomy from the state, pluralism, and vitality, with a focus on three types of associations, the Movimiento family associations, the neighborhood associations, and those connected to the Church. Chapter 3 examines the complex position of women in this associational milieu, caught between the contradictions of the classic “difference/equality paradox”. It investigates the contrasting dynamic between the neighborhood associations, which were slow to admit women and to recognize women’s issues, and the homemaker associations, which welcomed women with an explicitly gendered program,

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

but were clearly subordinated to the male “head of household” associations. The neighborhood associations operated within a broader “egalitarian” framework in which gender was not supposed to matter, while the homemaker associations embraced “difference”, but neither path produced women’s full integration into the movements in which they participated. At the same time that the associational milieu demonstrates the gendered tensions in the democratic tradition, the associations did provide a new and relatively rare collective space for women to become involved in public affairs and thus to forge new citizen identities and practices. With the basic parameters of the associational milieu defined, the last four chapters analyze the more complicated issue of how to measure its contribution to the democratic transition. Civil society scholars have made broad arguments about the beneficial impact of autonomous associational activity under authoritarian regimes, from its creation of new channels of participation and the learning of citizen skills, to the creation of social capital, to the undermining of authoritarian state power. Social movement theorists add an element of struggle to this analysis, arguing that popular mobilization pushes the authoritarian state toward compromise and negotiation with the democratic opposition. From a cultural studies perspective, the contribution can be measured in the creation of new discursive frameworks that allow participants and observers to assign civic significance to those activities and to re-imagine their own identities. The goal of these four chapters is to utilize the interdisciplinary insights from all of these approaches to articulate the multiple ways in which civil society activity, in this case, the community associations formed through either the Movimiento or the 1964 Law of Association, contributed building blocks to an emerging democratic culture, which in turn provided a solid base for the formal transition. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 analyze the substantial public and semi-public discourse generated by and about the associations for evidence of these building blocks of democratic culture. They argue that a significant element of the new associational milieu was the public conversation it opened about the nature of civic participation and the relationship between associations and the state. Through debates about the goals, structure, and logic of civic participation, the associations generated one of the most fertile and creative spaces for re-imagining civic identity under the dictatorship. What was most striking about these debates were their broad parameters, which included room for a variety of positions on key issues. While most of this conversation was not

Introduction 17

directly focused on “making democratic citizens”, all the elements of this process were present. What these chapters argue is that it was during this decade before the formal transition, in the discursive space of the associational milieu, that Spaniards explored new mechanisms of, and meanings for, collective participation in public affairs (the horizontal axis of citizenship), and nurtured a dialogue with the state (the vertical axis) about those affairs. Although there were overlapping elements in this discursive terrain, the different structures of family movement and neighborhood association discussions created separate civic discourses, which competed within the broader “field” of the associational milieu and only came together during the transition itself in the “citizen movement”. Chapter 4 focuses on the Family Movement civic discourse, which sought to define a role for popular participation in public affairs within a collaborative model of cooperation between ordinary people and the state. While the Movimiento founders intended to utilize the associations as channels of dissemination and vertical integration, the chapter emphasizes the ways in which they transgressed the boundaries of their creators. Instead of a monolithic ideology, what unfolded was a surprisingly wide-ranging debate about civic practices and institutions. Chapter 5 examines the gender-specific civic discourse of the homemaker associations, and argues, similarly, that despite the political conservatism of most of these associations, they generated one of the most open conversations about women’s evolving roles in “modern” society that could be found in the dictatorship. Furthermore, these amas de casa were creating new public roles for themselves that were compatible with the other community associations. Although amas de casa are associated with the private sphere, especially in Francoist Spain, these associations explicitly sought to pull women out of that sphere and turn them into collective advocates for the family economy. The chapter also examines the discourse of the “independent” homemaker associations, which were coopted by dissidents searching for legal channels for their activism. Despite the dramatic ideological differences, there was significant overlap in the ways both types of homemaker associations created a framework in which the ama de casa/citizen could be both imagined and nurtured. Chapter 6 turns to the neighborhood association discourse, which had to be constructed from the bottom up, through a process of grass-roots experimentation that is explored through the semi-public composition and sharing of associational statutes in the province of Madrid. Because of the limited access of the neighborhood associations to more public

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

channels, it was only during the transition that the elements of the AV discourse surfaced and coalesced in the new category of the “citizen movement”. Through the efforts of a number of theorist–activists, the “citizen movement” came to define a participatory and communitarian democratic alternative to the elite-brokered transition. Chapter 7 moves from the discursive realm of what the associations thought they were doing to what they did, and analyzes how these activities contributed to the emergent democratic culture. Using a framework that divides activities into private, civic, and political, the chapter organizes them under these various headings, emphasizing the latter two as constitutive of democratic citizenship. Through “civic” activities aimed at the larger community, the associations illustrated their commitment to the common good, while at the same time the internal debates over self-governance raised issues of democratic procedure like voting, elections, and grass-roots participation. Finally, through “political” activities aimed at convincing the state to help them resolve community problems, associations developed a working dialogue with the state that evolved from “collaborationist” to “oppositional”, at least partly as a result of the Francoist state’s general inability to “deliver the goods”. On the one hand, this attempted dialogue exposed the weaknesses of the Francoist state and contributed to undermining its legitimacy. On the other hand, the practice of working with the state to “get things done” developed many of the skills necessary for citizen participation under the future democracy. The book ends with an epilogue on the demobilization of the “citizen movement” and its implications for the transition and consolidation of democracy in Spain, as well as for the “Spanish model” of democratization. Scholars have disagreed on whether demobilization occurred naturally as a result of democratic institutionalization, or whether it was a by-product of the elite-brokered transition that generated a participatory deficit in the new regime. In either case, the demise of the citizen movement after the transition does not negate its importance as a primary site in which ordinary Spaniards contributed to one of the major events of twentieth century Spain. From the emergence of a milieu of civic associations in the 1960s to their public coalescence in the “citizen movement” in the mid-1970s, Spaniards reconstituted themselves as democratic citizens in a democratic state. It is this story of popular agency in the “transition from below” that is the subject of this book.

1 Dictatorship and Civil Society: Explaining the Roots of a New Associational Milieu

This chapter explores the important question of why and how the space for a more diverse and pluralist associational milieu opened from the early 1960s, within the parameters of a long-standing dictatorial regime that was undergoing a significant evolution. It argues that this space emerged at the juncture between elite decisions taken by regime policy makers, structural conditions, particularly the unintended effects of economic development, and the social and cultural resources, or social capital, available to potential associations at the grass-roots level. The result, in classic social movement theory, was a favorable opportunity structure for the emergence of certain types of civic associations. The implications of this complex gestation model go beyond this specific case to the heart of debates about the origins of democratic transitions. What it suggests is that the “revival of civil society” under a dictatorship requires the presence of multiple intersecting conditions. Thus, state and society, politics and culture, transformation and continuity had to re-align in particular ways to create the enabling conditions for such a revival.

Introduction: A multi-factor model—State policies, structural changes, and social capital In general terms, this re-alignment can be linked to the evolution of the regime from its more repressive, fascist-influenced, and totalitarian phase to the later phase of diplomatic and economic reintegration into western Europe. This is not to say that the Francoist regime initiated the process of democratization, as conservatives have claimed, but that there was a significant policy shift, whose mostly unintended consequences helped create favorable conditions for the expansion and 19

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

diversification of associational life. In terms of concrete policies, the change of direction is often dated with the 1959 Plan de Estabilización, promoted by the newly appointed cabinet of prominent technocratic economic liberals under the leadership of Admiral Carrero Blanco. The regime’s new economic course unleashed a chain of social, cultural, and economic changes that transformed Spain in fundamental ways. While this transformation is undisputed, explaining the causal linkages between the regime’s policies, the social and economic transformation, and the revival of civil society is more contested, depending on the interpretive framework. Even acknowledging the contribution of multiple factors—from state policies to structural stages to social capital— requires the construction of a new “meta” framework to explain their fruitful interaction. From the classic “modernization” perspective, the economic transformation itself was the primary motor of change, leading not only to structural changes such as increased industrialization and urbanization, but also to cultural modifications as well. In this framework, the emergence of a “modern” economic and social structure would inevitably generate a more autonomous and plural civil society.1 There is no question about the basic facts of economic growth and transformation, in what one recent article calls “the golden age of Spanish capitalism.” Once the 1959 Stabilization Plan liberalized the economy, reducing market tariffs and regulations and opening it to foreign competition, the economy grew at a rate of 7 percent a year for the next 15 years, a rate that was two times greater than it was in the previous 25 years, in per capita terms. A key factor in this growth, providing a significant amount of the capital investment, was the spectacular expansion of the tourist industry, which increased the number of annual visitors from 6 million in 1960 to 34.5 million in 1973.2 As important as the raw growth figures was the structural transformation of the economy. While Spain had been gradually undergoing a transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy since the 1850s, in only 10 years the income from the primary sectors (agriculture, fishing and mining) fell from 25 percent of Gross Added Value in 1960 to 10 percent in 1970.3 The “economic miracle” not only produced growth but also raised living standards almost across the board, pushing Spain into the elite category of “first world” nations with a per capita annual income of $2000 or more.4 Increased income translated into a dramatic rise in consumption, especially of “modern” conveniences, from running water to refrigerators, televisions, and cars. Between 1960 and 1973, the percentage of households with running water rose from 45 percent to

Dictatorship and Civil Society 21

87 percent, while those with heat rose from 4 percent to 55 percent. While in 1960, only 1 percent of households owned a TV, 4 percent had a fridge, 12 percent a phone, and 19 percent a washing machine, by 1971 those percentages had risen to 56 percent, 66 percent, 39 percent, and 52 percent, respectively. Finally, the percentage of automobile-owning families rose from 4 to 35 percent in the same 11 years.5 A massive rural-to-urban migration constituted another key component of the structural transformation of Spanish society, with more than 2.7 million of Spain’s 33.8 million people leaving the countryside between 1960 and 1973. Once again, Spain had been undergoing a gradual urbanization since the late nineteenth century, but in only 10 years the percent of the urban population rose from 46 percent to 55 percent, with concentrated growth in the larger cities. Thus, the number of cities with 100,000 residents rose from 26 to 37 over this period, and together these cities housed 37 percent of the nation’s population by 1970. Madrid and Barcelona were the largest cities, with 3.18 and 1.74 million, respectively, with several others hovering around a half million: Valencia and Sevilla with 600,000 and Zaragoza and Bilbao with 40,000. In terms of the migration, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Vizcaya were the primary receiving provinces, accounting for over half of the internal Spanish migration between the early 1960s and the mid-1970s.6 From the rural side, one consequence was the unwitting destruction of the latifundia system, which had kept desperately poor landless laborers underemployed on massive tracts of underutilized land. The growth of urban industries was finally great enough to offer more attractive jobs that pulled them into the cities. In only 10 years, the population employed in agriculture had dropped from 40 percent in 1960 to 25 percent in 1970. Conversely, the percentages employed in industry and services increased from 29 percent and 27 percent respectively, to 37 percent in each.7 The economic growth affected even those rural regions where smaller farms predominated, as Susan Harding argued in her classic anthropological analysis of the transformation of peasants into capitalist farmers.8 For modernization theorists, the significance of these kinds of economic changes transcended their impact on peoples’ standards of living and transformed their behaviors and attitudes. As a result of such changes, landless laborers who once might have formed dependent patron–client relations with their bosses became industrial workers living in urban neighborhoods, where they could develop new horizontal community bonds. Likewise, whereas peasants had lived in isolated

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

village subcultures, capitalist farmers integrated into a national political culture. And tourism brought not only foreign currency but also values and ideas of tourists from a democratic Europe.9 In general terms, the modernization framework assumed that economic development would lead to a broad range of social and cultural changes, from higher literacy to greater homogenization of interests to secularization and more tolerance and moderation. In fact, literacy rates did rise, from 84 percent in 1950 to 91 percent in 1975, spurred by the parallel rise in the number of school-aged children attending school.10 Such changes would then increase the country’s “indices of democratization”.11 Once the dominant interpretive model, the lack of agency and precision, as well as the facile assumptions linking economic and social development with democratization, undermined its interpretive legitimacy. Partly as a response to these perceived shortcomings, the “elite agency” model turned the focus toward explicit decisions that were the conscious choices of political elites. From this perspective, the 1957 cabinet re-organization is framed as the start of a new political era, marking the final defeat of the fascist wing of the regime coalition. While the fascist-dominated Movimiento had been losing power since 1945 and the defeat of the Axis powers, the February 1956 ministry of José Luis de Arrese was the last attempt to institutionalize the one-party fascist state.12 This effort was opposed by Admiral Carrero Blanco, who convinced Franco to support his more traditional monarchist political structure and, equally important, a new economic path of growth and liberalization instead of autarchic nationalism. When Carrero replaced Arriese in February 1957, he and his team of “technocrats”, including law professor Laureano López de Rodó and economists Mariano Navarro Rubio and Alberto Ullastres, set a new course for the Spanish economy, beginning with the 1959 Stabilization Plan. The new era was defined by the technocratic project to raise consumption standards, not organize mass rituals. Instead of the Movimiento’s “national syndicalist revolution”, the new team promoted liberalization of markets to spur economic growth, the definitive restoration of the monarchy, and the improved efficiency of state administration.13 From the perspective of the “elite agency” interpretive model, the new path represented the regime’s “letting go” of the totalitarian dream of vertical integration through national “syndicates”, reduced the state’s investment in organizing society, and left the door open to a more diverse and independent civil society. While both the modernization and the elite agency explanations have some merit, neither monocausal perspective captures the complexity of

Dictatorship and Civil Society 23

the dynamic between regime policies and structural transformations. Thus, while it is true that the actions of political elites helped create new opportunities for civil society expansion, it was not through any direct, or even unwitting, process of liberalization. What this narrative ignores is that, even after 1957, the technocrats were still part of a diverse coalition. While it is certainly true that the different parts of the coalition had their moments of dominance, that is, fascism up to 1945, national Catholicism up to the mid-1950s, and thereafter the monarchist technocrats, it is also true that each faction remained in the coalition and continued to struggle to increase or regain its power and status.14 In particular, the Falange-dominated Movimiento did not simply disappear after the ministerial defeat in 1957, but turned its efforts to cultivating other bases of power, through new channels of mass mobilization. While the expanded mobilizing project was intended to strengthen the Movimiento’s clout within the regime, it had the unintended consequence of unleashing a new discourse and structure of civic participation which could not always be controlled. It was thus the continued desire to mobilize the masses, re-framed as part of its internal struggle within the regime coalition, that spurred the Movimiento to create new discursive and organizational structures such as the family association movement. Likewise, it was partly to counter this initiative that led other regime elements affiliated with the technocrats to approve a more general law of associations in 1964, which would channel organization through the state administration rather than the Movimiento. The upshot of this internal jockeying for power was a paradoxical opening of competing spaces for legal associations. The result, as one Communist party militant observed, was that “everyone”, even the Movimiento, was talking about “associationism”.15 In and of themselves, these new legal channels of associationism would have been nothing but empty shells, but they were utilized by people and groups who were searching for new types of social formations to meet their changing collective needs.16 The needs of potential participants were defined, on the one hand, by the continued repression of traditional languages and forms of collective organization, especially that which was Marxist-inspired. The regime’s continued commitment to repressing any open dissent was clear in its response to the first major strikes and student protests in the mid-1950s, but especially after 1962, when violent encounters with police, mass arrests, and states of emergency were common occurrences on university campuses and in industrial centers.17 When the efforts by students and workers to establish publically independent organizations were crushed in

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the late 1960s, the new associational channels provided alternative structures. On the other hand, the need for new social formations was defined by the destabilizing consequences of the economic and social transformation, which were not being addressed by the dictatorship. In contrast to the classic modernization theory, which emphasized the positive results of economic development, the negative consequences of unbridled capitalist growth under an authoritarian regime were at least as powerful structural factors. Specifically, the regime’s weak development plans did little to effectively protect consumers, urban residents, and workers from the impacts of massive urban migration, spiraling consumer prices, and the need for industries to become competitive. Thus, despite the fear of repression, ordinary Spaniards faced with the chaotic impact of a liberalizing economy had plenty of motives to find new avenues to express and meet their collective needs. But motive does not always translate into capacity, as social movement theorists have long pointed out, unless there are existing social and cultural resources that provide the building blocks of mobilization.18 Using the term made famous by Robert Putnam, potential associations draw on (as they create) “social capital”, or the values, norms, and social networks which enable cooperation and collective action.19 In this case, the existence of older prototypes that served as models, as well as the dense local network maintained by the Catholic Church in its parish structure, formed part of an “enabling” environment in which new social practices could be created. A different kind of social capital was provided by the smaller number of anti-Francoist activists, who became politicized in the student or labor movements, and/or in clandestine political parties and cells. These activists were unevenly distributed around the country, but were concentrated in regions with significant industrial development and large universities. A good deal of the labor conflict occurred in Asturias, Vizcaya, Barcelona, and, lastly, in Madrid, which experienced rapid industrialization in automobile factories, engineering, and machine tools in the 1960s.20 The largest student movements occurred in Madrid and Barcelona. These movements were closely intertwined with the party activists, particularly those belonging to the handful of communist-inspired groups, from the original Communist party (PCE), to the Maoist Revolutionary Organization of Workers (ORT), to the Spanish Workers’ Party (PTE). As Xavier Domenèch has argued, there was a dynamic and fertile interaction between grass-roots conflict in factories and on campuses and the political opposition. Thus, political

Dictatorship and Civil Society 25

activists were both inspired and reinvigorated by the social conflict and, at the same time, contributed their mobilizing expertise and ideological frameworks to nurturing and transforming it.21 Faced with the repression of these venues, some of these activists turned their mobilizing expertise and organizing passions to new forms of legal associations and, one might add, to new local spaces.22 What they brought to this new space were the skills, knowledge, and enthusiasm needed to build a core of community organizers, as well as a broader vision for framing individual struggles. Such a perspective acknowledges the important contribution of the anti-Francoist opposition to the emerging milieu of civic associations without conflating the two spaces, one clandestine and the other public. To sum up this discussion, the “space” for an emerging civil society that could host a new generation of civic associations opened up at the intersection between these three factors: state policies, the impact of economic transformation, and the availability of existing social capital.

The role of the state: Creating a new legal and discursive framework The state’s contribution to a new associational space, when acknowledged at all, is usually confined to the 1964 Law of Association and its unintended consequences. Rather than an isolated event, however, the law was only one aspect of a growing sea change since the late 1950s within sectors of the regime, in which competing projects for channeling popular mobilization emerged. Political elites were aware that the economic transformation was creating new tensions in the society at large, within universities absorbing increased numbers of students, in industries adapting to newly liberalized markets, and in urban centers attracting massive numbers of rural immigrants. In this increasingly unstable society, they sought to create channels that could give voice to these tensions without opening the door to political reform that would threaten the authoritarian regime. At the same time, the different sectors of the regime promoted channels that they hoped would enhance their own influence. In practice, this competition helped create the space for new forms of collective participation or associationism that restricted “political” activity while enhancing limited pluralism. Before the early 1960s the “right” to association had existed, but its practice was narrowly limited by a contradictory combination of Falangist totalitarian idealism and forced demobilization. The “right” to association was stated in a 1941 decree and later in Article14 of

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

the 1945 Fuero de los Españoles which reaffirmed the foundational 1887 law, but qualified it with the need for government approval of any act of constitution.23 Most approved associations belonged to the Movimiento, which was created in 1937 as the only legal political organization of the Nationalists, and later the regime. These included a small number of specialized groups, like the Guardia de Franco (Franco’s Guard), while its female branch, the Sección Femenina (women’s section), was the only non-religious organization for women.24 In addition to the SF, the Movimiento also controlled other “monopolitical” institutions of mass integration, in particular the Sindicato Español Universitario (SEU, the student syndicate) and the Organización de Sindicatos Españolas (OSE, labor syndicates for workers and employers), both of which dictated mandatory membership.25 The Movimiento’s claim to be THE “intermediary between the State and Society, with the principal mission of communicating to the State the will of the people, and of bringing to the people the philosophy of the State, through its politicalmoral virtues of hierarchical service and brotherhood”26 articulated the Falangist totalitarian ideal. However, the purity of this ideal was never realized in practice, both because the Falangist influence in the regime coalition had been in decline since the mid-1940s, and because there was already a competing hierarchical organization that occupied a significant social space: that is, the Catholic Church. As early as 1939, when the SEU and OSE absorbed the Catholic student and labor unions, the Church hierarchy was concerned about what Cardinal Goma called “the tendency of some States to absorb all social activity”.27 The Church’s influence was reflected in a 1941 decree, which included other special categories of permissible organizations, such as those run by the Catholic Church. Within this parallel framework, the Catholic Church operated its extensive network of Acción Católica lay associations.28 Outside both the Movimiento and the Church hierarchy were also a small number of unaffiliated associations, from business groups to sports clubs and traditional bullfighting brotherhoods (peñas), although it is difficult to gauge the size and extent of this network.29

The Movimiento: From political defeat to reinventing mass participation What is clear is that, from the late 1950s, some sectors of the regime coalition began to see this articulation of society as inadequate to protect their own interests and the stability of the regime. After this point,

Dictatorship and Civil Society 27

officials began to look for new languages and structures that could channel the dynamism of a changing society. Within the Movimiento, the change began with the appointment of José Solís Ruíz as General Secretary in 1957. Reeling from the recent political defeat, which included a rejection of several new “foundational laws” that would have given the Movimiento special powers and executive privileges, Solís was faced with the challenge of revitalizing a diminished institution.30 If the Movimiento could capture and channel some of the energy of an increasingly dynamic society, it could amplify its status in the competitive hierarchy of the regime “families” and regain some of the power lost since the end of World War II. However, it was obvious that its existing “totalitarian” channels, with their language of compulsory affiliation, were losing support and effectiveness. Thus, in the wake of the 1956 University protests, a 1957 report on “recovering” the University warned of the need to “modernize” the SEU and find better ways to integrate students into the regime.31 And the1958 system of collective bargaining that was established to increase productivity in industry was an implicit acknowledgment of the perceived limitations of the existing OSE structure.32 In this context, the Movimiento under Solís’ leadership tried to re-invent its key role as intermediary between the regime and the masses by creating a new language and structure for mass participation. On the one hand, this effort involved the attempted reform of existing organizations, like the OSE and the SEU, to make them more authentically representative and reflective of the needs of workers and students.33 On the other hand, the Movimiento created new channels of mobilization intended to reach out to previously unaffiliated sectors of the population. Thus, in July of 1957, Solís created a Delegado Nacional de Asociaciones (DNA), which had the objective of “channeling the aspirations of Spaniards . . . through the existing associations of the Movement and new ones that adhere to it, with the goal that these aspirations reach the government, carried there by the Secretary General”.34 As José Miguel Ortí Bordas explained, the great novelty of this new department was not to turn the existing groups like the Guardia de Franco into associations, but to encourage Spaniards to form their own associations.35 This idea that Spaniards should form their own associations was part of a new language of mass participation formulated by Movimiento leaders in the wake of this re-structuring process. The precise etymology of this new terminology is unclear, but there may have been some discursive circulation between the university movement, in which a younger

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generation of Falangists took part, the new labor relations, and the official Movimiento ideology.36 Whatever its exact source, the new language was to re-position the Movimiento from its role as an ideological vanguard of committed activists, to a clearing house for grass-roots public service, bringing in ordinary people who had never been Movimiento ideologues and encouraging them to get involved in their communities. Thus, according to Ortí Bordas, the fundamental principle of the proposed 1968 Estatuto Orgánico of the Movimiento was participation, or the provision of free and responsible access to public life and the right of all Spaniards to be present where important decisions affecting the community were being made.37 It is true that the principle of “participation” itself was not new. In a traditional Falangist universe, participation was yoked to a totalitarian vision of enthusiastic national unity, as in article six of the 1937 charter, which declared that all Spaniards should “participate” in the State through their roles in family, municipal, and trade union organizations. This basic principle was reaffirmed in the May 1958 Ley de Principios del Movimiento Nacional, which promised to promote the “participation of the people” through the “organic representation” of the family, the syndicate, and the municipality.38 What was novel was that participation was to be linked to greater diversity and pluralism in public life. As Solís put it, it was time to “populate with uncorrupt (limpias) voices the national silence” of the previous quarter of a century. Instead of the older model of totalitarian integration, Solís talked about giving voice to different perspectives,39 and the 1968 Statute recognized the need to promote “free and spontaneous” associations, whose goals would be “open according to their own objectives, like a fan with multiple sections” (en plural abanico).40 Thus, the new concept of participation envisioned not only the incorporation of the population into the State’s project, but also the constitution of other collective projects, whose interests needed independent channels. In the words of another Movimiento theorist, “One of the fundamental characteristics of a pluralist organization of society is the fact that people with common problems or identical interests can unite to fight for their interests.”41 Nevertheless, pluralism and participation were still meant to be contained within the Movimiento’s vision of organic democracy. In ideological terms, this meant the prohibition of any association that promoted “social division” or opposition rather than unity. As Ortí Bordas explained the limits: “Associations representing a point of view (asociaciones de opinión) ought to pursue their goals according to a strict set of criteria. Asociaciones de opinión are defined as: not being the

Dictatorship and Civil Society 29

expression of a specific social class, and bringing together men without consideration of their social standing; not having a global ideology, or, which is the same thing, a complete and totalizing vision of the world; as accepting the existing political structure; as having as their primordial goal the pursuit of the common good; and as respecting the autonomy of individual opinions”.42 In other words, diversity was acceptable only within a broader framework of ideological loyalty to the regime. As one clandestine PCE report noted sardonically, the Movimiento was talking about more participation at the same time as it wanted more repression of the communists.43 In structural terms, organic democracy meant that the associations contributed to the vertical organization of society, despite the new acceptance of pluralism. The result was an unstable discursive balancing act, between horizontal and vertical structures and between unity and diversity. For some within the Movimiento as well as other sectors of the regime, this instability was too risky, and internal debates over the implications of increasing pluralism and greater popular participation continued until the end of the dictatorship. Thus, in competing drafts of the Movimiento’s 1968 Statute, proponents disagreed on the vital question of whether affiliated associations had to demonstrate active support for the Movimiento’s goals or merely promise not to act against them.44 But the real sticking point in the debates were over what were called “political” associations, with the Solís camp arguing for an evolution toward limited ideological and institutional pluralism under the Movimiento umbrella. This vision was defeated by conservatives within the regime, partly because enemies of the Movimiento did not want to increase its power and partly because of the fear of opening the Pandora’s box of political reform.45 But the high-profile defeat of the Movimiento’s project for “political” associations should not overshadow its more successful promotion of a realm of “non-political” associations, or what became known as the family association movement.46 It is in this realm that the tension between pluralism and unity was played out and where the potential of the Movimiento’s new language of pluralist participation would be tested in practice, whatever the intentions of its theorists. A new associational framework: The Movimiento’s family associations The family association project fits nicely into both the ideological and pragmatic goals of the Movimiento’s effort to re-build. In ideological terms, the family was one of the three pillars of the organic social order,

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

along with the municipality and the syndicate. While the latter two pillars had existing participatory channels, the necessity “to provide a greater degree of institutionalization to the associations representing the family and a more direct influence on the organs of the State”47 was perfectly consistent with Movimiento philosophy. It also fulfilled the Movimiento’s more pragmatic goals of expanding its mass base by exploiting the least developed of the three “organic” categories. Thus, it was not until the Organic Law of 1966 that “families” could vote for their own representatives to the Cortes, but even with this reform, the formation of associations was to provide a more sustained channel of intervention in public life than simply voting during elections. The most important of the family associations would be the “general” Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familias (ACF) (heads of families), but later more “specific” associations, for large families, for families with disabled children (subnormales), for parents of students, for homemakers (amas de casa), and for consumers, would be promoted as part of the “Family Movement” by the Delegado Nacional de la Familia (DNF), established in December, 1969.48 But the ACFs were the original model, approved by the government on June 24, 1963, and they remained the anchor of the movement, the “main channel between families and state authorities”49 in the patriarchal Movimiento social order. Although female heads of household could belong to the ACFs, they were clearly imagined as masculine collectives, in which the patriarchal father’s role in the public sphere was based on his leadership over the subordinate members of the family and on his ability to represent their united interests. Within this patriarchal vision of community involvement, the Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familia would act as centers of local initiative on all issues of common interest, and would encourage more participation of “residents [el vecindario] in communal life”, as the draft proposal put it.50 Moreover, they could be of great assistance to local authorities in improving education, protecting minors, organizing charity and “social action”, and, in general, helping local governments respond more effectively to the needs of Spanish families.51 In addition to the participatory language, the proposal laid out basic parliamentary procedures, like majority voting, the right of all members to “vote and voice”, and the regular election of a governing board. However, in a reflection of the tension between pluralism and unity, this language of empowerment and independence was juxtaposed to other apparently contradictory messages. Thus, it was clear that the Movimiento intended these associations to be under their “tutelage”, as Article 2 of the proposal stated. As the introductory section put it

Dictatorship and Civil Society 31

bluntly, “their links to the Movimiento and, concretely, to its provincial leaders, will make it impossible for them to create problems of any kind”. This language supports the hypothesis that the Movimiento was cynically using these associations to increase its own power, rather than to provide real channels for family interests to be heard by the state. This was indeed the view of the project’s enemies, including many in the Church hierarchy, who viewed it as an attempted coup from the “totalitarian cabal” in the Movimiento.52 But such a reading would be too one-sided. The project was always open to multiple interpretations, as the government technical adviser who commented on the proposal immediately recognized. He was disturbed, first of all, by the decentralization of authority implied in the project, since the new associations would not be subject to general state law, but only to Movimiento oversight. Furthermore, they were to be encouraged to oversee municipal authorities’ management of their responsibilities, which would undermine state authority, he warned. He also implicitly criticized the expanding pluralism embodied in the project, since the associations “overlapped” with existing forms of representation, like the Catholic Confederation of Fathers of Families. But what most concerned him was the “open character” of the associations, which were free to elect their own governing boards and were subject to no doctrinal control. He recognized the great paradox of the quintessentially anti-democratic Movimiento supporting the creation of what were, in his mind, essentially “political” organizations, that is, for heads of household to participate in public functions. The result was a “golden door for sly enemies of the regime”. What appeared to be an insignificant project was in fact an important transformation in the associational life of the country, he concluded.53 While most of the ACFs did not become seedbeds of regime opposition (although some did), the adviser was right to see that their impact would be more complicated than either the Movimiento proponents or its detractors admitted. In fact, the role played by many ACFs would be somewhere between the extremes of “sly enemy” and “lapdog”. While the technical advisor worried about ideological subversion, other political forces worried about totalitarian maneuvers, and the Movimiento proponents assumed that the associations would voluntarily remain in their orbit, the reality on the ground revealed a more complex range of positions, most of them situated in an intermediate gray area on the border between the state and civil society. A nuanced evaluation of the contribution of the family associations to the building blocks of a democratic culture requires going beyond the intentions of the Movimiento

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founders to take a closer look at how these associations functioned in practice, both internally and in the society at large. The 1964 Law of Associations At the same time as the Movimiento was promoting a new generation of associations under its auspices, competing sectors of the regime were pushing for a more general law of association that would spell out the vague rights and qualifications established in the 1941 law and the 1945 Fuero de los Españoles, especially in terms of defining the acceptable goals of association and the mechanics of government approval.54 The result was the 1964 Law of Association, under which all associations, other than those regulated by the Movimiento, the Church or the other special categories, would have to register. The law was, at least implicitly, a weapon in the internal jockeying for power between regime sectors, in this case aimed at the Movimiento’s monopoly control on associational life. From this perspective, the law was less about “letting go” of society than it was about fighting over which sector of the regime could control social organization.55 Thus, the 1964 Law set up an entirely separate legalization process for associations that was controlled by the Ministerio de Gobernación, not the Movimiento.56 But beyond political motives, the Law was a response to a real vacuum of guidelines on associations and to the growing pressure from below to establish clear channels for formulating and making collective demands. While the ideological scrutiny of associations required under the 1964 law was as great as that claimed by the Movimiento, its looser framework created the space for a more diverse range of associations than did the narrower ACF/Head of Household blueprint. However pluralist the language of the Movimiento was, an ACF had to focus on the family, was limited to “heads” of families, and had to claim direct adhesion to the principles of the Movimiento. In contrast, the 1964 law left the goals and scope and membership of associations undefined, its primary concern to prevent “subversive elements” from using associations for illicit purposes.57 It was this more flexible framework that made the 1964 Law the preferred channel for an emerging generation of local associations that shared certain goals with the ACFs, but conceived of their aspirations in terms that went beyond family interests to embrace community or neighborhood concerns; that is, the Asociaciones de Vecinos (AV). As one 1975 editorial summed up the importance of the law: “it’s possible that until 1964 many people never would have thought of the possibility that in a neighborhood there could be a union capable of opposing those forces that tried and try to plan its future”.58

Dictatorship and Civil Society 33

The role of structural change: Economic growth and urban crisis While the 1964 Law and the Movimiento’s reorganization provided a legal framework for new forms of association that might have been previously unimaginable, as the quote acknowledges, it was only an empty format until people decided to utilize it. Thus, the legal mechanisms were one element of a complex dynamic that included the everyday pressures that pushed people to seek new ways of defending their collective interests. For those who experimented with neighborhood-based associations, those interests were defined by the economic and social consequences of the regime’s abandonment of autarchy and its pursuit of economic integration into the liberal world economy. In social and cultural terms, this new integration resulted in exposure to the outside world, through the influx of foreign tourism and the outflow of emigration. In economic terms, it opened up a stagnant economy to foreign capital, created new markets for industry, and propelled the kind of major demographic rural/urban migration that an earlier more gradual process of industrialization had not yet generated. At the same time, economic development brought as many challenges as it did opportunities. Thus, the new urban residents were confronted with the negative as well as the positive effects of development. In particular, consumers faced the spiraling prices of a liberalized market, as the regime retreated from its previous pattern of maintaining social order through price controls and coordinating local market distribution. And, old and new urban residents were confronted with the impact of unplanned and underfunded rapid growth. Residents of the old city centers were faced with a deteriorating housing stock and aging infrastructure, while many new residents on the outskirts either had to build their own shacks (chabolas) or were housed in dismal and shoddily constructed apartment blocks. Franco himself provided a vivid description, after a visit to Sevilla in 1961: “I saw in Sevilla, in the outskirts of the city, many shacks that depressed me greatly. They were built up against a cemetery and housed many families; each shack was shaky, damp, full of mud and water, and gave off a horrible odor . . . in no place in Morocco have I seen such a depressing sight.” Whether comprised of self-constructed shacks or apartment blocks, these peripheral neighborhoods lacked everything beyond the four walls of their dwelling, from the basic infrastructure of sewers and streetlights to public services like parks, schools, and transportation networks. As one resident remembered, “they constructed housing and nothing else, no schools, no clinic, no telephones, no services, no market, barely any cars . . . but

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

mud there was as much as you wanted.”59 When development plans were approved as a response to the chaos, they were usually designed without residents’ input and ended up being part of the problem rather than the solution. It was the enormity of these immediate and everyday challenges that propelled residents to find ways to resolve them. These challenges were exacerbated by the regime’s ineffectual responses to what was widely perceived as an urban crisis, which goes to the heart of the weaknesses of the “authoritarian development” model.60 In general terms, the regime did little to monitor or regulate private industries and construction companies, which led to numerous abuses that enraged workers and residents. Neither did the state invest heavily in more public solutions to the crisis of housing or urban development. Finally, when individuals or groups complained about any of these problems to the state, they rarely received a satisfactory response, and sometimes petitions could drag on for years.61 The centralized nature of the Francoist state located decision-making in bureaucratic structures far removed from peoples’ lives, while the unrepresentative local governments they appealed to had neither the power nor the resources nor the political will to act as defenders of their communities.62 Thus, the Mayor was appointed by the Ministerio de Gobernación, and he in turn appointed nine delegates and three assistant Mayors, who together made up the majority of the Comisión Municipal de Gobierno, where most important decisions were made. The remaining six members were elected by “heads of household”, but these representatives were in the minority.63 The unaccountability of local government, added to the often labyrinthian chain of command within the regime’s bureaucratic structure, created the image of a state that was at best inept and at worst negligent.64 The failure of the Francoist state to deal with the urban crisis was common knowledge at the time, as contemporary publications attest to. Moreover, it was not only enemies of the dictatorship but its supporters who took a critical perspective. In a 1972 collection co-edited by Francoist Minister Manuel Fraga, several articles focused on the housing crisis and the history of failed policies devised to resolve it. According to their authors, housing policy under the regime consisted of a series of plans that were both inadequate in theory and not fully applied in practice, usually as a result of underfunding. In 1939, the Instituto Nacional de Vivienda was formed to foment construction in the wake of the Civil War and its destruction of half a million residences. It also set out a plan to establish “protected” or rent-controlled housing for government employees, but by the mid-1950s the 72,000 dwellings in this

Dictatorship and Civil Society 35

category were far below the 10-year goal of 250,000–619,000. Furthermore, it was not until the mid-1950s that the government began to focus on the new kind of housing problem caused by urban in-migration. In 1954, a new category of “protected” dwelling was created, in an attempt to provide affordable housing for the migrants and thus to stem the self-construction of shacks that were springing up by the thousands in undeveloped land on the outskirts of cities. But once again, goals were not met, as less than half of the goal of 550,000 dwellings by 1960 materialized, due to lack of interest by private investors in low-income housing and the high price of urban property.65 To address the rising cost of urban real estate, the government passed the Ley sobre Régimen del Suelo (1956), which was supposed to curb speculation and lay the groundwork for more rational urban planning. But by 1972, a reform of the 1956 law recognized its failure and the need for better implementation. Thus, while the 1956 law required all cities to have a series of urban plans, only 10 percent had met this requirement by the early 1970s, because it was too easy for city officials as well as developers to evade compliance.66 Meanwhile, the price of land had continued to rise unabated, as had the practice of speculation.67 In Madrid, a Plan de Urgencia was proposed in 1957 to directly confront the problem of chabolismo (shanty towns) and the estimated deficit of 60,000 dwellings, but once again, by the early 1970s the Plan had not made a dent in the housing shortage in and around the city, especially for poorer migrants.68 As a 1970 report complained, most of the construction that did occur catered to the more high end and tourist industry markets,69 while only a quarter of construction in the 1960s was public housing. Another factor, according to José Luis Carreras Yañez, one of the authors of the 1961 Plan Nacional de Vivienda, was that ownership was prohibitive for much of the population due to the lack of long-term financing. Thus, most of the cost of a house had to be financed up front, while long-term credit covered only 30 percent. Given the 60 percent rise in housing prices in Madrid between 1965 and 1970, ownership was out of reach for the majority of families.70 Looking beyond the statistics, Eduardo Navarro warned that the State had to play a more major role in an issue that was not simply about buildings but had profound political and social implications.71 As the author realized, these implications would take root in the gap between urban deficiencies and an unresponsive state, in the growing frustration caused by unfulfilled promises, unanswered petitions, and unexplained delays. The various petitions sent by groups of residents to the central government, complaining about their street, their apartment

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

block, or their neighborhood provide a window into the development of new social networks and collective identities. The need for new social formations was also encouraged by the lack of representative channels under the dictatorship. As scholar Luis Enrique Alonso put it, in the 1960s there was practically no institutional structure for integrating the conflict arising from economic change.72 In this structural context of authoritarian economic development, the Asociación de Vecinos (AV) emerged as an alternative form of mobilization that could both address pressing issues of survival and could pass under the radar of the regime’s censorship, at least at first. While the structural links between uncontrolled development and neighborhood associations remained contingent, it seems clear that in many cases the AV emerged out of a pattern of more informal collective action, like gathering signatures or organizing demonstrations to resolve single issues. Thus, for example, while the AV Los Pinos (San Agustín, Madrid) was not established until 1977, the first community action in that neighborhood dated from 1962, when a demonstration was organized by housewives through word of mouth, to protest the low water pressure that prevented running water from reaching their buildings.73 Another example that provides a case book study of escalating mobilization involved the residents of the working-class neighborhood of Castineiriño in Santiago de Compostela, who wanted crosswalks and traffic lights to protect pedestrians and especially students walking to school. After numerous accidents, including nine pedestrian deaths (one of them a 12-year-old boy), residents gathered 700 signatures on multiple copies of a petition that was obviously carried around door to door and then delivered to the Mayor in February of 1975. They were promised an answer by the end of May, but a newspaper column written in June reported that the residents were still waiting. When the Mayor finally formulated a definitive response on August 30, he informed them that he was unable to authorize a traffic light for that area because it had not been designated an “urban” zone. Furthermore, he claimed that a zoning change required that the city submit a new “General Plan” for approval to the Ministry of Housing. In November, the residents sent their petition to the Minsterio de Gobernación, complaining that the city government had ignored their request for a traffic light. In January of 1976, the government’s provincial technical adviser filed a report, after having toured the area and interviewed the affected residents as well as the Mayor. He recommended immediate action and said he would urge the city to move ahead, but the file does not tell us when and if the traffic light was installed. What we do know, according to the newspaper

Dictatorship and Civil Society 37

columnist, is that residents began to ask “Why do other barrios get immediate attention to their problems and ours is forgotten?”, a question that led them to a resolution to establish an Asociación de Vecinos to represent them.74 What these anecdotes make clear is that economic development and “modernization”, especially when it occurs within an authoritarian state, can have complex and even contradictory consequences. On the one hand, it can produce a more homogeneous, better-educated and fed population, while reducing the massive inequalities that encouraged extremist and revolutionary movements. On the other hand, “modernization” under an authoritarian regime can generate a whole new set of grievances, as a result of the state’s unwillingness or inability to soften the effects of untethered capitalist development. As José María Maravall argues, an important variable in the development equation is how governments decide to redistribute resources generated by development.75 In the case of the Franco regime, the state maintained a very low expenditure on welfare services and social investment, which created discontent despite high rates of growth. Such grievances can create the space for opposition or mobilization, as in the case of the AV, but this link is more indirect and contingent rather than direct and automatic. From this perspective, economic development becomes part of the “enabling environment” for an emerging civil society, but still doesn’t explain how and why people used or created associational channels to address the new set of grievances.

Social capital: The building blocks of mobilization Social movement theorists have long argued that “motive” only translates into “action” if the aggrieved group has sufficient resources— whether economic, social, cultural, or political—to draw on in constructing new forms of collective identity. But the concept most widely used in recent years is “social capital”, which refers, in this case, to the available ideas, values, and social networks that provide the building blocks for thinking and acting collectively. Thus, the ability to create new social formations requires the accessibility of tools and raw materials to work with, even though they are often put together in new ways, in turn engendering ever new forms of social capital. In the case of the new generation of neighborhood-level civic associations, residents could draw on several sources of social capital that helped them imagine a new form of association structured around local communities, construct the

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social infrastructure, and even recruit leaders with essential mobilizing skills. First, in helping them imagine and design neighborhood-level associations, there were a handful of prototype organizations that could serve as models for non-class-based, “non-political” community associations. Second, as they tried to establish and develop such associations in local communities, residents could also draw on the dense social and institutional network of the Catholic Church at the parish level. And finally, they could draw on the leadership potential of activist individuals, whether local priests, university students, labor organizers, or members of clandestine political parties.

Prototypes of associations: The first Asociaciones de Vecinos One of the challenges in creating a new generation of civic associations was to invent new forms of collective identity that avoided the forbidden language of “class”. A key concept in this discursive transformation was vecino, or neighbor/householder, which became the collective “unit” in the Asociaciones de Vecinos (AV). Beyond geographical residence, the concept also implied an alternative set of social relationships to those defined by class. Interestingly, the prototype for such an association was first created, at least in Madrid, in January, 1919, although admittedly it shared only some characteristics with the later Asociaciones de Vecinos.76 In particular, rather than focused on a specific neighborhood community, it was broadly directed to residents of the entire city. On the other hand, its claim to defend residents’ interests in relations with the State, city, or other entities, around what the statutes vaguely called “the necessities of life in Madrid”, introduced the idea of organizing around the shared consumption problems of urban daily life. The 1928 statutes, which added Inquilinos (renters) to the title, specified more concretely that its goals were to resolve housing problems, including rent disputes, and to cooperate in the defense of common interests, but there is little information on its operation before 1939, when it was re-instated with new statutes and a new name, the Cámera Oficial de Vecinos e Inquilinos.77 Despite the dramatically different political context of post-Civil War Spain, and the disavowal of the “red” wartime leadership by the new Falangist board, the goals outlined in the 1943 statutes (and later in the 1968 revision) were remarkably similar to those from the 1920s. In fact, the new Junta in 1939 argued that the “social content” of the association fit well into the parameters of the “national syndicalist revolution”.78 Nevertheless, its “social content” made it suspect in the new regime

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since “social” tended to be conflated with economic class-based interests, which required close monitoring. According to this logic, the association should have been integrated into the new syndical, or trade union organization, which would be subject to the “discipline” of the Movimiento. This was the option advocated by the Movimiento’s Delegación Nacional de Sindicatos (DNS) and other officials. Thus, the DNS report insisted that, while the goals claimed only to defend renters’ interests, the social importance of these interests transcended the realm of private civil law and constituted the “general economic interests of a specific group”, which required greater surveillance and also fell under its purview. In contrast, the President of the new Junta of the association argued that there was a distinction between the defense of class interests and renters’ legal interests, a position which apparently carried the day, given the wording of the new statutes.79 More than an arcane dispute, this decision helped establish a category of residentially based (vs. workplace) economic and social interests that fell outside the classic trade union structure with its historically more suspect class-based claims. The 1943 statutes referred to a set of common interests that included sanitation/health, supply of consumer goods, and renters’ insurance, while the 1968 revision added “urbanization” and “public services” to its list of problems affecting vecinos. This precedent of legitimate “social” collective interests that did not raise the red flag of “class” was crucial in defining the “space” for the future Asociaciones de Vecinos, all of which would have to specifically disavow the defense of class or economic interests in their statutes. However, while the Cámera de Vecinos e Inquilinos prefigured the AV in its general goals, its city-wide membership was an important distinction. At its peak in 1967 there were 23,000 members from around the city, which meant that most of them had no direct contact with each other or with the operation of the organization. Significantly, its numbers began to drop dramatically after 1968, down to 14,500 at the end of 1976, perhaps due to the establishment of more grass-roots neighborhood associations that addressed the same sorts of issues but were more directly attuned to specific local needs.80

Prototypes: The homeowners’ associations If the first AV offered the prototype for an organization based on shared residential interests, the model for community-level associations, at least in Madrid, was the handful of homeowners’ associations, formed in the late 1920s and early 1930s in the first public housing projects

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(colonias) facilitated by the 1921 Ley de Casas Baratas.81 The first of these began in 1926 as the Cooperativa de Casas Baratas Primo de Rivera, a cooperative for municipal police officers with the goal of constructing affordable housing and helping its members set up a financing plan to purchase the new houses. By 1930, the revised statutes make clear that the first houses had been built, since they referred to the existence of the Colonia Primo de Rivera and the responsibilities that owners had to maintain their dwellings. However, the cooperative’s main goal was still to get non-residents who were financially qualified (regardless of profession) on the waiting list for its houses. In 1931, a parallel association, the Sociedad Cultural Recreativa Libertad, was established to pursue cultural enrichment, presumably for residents of the Colonia, but the statutes contained no particular professional, property, or residential qualifications for membership. Only in 1935 did the new statutes make the society’s geographical perimeters explicit, by vowing to defend “the interests of the residents of the Colonia [Buenavista]” (formerly Primo de Rivera), but they still left the qualifications for membership loose. Finally in 1942, with the merging of the cooperative and the cultural associations into the Sociedad Cultural Vecinal Primo de Rivera (reverting to the pre-Republican name), the evolution from cooperative to homeowners’ association was finally completed. Six other homeowners’ associations were formed in colonias of casas baratas or cooperatives between 1929 and 1935, four of them before the establishment of the second Republic, so the phenomenon seems unrelated to that political transition.82 All of these seven associations re-submitted statutes as Asociaciones de Vecinos under the 1964 Law and survived beyond the political transition of the 1970s. The exact objectives of each of these early homeowners’ associations differed, but their original impulse appears to have been the need to organize collective public services and infrastructure in the newly constructed developments. In the 1929 statutes of the AV Colonia Los Angeles, the major aim was to “foment the urbanization of the land”, in particular the paving of streets, the piping in of water, and the placing of street lights and trees. The AV Colonia Iturbe statutes (1930) cited the maintenance of shared public services and the administration of the piped-in water, while the AV Prosperidad (1931) included urbanization of streets and improvements of dwellings. Assuming that most housing construction before this period was done by individual developers on small parcels, where new buildings would be integrated into existing service networks, these colonias may have been the first cases where an entire new neighborhood was constructed at once.

Dictatorship and Civil Society 41

As in the large-scale development in the peripheral barrios in the 1960s and 1970s, the common situation of having a dwelling but little else to support daily life probably propelled the formation of these first neighborhood-level associations. In the report submitted by the police officer reviewing the petition of the AV Colonia Los Angeles to re-constitute itself after the Civil War, he argued that the modest families who lived there “had to form a society to establish services of lighting, streets and trees, as well as a private child care center, because the colonia lacked all municipal assistance. It would, in effect, be difficult to survive without this collective effort”, he concluded.83 It was this reality, coupled, perhaps, with the middle-class identity of the residents, that seemed to ease the path of reconstitution under the new regime. Thus, the police report on the reconstitution of the AV Colonia Retiro saw no potential dangers in its goal of “fomenting services in the neighborhood”, which formed the basis of his positive evaluation.84 While “urban improvement” was clearly at the center of these associations’ existence, their statutes included broader community-building goals as well. The Iturbe statutes (1930) talked about “fomenting the interests of the Colonia, in its social, cultural and economic aspects”, and the AV Los Angeles added “legal recreation” to its 1931 statute revisions, while Prosperidad included “culture, education and recreation” among its 1931 goals. The Retiro statutes (1935) referred more broadly to the “mutual defense of the interests of the members, the study and resolution of problems that arise in the Colonia and the encouragement of the moral and material interests of the members”. In addition to these more comprehensive definitions of the “shared interests” of the Colonias, the 1931 Prosperidad statutes referred for the first time to the goal of “fomenting fraternity among the neighbors”, and in its 1944 reconstitution, “fraternity” became convivencia, or harmonious co-existence. There is an important distinction between defending the residents’ interests and promoting the kinds of horizontal ties between them that reinforce solidarity and community affiliation. While the reference to convivencia or fraternity was exceptional in the 1930s and 1940s, it would become a standard objective in the later Asociaciones de Vecinos.85 Significantly, the Franco regime accepted most of these material and cultural goals as legitimate, when these associations were reconstituted in the 1940s, so there was no dramatic change in general objectives under the dictatorship. As long as the statutes specifically stated that “politics” was prohibited, they were generally approved with little comment. The key distinction remained, as in the debate over the reconstitution of the Cámera de Asociaciones de Vecinos e Inquilinos, between

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economic class interests and the urban material and cultural interests of residents. Thus, when the AV Manzanares wanted to expand its goals in 1960 to “defend the general interests of the community”, the security police insisted that the statutes must specify that these interests did not include those “of an economic or class character, which were defended by the Syndical Organization”.86 Otherwise, both types of AVs, the citywide version and the ones for local homeowners, had created, as early as the 1930s, a statutory framework and language for organizing around an urban residential identity, and which identified a set of common material, social, and cultural problems and goals linked to this identity. While this framework and language could serve as a blueprint for a new generation of Asociaciones de Vecinos in the 1960s and 1970s, there were also important differences. Most significantly, “membership” in the earlier associations was defined by home ownership, not residence in a community. If membership was not restricted only to homeowners, there was a kind of sliding scale, with only homeowners defined as “active”, that is, endowed with the rights to vote, hold office, and speak at the assemblies.87 “Ordinary” members could not automatically join, but had to be presented by up to two “active” members, and they usually paid a lower set of dues. By implication, the ordinary members were “second-class citizens”, with membership constructed in a vertical frame, not the horizontal frame of democratic citizenship. Beginning in the 1960s, these distinctions began to give way to single categories of membership for all people who lived in the Colonia, as in the Retiro’s 1966 statute revision, which stated that “all members had the same ‘rights and responsibilities’ no matter their age or sex”. In other words, the concept of vecino in the title of these older associations underwent an internal evolution, from home owning head of household to neighborhood resident. This more egalitarian definition would then become the norm in the newly emerging generation of Asociaciones de Vecinos, which were spreading beyond the middle-class public housing projects to other kinds of neighborhoods with a more diverse collection of residents. In addition to the membership restrictions of the early associations, there were other linguistic and statutory elements that would be abandoned by the later generation of Asociaciones de Vecinos. Many of the homeowners’ associations reconstituted after the war had statutes that were permeated with a Falangist language and vision of community that was more about surveillance and totalitarian integration than autonomy or self-government. Thus, the 1942 statutes of Primo de Rivera created a “censorship commission” whose job was to make sure that all activities were inspired by the “National Syndicalist spirit that drives Nationalist

Dictatorship and Civil Society 43

Spain”. Likewise, each member was obliged to “care for the morality of all members of his family”, and the general assembly was empowered to judge “social errors” among the members. In Prosperidad’s 1943 statutes, convivencia was narrowly defined as “that ordered by the National Institute of Housing”, and its goals were expanded to include “energetic collaboration with the State so that the directives of the great Caudillo in the area of housing become a glorious reality in Spain”. The statutes of both Paseo Delicias and Manzanares included references to religion, in the first case establishing a religious adviser and in the second requiring the governing board to always follow religious principles in its actions. In addition to the religious and Falangist language, the internal governing structure of the associations reconstituted after the war mirrored the authoritarian hierarchy of the dictatorship, although the contrast with the 1930s should not be overstated. Thus, even in the 1930s statutes, the principle of “self-government” was muted at best. Only one of the 1930s statutes (Iturbe) included specific references to the “sovereignty” of the general assembly or its function as an organ of self-government, while Prosperidad’s (1931) statutes called the assembly the “genuine representative” of the Society. In Prosperidad’s 1944 revision, however, this phrase was indeed dropped. In addition, the election of the governing board by the general assembly was replaced by its appointment by the outgoing board, “in harmony with the norms of the New State and its concepts of Authority and Hierarchy”. The 1929 Primo de Rivera statutes stated that the general assembly “rules” the society, while in 1942, the statutes simply listed the duties of the assembly without any effort to define its status. As with the principle of “self-government”, the concept of “rights and responsibilities” of members was not strongly developed in the 1930s either, but the 1940s revisions rarely referred to rights at all, focusing almost exclusively on responsibilities. Thus, Prosperidad’s 1931 clause giving members the right to present proposals and have them read to the general assembly was dropped in 1944, along with the entire section on “elections and voting”. Primo de Rivera’s 1943 statutes contained a long list of “responsibilities” for members, including upholding religious principles and following the directions of the governing board, but no mention of corresponding rights. Given the “authoritarian turn” in the homeowners’ associations’ statutes after the Civil War, it is tempting to link the 1960s generation of associations back to the original models established in the 1930s, as evidence of some sort of continuity in democratic culture. There is even the possibility that individuals may have transmitted memories of

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how these associations had operated before the war. However, the more “democratic” nature of these earliest statutes should not be exaggerated. Just because the early associations coincided with the Republican period, they did not always contain the basic elements of self-government. Most of them were in fact formed before the establishment of the Republic, linked to a new form of housing development, not directly to the political transition. It is therefore too simplistic to see them as “democratic” associations which were co-opted by the Franco regime in the 1940s but whose origins were “recovered” by a later generation of associations in the 1960s and 1970s. Instead, the genealogy seems more complicated, with elements of continuity and discontinuity from the 1930s through the 1970s, including some clearly new features of “democratic” practice that emerged for the first time in the 1970s. To add to the speculative nature of these connections, there is no concrete evidence that the early colonia homeowner associations directly inspired the wave of neighborhood associations established after 1964. Clearly these Colonias had special qualities that set them apart from other neighborhoods and created their own internal dynamics. Residents of the Colonias de Casas Baratas were of modest income, but they were often middle-class government employees who were being given their first opportunity at home ownership through a state-subsidized program. The contained nature of the developments and the special and shared relationship of the residents to their homes, to each other, and sometimes to their employer must have favored the bonds of community identification and the sense of common interests. However, once these homeowners formed the prototypes of the community neighborhood association, it is possible to imagine how later residents of other areas with fewer obvious links might extrapolate from the original blueprint. Beyond the specific model of the homeowners’ associations, there is other evidence that the concept of a neighborhood-based association had older roots in Spain. In my own local study of the Asturian city of Gijón before the Civil War, I found a pattern of neighborhoodbased associations, called the Asociaciones de Cultura e Higiene, that were promoted by Republican reformers in urbanizing working-class neighborhoods as early as 1904, but with branches forming throughout the 1910s, 1920s, and early 1930s.88 These associations organized cultural events, operated schools, and served as advocates for urban improvements in the neglected neighborhoods of the city’s periphery, much as the Asociaciones de Vecinos would do in the 1960s and 1970s. It is not

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unreasonable to hypothesize that similar types of associations existed in other cities in Spain where rapid and uncontrolled urbanization had begun in earlier decades.89 If they did exist, like the associations in Gijón they were probably destroyed at the end of the Civil War because of their links to the Republican cause and often, more specifically, the workingclass movement. While the “apolitical” and middle-class “Casas Baratas” associations in Madrid survived the transition to the Franco regime and provided potential institutional continuity, these other associations could have survived in popular memory, revived in the 1960s by those who recalled their earlier existence. Nevertheless, without more local studies, such links are mere speculation. What can be asserted more confidently is that a form of community organization that appeared in isolated contexts before the 1950s evolved into a more generalized blueprint in the 1960s and 1970s, both because it offered a language suited to addressing the issues of urban daily life, and because that language was articulated without appealing to class interests. Community infrastructure: The Catholic Church at the parish level In contrast to the homeowners’ associations, which were few in number but close in organizational format to the later neighborhood associations, a more diffuse but pervasive social and cultural resource was the Catholic Church, particularly its parish-level networks. The parish’s role in creating avenues of sociability at the local level is, of course, a venerable one. And in Spain, the forced demobilization of other kinds of associationism after the Civil War only further enhanced the parish’s role as primary locus of local sociability in the 1940s and 1950s. During these early decades, that sociability was limited to traditional religious forms of collective expression, but in the 1960s and 1970s, the cultural and social resources of some local parishes provided support for new forms of associational life, including associations of heads of household (ACF), Asociaciones de Vecinos (AV), parent/teacher associations, and even worker syndicates like the Comisiones Obreras. While only local studies can illuminate the specificities of each case, in general terms, the parish offered a range of “tools”, from a revised language of community identity, to crucial physical spaces, to local fiestas and elite organizers in the form of priests. The importance of such an infra-structural resource may help explain the dramatic statistic, cited by Samuel Huntington in his seminal article on the “third wave” transitions to democracy, that two-thirds of them occurred in Catholic countries.90

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A linguistic resource: The Church’s new language of community The Catholic Church had always offered a non-class-based language of community, which, since the nineteenth century, had been in direct competition with socialist and anarchist communal frameworks. What changed in the 1960s was, of course, the new direction charted by Vatican II, which encouraged an existing but minoritarian vision of Catholic community compatible with democracy and informed by the pursuit of “social justice” and human dignity.91 While not all Spanish clerics adopted the new language of the Vatican, the impact on a younger generation of priests and lay Catholics, in either legitimizing their existing concerns or opening the door to new ideas, was profound, as many scholars have noted.92 Some of the priests became the famous curas obreros (worker priests), who threw off their cassocks and became manual laborers, attacked the vertical syndicates, supported the right to strike and form independent unions, and preached a mobilizing version of liberation theology in working-class barrios in Barcelona, Madrid, and elsewhere.93 Even the conservative Spanish archbishops issued a statement in 1962 that defended independent Catholic worker associations, and asked the regime to remedy social and economic problems, including the effects of internal migration, through a climate of cooperation.94 At the same time, the language of social justice inspired more lay Catholics to get involved in the social and economic problems of working-class Spaniards through pre-existing organizations like Hermandad Obrera de Acción Católica (HOAC) and Juventud Obrera Católica (JOC). These associations originated out of the Cursillos Nacionales de Apostolado Obrero in 1942 and 1943, and were formally constituted in 1946 and 1947.95 While the membership levels in these two associations were never high—Adrian Shubert estimates 12,000 for HOAC and 70,000 for JOC—many authors agree that the individuals in these associations made a tremendous impact on early labor organization in the 1950s and early 1960s.96 These new “specialized” associations were organized along a quite different model from the traditional Acción Católica (AC), first, in their explicit recognition of different social classes, second, in their overt insertion in social problems, and third, in their action-oriented philosophy.97 This social action orientation pushed the HOAC and JOC militants into increasingly critical postures, expressed through their press organs and their attempts to undermine the vertical syndicates of the regime. Many HOAC and JOC members were among the founding militants of the first Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) independent syndicates, especially

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in Barcelona, Bilbao, and Madrid. In a story well-told by Feliciano Montero, among others, the movement reached its apogee in the early 1960s, with its strong critique of the government’s Plan de Estabilización, its public support of the Asturian miners’ strikes in 1962, and an increasingly insistent call for independent unions. It was of course this kind of linkage that turned the government against Acción Católica in the late 1960s. By the end of the decade the combination of government repression and the clampdown of the Church hierarchy decimated the AC associations, which had lost much of their membership by the early 1970s, but many individuals went on to play important roles in other sectors of the opposition, especially the first independent labor unions.98 At the parish level, the language of social justice opened the door to a more comprehensive vision of the parish’s mission in its local community, which overlapped extensively with the concerns of the emerging secular neighborhood-level associations. In general terms, the parish and the emerging local associations could share a deep concern about the quality of life in their local community, in addition to a shared belief in the power of convivencia to solve those problems. The AC associations spoke in terms of a new “missionary parish”, which needed a deeper knowledge of the social climate (ambiente) in order to win back the community, which was beset by an economic insecurity that fell unevenly on the poorest Spaniards.99 The statement issued by the first “Christian community” in Madrid, in 1968, elaborated on this theme by underlining the lack of schools, the speculation on housing that was driving up prices, the lack of recreation centers for young people, and medical clinics for the general population, in addition to its broader political critique of the regime.100 While progressive Catholics pursued an “internal” activism concerned with issues of faith and Church authority, the language of social justice also directed them toward an “external” activism that began in their own communities.101 But it was not only such radical Catholics who were concerned with the impact of economic development on the quality of life in their communities. For conservatives, the new economic policy was also the point of departure for a critique of the regime (although more muted, to be sure). They framed its consequences as the “crisis of the family”, a result of the rapid modernization and displacement of the recent period. It was the job of new associations to be the voice for the traditional family, the “basic cell of society”, in the public realm. From their shared communitarian perspective, both right and left shared a similar dislike of the new liberalization and the lack of controls placed on developers and merchants that translated into higher consumer prices for the average

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family. In general terms, according to the religious adviser of one new ACF, the economic development had created new population centers without the needed “social infrastructure”, and it would be a “sin” if the Development Plan was not accompanied by a Social Development Plan. Until such a plan emerged, he argued, the ordinary head of household had to develop a sense of collective responsibility in demanding the protection of the family by the “political forces”. It was the job of individual families to create the State that would serve them, and the new ACF was the channel to do this.102 Whether the discourse was framed more conservatively as “family values”, or more radically as “social justice”, the Church provided linguistic tools for imagining and justifying community mobilization. Material resources: Parish meeting spaces Beyond the discursive level, the parish also provided more concrete, and even material resources for mobilizing local communities. While scholars have focused most of their attention on the ideological contribution of the Church to new currents of mobilization, the parish’s role may have been much broader, if more diffuse. Perhaps its most important contribution to an emerging generation of associations was literally the space in which to meet. Space seemed to have been less of an issue in small towns, where the first Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familia formed in the mid-1960s often found a home in the municipal government buildings or the offices of the local leader of the Movimiento.103 But in the cities, where the cost of real estate had risen so high, it was critical. Thus, finding an appropriate place in which large numbers of people could gather posed a huge obstacle for many associations trying to get off the ground. The most successful associations were often those able to secure their own headquarters, but most were too poor to do so. Without a reliable place to hold meetings, organize festivities, and provide services, the involvement of members outside the governing board in the life of the association was often minimal. As the President of one association said in 1970 at the inauguration of its new headquarters: “an Association without a good social center in order to hold its activities is a dead Association”.104 Those without a “good social center” could sometimes rent other spaces, like bars, restaurants, or theaters, but the former were often too small and the latter were in short supply in the newly constructed housing developments. Often it was the Church that offered the largest space for the least cost, as long as the priest was willing to let them use it. We know from the paperwork submitted by associations during the process

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of legal approval that, in many cases, the parish seemed like the obvious point of community contact, as reflected in the common use of the Church as the association’s original headquarters. From the start, government censors refused to approve these requests, arguing publically that only religious associations could have their domicile in the Church.105 Privately, the reasoning was more direct. As one report put it, locating an association in the parish church “impeded the normal exercise of the supervisory responsibilities of the civil authorities” because of the special norms of the Concordat.106 In one case, the police report pointed out that the parish house in one Madrid neighborhood where the AV wanted its headquarters had been the site of an illegal trade union meeting in 1967.107 More commonly allowed in parish spaces, however, were specific events, especially the annual general assemblies of the associations, but sometimes also other assemblies, conferences, and festivals. One study of Barcelona estimates that 48 percent of the Asociaciones de Vecinos in that city used parish buildings for their first meeting.108 While there is no such global estimate for Madrid, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence. The earliest record of an AV holding an assembly in churchowned property was in 1958, when the AV Barriada Casas Baratas Paseo Delicias met in the parish school.109 A few AVs seemed to use the parish buildings on a regular basis. Thus, the AV Retiro held all of its general assemblies between 1967 and 1972 in parish-provided space,110 and the same seems to be true of the AV Colonia Obrera, from 1972 to 1976.111 In many other cases, the requests are more sporadic. Thus, the AV Carcabas-San Antonio held its first organizational meetings and assemblies in late 1967/early 1968 in the chapel of the parish, but then moved on to another space.112 In Getafe, the priest remembers that the neighborhood association was “born within the very church . . . until the association established itself and had its own place, it operated from our premises”.113 There were another half a dozen associations in Madrid that held at least one general assembly in their local parish.114 Movimiento family associations were less likely to turn to the parish, since they had more official resources available to them than did the AVs. But the Asociación Familiar of Alameda Osuna asked to hold its February 1976 assembly in the parish church, while the ACF Hortaleza complained that, since being kicked out of the school where they used to meet, “the parish is the only place that welcomes us and helps us. It is there that we have our archive.”115 While meetings in the parish were at first routinely approved, the increased use of church space for subversive and illegal gatherings in the late 1960s undermined the traditional trust in the sanctity of

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religious spaces. In Madrid, churches in the working-class neighborhoods of Vallecas, Palomeras, Carabanchel, and Orcasitas hosted large assemblies in 1967 and 1968, often under the rubric of the “Christian communities”.116 At the same time, the first case in which protesters “enclosed themselves” (se encerraron) inside a church in order to publicize the conditions of political prisoners and seek protection from the police occurred in December of 1968, when wives of political prisoners shut themselves in the Casa Maldonado in Carabanchel Bajo.117 In response to this trend, the government began to override the Church’s traditional independence with a new policy of invading churches and arresting priests in cases of suspected illegal activities.118 Despite the growing government suspicion of local parishes providing el blindaje de las sótanas119 (the cassock’s shield), there was no consistent policy of refusing to approve meetings in church spaces. As indicated earlier, some associations held assemblies as late as 1976 in their local parishes. In addition, the first instances I’ve found in the Madrid Register of Associations of an assembly being turned down in a parish space were in San Blas and Leganés in January 1974, years after the first enclosures.120 In the case of Leganés, where similar assemblies were approved in May and October of 1973, one can see the abrupt change of policy. The reason for this change was not elaborated, and the association was simply told to find another locale.121 In the San Blas report, the police used the argument that only ecclesiastical groups should meet in a church space, but this argument was not raised again consistently in other denials.122 Thus, in June of 1974, the AV Barrio Aeropuerto’s request for an Assembly was turned down, not because it was to be held in the church but because it intended to invite neighborhood residents as well as “members”.123 And the AV Aluche was not allowed to hold its cycle of lectures on health and social security in April 1975 because it was still “in the process of legalization”, not because of its location.124 And while the AV Alameda de Osuna held its general assembly in February 1976 in the church, only 4 months later it was told that the locale was “inadequate” for its next assembly.125 What seems to explain the inconsistent policy, of allowing some meetings in parishes and denying others, is the government’s attitude toward the particular association. In other words, after 1973, refusal to approve meetings inside churches became another tool in the government’s attempt to repress those legal associations that were feared to have become “politicized”. For associations that had not yet been legalized, the government was able to drag out the legalization process and refuse to allow public activities during the process. But for already-registered

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associations, security personnel had to find other reasons to undermine their ability to function. One of these tactics was the newly created rule that only religious associations could meet in religious buildings. While telling associations to “find another locale” to meet may seem like an innocuous request, given the shortage of available spaces, it was actually a powerful weapon against an emerging associational culture that relied on parochial spaces. Nevertheless, the inconsistent application of this policy meant that parochial space continued to be utilized by local associations until the end of the regime. Cultural resources: Community fiestas and saints In addition to offering physical meeting space, the parish provided cultural space or identity in which to foment local associational life. In particular, some neighborhood or family associations either took over or collaborated with the parish or municipality in organizing the annual saint’s day festival. In fact, it was common for the first neighborhood associations formed in the 1960s to use the local saint to help define their identity and mission. Thus, Article 6 of the 1960 statutes of the Comunidad Vecinal Barrio Estrella “adopts as Patron of the Neighborhood the Saint Virgin of the Star (Estrella), and pledges to celebrate its annual festival”.126 The Colonia Diego Velazquez statutes of 1966 “put the Association under the patronage of San Antonio de Padua. On the day of his festival, the Association can celebrate cultural, sporting and religious acts in honor of its patron saint.”127 The AV Barrio Concepción’s 1966 statutes “put the Association expressly under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Maria, who gives her name to the neighborhood”.128 And finally, the AV Puerto Chico’s 1967 statutes “affiliate the Association with the Patronato of Santoral organized by the religious authorities in the neighborhood, and will organize cultural and sporting activities as well as collaborate with the religious ones”.129 After Puerto Chico, most of the new Asociaciones de Vecinos no longer included this article, although it continued to appear in the statutes of those associations which used earlier statutes as their model.130 Even once it was no longer customary to statutorily bind the association to its patron saint, many associations still participated in organizing the annual festivities, be it for religious or social reasons. As the Bulletin of the AV Moratalaz acknowledged, “the annual fiesta brings us together without class distinctions and only as neighbors”.131 The support of the local fiestas, as well as collaboration with the parishes in organizing them, continued to the end of the regime, as in the case of the AV

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Aluche, which co-sponsored the fiestas in 1976 with the parish.132 Other examples include the ACF Parque Suanzes, which requested permission in October 1975 to stage a “family dance” to end a week of religious, social, and sporting events for the blessing of the image of the “Virgin of Work” (Virgen del Trabajo) of the parish.133 And the major expense of the Comunidad Vecinal Barrio Estrella in 1975, 15 years after its founding, was still the annual fiesta, which it organized with subventions from the priest and the mayor.134 The reward for all of this effort was to link the new associations to a venerable, and by most accounts beloved, local tradition, thereby cementing their roots in the community. As the Bulletin of the AV Moratalaz had recognized, the community defined by the patron saint was the same community of neighbors that the associations were trying to consolidate. The festivities thus offered a cultural space to link the two communities and help to naturalize the newer, secular version. At the same time, the associations could use that traditional cultural space to draw in residents who might not ordinarily fill out a membership form or attend a general assembly. And, as with the physical space of the parish church, this cultural space could be and was utilized both by “politicized” associations and by conservative associations with genuinely religious convictions. The common denominator was, once again, the community structure of sociability that religious institutions provided. In a few cases, notably in the Basque country, the local fiestas took on a more specifically ideological role in fomenting opposition. Thus, as Mikel Aizpuru notes, from the mid-1960s, the promotion of alternative popular fiestas, rooted increasingly in Basque cultural motifs, helped nurture Basque nationalism. In the words of a mayoral candidate in the 1979 election, the force of Basque nationalism was the result of “the shrine festivals in the neighborhoods, the dancing groups, and so on”.135 More generally, however, I would like to emphasize the broader and more pervasive impact of the local religious fiestas in helping the secular associations construct a viable conceptual framework for “neighbors” to feel as if they belonged to a common collective project. Priests as community leaders Obviously, the ability of neighborhood or family associations to utilize the physical and cultural space of the parish relied on the collaboration of the priest or other parish personnel. Beyond turning over the keys to the church building, local parish personnel could offer more substantial support as important community leaders. While undoubtedly there were plenty of priests hostile to, or suspicious of, the new secular

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associations, there are many examples of local priests publically endorsing their mission, either by attending important events, through making public statements, or even by direct participation. Such endorsement and/or assistance, given by one of the most high profile community leaders in the neighborhood, would have constituted a significant boost in the association’s claim to represent that community. The priest’s public endorsement of an association could take various forms. In one example, the local priest was on hand in the Cuidad San Pablo (Coslada) in December 1975 and in Ciudad de Los Angeles in June of 1973 to bless the inauguration of their new centers. In another case, two priests attended the bi-annual “Brotherhood Dinner” held by the AV Barrio Concepción in May of 1973, where their presence was captured in a photo of the event.136 Another method of demonstrating support was to become an “honorary member” of an association, as did the priest of the Comunidad Vecinal Barrio Estrella,137 or even an “honorary president”, as occurred in Colmenar Viejo, where the priest/president spoke at the founding assembly of the ACF.138 Endorsement could also come through verbal support, as when the Bulletin of the AV Moratalaz did a series of interviews with local parish priests in 1968. One gave his blessing on the grounds that “everything that contributes to collaborating for the common good will always enjoy the esteem of men of good will”.139 Another boasted of being a member, and lauded the “spirit of unity and familialism”, as well as the “commitment to service” embodied by the association.140 Likewise, in the February 1966 Bulletin of the ACF Barrio Aeropuerto, the two new local priests introduced themselves to the community and spoke of their shared interest in “convivencia among us”, which should be “as among the first Christians”.141 At this level of support, the priest’s “blessing” constituted a form of legitimation from a traditional authority in the community. In some cases, however, the priest was more than passively cooperative, and played an active role in promoting these secular associations. There are numerous examples of local priests among the original promoters of both family and neighborhood associations. Thus, two out of the 11 signatures on the founding act of the AV San Blas in 1969 belonged to priests (sacerdotes), who continued to serve on the first board of directors.142 Likewise, a priest appeared as a board member in the 1973 and 1974 Juntas of the AV Zona Residencial del Bosque (Pinar del Rey),143 another “figures as a dominant presence” among the group of promoters of the AV Villa Rosa,144 and a third was one of the 12 organizers of the AV UVA Vallecas in 1969. In the latter case, it was the priest who

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submitted the initial request to hold a meeting in the Rectory, with the goal of forming a neighborhood association.145 In Fontarron, it was a priest (sacerdote) who presided at the initial organizational meeting of the AV.146 In terms of ACFs, priests appeared on the organizing committees in El Molar, Villamil-Sanchez, Moralzarzal, and Legazpi, and two different priests were board members, in 1973 and 1976, of the Junta of the Asociación Familiar of the Distrito Universitario of Alcalá de Henares.147 While there is no single pattern of priest participation, there are a cluster of cases in which the priest seemed to take the lead in the very poorest barrios, where the low level of education and income made it unlikely that residents would even know about the existence of associations, let alone how to file the paperwork. In the ACF Palomeras Bajas, a neighborhood of unskilled workers (peones), the priest played a different sort of special role, holding the post of secretary, presumably because it required literacy.148 Unfortunately, there are fewer sources to flesh out the specific contribution of each of these priests to the functioning of the associations, but the fact that a handful of reports or minutes mention the presence and verbal intervention of a priest suggest that neither may have been unusual. At a meeting of the board of directors of the AV Colonia Covadonga, held in the parish social club, one member asked the priest to mediate in a debate about the formation of a new Junta. But instead of making the decision on who should belong to the new Junta, as the member requested, the priest’s response apparently “opened a broad debate”, and the Junta came up with its own solution.149 In another example, the priest asked an assembly of parents and teachers, convened by the ACF Coslada and held in the parish church, to promise to stick to the topic of education.150 More substantively, a priest in Orcasitas presided over an assembly of the AV, informing the gathering of progress made on the legalization of the association.151 The most sustained documented involvement of a priest occurred in one of the most active working-class neighborhoods of the periphery.152 Described as “progressive and demagogic” by police informants in October 1968, he first caught the attention of the government by holding a “Christian community” mass in May 1967, in protest against the arrest of Christian militants in the Basque country.153 He was detained by the police, then suspended by ecclesiastical authorities from his post for a year, which he spent in exile in France. When he returned to his parish, he took a leading role in constituting the AV, which, according to police, was “inspired, promoted and directed” by the priest, in

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whose parish all the families resided.154 The urgent problem in this neighborhood was the expropriation of residents from their shacks, which was called for in a November 1968 decree. The AV was essentially constituted to negotiate a solution to this problem, and took on the role of pressuring the government to construct affordable housing within the district and monitoring its eventual distribution to local families. At the organizational meeting in June, 1969, it was the priest who explained the nature of the problem, introduced the other speakers and concluded by declaring the need for housing in the neighborhood, subventions for those who couldn’t afford a new dwelling, and promises in writing from the government. His stature also allowed him to intervene at another point, when he publically disagreed with the police observer who stopped one of the speakers in the midst of a discourse on the “equal rights” promised by the 1945 Fuero de los Españoles. While the informer claimed that the speaker was deviating from the point of the meeting, the priest objected that the issue of “equal rights” was precisely the point, and asked that his objection be officially noted.155 An assembly held 4 days later attracted 180 people, and this time the priest passed out forms to join the new association, explaining “the benefits of organizing all the residents so that, advised by lawyers, architects, sociologists, and in an honest and honorable manner, they could dialogue with the administration through legal channels”.156 Over the next couple of years, the priest continued to preside at the ever larger assemblies, informing residents of the steps being taken by the Junta and explaining the process. In November of 1969, he read the text of a letter to the Minister of Housing to an audience of 600, opening the floor to suggested revisions. In February of 1970, the AV held a series of partial assemblies to accommodate everyone, at which the priest reported to residents of the Ministry’s fervent desire to find a solution and introduced the architect who was to present details of the different available options.157 Likewise, the priest led a series of four meetings in November and December of that year in the parish chapel, to discuss the details of the housing plan that the AV was going to submit to the Ministry.158 When the first housing blocks were nearing completion in early 1972, the priest suggested to the 1,000 people present that the AV should hold weekly assemblies in order to remain in close contact and exert more pressure “at the necessary moments”. Since the issue had now become organizing the distribution of dwellings, he urged that everyone “stay united”.159 In the final assembly on this issue, held in April 1972, the priest closed the meeting on the same theme,

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urging residents to continue to collaborate with the association, so that other problems related to health and schools could be brought “in a unified way” to the competent authorities.160 How do we conceptualize the “social capital” provided by this priest and others who actively participated in the neighborhood and family associations? The radical priest of this narrative is clearly a compelling archetype, but other cases suggest that political opposition was not the primary motive of all clerical endorsements, nor the only contribution to associational life. Most of the AV statutes of the late 1960s and early 1970s included an article authorizing the association to consult advisers on various topics, including religion, so some priests may have participated in this capacity, making sure the association honored its vow to the community’s patron saint. There is some evidence of priests asking the support of associations to petition the government for construction of church buildings in the new neighborhoods, as occurred in Barrio Aeropuerto, Barrio Estrella, Colonia Diego Velazquez, and Ciudad de Los Angeles.161 These cases indicate a shared commitment to supporting the religious life of the community on the part of both the priest and the association, which in each of these instances supported the project. While the desire to build a church does not reveal the political ideology of the priest, it is significant that many of the priests cited as members of Juntas or promoters of associations lacked “political records” (antecedentes) and were judged to be loyal to the regime. It seems likely that those linked to the ACFs, or to the early AVs, were more likely to be “loyalists”, or at least not active opponents of the regime. Others may have supported the social goals of the associations without having an explicit political position, as exemplified by the priest in Valdeaceras, who said he didn’t know if the AV Junta belonged to the Communist party, but didn’t care, and would continue to let them use the Church because they were doing important work.162 Finally there was the group of politically radicalized priests, all of whom were born after the Civil War and came of age in the wake of Vatican II. The most famous of them was Padre Llanos, a Jesuit who went to live in Pozo del Tio Raimundo in the mid-1950s.163 Thus, a 1975 report on an assembly of this AV claimed that all the “subversive acts” were committed by five men of known communist ideology, two of them ex-Jesuits and disciples of Padre Llanos.164 Other police reports reveal that these were not isolated cases. There was the priest at an assembly of the Asociación Familiar in Alcalá de Henares who was a member of the Junta Democrática, one of the national coalitions of the

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political opposition.165 And one of the founders of the AV Fuencarral was a member of a religious order who had been detained in February 1975 for participating in a subversive demonstration.166 Another member of a religious order, a marianista, who acted as the representative of the AV Palomeras Sureste at a meeting with city officials, had been arrested various times for attending illegal meetings and enclosures.167 One of the founders of the AV Fontarrón, a priest and professor, took part in two enclosures, one in the Seminary of Madrid and the other in the Cathedral of San Isidro, was arrested in 1975 for promoting subversive activities in Palomeras and in December 1976 had joined the Plataforma de Convergencia Democrática, another opposition coalition.168 Even in these cases, however, it is not clear that the radical priests’ major contribution was to politicize the associations, at least in the sense that the government understood the word. If we look at the sustained intervention of the priest in the housing crisis in one neighborhood, what he was explicitly preaching was not communist ideology but the power of collective action in the legal pursuit of social justice. Whatever his private beliefs on the nature of the political order, in public he (like most of the leftist militants participating in AVs) focused on specific social and economic problems, not on fomenting revolution. As a result, the nature of the priests’ contribution to the family and neighborhood associations crossed ideological boundaries. Whether the priest was focused on religious or social issues, he shared with the residents a commitment to community life and the broader welfare of his parishioners that was bounded by the same local geographical parameters. Moreover, the language of convivencia, in the sense of working together to achieve common goals, crossed political boundaries and resonated with priests of all tendencies, who seemed to be united in their approval of collective self-help. Within this shared framework, priests could offer their special moral authority as community leaders to the associational project, either from a distance with their “blessings” or up close, as in the case of the priest who was able to disagree with the police informer at the assembly. Even when priests were politically suspect, their opinions held more weight with the authorities, as in an instance in Palomeras Bajas, in which the priest was able to convince the police informer that there was enough natural light not to cancel an assembly when the electricity in the building was cut off.169 Priests’ opinions were also respected by residents, as evidenced by the appeal made by a member of the Junta of the AV Covadonga, to resolve a dispute that they were unable to untangle. In the poorest neighborhoods, the priest’s education, literacy, and

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connections outside the neighborhood must have been an especially useful resource for newly arrived migrants from the provinces. In these areas with few resident elites, the priest could be the “expert” with a relatively broad base of knowledge to draw on. In some cases, it is possible to imagine that associations would have had a hard time getting off the ground without their assistance. But were there cases in which the priests’ traditional authority simply replicated the hierarchical structures of the present regime, rather than helping residents create new practices of mobilization and participation? This is a legitimate question that is difficult to answer, given the sources. A population used to appealing to the authorities and unaccustomed to taking initiative “from below” may have felt the need for an official “adviser”. Nevertheless, the neighborhood and family associations were not subject to the structural hierarchy of the Church, as were the Catholic Action associations. Furthermore, even if the priests exercised more informal moral authority than the average member, there is no evidence of autocratic priests running a neighborhood association as a private fiefdom. In contrast, existing evidence indicates that the priests wanted to encourage community self-organization, not control it. If the priest whose detailed interventions we have record of was any indication, he seemed as interested in tutoring the residents on the benefits of associational culture as in solving the crisis at hand. From this perspective, we can see the priest as another “resource” in the construction of a new voluntary associational culture, which was officially linked to neither the state nor the Church and operated fully in the realm of civil society. The priest, along with the local church buildings and the Catholic cultural traditions, provided valuable building blocks for new forms of organization. The fact that these new associations did not have to create community life completely from scratch, even in the desolate new housing projects of the suburbs, must have facilitated their creation and development.

Opposition activists as community leaders While priests were an important recruitment “pool” for community leaders, another important reservoir of leadership skills, particularly for the Asociaciones de Vecinos, was the anti-Francoist opposition. Any voluntary association requires a core of dedicated activists, willing to put in the time, enthusiastic about the common project, and possessed of organizational knowledge and skills. It is difficult to know how many of this activist core belonged to the political opposition, but there is

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enough anecdotal evidence to indicate that, in addition to the radical priests, who also fall into this category, some of the associational leaders had worked as labor organizers in the Catholic workers’ groups (HOAC) or the “Workers’ Commissions” (CCOO), belonged to one of the clandestine political parties, like the Communist party (PCE), the Maoist Revolutionary Organization of Workers (ORT), or the Spanish Workers’ Party (PTE), and/or participated in the university-based mobilizing, either as students or as professors. In the 1960s, the PCE developed a general infiltration strategy of entrismo, first directed toward the CCOO and then the AVs. Given the virtual impossibility for illegal political organizations to hold assemblies, make public statements, or sponsor even peaceful protests, the infiltration strategy was intended to co-opt a legal space in which at least some goals could be openly pursued, in tandem with the party’s subversive activities. While the PCE still defended a dual strategy of entrismo and clandestine operations, it had also been shifting its global strategy away from a “workers’ revolution” and toward a program of “national reconciliation”, which could unify all opposition groups around democratic aims and the “defense of the everyday interests of the masses”.170 In the context of a dictatorship, in which grass-roots organizing had been severely limited for a couple of decades, this stock of individuals who had braved repression, struggled against apathy, and created other mobilizing structures, however tenuous, could bring significant social capital to an emerging associational milieu. At the same time as the role of opposition activists should be acknowledged, the function they played in the associations was not the same as in the clandestine world of the opposition. Whatever ideological convictions they brought with them had to be re-framed around the “non-political” goals of a legal association. Like the radical priest who led mass assemblies on the concrete issue of a housing crisis, and encouraged the residents to pursue collective but peaceful legal action, activists who became association leaders had to work within a different discursive framework if they wanted to be effective. In addition to adapting to the legal and public environment, many opposition activists had to learn the new language of vecino-based identity and grievances. Especially if they were schooled in Marxist ideology, they may not have been sure how to fit the demand for neighborhood sewers into their workplace and class-centered vision of mobilization. The need to re-frame their mobilizing ideology was not simply a ruse to avoid police repression, either. Many residents were probably more interested in getting sewers than in fomenting political transformation, so that activists had

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to speak the language of sewers in the present, even if they hoped it would lead to broader politicization in the future. As a result of this complex dynamic, the direct contribution of the anti-Francoist opposition to the new associations was perhaps less ideological/political and more organizational/social. In this sense, the opposition supplied significant social capital, by providing individuals with clear leadership potential and the capacity to see the “big picture”, or how the “local alternatives” linked up with the “global democratic alternative”, in the words of one PC militant.171 At the same time, the associational milieu offered a space for those individuals to revise and develop their understanding of the “big picture”, in the context of the concrete grievances and structures of the neighborhood associations. The PCE in particular had been developing a new platform encouraging broad alliances and non-revolutionary demands, and the neighborhood associations gave militants the chance to try out these ideas.172 What they contributed, in other words, were not so much specific political platforms, which had to be re-conceived in that unfamiliar environment, but the inclination to place concrete issues in a broader analytical framework. While it is one thing to define the nature of the anti-Francoist contribution to the emergence and development of the associations, it is another to define its extent or scope. Were opposition activists at the core of the associational movement, in key positions on founding juntas, or was their participation more episodic? The precise answer to this question varied, of course, in each association, but in general terms it seems as if the opposition parties like the ORT and PCE had a limited and uneven impact on the origins and establishment of the associations until the transition era itself. The primary issue was one of resources. Thus, at the end of a subtle analysis of the potentially important role for the PCE in the “Struggle of the Masses in the Barrios”, which was presented at the 8th Party Congress in 1972, the author admitted that the majority of existing associations were led by middle-class residents, “in some cases sincere democrats”, and that creating a leading role for the party “demands the incorporation of thousands of new militants into the Party, drawn from the popular struggle”.173 And, in the more intimate clandestine reports sent by PCE members in Madrid to the exiled leaders, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, district leaders rarely claimed to have more than “one or two comrades”, or even “amigos” or “sympathizers” in a single association.174 It also seems clear that, at least in the late 1960s and early 1970s, for many party activists the “real” work was still located in the “worker movement”, while “barrio organization” was considered a “residual”

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assignment of lower status. The result, according to one clandestine PCE report on “work in the barrios” in late 1971, “was a certain lack of understanding about the specificities of organizing the masses of vecinos”, which was often treated as “an auxiliary to the worker movement”. The author himself reinforced this image by concluding that, while the work in the barrios might seem “grey and boring” compared to other more exciting work, they had to be persistent and patient in pursuing it.175 Similarly, another report in early 1971 revealed that, of five comrades in one district, four were working in the Comisiones Obreras, while only one was working—and part time—in the Asociaciones de Vecinos. The author also noted the need for more “education” for comrades on “mobilizing the masses” in the barrios, which would include their transformation into vecinos themselves, that is, “someone with a multitude of networks, through friendship, family and residence”.176 The fundamental problem, according to a May 1975 report celebrating the explosion of barrio organization by that point, was that the party was still too organized around the “base of production, and, as a result, the workplace”, to really take advantage of this “mobilization of the masses”.177 The PCE reports also recognized another obstacle to channeling this “mass mobilization”, which was the clandestine and vanguard nature of party structure. The Party needed to evolve from its present structure of “cells with five comrades” and abandon the “habits of clandestinity” that accompanied this model, advised one militant. To attract the many “sympathizers” out there, the party needed greater flexibility and openness, he concluded.178 However, this transformation to a “party of the masses” was easier said than done. The combination of continued repression of all things communist, with a party culture steeped in decades of clandestine operation, required new habits as well as ideas in order to connect to this emerging associational milieu. Thus, in May of 1975, the “fundamental problem” was still the “imperative need to transform ourselves into a true mass party”. Until as late as 1975, then, there is a sense in the PC documents that the party was faced with a growing movement it admired, but did not create or control. While there was much talk about the “leadership role” the Party could play in these associations, “orienting them toward the general struggle”,179 there was also continual acknowledgment about how little had been achieved. Thus, the May 1975 report that celebrated the successful mobilizing by Asociaciones de Vecinos in a dozen Madrid barrios could only conclude more or less exactly what a report almost 10 years earlier had resolved: that “the party should, with increasing intensity, pay more attention to this line of struggle (frente de trabajo)”.180

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While there is less documentation on other clandestine political groups, a perusal of the clandestine or opposition press suggests that Asociaciones de Vecinos (not to mention family associations) were not key elements of their strategies before 1975. Thus, the various organs of the revolutionary Organización Revolucionaria de Trabajadores (ORT), which developed a presence in some associations during the transition, barely mentioned them until the end of 1975. On the local level, an ORT neighborhood newsletter like Carabanchel (in 1973) acknowledged the category of barrio problems, but encouraged militants to work on these issues in the party’s plataformas de barrio. There were positive references to the Asociaciones de Vecinos, but the reports were outside observations, culled from the daily press. Thus, one issue included a respectful article about the AV Barrio Progreso, including encouragement to “continue with your struggle”, while the ORT’s preference to “create organizations with greater autonomy, in which we can fight for our own interests” was made clear.181 Likewise, the main ORT organ in 1974 and 1975, Lucha Popular, described the “struggle in the barrios” almost without reference to the Asociaciones de Vecinos. A similar chronology can be traced in another important opposition press organ, Cuadernos para el Diálogo, which first mentioned the Asociaciones de Vecinos in 1975, in the context of the associations’ struggle for legalization. The point is that, before 1975, much of the anti-Francoist opposition itself did not seem to incorporate the Asociaciones de Vecinos into its own framework. Whether because anti-Francoist activists viewed the associations as only focused on material rather than political demands, or because they thought in traditional class categories which located the “real” struggles elsewhere, most opposition groups jumped on board only when the train was already moving, hoping to harness that energy for the broader political project underway. At that point, the associations had become potential social capital for the political opposition, and it was in this context that the concept of the “citizen movement” emerged as a way to tie the concrete activism in the neighborhoods with the political transition. Before that moment, opposition activists fulfilled more of a sociological role as potential leaders, bringing their activism, their dedication to collective organizing, and even their commitment to social justice.

Conclusion The social capital provided by a pool of able community leaders is the final ingredient in a dynamic process whose result was the opening of

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a new space in civil society for a denser, more plural associational life. More precisely, it emerged at the juncture between an evolving dictatorship, the consequences of economic development, and the capacity of ordinary Spaniards to organize themselves in response to these changes. The shifting forces of the Francoist coalition after 1957 opened a new phase in the internal struggle of the elements of that coalition. Rather than seeing this turning point as the moment when the state “let go” of civil society, it marked more of a shift in how different elements of the regime sought to control and channel social forces through competing channels of associationism. What injected real life into these channels, however, was ordinary Spaniards’ search for ways to address the growing crisis of urban life and the wide frustration at the unresponsive nature of the regime. Thus, the contribution of economic development lay as much in the grievances created by the “authoritarian development model” as in its material benefits. Even so, it was the availability of various forms of social capital at the community level that gave residents the necessary collective tools to demand solutions to those grievances. From existing models of community associations, to the Catholic Church’s dense local networks, to the pool of potential community leaders among the ranks of anti-Francoist activists, all these forms of social capital provided available building blocks for imagining and constituting new forms of legal and public collective organization. The resulting “formula” is one that transcends any mono-causal explanations, from the “elite agency” focus on rational regime actors, to the “modernization” narrative of beneficent development, to the “social movement” emphasis on the anti-Francoist opposition. And, while all these factors contributed to the opening of a new space, it was the associations that assumed the protagonism of what went on in that space. It is to this task, of exploring the substance and parameters of the developing associational milieu, that the remainder of the book is dedicated.

2 “Measuring” Civil Society: The Scope and Vitality of the New Associational Milieu

El fenómeno progresista de nuestro tiempo: la Asociación. —Boletín de la Asociación de Vecinos de la Colonia Diego Velázquez (July 1967)1 In the space opened by the favorable conjuncture defined in the previous chapter, a new generation of voluntary associations emerged as the cornerstone of what Victor Pérez Díaz famously labeled the “return of civil society”.2 However, Pérez Díaz’ book was more suggestive than definitive, and scholars have been debating ever since about the vibrancy of the emerging civil society under the Franco regime and thus, implicitly, its contribution to the democratic transition. On the one side are social movement theorists and practitioners who have both argued and tried to demonstrate the vitality of civil society activity,3 while on the other are those who speak of Spain’s participatory deficit.4 A related but separate debate about the “thin” civil society of the post-Francoist democracy also sometimes refers back to the presumed weak civil society inherited from the Franco regime.5 Fueling the lack of consensus is the fact that there are no absolute criteria for measuring the strength of civil society, except at the extreme margins.6 Before the remainder of the book takes up the question of what a strong civil society contributes to the democratization process, the goal of this chapter is to make a new case for the vitality and scope of the civil society revival during the latter part of the regime, as demonstrated by the strength and size of the new milieu of voluntary community associations.

Introduction: Associations and the revival of civil society By making the case for the “revival” of civil society rather than some absolute measure of strength, the early decades of the regime can be 64

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utilized as the key point of comparison and contrast. Whereas most of the studies claiming the “weakness” of Spain’s civil society compare it unfavorably to other democratizing countries, the internal chronological contrast provides a more contextualized and historicized picture of growth and expansion. There is no question that, in absolute numbers, the percentage of Spaniards participating in voluntary associations was a small minority of the population and that, compared with Brazil and Korea, Spain’s participation rates are much lower.7 In a different twist on the same unfavorable comparison, Omar Encarnación employs the contrast between Brazil, with its unconsolidated democracy but dense civil society, and Spain, with its weaker civil society and successful democracy, as evidence of the irrelevance of civil society as an important ingredient in a successful transition.8 By shifting the point of departure from another country to the early decades of the Franco regime itself, however, what seems most notable is not participatory deficit but the increased density and pluralism of the associational milieu. Beyond shifting the point of comparison from absolute size to growth and development, it is also necessary to revise our understanding of the parameters of civil society, as viewed through the associational milieu. The existing scholarship runs the gamut from Pérez Díaz’ unstructured vision of a civil society comprised of millions of unconscious decisions, to the narrowly structured equation between an emerging civil society and the anti-Francoist opposition, which is implied in much of the social movement literature. In between these two extremes is the milieu of voluntary associations, which is more extensive than the anti-Francoist opposition but more definable and collectively organized than the diffuse world of individual decisions. Undoubtedly, there was overlap between the public associations and the clandestine opposition, especially in terms of individual activists who participated in both realms, but the functional space of each realm was distinct. Thus, while the vitality of the opposition movements is measured in how effective they were in avoiding repression, in undermining the legitimacy of the regime, and in gaining popular support for a regime change, the criteria for evaluating the strength of the broader associational milieu are its public visibility, its density and internal pluralism, the level of active participation, and, importantly, its autonomy from the state. It is according to these functional criteria that both the Movimiento family associations and the Asociaciones de Vecinos (AV) can be analyzed together, despite their distinct origins and ideological orientations. Including the family associations in the measurement of the expanding civil society is a marked departure from existing scholarship. On the one

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hand, historians of the regime have ignored the later Movimiento initiatives like the family associations as mere acts of desperation, empty of real substance. On the other hand, those looking for social movements have dismissed the associations as inherently contaminated by their fascist progenitors, more tied to the state than an emerging civil society. Even most quantitative studies have missed these associations because they were registered through Movimiento bureaucratic channels, not through the general 1964 Law of Associations. In fact, a closer look at the Movimiento family association milieu reveals a much more complex picture of a heterogeneous movement that cannot be dismissed in a single generalization as either lifeless or completely subservient to the State. While it is true that many family associations were promoted “from above” and were expected to be integrated into the Movimiento hierarchy, in practice surveillance was uneven and successful associations took on a life of their own by resonating with local concerns and enthusiasms. What emerges is a portrait of uneven pockets of vitality and autonomy that shifted geographically as well as chronologically, from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s. In general terms, the family association movement appears to have followed a chronological “arc”, in which at least some associations began in the mid-1960s with enthusiasm and high hopes, but declined in the early 1970s when initial expectations of what the associations could achieve were often unmet. As the arc of the family association movement declined in the early 1970s, the other major group of community-based associations, the Asociaciones de Vecinos, began a period of expansion that would culminate in 1978–1979, during the final years of the transition. While the Asociaciones de Vecinos have received more scholarly attention than the family associations, most studies have concentrated on the post1975 era, when the neighborhood associations exploded into the public sphere as part of the so-called “citizen movement”.9 Moreover, existing research has tended to focus on the micro-level of individual associations, using oral histories as the primary source. As a complement to such studies, the provincial-level framework adopted here provides an intermediate perspective, between the bare but broad quantitative measures and the thick but specific case studies.10 Through analyzing the diverse trajectories of dozens of AVs in the province of Madrid, it is possible to view both the rich variation as well as the general trends and the movement’s chronological arc. When the two types of community-based voluntary associations are analyzed side by side, what emerges, at least in the case of Madrid, is an

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upward associational arc that began in the mid-1960s and culminated in the late 1970s, with a shifting center of gravity from one type of association to the other in the early 1970s. What this arc suggests, then, is a continuous process of associational expansion that began well before the transition in the mid-1960s, which contrasts with the conventional picture of a shallow and brief mobilizing explosion during the transition between 1975 and 1979. From this perspective, the “revival of civil society” under the dictatorship has more chronological depth and breadth than either detractors or supporters usually assume. The result is a new case for the vitality and maturity of Spain’s civil society on the eve of the transition. In order to make this case, the chapter will trace the chronological arc of associationism, from the point of departure in the early decades of the regime, to the emergence and development of the family association movement in the mid-1960s, and finally, to the origins and propagation of the Asociaciones de Vecinos in the 1970s. Beyond the quantitative data provided by the number and size of associations, the vitality of the associational milieu will be “measured” by evidence of participation and grass-roots activities, by its openness and pluralism, and by the degree of autonomy and independence available to local associations. The point is not to argue for a homogeneous and unproblematic expansion of the associational milieu, but to illustrate its parameters, defined both by opportunities and limits. Thus, where Movimiento associations had full access to the public realm of discourse and collective visibility, they were also limited by the hierarchical structure of their parent organization, which could undermine their potential autonomy. On the other hand, where the Asociaciones de Vecinos were by definition independent from the state, their access to the public realm was limited by the degree to which they could escape repression. Between the two extremes of subservience to the state and repression lay a contested but expanding space in which Spaniards constructed a new culture of associationism.

A point of departure: Associational life in the 1940s and 1950s This new culture of associationism is made more visible when contrasted to the early decades of the Franco regime. Defined by extreme repression and the demobilization of the Second Republic’s public sphere, formal associations were largely limited to those integrated into the vertical hierarchy of the Church or the Movimiento.11 The competition between the two hierarchies undermined the totalitarian pretensions of

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the regime in its early years, but both types of associations were closely intertwined with the state and its agenda, given the Church leadership’s strong support of the regime and the Movimiento’s formal role as the regime’s link to the masses. As a result, it would be difficult to argue for the existence in the 1940s–1950s of an associational milieu with any significant degree of autonomy and pluralism. In numerical terms, the two associational channels claimed fairly high membership levels, although there is little evidence about actual participation. The largest Church-affiliated lay association was Acción Católica (AC), which had a membership of 442,000 in 1946 and 533,000 in 1956, about two-thirds of whom were women.12 In addition, the Confederación Católica de Padres de Familia claimed 74 provincial federations, 247 associations in individual Catholic schools, and a total of 143,500 parent members.13 As the other main channel of legal association, the Movimiento had 932,000 political members and another million in associated organizations like the Guardia de Franco and the Seccion Femenina (295,000), all of whom had to declare fealty to Movimiento principles.14 Outside this “national catholic” universe there were also small numbers of non-affiliated business, recreational, cultural, and sports associations, whose membership numbers are difficult to estimate, but which probably account for most of the 2500 associations on the Registro Nacional de Asociaciones in 1965.15 Juan Linz estimated in 1961 that the total number of voluntary associations, including those registered through the Government, the Movimiento and the Church, were 8329.16 Although the absolute membership levels of the Movimiento associations were higher on paper than those of the Church, these numbers undoubtedly underestimate the broader role of the Church as the primary channel of sociability for most communities in the 1940s and 1950s. Thus, beyond formal associations, the local parish brought together residents through attendance at mass and other religious ceremonies, as well as at church-related festivals, especially the annual patron saint’s day celebrations. In some cases, it may have nearly recovered its traditional monopoly over local networks of sociability, as one case study of a Basque town concludes.17 The Movimiento institutions did have a presence in municipal life, in the person of the local jefe and his staff, but its institutions were more directly linked to the state apparatus. It is not until the late 1950s that the Movimiento hierarchy became seriously interested in expanding associational life beyond its specialized organizations like the Guardia de Franco, which were more elitist than popular in nature.18

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The Catholic Church and associational life While it is easy to assert the Church’s general domination of social life in the 1940s and 50s, it is more difficult to discern the vitality of its formal lay associations. The only associations that have been extensively studied are the Hermandad Obrera de Acción Católica (HOAC) and the Juventudes Obreras Católicas (JOC), but these organizations are more the exception than the rule in the universe of Church associations.19 That is, from the late 1940s until their apogee in the early 1960s, these organizations challenged both the Church hierarchy and the Franco regime, with their strong critique of the government’s Stabilization Plan, public support of the Asturian miners’ strikes in 1962, and an increasingly insistent call for independent unions. It was of course this kind of linkage that turned the government and the Church hierarchy against Acción Católica in the late 1960s. By the end of the decade the combination of government repression and the internal Church clampdown decimated the AC associations, which had lost much of their membership by the early 1970s. In contrast to the wealth of research on these small but activist associations, we know very little about the vitality of the larger, mainstream lay Catholic associations, including the parent Acción Católica or the Asociaciones de Padres de Familia (APF) or Asociacion de Padres de Alumnos (APA). The latter were originally founded in 1913 to mobilize Catholic parents against Prime Minister Romanones’ anticlerical education legislation, and during the Republic they expanded from 34 to 154 local branches, and from 9,000 to 85,000 members.20 Even with the dislocation and demobilization of the war, those numbers had almost doubled by the mid-1950s, according to Juan Linz’s statistics, and in 1972 the 20th National Assembly of the Confederación Católica de Padres de Familia y Padres de Alumnos claimed to represent 220,000 members, in 758 branch associations, and grouped into 52 district federations. Of these federations, the one in Madrid had 74 local branches in 1974.21 While it is logical to assume that much of the earlier energy of these associations had derived from the threat of anticlerical legislation, more research is necessary to gauge how participatory the Church’s formal associational milieu was before the 1960s. While such research might reveal a greater degree of collective participation in the early decades of the regime, as well as an important source of social capital for later associations, it would not alter the main point about associations and civil society in the 1940s and 1950s. In the generally demobilized society of that period, the outlets for associational activity were both severely restricted and channeled into hierarchical

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frameworks, either the Church or the Movimiento. At least discursively, all these associations were united in a single vertical organism by the authority of the State and the ideology of national Catholicism, even though in practice there were at least potential fissures, as revealed by the ability of the HOAC groups to deviate, if only temporarily, from this unity. Aside from these exceptions, the associational milieu lacked pluralism with respect to goals and channels, was closely tied to the state through hierarchical structures, and maintained a muted public presence, especially when compared to the noisy and contentious civil society of the previous Republican period. While the public sphere may not have been completely “silenced”, it must have seemed deafeningly quiet to those who had lived through the Republican period.

A new era of associationism: The 1960s–1970s This picture of associations and civil society begins to change significantly from the mid-1960s. On the one hand, the Church lost its dominant presence in associational life, and on the other hand, diverse avenues of associationism, both through the Movimiento’s family associations and through the 1964 Law of Association, created a denser and more diversified milieu. The decline of Church associations was a result of the major crisis in Acción Católica in the 1960s. If, in the early decades, social organization took place largely inside the institutional framework of the Church, the gutting of AC seriously reduced the presence of Church-affiliated associations in civil society. After this point, most of the AC militants migrated into the Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) or other clandestine unions, as well as into the neighborhood or family associations, and by the mid-1970s had abandoned Christian democracy for other non-religious democratic or socialist parties.22 As William Callahan and Frances Lannon have both argued, once other channels of association opened up, militants no longer needed to pursue labor, political, or civic goals through the Church.23 The irony is that, despite the Church’s traditional dominance of associational life, it played little part in the expansion of the associational milieu after the mid-1960s, except indirectly through the individuals who moved through and beyond its organizations.24 Church associations: The Asociaciones de Padres de Familia While the Church’s institutional presence in the expanding associational milieu was diminished, it was not absent. In contrast to the imploding AC network, the Associations for Catholic parents (APF or APA), seemed

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to gain new traction in the late 1960s, around the debates over, and the implementation of, the major Education Law of 1970.25 Thus, the 1970 law explicitly encouraged the collaboration of parents in the education of their children through the constitution of parent associations and it is clear that Catholic schools were at the forefront of this movement. In the formation of new parent associations, sometimes the initiative came from the directors of schools, but there is even evidence of the direct assistance of local priests. Thus, in Avila, the founding meeting of a new APA in December 1972 was held in the parish common room and the priest opened the proceedings with a speech about the need to come together to solve common problems.26 In another case, a priest sent a query in the name of the parents of his parish to get details on how to constitute an APA.27 What is perhaps more important than the Church’s role in promoting these parent associations is their changing relationship to the State. In a sense, the Catholic parent associations of the 1970s embodied a new version of an independent, if more limited, Catholic civil society that harked back not only to the Second Republic but to the liberal Restoration Monarchy. Under those regimes, the Catholic parent associations had worked to defend their interests against a secularizing state, in the classic “watch dog” civil society role. During the early decades of the Franco regime, when the interests of the Church were assumed to be coterminous with the state, the perceived need for such associations must have been low. Their revival and resurgence in the late 1960s thus symbolizes the end of this era, providing evidence of the dis-aggregation of the united face of national Catholicism. The specific fissure that mobilized Catholic parents was the 1970 education law which, while it encouraged the formation of parent associations, also threatened the Catholic Church’s traditional predominance in the role of education. Hidden in the Law’s ambitious goal to provide universal free education was the threat to the religious schools’ ability to attract students if they really had to compete with free secular schools. In the name of the “right” to educational choice, the Catholic parent associations demanded equal state funding for religious schools. Only if free education was available in both public and religious schools would parents have real educational freedom, so the argument went. Within this logic, subventions for private schools were an “obligation of social justice” owed by the state.28 It was this theme that dominated the 20th assembly of the Confederation in 1972, which affirmed the “freedom of education” against the “fears of a progressive statism that would rob this freedom from parents”.29

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Over the next several years, according to one account, the Madrid Federation held “hundreds” of assemblies, visited political figures, and published booklets in order to create a “collective awareness” in favor of the “right to choose”.30 This mobilization culminated in a mass demonstration attended by 40,000–50,000 people on December 6, 1977, to demand that the new Constitution recognize the “freedom of education”.31 Significantly, the President’s opening speech was framed within the language of democratic participation and pluralism, which prepared the Confederation for a place in the new political order. Thus, in 1983 (and again in 2005), it was at the forefront of Catholic opposition to the Socialist Party’s education law, culminating once again in a mass demonstration in Madrid, this time drawing 250,000 people.32 At the same time as the Catholic Parent associations illustrate the continued, if diminished, vitality of Church-affiliated associationism, their increasing need to compete for the space they occupied demonstrates the growing pluralism of associational life. Thus, from the early 1970s, the Movimiento family association movement began promoting its own parent associations.33 Its National Federation was constituted in April of 1973, with 13 provincial federations and 355 local branches.34 Significantly, there are at least anecdotal indications of tensions between the Movimiento and the Catholic Confederation over which umbrella organization the new APAs would be affiliated with. Thus, the Provincial Movimiento Family Delegate (DP) in Alicante reported in May of 1972 that he had quickly constituted a provincial federation of APAs because he had heard that the APAs of various Catholic schools were going to create one through the diocesan channel and he didn’t want to be trumped by them.35 Likewise, in 1970 the Catholic Confederation and the Movimiento DP in Madrid argued about whether the Complutense University’s APA was registered with the Movimiento or with the government (1964 law).36 According to the statistics cited earlier on membership in each national federation, both had some success at organizing, at least on paper, which created at least the appearance of diversity within the school parent movement.

Movimiento family associations For the Movimiento, the school parent associations (Asociacion de Padres de Alumnos or APAs) were only one arm of its new family association initiative, which really began with the formation of the Delegación Nacional de Asociaciones (DNA), created in 1958.37 It will take much more research to reconstruct the exact dimensions of the family association

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movement, but a general perusal of its national archive demonstrates that it was characterized by tremendous variation in size, vitality, and the level of autonomy from the Movimiento hierarchy. Following the creation of the DNA in 1958, it was at the first Congreso de la Familia Española in 1959 that the focus was turned specifically to family associations and the need to promote Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familia (ACF). In 1963 the DNA finally launched its campaign to promote the constitution of ACFs in every town in Spain, through the networks of the Provincial delegates (DP) of the DNA. Norms were issued on June 24th, which set out the steps to follow, from constituting an organizing committee, to convoking a general Assembly, to approving a set of statutes, which then had to be submitted to the DP for approval and registration. The DP in turn had to write an extensive background report on each association and submit it with the statutes and other documentation to the DNA.38 On September 1st, the review of individual cases began, and by the end of that year, 31 ACFs had been constituted, with 26 of them approved.39 The pace increased dramatically in 1964, with 327 ACFs registered by the end of that year. The striking contrast between the organization’s 1963 Report, which included a detailed description of each file, and the more perfunctory 1964 report, provides a glimpse of the desperation of a bureaucratic structure overwhelmed by the quantity of applications. By the end of 1964, the DNA was still trying to organize a general list of names and addresses. In addition, it was obvious that, despite the detailed norms issued from Madrid, which included boilerplate language for everything from statutes to how to organize a constitutional assembly, not all local associations used this material. Thus, the 1964 Report complained about the “extensive bureaucratic energy” needed to bring associations in line with the norms. The scope and regional distribution of the family association movement However, by 1965, these complaints had disappeared, while constitution of new local ACFs continued at the same pace, peaking in 1967. The regional structure of the new associations was completed in 1966, when 40 provincial Federations (17 in 1965 and 23 in 1966) had been created, and these Federations in turn constituted the Unión Nacional de Asociaciones Familiares (UNAF) to “represent on a national level the family association movement”.40 New ACFs continued to be created as late as April 1977, but beginning in 1971, the focus turned away from these so-called “general” family associations toward those dedicated to “specific” groups, that is, school parents, consumers, homemakers (amas de casa),41 parents of disabled children (“subnormales”), large families, and

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servants (empleadas de hogar). Thus, in June 1971, Family Association official Enrique Villoria reported that there were 2284 ACFs, 43 for families with disabled children, 134 APAs, 25 Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, 20 Asociaciones de Consumidores, and 11 for Empleadas de Hogar.42 While the absolute number of ACFs remained the highest, after this point, about two-thirds of the new associations created were APAs, with smaller numbers of the other “specific” categories. By the time the Movimiento was dissolved in April 1977, there were 4521 associations on the national register (see Table 2.1). Of these 4500, about 50 of them were Asociaciones de Amas de Casa (some provincial and some local branches) and 1400 were APAs.43 While it is difficult to verify the number of individuals who belonged to these associations, the leader of the DNF (formerly DNA) in 1972, Carlos Bonet, claimed to have more than a million members in the movement.44 However, these million members were distributed unevenly around the country. Using the register of all associations constituted between 1963 and 1977, Zaragoza and Alicante were the only two provinces with over 200 associations, with another 14 provinces registering over 100.45 On the other end of the scale were another dozen with fewer than 30 associations.46 There was an even greater regional gap in the number of APAs constituted, with 26 provinces registering less than a dozen and a handful of provinces, like Segovia, Sevilla, Alicante, and Granada, where up to 150 schools had constituted parent associations. Most of Table 2.1 Constitution of family associations in Spain Year of constitution (Nov.–Dec.) 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 (Jan.–April) 1977

Total # associations

Associations formed

6 327 498 846 1,672 1,824 2,008 2,200 2,730 3,072 3,486 3,830 4,074 4,300 4,521

6 319 171 348 825 123 185 190 335 371 414 344 244 226 221

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the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa were provincial in scope, which helps explains the smaller number, but 26 provinces had none at all. On the other extreme, Sevilla and Madrid were the only provinces with multiple local homemaker associations—9 and 11, respectively. While some of the regional variation can be explained by size and population density, it was clear that the national office viewed the results in some provinces as unacceptable. Thus, in December 1966, the national leader of the family associations (DN) sent a letter to the provincial delegates (DP) in provinces, where the family association movement had not taken hold, to encourage them to be more proactive.47 Alive or Dead? Initial, if uneven, vitality of the family association movement in the 1960s Beyond the bare numbers, the more challenging question is to ascertain the vitality of these associations, beyond their existence as a number on the Movimiento’s Register. That is, how many of them functioned as “live” associations that held meetings, organized activities, and attracted members? While more research would be needed for a definitive general picture, a perusal of the existing correspondence between provincial delegates (DP) and the national headquarters suggests that there was tremendous variety in the level of activity and participation. While some associations never went beyond submitting the foundational paperwork, others established a significant presence in their communities, with large membership roles, many activities, and periodic bulletins. At a minimum, the evidence of variety is strong enough to reject a blanket dismissal of the family associations as lifeless shells. Beyond the general norm of variety, there is some evidence of discernible regional patterns. Thus, when one Movimiento official in Vigo was asked in early 1972 where the family association movements were the strongest, he answered that “Alicante, especially, has an enormous depth.”48 A year later when the DP of la Coruña was asked the same question, he mentioned the major urban centers of Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, and Zaragoza.49 In both cases, the implicit contrast was the Gallegan example, whose weak associational milieu was blamed on the “individualist character” of its people, according to the hypothesis of the La Coruña DP. Other examples point to the varied level of commitment from each DP, which must have been an important variable in the regional strength of the movement. Thus, the DP in Avila between 1973 and 1977 barely mentioned the family associations at all in her correspondence to the national leader (DN), which was filled with

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accounts of her other activities, such as organizing courses and conferences of “family orientation” and fund-raising for the Reyes Magos holiday parade.50 Likewise, the Alava file of correspondence between the DP and DN is thick, but contains only scattered references to family associations.51 In other cases, the relevant provincial officials were either absent or inactive. Thus, the Cuenca file is almost empty of any correspondence, while one of the few documents in the Lugo file indicates that no DP had been appointed as late as June 1970.52 Aside from regional variations, there also seems to be a chronological dimension to the vitality of the family association movement. That is, there is some evidence that the initial constitution of ACFs in the mid1960s generated a wave of enthusiasm that was reflected in at least some cases with high levels of participation and great hopes.53 Thus, the ACF Caspe in Zaragoza was constituted in January 1964 with 45 members, but that number had swelled to 700 by March of 1965.54 In Ventanielles (Oviedo), 750 of the 2300 householders of the barrio attended the founding assembly of the ACF in June 1964,55 and in Cogeces del Monte (Valladolid), the DP reported that “this association has been born with great energy”.56 The DP of Lérida related the constitution of four ACFs in early 1964, all in villages of less than 5,000 inhabitants, which attracted 72, 98, 150, and 130 individuals to the founding meetings.57 The lively atmosphere at one of these early assemblies was depicted in a local newspaper article recounting the first assembly of the ACF Cañero, in which every seat was full, many people asked questions, and the entire proceeding was marked by “a climate of intense interest”.58 A similar undertone of excitement was expressed in the Madrid DPs report of the founding of the ACF Ezequiel Peñalver, which he described as very animated and also full of questions from the residents.59 Even if many of these associations were initiated “from above” by the DP’s or other local Movimiento officials, the revival of the call to public service may have generated genuine enthusiasm, or what one Movimiento report called “social vitality”.60 This grass-roots enthusiasm for “the associational idea of resolving our needs together”61 can be glimpsed in some of the initial detailed DP background reports, before the later crush of applications reduced many of them to repetition of stock phrases. While even the early reports are encrusted in boilerplate language, the variation that emerges reveals something of the specific aspirations invested in the new associations. Thus, a common trope was to describe an association’s goals as “those established by the Statutes”, followed by, “with special attention to”,

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which left space for particular goals, both abstract and concrete. In villages the emphasis tended to be on improving social life, although schools were also a pressing problem: “Education and public entertainment”, “education, housing and daycare centers”, “education and activities for children”, “improve social life”, “inject more life into public places”, “intensify family life”, or, more generally, “improve social life, especially for the youth”. In urban neighborhoods or larger towns, the goals usually centered on the inadequate infrastructure surrounding newly built housing units, but even in these cases there was specificity to the hierarchy of problems. A selection of reports submitted by the DP of Madrid provide a good sense of the variety that existed within the basic model:62 (1) Ezequiel Peñalver: medical assistance, transport, problems with the Construction company (2) Canillas: transport is the key issue and what gives the ACF its “popularity” (3) Avenida Manzanares: education and beautification of the neighborhood, and creating their own administration to replace the one set up by the company (4) Aravaca: the biggest problem is to find homes for those evicted from shacks (5) Pozuelo: housing (6) Campamento: create schools, open spaces, and urbanize streets (7) Carabanchel Alto: scarcity of schools and lack of sufficient running water (8) El Escorial: to build subsidized housing (9) Valverde: build secondary school, install a market, and bring the metro (10) San Cristobal: the main problem is to negotiate the transfer of property titles to individual owners and install a market. While the variety of goals provides a window into the perceived deficiencies of both urban and rural community life, it also suggests that at least some residents invested the new associations with their own hopes and ambitions, providing more evidence of grass-roots enthusiasm. Central to this initial enthusiasm, as one DP noted shrewdly, was the belief that the Movimiento’s push to create the family associations signaled a new commitment by the provincial authorities to help communities solve their problems.63 To maintain this belief required real results, as some officials recognized from the outset. Thus, in an appeal

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to get the Ministry of Education’s approval for a local school, another DP made the point that acceding to the ACF’s petition would “assure the success of the Association”.64 In contrast, family officials understood that the indifference of local authorities to repeated requests to resolve the “bad condition” of their community undermined their efforts to prove the effectiveness of the association.65 Since the ACFs were explicitly intended to function in close collaboration with state authorities, it makes sense that their viability at least partially depended on their capacity to win benefits as a result of this special relationship. At the same time, effectiveness depended on the enthusiasm and resourcefulness of leaders and members, whose initiative could make the difference between a nominal and an active association. A good example of the latter is the ACF Santa Brigida which, in the first few months of its existence, had already begun tackling its community’s most pressing need of a shortage of housing. An assembly to discuss options for promoting new construction attracted 385 people, and by the end of the year the association was negotiating to buy land to build 100 homes and had invested most of its initial budget in plans to construct four houses on a piece of donated land. Along the way, the association had aided needy members in getting education grants (2), jobs (6), and medical assistance (15) for their children, and had drawn up a project for an aqueduct to end the speculation in the sale of water for irrigation.66 In another example, by the end of its first year the ACF Pizarralles had inaugurated a new headquarters, complete with library, bar, and a salon and were showing movies for children and adults every Sunday and holding fiestas for its members on a monthly basis. The future plans included organizing excursions, finding land for a soccer field, and forming a housing cooperative.67 While these examples provide anecdotal snapshots of the national picture, a more systematic examination of the Madrid family association files reveals many more concrete examples of initial vitality in specific associations, including at least ten newsletters published regularly by ACFs.68 Additional glimpses into local associations include the DP’s report that the ACF Aravaca had taken over the organization of the local fiestas, while a 1968 program indicates that they were still doing so 4 year later.69 Likewise, in March of 1966, a letter documenting a donation of books reveals the constitution of a new library by the ACF Torrejón de Ardoz,70 while a newspaper article gives an account of a well-attended talk on “household consumption” organized by the ACF San Cristóbal,71 and another letter describes the ACF Alto Arenal’s youth group theatre production of Treasure Island, which attracted an

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audience of hundreds of boys and girls.72 In 1969, the DP of Madrid wrote asking for subventions for several local associations, based on their efforts and accomplishments, which included: the ACF Cerro del Castañar, to defray the expenses of the water pipes and sewers it had requested from the city, the ACF San Francisco de Asis, to help the humble workers who were building their own social center, the ACF Alto Estremadura, which needed a new activity center to accommodate its large number of members and activities, and the ACF Virgen de Begoña, which had inaugurated its new locale but needed assistance with the payments.73 In another venue, the DP praised the ACF San Fernando de Henares for its efforts to tackle a series of local problems, from the high bus fare, to the badly organized secondary school, to the lack of public lighting. With its large membership and its “magnificent organization”, it exercised a powerful influence over the residents of the neighborhood, he concluded.74 Declining vitality—but not death—of the family association movement in the 1970s The initial engagement in the family associations that is reflected in these reports appears to have declined in the early 1970s, which supports the general hypothesis of a chronological “arc” of associational activity divided into two phases, with the family associations being increasingly displaced by the Asociaciones de Vecinos. The reasons for the decline in initial enthusiasm are not hard to imagine. Given the high expectations with which some of these family associations were founded, it is not surprising that disillusionment would have set in when it became apparent that the weakened Movimiento’s patronage could not deliver all the necessary schools, sewers and cultural centers that communities desired. The lack of results created what the senior Movimiento official in Guadalajara described in October of 1973 as the “mistaken but generalized opinion of the inefficacy of the family association movement”.75 Despite this “generalized opinion”, the decline of the movement’s vitality should not be equated with its death, as pockets of functioning associations maintained their vigor into the period of the transition. Those that functioned were perhaps less visible in the media, as attention shifted toward the emerging Asociaciones de Vecinos, but they maintained their presence in their communities. A revealing commentary from one sympathetic Barcelona reporter said he felt compelled to publically disagree with a recent editorial dismissing the ACFs as “pathetic”, “ineffective”, and “dead”, in contrast to other more

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“grass-roots” and “representative” associations. According to his own experience of attending many meetings and assemblies of ACFs over the years, he had often found high levels of participation and enthusiasm which were never reported by journalists who hadn’t bothered to come and see for themselves.76 While such enthusiasm may have been sustained in some places, the evidence of decline in the 1970s is strong. In concrete terms, decline is illustrated by the hundreds of “non-functioning” associations reported on a 1977 questionnaire (see Table 2.2).77 On a more anecdotal level, there are plenty of discouraged letters from provincial officials, like the recently appointed DP in Guipúzcoa in 1974 who reported that “the few family associations that exist have a reduced or non-existent presence”.78 The DP of Huelva reported in the same year that there was only one ACF functioning outside the capital,79 while the President of the provincial Federation of family associations in La Coruña submitted his resignation in September 1973 with the comment that only 4 or 5 of the 50 associations on paper actually functioned.80 The best illustration of decline comes from Santander, in the contrast between a 1968 interview with the DP and a letter written in 1972. The 1968 interview included a long list of activities organized by the 25 ACF in the province, Table 2.2 Functioning vs. non-functioning family associations by province Province Melilla Zaragoza Valencia Teruel Soria Sevilla Malaga Madrid Jaen Huelva Guadalajara Granada Caceres Burgos Avila Oviedo Almeria Alava

Functioning

Non-functioning

6 72 76 15 17 168 113 141 100 31 25 143 33 29 11 90 113 50

2 222 86 66 9 51 22 55 14 2 4 25 3 11 7 39 3 12

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while the letter 4 years later advised that the 13 ACFs of the province had to be considered “extinguished”, so that new ones could be constituted from scratch.81 In addition to such explicit reports, there is the equally powerful silence of dozens of files whose documentation fades away after the first few years. Nevertheless, there is also evidence of the continued vitality of individual associations within the movement. If we return to the survey in Table 2.2, the 12 reporting provinces counted over 1200 functioning associations. Beyond this admittedly limited classification, there are anecdotal glimpses of apparently vibrant associations in the 1970s. Thus, the DP of La Coruña praised the “magnificent work” of the ACF Puentes de García Rodríguez in his otherwise dire report of March 1974,82 and the one functioning ACF of Huelva in Isla Cristina was described elsewhere by the DP as having 235 members, 5 years of “active life”, a dozen committees, and a series of successful projects.83 Similarly, in 1973 the DP of San Sebastian singled out the enthusiastic members of the Asociación Familiar de Alza, who “work hard”,84 while from Lérida, the DP reported that the ACF Tarrega was building a group of 45 homes,85 and a Movimiento official in Castellón enthused that “the spirit that inspires the members [of the ACF Alcalá de Chivert] in their cultural center, in their homes and in their activities is magnificent”.86 The DP of Baleares’ report mentioned earlier included eight ACF outside of Palma in “good condition”, four in Mallorca, three in Ibiza, and one in Menorca, as well as six in Palma, although two were “more uncertain” than the other four.87 In Barcelona, where the DP admitted in a 1974 report that the Movimiento was viewed negatively in Catalonia, creating a hostile environment for its associations, a congress held in February 1976 included representatives of 24 associations from the city and another 33 from the province.88 The history of the family association movement in Madrid supports both the broader trend of decline and the survival of pockets of vitality. Between 1964 and 1977, almost 190 associations were formed, about 140 of them “general” and the rest “specific.”89 Most, however, were constituted in the mid- to late 1960s as a result of the initial organizing campaign (Table 2.3). Not only were fewer associations formed in the 1970s, but existing ones clearly fell off the map. Thus, at the first provincial assembly of June 1973, the report noted that only about one-third of the registered associations responded to the invitation. At the same time, those that did attend included all of those “which have the most vitality in our Federation”.90 By March of 1976, the number of responses had

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain Table 2.3 Constitution of family associations in Madrid 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976

36 14 7 19 12 18 3 5 5 1 9 5 2

dropped to 20, which in fact matched the tally of family associations that survived long enough to apply under the 1977 decree that required formerly Movimiento associations to integrate into a single state-run register.91 Among these were a handful of ACFs from the first wave of the mid-1960s that had been consistently active since their constitution.92 More evidence of the sustained vitality of some of these Madrid associations emerges from membership lists, attendance at assemblies, and reports on activities and accomplishments, although documentation is sporadic. There were at least several associations that claimed large numbers of members in the mid-1970s, although such numbers tell us little about levels of activity:93 Moratalaz: 1,700 (1974) Cuartel de la Montaña: 1,253 (1974) Puente de Vallecas: 2,000 (1974) Ciudad de Los Angeles: 4,815 (1973) Coslada: 650 (1976) Fuencarral: 1,200 (?) More indicative of the vigor of associational life is evidence that the associations held their annual assemblies and that significant numbers of members attended those meetings.94 In a few cases, it is possible to track what one editorial called the “convoking capacity” of a specific issue.95 In the case of Moratalaz it was the educational issue and the formation of a commission to address the lack of schools that revived the civic spirit of the community, while in Fuencarral it was a discussion

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of the planned urbanization projects that attracted 400 people each to consecutive informational assemblies in November 1968.96 While attendance numbers like these appear infrequently in the documentation, there are many more examples of requests to hold annual assemblies, talks, and cultural events, which provide a window into the ongoing functioning of various associations, from the 6th annual “family dinner” of the ACF Getafe in April 1972 and the publication of the 100th issue of the ACF Alto Estremadura’s bulletin in March 1972 to the inauguration of the Youth Center of the ACF Poblado Dirigido Fuencarral in April of the same year,97 and the new cultural center in Poblado de la Fortuna in December 1974.98 Surviving minutes from annual assemblies in Barrio Entrevias in 1972, 1973, and 1974 and in Fuencarral in 1971 include long lists of improvements credited to the efforts of the associations.99 Finally, there are periodic commentaries from local observers which attest to the existence of thriving associations, such as the 1970 letter from a resident of Alto Estremadura, who remarked that the ACF was behind almost all the improvements in the neighborhood.100 In addition to associations that sustained their activity throughout the 1970s, there are also cases of revived family associations that came to life in the mid-1970s, perhaps in response to the creation of Asociaciones de Vecinos, or, equally likely, reinvigorated by activists from other mobilizing channels, whether the CCOO, the HUAC, or the clandestine political parties. Among the ACF revivals in Madrid, in the town of Vallecas, several members of the original 1966 Junta called an assembly in June of 1974 to reorganize the dormant association.101 More substantially, the bulletin of the association in Puente de Vallecas in October 1971 made a clear distinction between “the early days” and “the enthusiasm that all its members express these days”, while a report on the ACF Alcorcón in March 1975 contrasted the years of apathy with the revitalization after a new Junta was elected in April of 1973.102 Another source of partial revitalization within the family association movement on a national level were the campaigns to establish “specialized” associations in the early 1970s. As mentioned earlier, the drive to constitute school parent associations (APA) emerged out of the 1970 education law, which encouraged such cooperation between parents and teachers, and there are signs that this idea sparked a new wave of mobilization and interest, even though many of the APAs would not end up registering with the Movimiento. Again, anecdotes provide a window into this whirl of activity. Thus, in December 1972 the DP of Avila described an intense provincial campaign, including the distribution of

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circulars to every school in the region, and plans for open meetings in each of them. At the first one, he reported, 500 parents showed up.103 In Alicante, 700 parents came to the informational meeting at one of the local schools in May of 1971, and in Almería, the first conference of APAs and Directors of Schools in December 1973 generated an “animated discussion, full of suggestions, with conclusions designed to improve the collaboration between schools and APAs”.104 More broadly, the DP of la Coruña reported hopefully in 1974 that the province was experiencing a “reactivation of associationism, especially the increasingly frequent formation of APAs”.105 Although less widespread, the new Asociaciones de Amas de Casa (AAC) also spawned interest, among a sector of the population that had been excluded from the ACFs. Interestingly, amid the dire reports on the individualism of Gallegans, two different reports in 1972 and 1973 underscored that the AACs in Vigo, La Coruña, Ferrol, and Santiago were among the most numerous and active of the family associations in the region.106 Likewise, in the Baleares report of 1971 which included so many still-born associations, the DP depicted the AAC as functioning quite well. While it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions on the general vitality of the family association movement from such varied and unsystematic evidence, two general points emerge from the welter of data. First, there is enough data on the active functioning of at least some family associations to reject the wholesale dismissal of the movement as inoperative, and to support the claim that they contributed in a substantive way to the emergence of a new milieu of community-level voluntary associations from the 1960s. At the same time, the evidence supports a chronological arc, defined by initial, if uneven, enthusiasm in the mid1960s, and followed by declining, although still uneven, vitality in the 1970s. The “location” of the family associations: state or civil society? While demonstrating general vitality is crucial to making the case for inclusion of the Family Associations in the emerging associational milieu, it is not sufficient to establish the location of this milieu in a reviving civil society. For the Family Associations to be counted as part of the reviving civil society, they had to have achieved a significant degree of autonomy from the hierarchical structure of the Movimiento, which was an official branch of the state. If the family associations functioned as no more than channels for disseminating the state’s goals among the population, then they could not have served as a collective voice for

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dialogue with the state. Once again, the testimony points to the variation of individual cases rather than to a single general rule, but the range is great enough to reject any monolithic interpretation of the movement as simply a subordinate wing of the state bureaucracy. The subordination of the family associations to the Movimiento hierarchy was also limited by the gap between the theory of seamless vertical integration and the practice on the ground. Theoretically, each local association was integrated into the Movimiento hierarchy through the local, provincial, and finally national Delegado de Asociaciones (DNA, later DNF), which sent representatives to meetings, submitted reports, approved subventions, and disciplined associations that deviated from the expected norms. But in practice, the DPs had too much on their plate to vigorously oversee each association in their district, and too little money in their own budget to use financial incentive as an effective tool of control. Thus, even when associations were created by local Movimiento and state officials and staffed with their handpicked personnel, some of these went on to function without a great deal of supervision. The result was not a finely tuned machine but a diverse world of activity—and inactivity—only dimly glimpsed from the center. The origins of individual associations: “Top-Down” or grass roots? The vertical integration of Movimiento associations was most apparent at the moment of constitution. Despite the 1963 norms, which implied that the initiative to form an organizing committee lay with local residents, in practice it was often Movimiento officials who launched and guided the process.107 In fact, it is hard to imagine that it would have been otherwise, given the ambitious goal of constituting an ACF in every town in Spain. Furthermore, Movimiento officials had to sell what was essentially a new idea, that of local and citizen participation in public affairs, to an almost entirely demobilized population. The accounts of initial assemblies filled with curious residents who peppered the officials with questions about the purpose and function of these new associations must have reflected their inexperience with public life as well as their confusion about the new face of the Movimiento. As one official from Almagro wrote, the residents didn’t really understand enough about the purpose of the ACF, and could use a visit by the DP to explain it better.108 On some level, this national campaign may have constituted many residents’ introduction to what one DNA official called the “wave of associationism that today exists in the entire world”.109 Given such an ambitious goal, local and provincial Movimiento officials scrambled to constitute as many ACFs as they could, distributing

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boilerplate statutes, convoking assemblies, recruiting men whom they considered suited to serve on the juntas, or governing boards, and explaining the goals and structure of the incipient associations. A typical example was in Caspe, where the local jefe of the Movimiento (JL) held a meeting with a dozen residents, including the President of the local cattlemen’s syndicate and the newly elected city councilman representing the family vote, and set up an organizing committee chaired by these latter two men.110 In Santo Domingo de la Calzada (Logroño), the DP wrote in May of 1964 that he and the JL had searched for the ideal people to form the nucleus of an association, and that he was going to push it forward before the summer agricultural tasks consumed the town’s energies.111 More standard was the approach of the DP in Baleares, who wrote to each JL in his district, asking them to suggest potential names to form an organizing committee. The letter to Las Palmas was sent in August of 1963, and the JL responded several months later with the convocation of a meeting in his office with several selected residents, city councilmen, Movimiento officials, and city officials, at which the DP presided and appointed an organizing committee. In March of 1964 the organizing committee met to adapt the model statutes, and in May, just 9 months after the DP’s initiative, statutes were approved and the ACF Santa Brigida held its first assembly.112 As these examples illustrate, Movimiento officials tried to establish a clear chain of command from the outset by putting their own people in charge, where possible. There are many examples in which the JL (who was also Mayor) was himself the chair of the organizing committee. Later, as the ACFs took root, they sometimes served as a “trampoline” for Movimiento elites, who used the position as a springboard to other positions, at times in sequence or at times simultaneously. It appears to have been quite common for Movimiento elites to hold multiple positions, like the President of the ACF Aravaca, who was also the JL in Moncloa and then elected to the board of the Provincial Federation of Associations in 1972. Likewise, his comrade on the new board was also the President of the ACF Cuartel de la Montaña and a member of the local Movimiento committee.113 Nevertheless, the top-down constitution of many ACFs was only the first chapter in the life of the association, which could follow a number of different paths that either encouraged or limited autonomous development. Under the latter category, the first path was simply a dead end, in which the association died on the vine because it was nothing more than the invention of a local or provincial official. Thus, the DP in Baleares complained that, despite his “big pushes”, his efforts “many

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times do not produce results due to the lack of interest and indolence of many of those who have to collaborate”.114 Another path that limited the association’s autonomous development was when the ACF’s board functioned only as a political “trampoline” for Movimiento elites, who used the position to run for local, provincial, or national office as a representative of the “family”. For example, at one point the DP of Santander touted his success in getting over 70 representatives from the family association movement elected to city councils in the province, while he admitted that most of the ACFs barely functioned.115 With different results but the same perspective, one board member of a recently constituted ACF in Salamanca wrote a letter expressing his frustration that he had not been able to use the association as his “channel” to run for the provincial board of the Movimiento because it had not been officially registered in time.116 In contrast to these limited paths of development, an association could take on a life of its own when it resonated with what one astute DP called the “hopes for renovation” and the “desires for progress” of local residents.117 In one dramatic case, the President of the ACF San Cristóbal recounted how he had nursed a dream to form an association in his community for over a decade, but was unable to get it off the ground until the DP approached him in January 1967. From the initial meeting of eight men, the Assembly held in July of that year attracted 100 people, and at the time of the interview (undated), 600 of the 825 householders in the neighborhood had joined up, making it one of the largest ACFs in Spain, according to the article.118 In another case, the ACF Pizarralles leaders recounted how the DP had convinced members of an existing property owners’ maintenance board that an ACF would be a better format to achieve their goals. Significantly, they had only accepted his proposal once he dropped his initial request to put three of his Movimiento officials on the organizing committee.119 Thus, what had begun as lifeless vessels evolved into living organisms as enthusiastic community members took advantage of the structure to pursue their own collective goals. In addition to the associations which took root in the community, despite their top-down creation, at least some local family associations originated from a more autonomous local initiative. Thus, before the DNA campaign began in late 1963, there were already more than a dozen associations established that had to be retroactively registered with the Movimiento.120 Even after 1963, there is anecdotal testimony of associations founded without the “big pushes” of Movimiento officials. For example, one letter from Reús in February of 1971 requested

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assistance in constituting a family association to deal with the crisis produced by the closing of the major Catholic school in the town, which was leaving 1,000 children without a classroom for the following September. According to the author, 400 parents had attended the first Assembly and expressed their desire to form an association.121 In some cases, the local priest played a central role in promoting an association. In one example, the ACF had its origins in a Bible study group. Parish members had been meeting in a Bible class organized by the parish priest, which led to discussion between parish officials and residents about the need for a school in the community. That discussion led to a larger meeting of residents, convoked by the priest, to devise a plan of action. It was out of these gatherings that the ACF was formed a year later.122 In another case, it was a priest who rescued a dormant ACF by “dusting off the statutes” and encouraging “the most representative individuals of the town to reactivate it”.123 In other instances, the priest seemed to take the lead in the very poorest barrios, where the low level of education and income made it less likely that residents would even know about the existence of associations, let alone how to file the paperwork. Thus, in Cerro de Castañar, a zone of shacks outside Madrid housing 150 families, the promoter of the ACF was the coadjutor of the barrio.124 Likewise, a priest was the central promoter of the ACF in Hormigueras (Leganés), another area of shacks occupied by rag sellers,125 and in San Federico (Dehesa de la Villa), another working-class barrio of 1,000 families.126 How family associations functioned: Autonomy or supervision? Once the association was constituted, a key factor in determining the association’s level of autonomous development was how closely it was monitored and directed by Movimiento officials. In theory, every family association was subject to supervision and financially dependent on the DP’s office, but these measures of control were limited, and increasingly so as the number of associations increased. Thus, while DPs could write individualized reports on the first associations constituted, as time went on the reports either became formulaic or simply transposed the information provided by the founders of the association, as in the case of the ACF Colonia Fin de Semana.127 Some DPs continued to carry out periodic visits of “inspection” or “orientation”, but even diligent DPs could not do this very often.128 Thus, the DP of Madrid who kept up a schedule of more than one visit a week from January through September of 1971 had only visited 60 of the 118 ACFs in his province by the end of the year.129

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To assist the DP in his supervisory role, he was supposed to appoint a network of Delegado Local’s (DL), “men of absolute confidence” to “discretely control and clearly guide the associations”,130 but it was not easy to staff and fund so many positions, for example, in a province like Barcelona with over 300 municipalities.131 Thus, the 1971 letter from Reús (Barcelona) asking for information on family associations explained that there was no DL who could advise them. In Baleares, the DP was still appointing DLs where none existed at the end of 1973, and in Asturias the network was only being put in place in 1974.132 The result, as national Movimiento officials acknowledged in a January 1976 report, was that the DPs had very little knowledge of how the family movement in their province was functioning, and that they needed to “take more interest in following the status of the associations”.133 The DN had already tried to “strengthen the authority” of the DP by funneling all subventions through the DP’s office after 1970, giving him the power of the purse as a control mechanism.134 This change did generate a spate of letters to the DP from individual associations asking for money for various projects, but the quantity of money at their disposal was so small that most of the correspondence consisted of apologetic refusals on the part of the DP and complaints on the part of the association. It seems clear that the overall budget for family associations continued to drop over time, and that those ACFs which survived must have done so based on their own ability to charge dues or solicit donations.135 Even worse off than the local associations were the provincial federations, most of which seemed to have literally starved to death in the early 1970s. Thus, the President of the Madrid Federation wrote in July of 1974 of the “offers and promises of subventions that have rarely been followed through on. And the people are tired of these lies.”136 His more global critique offered a few months later probably summed up the situation for many provinces: “The Presidents of the few associations that still function in this province ask me for logistical aid, useful information and orientation” but that all he could offer was “total inactivity and the absolute lack of assistance, of planning and of organization.”137 Another impediment to the effective supervision of the family associations was the lack of unity among Movimiento and government officials. Not surprisingly, local feuds and competition over jurisdiction, especially between the regular Movimiento bureaucracy of provincial and local jefes (JP and JL) and the family association bureaucracy of local and provincial officials (DPs and DLs), could undermine the ideal of perfect compenetración, or integration. Thus, in Móstoles (Madrid), the DP reported in 1970 that there was no official contact between the ACF and

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local authorities, who were divided into competing camps.138 In another case, the President of the ACF wrote directly to the DN in 1974 asking for help, because the JL “leaves us out of everything he can”.139 And, from another perspective, in 1967 the Mayor of San Martín de la Vega (Madrid) asked the DP to explain why “we” had only read about the formation of an ACF in the local newspaper.140 In more public expressions of internal divisions among authorities, the DP of Zaragoza openly supported four ACFs in their appeal against the JP’s order of suspension, which resulted in a ruling in their favor.141 Likewise, in 1969, the DP of Madrid attacked the city governments for their lack of cooperation with the family associations and their focus on “private business” over the public interest.142 The picture that emerges of the structural integration of the family association movement is thus not one of seamless vertical hierarchy but of lack of communication, decentralization, and inadequate monitoring. The conclusions that can be drawn from this unsystematic analysis are not conclusive, but the material does open the door to a richer and more complex interpretation of the potential vitality and autonomy of the family associations. In contrast to the existing presumption which simply ignores or dismisses these associations as appendages of the state, empty of substance, or unrepresentative of the “true” interests of the people, the reality appears to be much more diverse than such monolithic judgments allow for. Thus, the vitality and functional independence of these associations depended very much on local conditions, the actions of Movimiento officials, the enthusiasm of groups of residents, and the nature of the community’s problems. The combination of all these factors determined whether the association was constituted in the first place and how, and if, it developed into a site that could channel residents’ “desires for progress”.

The Asociaciones de Vecinos The general decline of the family association movement in the early 1970s dovetails nicely with the expansion of the Asociaciones de Vecinos (AVs). Even though the 1964 law was passed around the same time as the Movimiento created its first family associations, without a similar promotional campaign it is not surprising that the pace of associations registering through this route was generally slower and later. Although the first AVs predated the family associations as well as the 1964 law, with the exception of Barcelona, they appear to be isolated cases. In Barcelona, according to a remarkably frank provincial official’s

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report in 1972, the “great associational current” that had characterized the city since the late nineteenth century had continued with the present generation of Asociaciones de Vecinos. He estimated that around 100 of them had already taken advantage of the 1941 law granting “freedom of association”, and that since the 1964 law, the number of associations had increased to 140 or 150.143 Furthermore, these associations appeared to have taken root in a wide variety of local contexts, according to an editorial in Vanguardia Española, which commented on the great heterogeneity of a milieu that included business associations, middle-class neighborhoods, cultural and recreational groups, and working-class barrios.144 AVs by the numbers: Size and scope At a national level, however, the growth of these and other nonMovimiento voluntary associations was generally slower and later, with important turning points in 1964 and 1975. According to the National Register of Associations, which was established in 1964 with 2,500 mostly pre-existing associations, about 1,000 associations were created each year until 1974. Although the increase was gradual, it is important to note that the number of associations created between 1941 and 1964 had essentially doubled only 3 years after the new law was passed. Between 1975 and 1977 the number of new associations created each year jumped to 2,283, and during the final years of the transition, it had reached 5,639 a year.145 By the end of 1979, the number of associations on the register had reached almost 30,000. The majority of these new associations were local in scope, and increasingly so from the early 1970s. That is, while in 1972, 56 percent of the new associations created were local, the percent rose to 65 percent in 1976 and 73 percent in 1978. Of the total number of associations in 1979, about 17 percent were AVs, and another 28 percent were school parent associations (APA), which could be closely linked with each other at the local level. While the 5,199 AVs represented a small portion of the overall number of associations in 1979, their membership levels were disproportionately higher. Thus, of all people who belonged to an association, 30 percent had joined an AV, and another 15 percent were members of an APA. If we compare this 45 percent with the 11 percent who belonged to all “civic-social” associations in 1973,146 it seems reasonable to see these associations at the center of a second “phase” of expansion of the associational milieu, which culminated in the so-called “citizen movement” of the mid- to late 1970s.

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain Table 2.4 Constitution of Asociaciones de Vecinos in Madrid Reconstituted after 1941 1949 1960 1961 1966 1967 1969 1970 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978

7 1 2 1 1 3 7 4 2 10 8 5 10 128 43

Following the national pattern, the constitution of Asociaciones de Vecinos in Madrid reads like a mirror image of the family association graph, with the intense organizing phase occurring at a point when few new family associations were being constituted (Table 2.4). The total number of AVs in the community of Madrid at the end of 1978 was 208, which included the 20 family associations that survived the dissolution of the Movimiento in 1977. While the chart clearly demonstrates the growing importance of the AVs, it doesn’t exactly reflect the rate at which they were constituted during the crucial years of 1975, 1976, and 1977. The inflated 1977 number in fact includes many associations that had been created earlier but had to wait, in some cases up to 2 years, for the May 1977 associational law before they were formally registered. Thus, while only 37 AVs had been registered before April 1977, probably most of the 70 AVs legalized between May and July of 1977 had been constituted before that date.147 With this amendment of the graph, the associational “arc” has a more sustained trajectory from the early to the late 1970s, which smooths out the misleading “burst” of 1977. A provincial study of vitality: The Asociaciones de Vecinos of Madrid While the increasing number of Asociaciones de Vecinos created in Spain over the course of the 1970s can be easily extracted from the national Register of Associations, it is more difficult to dig below the surface

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of these global statistics to draw conclusions about membership levels, participation, and activity. As with the Movimiento associations, it is only by delving into discrete cases that the vitality of individual associations is revealed. And in fact, some studies of specific AVs do exist, unlike in the case of the forgotten family associations.148 There are not yet enough of these micro-level studies, however, to sketch out broader patterns. On the other hand, because there is no central archive of Asociaciones de Vecinos, as there is for the Family Associations, it is hard to develop a broader, even if unsystematic, portrait of the national sweep of the movement, beyond the bare numerical grid of the national register.149 Given these constraints, the most feasible comparative unit of analysis is the city or province, despite the asymmetry of drawing on nation-wide examples of family associations and provincial cases for the AVs. Thus, the following analysis will use examples from dozens of associations in the province of Madrid in order to draw out some common patterns and conclusions about their strength and vitality. In examining the Asociaciones de Vecinos for general signs of vitality, the issues are somewhat different than for the family associations. In the case of the family associations, the case for vitality has to demonstrate that, despite the “top-down” origins and formal subordination to the Movimiento hierarchy, some associations developed at least a partly autonomous and vigorous life of their own. In contrast, since the AVs emerged out of local initiative, and maintained no ties to the Francoist state, their initial autonomous status was a given. At the same time, their functional autonomy in the public sphere was constrained by police surveillance and repressive techniques, such as denying requests to hold events and dragging out the process of legalization. In other words, both types of associations developed within a complicated relationship with the State that undermined potential civil society autonomy, although in different ways. Within these different constraints, the general question remains to what degree the AVs, like the ACFs, were able to function as part of a public, diverse, and vibrant associational milieu, that provided the space to develop new practices and languages of collective participation. On a general level, the vitality of the AVs in the province of Madrid can be measured by the numbers of people who became members. Although there are no complete data sets, there is enough evidence to verify that the AVs in and around Madrid involved thousands of residents, even before the movement exploded after Franco’s death.150 Of the approximately 50 AVs that had been registered by the end of 1975,

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Making Democratic Citizens in Spain Table 2.5 1975 Membership figures for Asociaciones de Vecinos in the province of Madrid Colonia Primo de Rivera Colonia de Los Angeles Paseo Delicias Colonia Prosperidad Colonia Retiro Colonia Manzanares Barrio Estrella Colonia Diego Velazquez Moratalaz Barrio Concepción Puerto Chico (Parque Aluche) Palomeras Bajas Aluche (Fincas C/Yebemas) Cuidad de Los Angeles Gran San Blas Barrio Aeropuerto Orcasitas Colonia Obrera Zaporra (Alcobendas) Leganés Portugalete152 Alcalá de Henares (Dist.Univ) Palomeras Altas Palomeras Sureste Polígono Franco Rodriguez Villa Rosa Carabanchel Alto

170 (1975) 150 (1975) 1374 (1966) 244 (1966) 155 (1975) 225 (1975) 156 (1975) 1206 (1975) 200–2000 (1975)151 726 (1975) 2644 (1975) 600 (1975) 312 (1975) 5400 (1975) 2208 (1975) 510 (1975) 875 (1975) 116 (1975) 160 (1975) 351 (1975) 150 (1975) 183 (1975) 450 (1975) 492 (1975) 243 (1975) 450 (1974) 363 (1975)

28 of them include some membership count in their file, totaling about 20,000 individuals (Table 2.5). Manuel Castells’ classic study estimated that by late 1977 the total membership number had risen to 60,000 which seems like a reasonable increase, given the wave of legalizations after April of that year.153 It is also crucial to note that in most cases, only one member per household formally joined an association, so these figures mask a larger circle of family members who may have had some contact with their local associations. Levels of participation in the Madrid AVs: A growing culture of “Assemblyism” Beyond the raw membership figures, there were undoubtedly varying levels of commitment and participation, as there are in all voluntary

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associations. At one end of the spectrum was the core of activists, about 12 percent of the 60,000 members according to the estimate of Castells. At the other end were those who, like one member of the AV Ciudad San Pablo, did little more than pay their dues and read the Bulletin to keep abreast of what was going on in the neighborhood.154 Unfortunately there are few records to document this minimum level of involvement, allowing one to calculate, for example, that of the 800 members claimed by Moratalaz in 1965, 600 of them were paying dues in 1967, or that 87 percent of members were doing so in Barrio Estrella in 1970.155 At the next level of engagement were those who attended annual assemblies and/or other activities sponsored by the associations. The sporadic attendance records that survive indicate, not surprisingly, that participation varied widely across associations and events, as well as chronologically. What seems clear is that levels of participation depended on a number of factors, including the activism of the association itself, the urgency of the issues being addressed in the meeting, and the intensity of police surveillance. Within the variety, it is possible to define two types of overlapping patterns. On the level of individual associations, the interaction of the various factors mentioned above created uneven cycles of participation, in which periods of overflowing, passionate meetings could be followed by phases in which it was difficult to attract a quorum. At the same time, there appears to be a broader long-term trend toward larger and more frequent gatherings, which suggests a growing culture of “assemblyism” and, as a result, an increasingly visible collective presence. Paralleling, and undoubtedly influenced by, the “assemblyist” character of the student movement as well as the “Christian communities”, the Asociaciones de Vecinos contributed to the increasing tendency to use public group meetings as fora to discuss common problems and devise collective solutions.156 If we take the small number of property owners’ associations in the 1950s as a point of departure, these show little evidence of collective activities, giving the impression that members did not literally come together very often. Thus, the first assemblies on record (after those held in the late 1940s to reconstitute older associations) occurred between 1959 and 1961, and most of those had low turnouts. Thus, the Colonia Manzanares, formed in 1949 with 189 members, seems to have held its next assembly in 1959, which was attended by 25–70 people.157 While attendance was generally low during this period, there were also exceptions, as in the case of Paseo Delicias, which had 1200 founding members, 900 of which attended the first assembly in July 1958.158 Aside

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from annual assemblies, there are few records of other sorts of activities organized by these early property owners’ associations, most of which seemed to function more as administrators of community services rather than as sites of collective activity. The late 1960s and early 1970s marked an important turning point in both the geographical scope as well as the assemblyist tendency of the Asociaciones de Vecinos. Thus, the handful of older associations apparently began to hold more regular annual assemblies, as in the case of Prosperidad, which after 1959 did not meet again until 1965, but then held regular annual assemblies. Likewise, Barrio Estrella held assemblies every February through 1976. In the Colonia Primo de Rivera, there are records of regular assemblies from 1969, which attracted twice as many members as in 1961.159 But the real increase in assemblyism during this period was the result of a new generation of associations being constituted in different types of neighborhoods. Thus, while the earlier associations emerged in largely middle class housing developments, many of the new associations of this period were established in the sprawling lower middle-/working-class suburbs that would become the stronghold of popular mobilization and the citizen movement during the transition. Motivated by often more urgent urban problems and fewer resources, except for the social capital provided by a core of opposition activists, these peripheral areas produced some of the most energized associations in the province. The new trend began in 1967, when AVs were formed in Barrio Puerto Chico (Parque Aluche)160 and Carcabas-San Antonio (Hortaleza), followed by a dozen more over the next several years.161 It was these AVs which generated the first cycle of sustained assemblyist mobilization, usually focused on implementation of the city’s urbanization plans, that culminated in parallel series of mass assemblies in 1974 and 1975. One of the earliest examples of a specific cycle of mobilization was in Palomeras Bajas, a barrio of 3,000 families, in which 15 people founded the AV in September of 1968 in order to organize the residents’ response to the city’s plan to construct new homes. Between 1969 and 1971, the association held a series of smaller meetings, with periodic general assemblies that attracted 500–700 people.162 This cycle of mobilization peaked in February of 1972, when the first of a series of scheduled partial meetings drew 1,000 people, twice as many as expected. The end of the cycle was usually marked, as in this case, by the resolution of the specific crisis or issue on the table.

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Similar cycles of mobilization occurred a couple of years later in the AVs of Zappora and Palomeras Altas. In the latter case, for example, assemblies in 1974 and 1975 attracted between 150 and 200 people, but in early 1976, when the AV was formulating its critique of the urbanization plan, there were assemblies in March, May, and June which drew 200, 400, and 1,000, even though there were only 600 members at the time. Likewise, in Zappora, only 40–100 of the 160 members attended various meetings until those that addressed the urbanization plan in March of 1975 obviously attracted many who had not even joined the association. Thus, on March 10th, 300 turned out, while up to 500 came for the follow-up meeting on the 20th. By May, when the AV response to the plan had been sent off, only 30 people came to discuss a plan for paving the streets. While individual cycles of mobilization rose and fell, there was also a general trend toward increasingly frequent and well-attended meetings, led by associations in San Blas, Pozo del Tio Raimundo, Orcasitas, and Ciudad de Los Angeles. Thus, from the constitution of the AV San Blas in 1970 through the first couple years of general meetings, attendance hovered around 80 people. Attendance and membership began to rise at the 1973 assembly, when 276 showed up, and then 350 in June 1974, 500 in an October 1974 assembly that lasted 4 hours, and 750 in November. As is also apparent, the frequency of meetings had increased, with the first series of partial meetings held in November 1974, and five more in 1975, each of which had 150–200 people (but in one case 600) present. By October of 1975, there were 1887 active members, a number which climbed to 7,500 by June of 1979. An association with a similar if more dramatic trajectory was Pozo del Tio Raimundo where, after a founding assembly of 50 people in December of 1969, there were 1,000 at the March 1971 general assembly and again in 1975 and 1976. To retain a human scale in the association, “street delegates” were created in 1971, and these organized literally dozens of street-level meetings which attracted between 30 to 50 people in 1971–1993, but up to 200 each in 1975. Another story of a meteoric ascent is Ciudad de Los Angeles, founded in 1969 with 42 people in a barrio of 6,300 families. By 1972, 429 turned out for the assembly, and the number of members had risen to 2,138. By 1974, there were 5,100 members, and the unwieldy size permitted only the 400 building representatives to meet. Even in their new home in 1975, only 650 could fit inside the room, and in 1976, so many people wanted to talk that the meeting lasted 4 hours.

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By the peak of this mobilizing cycle, in 1974 and 1975, there were at least a dozen legal associations which formed part of this growing culture of assemblyism, although each case had its own characteristics. Thus, one AV in Alcalá de Henares (Distrito Universitario) was notable for its rapid expansion. Founded in October 1973 with 23 people, 100–150 people turned out for meetings in October and December of 1974 and January of 1975, culminating with a crowd of 500 in February of the same year. The striking quality of the AVs in Leganés and Carabanchel Alto in these years was the frequency of meetings. The December 1975 bulletin of the latter association reminded readers that there were informal meetings every Sunday at 11AM. And the President of the former admitted to police in July of 1974 that the AV held an open assembly for members and residents every 2 months.163 Attendance was uneven, but, in those cases with surviving records, ranged from 100 to 350.164 The overall picture suggests an expanding public presence of the associations, visible in overflowing meeting halls and more frequent convocations, and a general increase in the active participation of residents and members who attended those meetings. With at least a dozen associations in Madrid participating in this pattern of increasingly frequent and larger assemblies, it seems reasonable to frame this activity within an emerging culture of assemblyism, as well as within a specific mobilization cycle that began in the early 1970s and peaked during the years just before and during the transition. This impression is confirmed by a May 1975 Communist Party report, whose author communicates the tangible excitement about the “increase in participation of all the residents” in their barrio organizations, as evidenced by “general assemblies in AVs, especially in El Progreso, Moratalaz, Pilar, Simancas, San Blas, Concepción, and a long etc., as well as the towns of Leganés, Móstoles, Villaverde, Getafe, etc.” In all of these assemblies, he reported, “thousands of people participated”.165 Limits on AV autonomy: Repression and restricted access to the public sphere While it is significant that this culture of public assemblies had gathered such momentum before the official transition had even begun, it is also important to recognize how much the repressive apparatus of the dictatorship limited its further expansion, as well as shaped its form and content. Thus, police surveillance circumscribed the acceptable language and behavior of meetings, but government officials also limited the number of assemblies by denying permission to hold them in some

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cases. The state developed a further strategy to deny these associations access to the public sphere by manipulating the legalization process so that it could drag on for years. Thus, at the first national congress in March of 1977, 500 of the 905 Asociaciones de Vecinos represented were still awaiting legal status.166 This tactic provided the excuse to deny public assemblies, demonstrations, or even cultural events, leaving many AVs trapped in the same clandestine political space as the illegal parties. On the other hand, it is also clear that the government’s attempt to deny the Asociaciones de Vecinos’ autonomous access to the public sphere was not entirely successful. The result was a contested space of limited autonomy, which the state and the associations fought to occupy, but which was never entirely quashed. At the core of the state’s attempts to control the Asociaciones de Vecinos was the fear that they harbored or would harbor subversive activity. This fear was reflected in the extensive individual background checks for members of governing boards, which were supposed to ascertain the level of loyalty to the regime. The key reference point was still the Civil War, although by the late 1960s a generation of Spaniards with no visible political marks was coming of age, so it became increasingly difficult to rely on the old framework of locating identity in the pre-Civil War political spectrum. On the other hand, by the early 1970s there was increasing evidence of more recent activity, including arrests for student protests, church enclosures, demonstrations, labor movement organizing, and, as always, suspected membership in a revolutionary party. Beyond monitoring individual leaders, officials began to worry about the potential dangers of entire associations, once they spread beyond the middle-class homeowners and into working-class neighborhoods. It is clear that most police still viewed the working class as natural enemies of the regime, and thus structurally inclined toward subversive activity. One can mark the exact moment when such fear set in, between the boilerplate approval of the first AV in a working-class barrio (Puerto Chico), in the spring of 1967, and the hesitant police report issued the following year (III/68) when Orcasitas followed suit. Whereas the Puerto Chico association was approved without comment, the Orcasitas report expressed concern about the consequences of legalizing an association in a poor neighborhood. Similar doubts were voiced in June of 1969 in Pozo del Tio Raimundo, and in August in Cruz Blanca. Significantly, police reports on the constitution of middle-class associations, as in Cadalso de los Vidrios (October 31, 1970) or Barrio Aeropuerto (January 22, 1971), considered them safer bets, since (using good Marxist logic) they assumed that “established business owners”

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and other such professions were “not very attracted to extreme or Marxist political doctrines or tendencies”.167 This class-based analysis continued to structure the legalization process, with working-class associations subjected to a much higher level of scrutiny and suspicion. If anything, the (not unfounded) fears about the possible subversive dangers of these associations became stronger over time. Thus, while in the early 1970s, police informers voiced “reservations” (July 17, 1973, Portugalete, August 23, 1973: Alto Arenal), later reports expressed unmitigated hostility. For example, while the Portugalete report expressed the fear that the generally beneficial AV could be “derailed”, in January 1975 a report from Parque Aluche stated categorically that these associations were special targets of communist agitators. Similarly, in the Carabanchel Bajo file, there is a strongly worded letter from a city councilman in November 1975, in which he claims that “these associations are totally politicized”, a conclusion repeated by the police in Pinar del Rey on July 17, 1976, who argued that the “majority of the associations of this type undertake activities against the System” “with the pretext of pursuing the articulated goals”. While the fears about working-class AVs’ “politicization” were obviously not unfounded, it is also hard to know how much officials were responding to actual subversive activity or, more broadly, to the specter of visible mobilization in the emerging “assemblyist” culture. In response to these fears, one of the most common tactics used by the government was to delay the legalization of new associations in working-class barrios. This method was used from the outset in Orcasitas, which submitted its first documentation in February 1968 and was not finally approved until December of 1971, but the practice increased with associations formed after 1973. The result, according to a newspaper article cited in a San Blas assembly, was that by early 1976, 75 percent of the Madrid AVs were still “in process”. To keep extending the process of legalization, government officials created spurious and often contradictory hoops through which associations had to jump. Most commonly, versions of statutes were returned with a list of required changes, and sometimes this ritual was repeated more than once with a second round of changes not mentioned the first time. As one police report regarding Orcasitas said explicitly, the authorities should “delay” constitution as long as possible, and “undoubtedly” they could find “legal arguments based in the defective rendering of statute proposals”.168 Many items were technical details, but the government also sought new ways to delimit the scope of associations, by

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implementing an adult age limit, or restricting membership to residents, or criticizing the stated goals as “too generic” or “indeterminate”. Interestingly, items that had been approved without comment in earlier sets of statutes suddenly became objectionable. Thus, when in 1971 the AV Colonia Obrera submitted a nearly exact replica of the 1969 San Blas statutes, they were rejected as “imprecise”. In some cases, the demands for changes were contradictory, as in the case of Parque Aluche, which received a letter in October 1976 ordering them to define “honorary members” as non-resident business owners, while a March 1977 letter insisted that they had to be residents. This association submitted its first set of statutes in June of 1973 and was not finally approved until April 28, 1977, when it submitted the boilerplate statutes that formed the basis for the mass legalization.169 To slow down the process even further, the government often waited months to respond to petitions, as in this case, where the AV received its first acknowledgment of the June 1973 submission in November 1976. Throughout this whole period, the only routinely approved activity would be meetings of the governing boards, which obviously severely limited the potential for popular participation. Once associations were legally registered, the government used other methods to limit their access to the public sphere. Often assemblies would be approved only hours before they were scheduled, making it difficult to notify the public, especially since it was illegal to publicize an event until it had been sanctioned. Furthermore, the approval process was made as cumbersome as possible, presumably to discourage requests. When the AV Moratalaz wanted to organize a week-long “Education Week” in June of 1976, it submitted almost 50 pages of documentation, including the scripts to every movie and song. Then, if general surveillance measures like the routine police reports on public assemblies revealed suspicious behavior, officials began looking for reasons to cancel or refuse permission to hold future assemblies or other public acts. Meeting agendas were scrutinized for “inappropriate” subject matter, judged to be outside the legal parameters of the Association’s goals, like “amnesty”, or too politicized, as in the case of carestia (high cost of living) and fraude de pan (the sale of low-weight bread), according to an analysis of the AV San Blas on August 6, 1976. Several general assemblies in 1975 and 1976 were turned down because they were going to elect representatives to a “non-existent” provincial Federation of Asociaciones de Vecinos, also “in process”.170 When the AV San Blas tried to hold the election anyway, at an October 1976 assembly, it was dissolved by the

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police. In some cases, the logic of negation was even less clear, as with the lecture on “nutrition” which the AV Moratalaz was not allowed to hold.171 Another obstructionist strategy was to restrict entrance to members only, both in the announcement, which could no longer invite “residents” of the neighborhood,172 and in the practice of checking membership cards at the door, as ordered by the government official reviewing a request from the AV Carabanchel Alto in November 1975.173 The worst punishment for a legalized association was suspension, which placed it in the same vulnerable position as those “in process”, that is, unable to hold or organize public acts. The first major suspension occurred in February of 1975, when 20 Asociaciones de Vecinos and Amas de Casa in Madrid signed a joint public declaration inviting Madrid residents to a boycott of food items on February 20th. Claiming that the note constituted an “invitation to disturb public order”, all of the signatories were suspended for 3 months.174 Many of the same associations were suspended again in November of 1976, after attending a multiassociation assembly called by the AV San Blas to elect representatives for a (“non-existent”) provincial Federation.175 Activist personnel were also targeted for harassment. Thus, the President of the AV San Blas was arrested for his leadership role in this event, as were the Presidents of the AV Pozo del Tio Raimundo, Palomeras Altas, La Paz, Portugalete, and Palomeras Sureste, after they wrote a letter protesting the original arrest. They were held overnight, while the San Blas President was kept in jail for 5 days, during which time the Security Police (DGS) issued a press statement accusing him of being a known communist, an instigator of subversive activities in the AV and the holder of the illicit title of President of an illegal Federation of AVs.176 All of the obstacles to the autonomous operation of the AVs in the public sphere were summed up in a joint letter of protest to the government after the February 1975 suspensions, which listed six routinely employed repressive practices:177 (1) meetings prohibited, in Cerro del Tio Pio, Moratalaz, Palomeras, Carabanchel Alto, San Blas, and so on (2) conferences and lectures denied, even those on general topics (3) freedom of speech muzzled, through the suspension of press conferences, the arrest, and harassment of Presidents of various associations, including Moratalaz, Pozo del Tio Raimundo, Barrio Pilar, and Palomeras (4) excessive police control, exercised through interrogations in the street, fines, and checking for membership cards at assemblies

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(5) delaying legalization for more than 30 associations, some waiting as much as 1.5 years (6) suspension of 20 associations for convoking the boycott Through the combined use of such measures, the government tried to limit what it viewed as suspect or subversive associations’ ability to maneuver in public space. Once the associations had been legalized, it was difficult to banish them completely from the realm of legal public activity that the regime itself had created, but repression could still severely circumscribe an association’s public presence. The limits of repression: A contested but visible public space for AVs At the same time, government repression of the Asociaciones de Vecinos was never entirely consistent or effective. This was in part due to the ingenuity of the members of associations, who had their own strategies for circumventing or directly confronting the repressive apparatus. But it was also the government’s entrapment within its own legally constituted structure of voluntary associations, which required it to find specific “legal arguments”, as revealed in the preceding reports. Beyond the need to make sure the “i”s were dotted, there was a broad inconsistency in the government’s repressive measures that probably arose from the lack of coordination and conflicting standards among individual bureaucrats and enforcers. Thus, it is significant that as late as December 21, 1976, the Department of Internal Security (Política Interior) felt the need to send a circular to the Civil Governors warning them that officials must exercise “a constant vigilance” over the proliferating neighborhood and family associations by closely monitoring the governing boards, vetoing any activities of non-legalized associations, or any activities that deviated from the defined goals of legal associations, and finally, by suspending any associations that organized such activities.178 The uneven application of repressive measures is apparent in the inconsistent process of legalization and approval of activities. Thus, despite the delay imposed in 1968 on Orcasitas, most of the first AVs in working-class barrios that were formed between 1969 and 1971 were still approved fairly rapidly. Thus, Palomeras Bajas submitted its documentation in September 1968 and was registered in November, San Blas was constituted in December 1969 and was approved by February 1970, and Colonia Obrera was founded in July 1971 and approved in February 1972. Even later, associations that had provoked doubts were approved without extraordinary delays, as in the case of Portugalete, whose

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October 1973 petition was approved 12 months later, or Palomeras Altas, whose papers were processed between January and May 1973, and Leganés, between November 1972 and April 1973. In general, the delays increased for associations constituted after 1973, but still many of them were eventually legalized well before the spring of 1977. Even in the case of associations like Carabanchel Bajo and Tetuán, where the government had sufficient evidence of the presence of subversive elements, they were both approved in the fall of 1976. As the May 1975 Communist Party report described the contradictory practice, the government had decided to prohibit new associations, but at the same time was still authorizing the approval of existing ones.179 A similar inconsistency can be found in the decisions to approve or deny meetings or activities. First, it was clear that not all personnel followed the same criteria in vetoing meetings or assemblies. Thus, while the general rule was supposed to be that no AV could hold any public event until it was legalized, there are numerous examples of such meetings being approved. During the long processing of the AV Orcasitas (II/68–XII/71), for example, it held three approved meetings in April and May of 1971, after the same request had been turned down in October of 1968. Assemblies for AVs in the same situation were approved in Colonia de la Paz on 25/III/1974, and on January 11, 1976, for the AV Aluche, after a series of rejections and an irritated note from the police on April 4, 1975, asking them to stop sending in requests until they were legalized (which occurred in October 1976). Another rule mandated that invitations had to specify members rather than “residents”, as advised in the denial to a request from the AV Leganés in December 1974. But in March 1975, a similar petition from the same AV to hold a meeting for “residents and members” was approved, and again on August 10th, even with the added red flag of the petitioner’s arrest record for attending an illegal labor union (CCOO) meeting in 1968. And on the issue of the “non-existent” provincial federation, the AV Colonia de la Paz received an approval for a meeting on December 12, 1975, which included the supposedly forbidden discussion of it on the agenda. Lack of communication between government personnel also created holes in the repressive apparatus. Thus, despite a local police report (5/IV/1973) criticizing the “broad goals” of the AV Carabanchel Alto, the association was never asked to revise them. A similar negative report on the AV Fuenlabrada (2/IV/1975) which advised extensive modifications to the “generic goals” was obviously ignored when the association was legalized in July 1976 with the same February 1975 statutes. And, despite the advice of local police (11/IV/75) not to approve the upcoming

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assembly in Pozo del Tio Raimundo, given the tumultuous nature of their gatherings, it was held anyway on May 4th, with between 900 and 2,000 people in attendance.180 Likewise, even though the police background check on the President of the AV Villa Rosa in 1974 revealed that he had been arrested in 1965 as an important member of the Communist Party, he was not removed from his position, and was re-elected in 1976. Similarly, even though a report (15/III/1969) revealed that most of the founders of the UVA Vallecas had either fought for the Republicans or belonged to Socialist organizations, the association and its leaders were approved on 25/III/1969. Interestingly, additional details of post-war political activity only emerged in a July 1970 report, which revealed that one member had been arrested in 1961 for being part of the Vallecas communist cell. What is notable in this case is both that the first report missed this information and that the men accused of “deeply rooted communist ideas” remained on the governing board. Finally, there were instances in which local police seemed very tolerant, not only of large, passionate meetings but of openly subversive attitudes and gestures. Thus, the advice to deny the AV Tio del Pozo Raimundo permission to meet in May 1975 followed several years of reports that dutifully recorded the “exalted” atmosphere (4/III/1972), the “restless attitude” (29/III/1972), and the “insidious and even subversive ideas and concepts” (22/III/1973), without ever suggesting that the meetings be suspended. Even in May of 1975, police reported (14/V/1975) that there were communist flags inside the building, shouts of “police assassins”, and interventions calling for the need to file criminal charges against the regime, none of which they tried to stop. A more dramatic case was the “Education Week” held by the AV Moratalaz in the first week of June 1976. The final police report contained a list of all the “abnormalities” that had occurred, including a singer who insulted the police observers while holding up his closed fist for 3 minutes to the cheers of 1200 listeners, and a broadsheet with criticisms of the 1970 Education Law. Interestingly, the talk promoting alternative “democratic education” in a “democratic Spain” was not on this list, nor was the discussion about censorship following the theatrical production of “The Rats”. The play was about a group of kids living in shacks and attacked by rats, which the audience interpreted as a critique of their neighborhood and of the police, according to the judgment of the government delegate. While the troupe had been required to drop the scene where a policeman breaks a little boy’s arm, what is remarkable is that the rest of this implicitly and even explicitly critical event was allowed to unfold as planned. It is true that the President of the AV

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was brought in afterward to explain the “abnormalities”, but he simply denied any knowledge of them and was sent home. It was not only inefficient police, but also ingenious and creative organizers who managed to evade restrictions. In some cases, this involved using deception, for example by disguising the true nature of a gathering or being careful to use acceptable terminology. When the AV Alcalá de Henares (Dist Univ) had two proposed talks on “sex” turned down by prudish censors (3/VI/1975), it re-submitted the request simply to hold a “meeting” (7/VI/1975), which was approved, and took place on June 16th. Likewise, after the government had refused to allow a meeting called by the (illegal) Provincial Federation of AVs on November 8, 1975, several months later on May 10, 1976, the AV Palomeras Altas successfully requested a meeting to talk about the urbanization plan for the district, to which the Presidents of neighboring AVs were invited. In a different case, after the AV Leganés had requested permission for a normal general assembly on June 24, 1974, the police discovered posters in the neighborhood inviting all residents to an assembly on carestia and the association was fined. In December 1975, the government granted permission to the same AV to hold an exposition of children’s paintings, but with the admonition that police should make sure that it wasn’t being used as a cover for propaganda, implying that this was a common practice. A good example of such surreptitious communication is the festival program drawn up by the AV Carabanchel Alto in June 1976. Inserted amongst the schedule of activities were references to the problems in the neighborhood and the lack of response to all their demands, “that inspire more indignation than poetry”. Similarly, when the AV La Ventilla’s request for an assembly was turned down at the last minute, leaders told disappointed members to return for a “theatrical production” the next day, when the President took advantage of introducing the production to outline the AV’s position on various issues.181 For associations “in process”, deception often involved organizing public events that they hoped would not be detected by the regime’s radar. A strikingly successful example is the AV Aluche, which managed to maintain a remarkably vital public presence during its 2 years in legal limbo. After a series of requests for meetings in early 1975 were routinely denied, based on the association’s status, it stopped submitting the petitions but continued to plan events. A local police report on April 26th of that year complained that the AV had held several meetings, established an education commission, sent a circular asking for volunteers for a cost of living commission, and, most recently, distributed an announcement for a series of six talks on health issues to be held in May. Despite

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the report’s recommendation that the AV be told to cease its activities, another report on February 11, 1976, admitted that “one must conclude that this group continues functioning and organizing activities”. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the AV had just held a legally approved assembly on January 11, at which 600 people discussed a petition to the government demanding legalization of AVs, support for strikers, and the resignation of the Minister of Finance. In 1976, it published a regular bulletin (duly noted in police reports) and helped organize the barrio fiestas in June, and finally, circulated 300 flyers inviting residents to a meeting of the political opposition coalition, Junta Democrática. Despite all of this evidence of illegal and subversive activity, the AV was legalized in October 1976 with 600 members.182 Another tactic used by associations to avoid restrictions was to engage the government on its own legalistic terrain. There are interesting cases in which associations successfully appealed decisions, as in Carabanchel Alto, where the association was approved after organizers explained why they thought the goals were in fact clear and precise.183 Likewise, the AV Leganés argued against the veto of an assembly (30/VII/1976) to discuss the sale of textbooks by claiming that the government’s definition of “public liberties” was too narrowly drawn (4/VIII/1976). When they re-submitted the request (10/VIII/1976), this time following the specific guidelines of the Administration, including providing the names of speakers and the plan to hold a discussion immediately following, it was approved. In another case, when the government vetoed a member of the governing board of the AV Alcalá (Dist. Univ.) in August 1975, on the pretext that he lived outside the neighborhood, but secretly because he was known as an “influential Communist”, the President appealed by citing the article in their statutes permitting non-residents to be elected to posts. There is no response in the file, but the person was still on the board the following February. In other cases, the appeals were denied, but they still constituted an indictment of the government’s unwillingness to live up to its own principles. When the AV Parque Aluche was fined for organizing activities while “in process”, it requested specific dates, not generic accusations, since “the basic right of the accused is to know what they are being charged with” (16/VIII/1976). In a couple of instances, AVs refused to change their statutes according to the government’s demands, citing their compliance with the 1964 law (Alto Arenal and LuceroBatan), even though they must have known there was little chance of success. Whether ultimately successful or not, such legal wrangling kept government officials busy devising new arguments and responses

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that could justify specific refusal while maintaining the theoretical commitment to the structure of legal associations created by the state.

Conclusion The point of this detailed perusal of regime repression and its limits is to demonstrate, as in the case of the family associations, the contested but vibrant nature of the emerging civil society. For the Asociaciones de Vecinos, their access to civil society was limited by the regime’s repressive and restrictive measures, but not entirely closed off. For the family associations, most originated as part of a state-led campaign, but some went on to develop more functional autonomy. And in both cases, there is enough evidence of associational vitality, in terms of membership, levels of participation, and public activities, to make the case for a significant increase in both density and diversity. In sum, while there were certainly limits to the size, the vigor, and the public presence of the associations, the overall picture of growth and substantive independent activity across the two types of community associations allows us to speak of a new associational milieu that significantly expanded the parameters of civil society activity under the dictatorship, and as such, became important sites for the creation of new modes and languages of collective participation for ordinary Spaniards. Furthermore, what emerges from juxtaposing the two types of associations is a chronological “arc”, defined by a sustained mobilizing trend with two phases, beginning in the mid-1960s with the Family Associations and shifting to the Asociaciones de Vecinos in the early 1970s. From this perspective, the reconstruction of associational life in the late Franco regime looks quite different than a quick glance at the national Register of Associations might imply. This is not to deny that there was certainly a growing visibility in this mobilizing trend, as reflected in the “assemblyist” tendency to hold larger and more frequent public meetings toward the end of the dictatorship. But one might argue that what did explode in those years was precisely the visibility of the associational milieu, not the milieu itself. Instead of a rapid burst of mobilization sparked BY the transition, what emerges is a more sustained process that preceded and presumably constitutes part of the narrative of its origins.

3 Gender and the Role of Women in the Associational Milieu

This chapter explores the gendered parameters of the associational milieu, and their impact both on women’s participation and on contemporary and scholarly perceptions of women’s place in the associations. Women joined both the Asociaciones de Vecinos and the Family Associations (usually through the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa), and thus contributed to the vibrancy and diversity of the associational milieu. At the same time, their contribution has generally been ignored or marginalized, both by contemporary observers of the associations and in the later historiography. The goal of this chapter is to follow these two intersecting threads, one emphasizing the recovery of women’s participation in the milieu, and the other exploring the gendered frameworks that have obscured women’s agency in the revival of civil society and the grass-roots construction of citizenship practices. In the tension exposed by these interwoven narratives lays the contested gendered terrain of the associational milieu and, more broadly, of the origins of the democratic transition.

Introduction: Gender, citizenship and the equality/ difference paradox The theoretical challenge of framing women’s political agency is not unique to the Spanish case. Western European gender scholars have developed important insights into the problematic relationship in the modern period between women’s political participation and their recognition as political agents. As Joan Scott and others have argued, women’s access to civic organizing in the public sphere has been fraught with an unresolved paradox in the Western citizenship tradition between a collective identity based on their “difference” from men and one 109

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based on their “equality”.1 That is, when women are rendered as visible public actors through their assumed “difference” from men, they are marginalized from the “general” category of citizenship imbued with “universal” masculine qualities. On the other side of the conundrum, when women are integrated into the “general” category of citizens, acknowledged as “equal” to men within the universalist claims of the Enlightenment tradition, they become invisible, unable to make claims based on their status as “women”. In these “equal” contexts, “women’s issues” are usually viewed as secondary or even divisive obstacles to civic unity. As a result of this paradox, women’s participation in public affairs is either rendered invisible or problematically visible, whether in the contemporary discourse or in the later scholarly analyses. At the same time, both difference and equality frameworks provide opportunities as well as limits for women searching for channels of public expression. Feminist scholars have long wrestled with the difference/equality conundrum, and most seem to agree that only by transcending the polarity altogether—by acknowledging difference in equality or equality in difference—can the problematic category of female citizenship in democratic theory and practice be finally resolved, but this is still more of an aspiration than a reality even today. This difference/equality paradox helps explain the difficulty in framing women’s participation in the associational milieu of the late Franco regime, even though it did not operate within a liberal democratic framework. In fact, the two major channels through which women participated in the milieu, the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa (AAC) and the Asociaciones de Vecinos (AV) embody the opposing poles of the paradox. Thus, the AAC, first promoted by the Movimiento to complement its Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familia (ACF) neatly represents the model in which women participated as women. While this participation made these women perfectly visible in the contemporary family association discourse, it was clear that their “difference” placed them in an auxiliary and subordinate role. In the language of the family association flowchart, the Movimiento classified the ACF as “general” associations, while the AAC were grouped with associations of Familias Numerosas (Large Families), Subnormales (Parents of Disabled Children), and Padres de Alumnos (Parents of Students), as expressions of “special”, or particular, interests. The assumption that male heads of household (ACF) represented “general” interests, while amas de casa represented “particular” interests illustrates the “difference” conundrum in practice, since “general” goals are implicitly linked to the public good and thus the terrain of civic engagement, while “particular” goals are associated with

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the private sphere. Even within the family association discourse, then, the women’s associations were marked by a difference that made it difficult to integrate them into the larger project of civic participation that the Movimiento was promoting. For contemporary and later critics of the family association movement and the regime, the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa have been doubly marginalized, for their ideological association with the Movimiento, and for the gender difference that characterized their identity. In fact, in the anti-Francoist discourse, these two qualities have been implicitly conflated in a single framework. That is, the tendency to integrate women into the public sphere through gender difference was viewed by most anti-Francoists as a fundamental feature of the regime’s misogyny. And, of course, there is some truth to the observation that nonCommunist authoritarian regimes in the twentieth century espoused a return to a “traditionalist” ideology of “separate spheres” and patriarchal authority.2 From this perspective, the explicit patriarchal hierarchy of the family associations certainly was consistent with the conservative gender ideology of the regime. But at the same time that the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa exemplify how the conservative gender ideology of the authoritarian regime defined participation for women, I would argue that they also provide a more general example of the limits and opportunities for participation, what social movement theorists would call the “opportunity structure”, offered by separate women’s organizations. In other words, the AAC occupied one side of the broader difference/equality paradox that has defined the “Western citizenship tradition” since its inception. Put another way, the “difference” framework of the AAC was not simply a feature of the Franco regime and its ideology, but can be located in the ongoing tension that did not begin in 1939 or end in 1978. What this implies is, just as there can be no simple conflation between the “difference” framework and Francoist ideology, the “equality” framework was not inherently more “progressive” or democratic, as the anti-Francoist discourse often assumes. In reality, both frameworks were two sides of the same coin that has been tossed in the air over the last 200 years. The opportunity structure of the equality framework can be traced in the evolving gender discourse and practice of the Asociaciones de Vecinos, as it emerged in statute language, membership lists, and increasingly explicit internal discussions about women’s participation. In contrast to the family association movement, which had designated channels for men and women to join, the language of vecinos was at least theoretically gender neutral or “universal”. But this formal universalism only

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created other problems for women who wanted to participate. At first, the universalist language only served to mask what were de facto male organizations, as revealed by the early practice of enrolling one member per household. Thus, the gender neutrality of the statute language was at odds with the informal patriarchal norms by which the associations operated. But even as women obviously fought to join these associations, the gender neutral vecino language made them and their special interests largely invisible in the public face of the movement. When female members tried to address this invisibility through the formation of special “women’s sections” in the Asociaciones de Vecinos, they merely internalized the paradox by implying that “women’s” issues were separate from the “general” ones addressed by the main association. During the Transition, women frustrated with the perceived secondary status of the women’s sections within the AVs often went on to form or join feminist groups, but at the cost of even greater marginalization within the “general” citizen movement.3 Other antiFrancoist women activists turned their energies to joining and co-opting Asociaciones de Amas de Casa from their Movimiento-inspired origins, which further complicated the ideological linkage between “difference” mobilizing and anti-progressive politics. However, in the mainstream democratic discourse of the transition, the “difference” mobilizing of feminists or radical homemakers, on the one side of the political spectrum, and conservative homemakers on the other side, were both dismissed as privileging special interests over the public good. At the same time as the position of women in the AV and the AAC illustrates the contradictions of gender and citizenship identity in the Western tradition, on a more practical level both types of associations did become important sites where Spanish women could take part in collective civic activity, learn new participatory practices, and be exposed to public debates about the role of women in society.4 Some individual Asociaciones de Vecinos did pay increasing attention to incorporating women, some of whom were able to take on leadership roles, educate themselves about civic issues, and participate in neighborhood meetings and protests. On the other hand, the “woman-centered” AAC movement provided one of the few collective spaces for a broad discussion of the role of women in society and public life, as well as a channel into civic life for many women who may never have joined either a “political” or a “general” association. As one article in an AAC bulletin put it, many of their members had never attended a lecture, voted in an assembly, or read a newspaper before joining their association.5 In other words, both types of associations became sites in which Spanish women,

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like their male counterparts, could begin to construct the parameters of their own democratic citizenship. The challenge of “recovering” women’s participation in these two types of associations requires different strategies in each case. For the Asociaciones de Vecinos, women’s invisibility in a universalistic egalitarian discourse makes it difficult to document their level of participation and its impact on their citizen identities. In this case, women’s presence or lack of it must be teased out and read between the lines of a vecinal discourse that did not recognize gender difference as a relevant category. In contrast, there is plenty of documentation in the family association discourse about the presence and activities of women in the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa. In addition to a wealth of internal Movimiento correspondence about the operation of the AAC within the family movement, contemporary local and provincial newspapers provided public coverage of the goals, activities, and scope of the associations. Despite this mass of contemporary documentation, the conservative AAC were treated as secondary associations within the family movement and have been ignored by subsequent scholars looking for the origins of the democratic transition. The challenge to incorporate women’s participation in the AAC into the larger story of an emerging milieu of civic associations is different, then, from that of women in the AV. While in the latter case the historian has to uncover women’s presence in a generally recognized storyline, in the former the issue is to create a storyline, or an interpretive framework, to give meaning to the mass of unprocessed information. The only Asociaciones de Amas de Casa that have been somewhat incorporated into the broader transition storyline are the anti-Francoist associations, recognized for their political opposition to the dictatorship.6 These associations should indeed be fully recognized in the history of the opposition, and examined for the ways in which subversive groups utilized legal channels to mobilize under the dictatorship. From the perspective of women’s history, it is also legitimate to identify the beginnings and development of feminist mobilization as it coincided with the broader political transition. At the same time, the histories of the antiFrancoist opposition or of the feminist movement are only two strands of the more diffuse story being plotted here, of the emergence of a pluralist associational milieu that exposed men and women to new discourses and practices of civic participation, which in turn contributed to the construction of new citizen identities and the foundation of a broadly democratic political culture. It is on the terrain of these broader practices and civic discourses that both types of AACs, as well as the

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AVs, can be analytically juxtaposed, within the overarching gendered framework of the difference/equality paradox.

Invisible citizens: Women in the Asociaciones de Vecinos Within the paradox of difference/equality, the challenge of “recovering” women’s participation within the “equality” paradigm is precisely their invisibility. In the case of the Asociaciones de Vecinos, both contemporary observers and later scholars have generally taken the gender neutral language of the vecino protagonist literally, which has rendered gender identity irrelevant to the story of these associations. However, a closer look at associational practice at the grass-roots level suggests not only that “women were there” but that women must have been fighting to incorporate themselves and their issues into the milieu. Thus, from the first associations of the early 1960s, which informally excluded women, it is possible to trace a progressive incorporation of women in many individual associations as well as a growing attention to women’s issues and the broader question of their “marginalization” in Spanish society, especially after 1975. While it is difficult to trace the precise origins of this shift, the activist core of women who must have been at the forefront of pushing the boundaries had access not only to the equality-based gender ideology of Marxism, but increasingly to broader Western feminist ideas.7 These ideas provided the theoretical tools to expose the patriarchal gender ideology that operated beneath the surface of the vecinal discourse. However, within the milieu of the AVs, the tension between the formal (and often unstated) assumption of gender equality and the informal struggle over the incorporation of women created a contradictory space for female empowerment, defined by the limits and opportunities of joining “universalist” associations as “equal” partners. Incorporating women into the AV’s: Wives or vecinas? When the Asociaciones de Vecinos were first established in the mid-1960s, the “equal” inclusion of women was clearly not on the agenda of the male founders, hardly surprising in the context of the Franco regime’s traditionalist gender ideology. Thus, the generic neutrality of an association of vecinos thinly disguised the informal reality that women were simply not expected to become members. Thus, most neighborhood associations established in the 1960s followed the precedent set by the homeowner associations to represent each household rather than each

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individual. For example, in the statutes of the AV Barrio Estrella (1960), which restricted membership to vecinos, it was stated that there were 240 vecinos, which corresponded to one vecino/head of household per housing unit. In the membership list submitted with the statutes, there were only a handful of women, probably widows. Likewise, in the AV Colonia Manzanares, the membership list included 35 women out of 210 founding members, and in Barrio “Los Rosales”, there were 7 women out of 241.8 There were exceptions, like the Colonia Diego Velázquez, which had a large number of women among its 1281 members, some of whom shared addresses with male members, demonstrating they were not “heads of household”, but this was rare in the 1960s. Thus, while there was no formal gender hierarchy in the AVs as there was in the Movimiento family associations, in practice most of the early AVs effectively conflated vecino with (male) “head of household”. As a result, both types of associations effectively operated within the same gender norms, despite the differences in the formal membership language. Evidence of women struggling against this implicit conflation emerges in the early 1970s, but it apparently continued to define “membership practices” in many associations. In 1969, the AV San Blas became the first of several Madrid associations to explicitly define “membership” as open to “vecinos of either sex”.9 Most of the AV statutes developed later opted for a “universal”/invisible formulation that defined “membership” as open to all “adults” who resided in the barrio. Unfortunately there are not enough surviving membership lists of AV in the Madrid Register to ascertain how many women took advantage of this gender-neutral language to join. There may have been a generational element to women’s propensity to become members, as suggested in a story about the origins of the AV Palomeras Bajas (1969) and Hortaleza (1974), which were formed, according to the article, by “young married couples”.10 However, in an interview later that year with AV leader Cristina Sobrino, she admitted that in “many” of the AV only one family member, usually the father, were formal members of the associations.11 Even when women did become members, at first male leaders seemed to see their role through the lens of the patriarchal structures of Francoist gender ideology. Thus, most of the references to women in associational bulletins framed their contribution as “wives” of vecinos rather than vecinas. For example, when the AV Ciudad San Pablo inserted a “women’s page” into its bulletin starting in November of 1974, it was identical to those that appeared in ACF bulletins, containing recipes, child-rearing and economizing tips, embroidery, and patterns for sewing. Similarly, one of the few specific references to

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women in the activities of the AV Zappora was a May 1973 meeting convoking “mothers of small children” to organize a summer camp. And when the AV Barrio Concepción became one of the first associations to form a “women’s section”, the governing board (junta) defined its function in terms of “charitable activities, in collaboration with the parish”. Whether most female members accepted or contested this role is hard to document. In this case, however, the female representative of the new women’s section in the Barrio Concepción penned her own version of its mission, which was “not just to aid the Junta but to make the presence of women in the Junta stronger and stronger, to demonstrate our capacity so that one day in the not too distant future we can take charge”.12 However, there is little evidence that this challenge was taken up by the leadership of most of the AVs, at least before 1976. Until then, the concept of including women as equal partners appears only sporadically in associational documents. Female members’ explicit demands for equal incorporation become increasingly visible in statutes and programs developed after 1975, influenced, no doubt, by the growing presence of feminist ideas among progressive women.13 The AV San Blas was one of the first to articulate the “participation of women” as an explicit goal in 1973, but it was more the exception than the rule. The internal debate within this association can be tracked by the evolving language passed by the general assembly which, in 1974, became the “integration of women” and in 1975 the need to “create a women’s section”. Later evidence of the growing traction of this issue includes the AV Parque Aluche’s placement of the “marginalization of women” on its list of nine issues,14 and the AV Carcabas-San Antonio’s creation of a new commission for the “promotion of women” in June 1977. And, on the agenda of the “Citizen Week” sponsored by the Provincial Federation of AVs, as well as the dissident Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, “disinterest of the authorities towards the situation of women” was included among a list of other neglected groups, from young people to the elderly and the subnormal.15 More specifically, the AV Carabanchel Bajo planned to form a girls’ basketball team in order to “encourage the participation of women in the sporting world” and in all youth activities.16

The vocalias de mujeres: The difference/equality conundrum internalized By late 1976 and 1977, however, the most common strategy for combating the marginalization of women in the AVs was to create a women’s

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section, or vocalía. While at first the effort to create vocalías de mujeres was organized by women in individual AVs, activists formed provincial coordinating bodies, in Barcelona (1976) and then later Madrid (1977), to bring these local women’s groups into contact with each other and devise a global approach to the incorporation of women. In Madrid, the founding provincial organization, the Coordinadora de Vocalías de Mujeres de AAVV de Madrid comprised vocalías from 14 AVs.17 Significantly, the women’s sections remained largely invisible in the mainstream press’ coverage of the AVs, so most of the public information about them comes from the feminist publications Vindicación and (in Catalan) Dones en lluite.18 It is not surprising that writers at these publications would be interested in the “women’s sections” as potential sites of feminist organizing. Certainly AVs with women’s sections were more likely to organize women-identified, and even explicitly feminist activities. In Madrid, the AV Palomeras Sureste, whose female members formed a “women’s commission” (comisión de mujeres) in June 1975, began, in 1977, to organize activities directed specifically toward the “cultural development” of women. In justifying the association’s attention to the “terrain of women” (el campo de la mujer), one member claimed that women were a key sector in the “community development” of the barrio. As part of this program, the women’s commission was planning talks on nutrition, child psychology, sex, birth control, and the legal situation of women.19 Likewise, the AV Leganés, which constituted a Sección de Amas de Casa in 1975, organized a cycle of talks on la mujer, which included “Women and Family”, “Women and Culture”, “Women and Work”, and “Women and Sex”. The women’s sections also opened the space for female members to introduce the topic of rape and sexual violence against women into the community discourse of the Asociaciones de Vecinos. Thus, the vocalía of the AV Sarrià, in Barcelona, organized a campaign against rape that included a petition to the municipality demanding better streetlights and policing, and public posters urging women to report incidents to the vocalía. The vocalía was also poised to open a family planning center which was to offer free services to all women of the barrio.20 A similar anti-rape campaign, for the “integrity of women in the barrios”, was mounted by the women’s section of the AV Llaranés in Avilés in early 1977, in response to the attempted rape of a local woman and the passivity of police in pursuing the case.21 And yet, while the vocalías de mujeres seemed to represent a victory for women who had been struggling for more substantive inclusion in the

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AVs, not all female members were satisfied. In fact, the vocalías became the object of a serious debate among women activists, both inside and outside the associations, who argued about the purpose they should serve for women, as well as their relationship to the larger citizen movement. On one side, there were the self-identified radical feminists who worried that women’s issues could never be the full focus of the vocalía as long as it was subordinate to an association that did not prioritize them, that is the AV.22 For them, the vocalía could only be justified if it kept its energies focused on the liberation of women instead of falling into the “trap” of working on general barrio issues like childcare centers, cost of living, or parks and playgrounds, which, from their perspective, were female-identified but not strictly feminist issues. Thus, in one Catalan AV in El Carmelo, the female members had originally created a vocalía focused on the high cost of living, but later concluded that they had conflated this general issue with their “personal problematic”, which was their repression as women.23 For some women, this realization led to the abandonment of the AVs and their women’s sections altogether, in favor of one of the radical feminist organizations that were forming around the same time. In the AV Sant Andreu (Barcelona), for example, many women who had initially formed the vocalía de mujeres left in 1978 to establish an independent organization, the Casal de la Dona, which still collaborated with the AV but operated autonomously.24 Similarly, one member of the women’s organization, Asociación Catalana de la Dona, explained to a reporter how many women had become frustrated with the vocalías and wanted a clear feminist alternative. The vocalías, she argued, were part of the citizen movement, and both in practice and in their dependence on the AVs, were not feminist organizations but were immersed in the social problems of the barrios.25 For these radical feminist activists, then, the vocalías were not sufficiently focused on women’s liberation, since they had to frame women’s issues within the larger community struggle of the AVs. While they did not use the language of the difference/equality conundrum, the tension between being absorbed into general or universal struggles that rendered women invisible and segregated organizations that could prioritize women’s issues while marginalizing them was clearly visible. The radical feminists chose the option of segregation, insisting on autonomous organizations focused exclusively on women’s liberation. But the price they paid for situating themselves on the “difference” end of the conundrum was general hostility or indifference from the mainstream democratic press, which generally portrayed the feminist

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movement as outside the emerging “citizen movement”.26 While the feminists had their own voice in small publications like Vindicación, it was the mainstream El País that defined for most Spaniards at the time the more “general” story of the transition.27 Despite the feminists’ position on the opposite end of the political spectrum from the conservative AAC, they occupied the same “difference” terrain, represented as concerned with “special interests” that did not fit the more “universal” claims of the citizen movement. While the benefit of the “difference” position was the focus on “women’s issues”, the flip side was perceived marginalization from the “general” struggle. In contrast to the radical feminist perspective on the vocalias as inadequately focused on women’s issues, other female activists welcomed the opportunity to incorporate women into the broader struggle of the citizen movement. For these activists, who were often affiliated with Marxist-inspired political parties and/or the Movimiento Democrático de Mujeres (MDM), the problems of the barrios, the lack of childcare centers, schools, the need for public lighting and hospitals, and even the unrepresentative nature of the municipal governments were ideal issues to draw women into the larger struggle against the dictatorship.28 “Our experience”, declared the MDM periodical Mujeres Democráticas (IX/78), “is that when women participate in large numbers in the vocalías, they can achieve important improvements for the barrio.” In this left-wing discourse, the neighborhood or barrio replaced the class as the object toward which all efforts should be focused, and (implicitly proletarian) men and women would work together to improve its material, social, and cultural conditions. While the women’s sections would be “places that women would feel at home, and in which they could learn about their problems and their origins”, assured the author of the article, the focus was incorporating them into the general “barrio” struggle. Once again, while these activists didn’t frame their argument in terms of the difference/equality paradox, they effectively articulated the “equality” position in their dispute with the radical feminists. The problem with this strategy for “equal” incorporation into the barrio struggle was often resistance from male party and AV leaders, some of whom viewed the mere existence of “women’s sections” as divisive or threatening. In a dynamic that has characterized the modern “left” since its inception in the French Revolution, there was a constant tension between a formal recognition of women as equal comrades and the fear that pursuing this equality would distract from or undermine the common struggle. In this iteration, since the MDM’s formation in 1965 by mostly Communist Party women, it had faced

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significant hostility from the party hierarchy, and its growing attention to “feminist” issues was at first pursued in spite of, not encouraged by, many party leaders. Beyond individual resistance, the more fundamental problem in the communist tradition was recognizing women’s issues within a theoretical framework based on the idea of a unified common struggle. For many party women, the solution to this dilemma, elaborated within the MDM and elsewhere, was what became known as “double militancy”, which recognized a dual commitment to feminism and the broader political struggle. However, this solution didn’t really resolve the dilemma of equality vs. difference, but simply acknowledged the epistemological distinction between the two types of struggles. The point is that both positions in the debate over women’s sections in the AVs confronted a frustrating set of contradictions on the best way to integrate women into what were, by 1976, becoming the most recognized channels of popular participation in the transition.

Women’s participation in the AVs So how did women negotiate these contradictions in their day-to-day participation in the associations? While in most cases it is difficult to document this grass-roots experience, the existing evidence points to a specifically gendered opportunity structure that limited female members’ potential role in some contexts but expanded it in others. In one of the rare case studies on the gender dynamics of an association, anthropologist Britt-Marie Thuren undertook an ethnographic study in one AV in Valencia in the early 1980s that explored the de facto gender hierarchies in its everyday operation.29 Thus, while assemblies and meetings were usually attended by equal numbers of men and women, Thuren found that men monopolized three-fourths of the debate time. And even though a woman had been elected President in 1982, she spoke little at meetings and was treated dismissively by the male board members, who called her a “hysteric” and a “scolding mother” whenever she tried to assert her authority. Thuren identified what she called several “techniques of domination” that kept women marginalized in the internal operation of the association. These included: “invisibility” (invisibilización), in which women’s interventions were simply ignored, “ridicule” (ridiculización), in which women’s opinions were trivialized with jokes, “hiding information” (ocultación de información), in which knowledge was exchanged in male spaces, and “double jeopardy” (castizo doble), in which women were made to feel guilty for “abandoning” their children to attend a women’s section meeting, but

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treated as slackers if they refused to accept more responsibilities in the association because of their domestic duties. Thus, despite the formal equal incorporation of women into the association, there was an informal subordination based on existing patriarchal cultural norms and attitudes. One might even suggest that the formal adoption of the equality paradigm made it harder to identify and confront the informal hierarchies of a traditionalist gender system. At the same time, Thuren’s analysis illustrates how the formal presumption of a common “universal” agenda made it harder for women to legitimate “different” perspectives on everyday barrio issues. In one example, Thuren tells the story of a campaign to build a playground in the barrio, which at first both men and women supported. However, when male representatives of the AV met with the city council, the latter convinced them that the playground was not the highest priority, given that there was already one in the neighboring barrio, as well as a garden on the outskirts of the city. When the representatives reported this decision to the women of the association, the women were furious, since they felt that walking small children to the neighboring park was dangerous and impractical along narrow, busy roads. The men’s response was ridicule, teasing the women for their laziness and misplaced anxieties, suggesting that the playground was no more than an excuse for them to sit around all day and chat with their friends. What this anecdote reveals is a context in which “differences” articulated by women were dismissed as marginal to the more “general” problems facing the community, as defined by the men. But women’s “differences” also created gendered opportunities for participation. Thus, it seems clear that women’s intimate knowledge of barrio issues, as well as the greater flexibility of their daily schedule, made them key participants in many protests and mobilizations organized by the AVs. While there is not enough documentation on the sex of participants to draw definitive conclusions, the feminist press often claimed that women played a central role in associational life, especially in activities organized during working hours. For example, an AV President in Barcelona30 explained in one interview that more women than men attended protests at the Ministries, in part because they didn’t work. Similarly, in Madrid, AV leader Cristina Sobrino insisted that “it is women who flock to the Ministries while their husbands have to go to work”, and added that she could provide “hundreds” of cases in which women took the initiative, with more combativeness than men, in barrio protests.31 Another story, of an enclosure/sit-in (encierro) by 200 “men, women and children”, organized by the AV in Orcasur to protest

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the inadequacy of the housing plan for the neighborhood, highlighted a supporting demonstration of some 400 vecinos, “mostly women”.32 While not explicitly framed in the same way in the non-feminist press, references to women’s participation in grass-roots AV-organized protests can be easily found. Thus, when the AV Valdeacederas presented a petition to the municipal government demanding running water for the barrio, 100 vecinos, “mostly women”, accompanied the (female) President.33 And, in a demonstration organized by the AV Getafe against the location of the planned retirement home, the President met with the Mayor while “150 women” waited outside.34 Likewise, when the AV Aranjuez launched a plan for the AV to sell cheap bread, it was “various amas de casa” who helped unload the truck, despite the presence of city officials who attempted to prevent the sale.35 While such stories provide only anecdotal evidence, the greater propensity of women to get involved in very local issues, especially those that affect their caregiving responsibilities, has been amply demonstrated by scholars since Temma Kaplan’s classic article on “female consciousness”.36 What is specific to this story is the question of how and when this propensity was channeled through the new organizational framework of the AV. What the existing evidence suggests is that it was an imperfect but sometimes functional channel for women to get involved in civic issues, especially those related to their immediate neighborhood surroundings. The advantage of mobilizing through the local AV was that it could provide structure and organization, as well as a place in which women could become educated about the “big picture” of barrio problems beyond the immediate issue at hand. It also provided them with the status and voice that incorporation into “universal/equal” movements offers. But at the same time, women’s choice to participate through the AVs often meant being mobilized around “general” agendas and issues defined by male leaders, who continued in most cases to control the decision-making apparatus of the associations. In this context, women could participate as individuals within a larger struggle, but not as a recognized collective with parallel or even competing agendas. The description in the one account of “100 vecinos, mostly women” makes clear that, within the “equality paradigm”, the majority participation of women did not alter its categorization as a vecino protest, in which the gender identity of the specific participants was functionally irrelevant to the story the journalist was telling. Furthermore, because the gender identity was irrelevant within the formal equality of the associations, it was more difficult for women to confront the informal reality

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of everyday inequality and hierarchy in the Francoist gender system. Equally important, as Thuren’s case study of the 1980s suggests, the formal commitment to equality may have been an obstacle preventing the Asociaciones de Vecinos from directly confronting the cultural and social manifestations of the traditionalist gender system after the regime that promoted it had ended. The point is that, the existing evidence on women’s day-to-day activities within the AV milieu reveals a classic gendered opportunity structure, in which women’s participation was shaped by the unresolved trade-offs of the difference/equality conundrum.

Women in leadership roles in the AVs Beyond these female masses, the “equality paradigm” made room for exceptional individual women to emerge as “players” in the AVs, taking leadership roles in their associations and even becoming important figures in the citizen movement, often after fighting initial resistance from male colleagues. Thus, the aforementioned Cristina Sobrino, who eventually rose to be one of the leading spokespersons of the citizen movement in Madrid, admitted that at first she felt opposition to her leadership in the Provincial Federation, and that she had to serve on the Junta for 2 years before she was made VP.37 Likewise, María Angeles Rivas, President of the AV Nueve Barrios, one of the most active in Barcelona, acknowledged in an interview that “at first it was hard. I remember one assembly (in 1972) with a hundred or so men and I was the only woman. When I asked where were their women, one said ‘this was men’s work’ ” (cosa de hombres). However, several years later, not only had Rivas become President of the AV, but she insisted that women had become the “vanguard of the urban struggle”, and that in the commissions and meetings women were now in the majority.38 Another female president, Carmen Algora, of the AV Valdezara, in Madrid, confessed that being a woman president had caused some problems because for some it had been hard to accept the “incorporation of women into life and into the struggle for just demands”. Nevertheless, she added, “they get over it”.39 A few months later, Algora was one of the leaders arrested at the “Day of Struggle” organized by the opposition coalition, Coordinación Democrática, but was freed with her 17-year-old daughter several days later, after the AV organized an “enclosure” in the local parish protesting their arrest.40 While these women were clearly extraordinary, the lists of elected juntas in the Madrid Register of Associations provide some evidence

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that other individual women came to play increasingly prominent roles within their associations. Thus, in the AV Alcalá de Henares—Distrito Universidad, three of the six founders were women, and two of these appear on the first Junta in October 1973, including the President. After the next election, in February 1975, the number of women on the Junta increased to seven, while in February 1976, several of these new women became President, VP, Secretary, and Treasurer. This president, Pilar Lledó, was featured in the same series of El País interviews in May 1976 of the AV “Leaders of Madrid” that included Carmen Algora. Another example of a key female leader was the President of the AV Covadonga from 1969–1972. At the founding assembly in October 1969, she was one of the main speakers, making the case for an AV, and in the statute discussion she suggested that every meeting’s agenda should include a “petitions and questions” segment to allow participation from the members. After her election as President in November of 1969, she gave a speech outlining her ideas on where the AV should be heading, and in 1972 at the end of her mandate, she was the one who helped work out an acceptable formula for transitioning to a new Junta on which she continued to serve as VP. Clearly, in these cases either individual women had managed to get themselves taken seriously through their own efforts and abilities, or these were associations whose gender culture was more flexible than in Thuren’s case study. Beyond the small number of women presidents,41 a minority of women were also elected to other leadership positions. Thus, of the 90 AV files consulted in the Madrid Register, about a third of them contain evidence of the election of women to their junta at some point.42 While there is no single story, several patterns do emerge. Thus, the first pattern involves an upward trajectory, in which the juntas of the 1960s and early 1970s are all male, and the first women appear in 1976 or 1977, and even sometimes as President, usually later in the mid- or late 1980s.43 Thus, in the AV Moratalaz, a woman was first elected secretary in 1977, while by 1984 six of the ten junta members were women. In the AV Juan de Covas in Alcorcón, the first woman was elected in 1982, while the next year six of the eight officers were female. The AV San Blas, which had only a female secretary from 1972 to 1977 (despite its precocious creation of a women’s section in 1973), elected women to a third of its 21 member junta in 1978. And in Palomeras Sureste, a female vocal appeared in 1976, followed by a secretary in 1977, and finally a woman president in 1978 and 1982. This pattern would suggest a social and cultural evolution that paralleled the political transition, one which led

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toward greater acceptance of female leadership in “general” associations, although still limited to a minority of individuals. There were other cases, however, that lacked a clear upward trajectory, perhaps reflecting a more random selection of individuals, some of whom happened to be women.44 In this category are also those that elected the odd woman once or twice. The last pattern, admittedly a minority of the cases, are those in which women constituted a consistent and significant percentage of the juntas from the outset.45 This final paradigm suggests that at least some associations were already on the way to establishing the kind of “gender neutral” space that Britt-Marie Thuren found in the later stages, in the 1990s.46 Thus, the consistent election of women to leadership positions suggests a context in which vecinas as a group, as opposed to extraordinary individuals, were as likely as vecinos to be viewed as competent leaders. What do we know about the path that led all of these individual women to occupy leadership roles in the AVs? While the spotty demographic information on age, marital status, and profession that accompanied lists of junta members does not allow for definitive conclusions, interesting “profiles” do emerge among the diverse group of women who held elected office. What these profiles suggest is that most female leaders in the AVs were not “average” vecinas who worked their way up through the ranks, but individuals with significant political and social capital, either in terms of education and professional standing, or of previous political experience. While many male participants who became association leaders may have shared some of these characteristics, it makes sense that women needed extra capital to become leaders in this “equality” environment. One classic portrait of the female AV activist was the young, unmarried woman. While there were also men who fit this profile, the women seemed more likely to be young and single than were their male counterparts, perhaps because of the greater difficulty women with families had negotiating the “triple burden” of home, work, and politics. Thus, the two women among the six founders of the AV Alto Arenal were the only “singles” among the group, both of them nurses in their 20s. Similarly, the two females on the founding 15 member junta of the AV Villa Rosa were the only unmarried members. In addition, most of these young, unmarried women were either students or manual workers, like one of the founders of the AV Tetuán in 1975, born in 1950 and a student, or the single metallurgical worker who was on the first junta of the AV Colonia Los Almendrales. Like many men who fit this profile, these young students and workers had probably become

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politicized either through the labor movement or at university. For them, it seems unlikely that their introduction to political activism was the AV, although it may have been their first opportunity to participate in public, rather than clandestine, civic organizing. Moreover, one could also surmise that it was this previous political experience that helped prepare them for leadership positions in the AV. Another profile for female AV activists was of older women, often married but also professionals or intellectuals. Thus, both Cristina Sobrino and Pilar Lledó of the AV Alcala de Henares—Universidad were teachers, as was one of the founders of the AV Hortaleza and a member of the AV San Blas junta in 1976. Likewise, two of the female junta members of the AV Valverde in 1976 were a lawyer and a physicist, three women founders of the AV Ciudad Residencial Santa Eugenia were professors and a chemist, and the first female junta member in Barrio Concepción in 1966 was a civil servant. For these women, it seems likely that their education and professional credentials helped them be taken seriously, but in addition, professionals such as teachers and lawyers were more likely to have been politicized through such organizations as the Mujeres Juristas or the Mujeres Universitarias.47 A less frequent profile was of older women who were either homemakers or manual laborers, although there are cases. Thus, the two women on the junta of the AV Palomeras Bajas in 1972 were both homemakers, born in 1927 and 1913. An instance that stands out as unusual for an AV is Cadalso de los Vidrios, whose first President was an ama de casa born in 1911, while the other three women founders were also amas, all born before 1918. This demographic profile was more likely to be found on the junta of an Asociación de Amas de Casa than of an AV, especially given the middle- and upper middle-class composition of many of the conservative homemaker associations. Another unusual profile is that of the older manual laborer, personified by Carmen Algora, who had six children, never graduated from elementary school, and spent her life working at various manual jobs, from seamstress to typist.48 Algora’s biography probably comes closer than most of the other profiles to the “average” vecina in a working-class neighborhood. Aside from unusual cases like Algora’s, the general patterns suggest that it was not the “average” vecina, but women who, through education or previous political experience, were able to move up the ranks in the AVs. From this perspective, the story of Maruja Ruiz, who recounted how her joining the AV in her barrio led to her being recruited by the Catalan Communist Party (PSUC) and becoming a labor organizer seems to be the reverse of the normal trajectory.49 In any case, the fact that both

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her father and husband were activists in the PSUC did not make her an “average” vecina when she joined the AV. The point is that those women who became leaders in the AV seem to have been propelled by previous participatory experiences rather than nurtured into leadership roles from within the association. Further evidence for this hypothesis can be found in the significant number of junta women with antecedentes or political records, discovered in police background checks.50 Thus, an investigation into the founders of one Madrid AV revealed that two of the six women had been members of left-wing organizations before the Civil War, the Communist party (PCE) in one case and the Socialist Youth Organization (JSU) in the other. The first later served time in jail for activities against the regime, while the other was arrested in 1945 and again in 1961 for Communist activity. In another case, a female junta member had been arrested with her husband for “aid to the Rebellion” during the Civil War, and was kept in prison until 1946. Yet another female founder had spent 4 months in prison in 1945 for “Marxist activities”. Given the younger age of most of the female leaders, these Civil War era records were unusual, but others had been arrested or noticed for illegal or subversive activities since then. Thus, one 26-year-old founder of an AV had been fined in December 1973 for singing unauthorized songs in the parish cultural center, while another 23-year-old pharmacist had been detained in December 1975 in an “enclosure” protesting university conditions in Valladolid. Two more 23-year olds, an office worker and a university graduate, had been arrested for distribution of illegal propaganda in 1970. Likewise, an AV President and VP who were investigated because they were among a delegation bringing food to prisoners were identified as belonging to the illegal trade unions (CCOO), while a 21-year-old student had been arrested in December 1975 for inciting construction workers to strike. In addition, several of the prominent women in the movement were publically identified with political groups, like Cristina Sobrino, who was a member of the Provincial Commission of the Organización Revolucionaria de Trabajadores (ORT)51 as well as the Unión para la Liberación de la Mujer,52 or María Angeles Rivas (AV Nueve Barrios), who recounted in an interview that she had joined the Movimiento Democrático de Mujeres ( MDM) in 1971, and Julia Herranz, President of the AV Moratalaz in 1975, who was linked with the “Christian communities”.53 Whether all of these women joined an AV to escape repression in the more openly subversive movements, or to infiltrate and politicize the AVs, they were exceptional for their active

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participation in the opposition to the Franco regime. At the same time, they also brought with them activist skills and commitments that would have propelled them—as individuals—into leadership roles when they joined an AV. What all of this admittedly sketchy documentation on women’s participation in the AVs suggests is a contradictory space, in which extraordinary individual women could rise to leadership positions, but some female members thought they needed special “women’s sections” to get their collective issues on the table. There is also evidence of a clear evolution, from the early associations, dominated by male leaders who never even imagined women as equal partners, to an increasingly visible presence of women claiming equality as the progressive and democratic point of reference. But the struggles over the women’s sections illustrate that there was no simple path from Francoist “difference” to democratic “equality”, and that both the men and women of the associations would have to face the same unresolvable conundrum themselves.

Problematic citizens: Women in the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa In contrast to women’s struggles for incorporation and recognition in the Asociaciones de Vecinos, the AAC was by definition a collective female space, populated and directed by women. But for most observers at the time, this fact rendered the space irrelevant to any story of civic participation. Within the Movimiento discourse of the time, the AAC were acknowledged, but more as sites of sociability for amas than as civic associations on a par with the Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familia (ACF). For the anti-Francoist scholars, the AAC have been dismissed as significant sites of civic participation, both because of their ideological affiliation with the regime and because of the specific traditionalist implications of the homemaker ideal of female identity. Finally, as with the other Movimiento associations, anti-Francoist scholars have assumed either that the AAC were empty shells, or that they were no more than cogs in the vertical Movimiento hierarchy, another extension of the authoritarian state whose purpose was to keep women oppressed in their traditional roles. Playing the key role of enforcer in this narrative was the Francoist women’s organization, the Sección Femenina (SF), which was presumed to exercise extensive control over the AAC. Following the logic of this narrative, the AAC would have lacked both the autonomy and the vitality to qualify as part of the associational milieu.

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In order to insert women’s participation in the AAC within the story of evolving civic engagement, this section seeks to demonstrate that, at least some of these associations, like their other family association counterparts, transcended their “top-down” origins and developed a vibrant public life, operating in at least partial autonomy from the state. Thus, while the SF as well as the Movimiento were key promoters of the AAC, their authority in the ongoing operations was limited, and the vitality of the individual association depended, once again, on its local leaders and members. In addition, of course, there were a handful of dissident AAC that operated completely outside these hierarchies. The picture that emerges is not that of a tightly integrated vertical hierarchy but of a realm of shifting boundaries, significant autonomy, surprising pluralism, and internecine struggles which should be considered part of the emerging civil society at the center of this book.

Scope and regional distribution of the AAC The Asociaciones de Amas de Casa (AAC) originated as part of the family association project developed by the Movimiento in the mid-1960s, although they were clearly a secondary priority in the general scheme. Consistent with the distinction between the “general” ACF and the other “specific” associations, the Movimiento officials directed their initial energies in 1963–65 toward establishing the “general” associations. Thus, it was not until 1966 that the first AAC appeared in the national Movimiento register. Over the next couple of years, 17 provincial associations were created, which became the founding members of the Federación Nacional de Amas de Casa (FNAC), constituted on October 26, 1968. By 1971, the Federation claimed to have 42 affiliated provincial associations, although only 24 were represented at the general assembly held in December of that year.54 The organizing drive seems to have peaked in the early 1970s, since the total membership, both in terms of individual members and in terms of provincial associations, did not increase dramatically after this.55 The activities of local branches are more difficult to track, but one 1977 article claimed 250 of them scattered around the nation.56 As with the other Movimiento associations, the distribution of individual members was uneven, reflecting the vitality or the specific context of each association. While there is no comprehensive breakdown of membership, documentation on initial membership figures in 1967–1968 for some provinces gives a sense of the range (Table 3.1).57 And evidence of the expansion of the associations over the next several

130 Making Democratic Citizens in Spain Table 3.1 Membership in Asociaciones de Amas de Casa in Spain 1967–1968 Alicante 1000 Almeria 250 Baleares 300 Barcelona 500 Burgos 350 Lugo 250 Madrid 1600 Orense 100 Palencia 75 Santander 225 Santiago de C. 135 Teruel 252 Valencia 307 Leon Granada 400 Coruna Ceuta Malaga Murcia Oviedo Tenerife Guipuzcoa Cadiz Tarragona

1974 (SF congress) 1,527 600 1,258 12,000 (1975) 645 150

466 380 3,936 1,180 1,700 1,500 1,350 1,035 2,000 3,657 3,000 500 500 610

years can be found in the documentation presented at the national congress of the Sección Femenina (SF) in Logroño in 1974, which listed 11 associations with more than 1000 members and another 5 with greater than 500, not including 2 of the biggest associations, in Madrid and Barcelona.58 The latter association, titled Amas de Hogar rather than Amas de Casa, was founded by 19 women in 1966, and claimed 12,000 members by the end of 1975.59 The Madrid association has a more complicated growth trajectory, since it began as a “national” association that opened local branches around the country, which increased its membership to about 4,000 by 1969. This number had fallen to 1,700 by 1975, probably as a result of the reduction of the association’s geographical scope. In addition to these larger associations, the SF records list another 21 provincial associations with less than 500 members. In general terms, while growth can only be accurately measured in the handful of associations that appear in both columns of Table 3.1, the upward trajectory is clear.

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The origins of the AAC: A “top-down” campaign of the SF and Movimiento However varied the path of each association once constituted, it is clear that, in common with other Movimiento associations, most originated from a “top-down” campaign rather than grass-roots initiative. The difference is that the AAC were promoted—sometimes separately and at other times in collaboration—by two Francoist institutions, the Movimiento and the Sección Femenina (SF). The involvement of the SF was partly due to their assumed monopoly over all things female within the gender difference framework of the Franco regime, but it also fit the SF’s evolving strategy to incorporate more women into their movement. At first the SF’s involvement was more individual than institutional, in terms of the collaboration of its provincial representatives in getting AAC off the ground, but later the SF national leadership incorporated the associations into their broader agenda. In the mid-1960s, the Delegado Nacional de Asociaciones (DNA) initiated the organizing campaign, encouraging the provincial delegates (DP) to promote AAC in their provinces, either on their own or with the help of the SF provincial leaders.60 The leader of the DNA (DN) also intended to establish a national federation, as soon as enough provincial associations were formed, he wrote in April 1967.61 The Federation (FNAC) was constituted on October 9, 1968, given that, according to the preamble of the new statutes, “the homemaker associational movement has strengthened considerably, reaching a level of maturity that suggests the need to unite the individual efforts of each association”.62 While such language implies a grass-roots mobilization, the statutes made it clear that the goal of unity was vertical integration into the Movimiento hierarchy. Thus, all resolutions of the general assembly and of the governing board of the Federation had to be reported within 48 hours to the DN, who then had the authority to suspend any decisions considered contrary to Movimiento principles. Finally, the DN had the power to expel members who repeatedly contravened these principles, as well as the right to appoint some members of the board, including the Secretary General. In addition to establishing control over the associational movement, the DN’s motivation for pushing the Federation also probably had a political dimension, since national-level mass organizations could be used to demonstrate the vitality and popularity of the Movimiento. Spurred on by the Movimiento hierarchy, most provincial officials responded willingly to the call. While a few, like the DP of Avila, who

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insisted that the “idiosyncracies and individualism” of his province made success unlikely, were less than enthusiastic about the charge, his skepticism was unusual.63 Thus, the DP of Pontevedra replied immediately to the DN’s request in December 1966, asking for more detailed information on how to constitute the association, and promising to recruit women for an organizing committee. A year later, in January 1968, he could report that the association had been formally constituted and would send representatives to the upcoming national assembly.64 Often it was the DP and/or the SF delegate who presided over the initial organizing meeting, explaining the goals of an AAC and reading aloud the statutes, as occurred in Palencia in March of 1967.65 In some cases, the SF delegate seemed to take the lead, as in Granada, which was “promoted by the SF”, according to a report, or in Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa, where the DPs both reported that it was the SF delegate who promoted and constituted the association in their province.66 More generally, a report at the1972 national SF congress claimed that the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa “had been largely promoted and created by the SF”.67 While individual SF officials may have taken the lead in individual associations, the national leadership of the organization lagged behind in developing a more institutionalized effort to pull the AAC into the SF orbit. Thus, the first mention of “associations” at the national conferences of the SF leadership was in 1968, under the rubric of “Participation of the SF in other Organisms” (organismos ajenos a la misma). The report explicitly mentioned that the SF should promote the AAC, although without specific details or directions. What seems clear is that the SF national leadership was taking its cue from the Movimiento’s adoption of “associationism” as its new mobilization strategy.68 While the SF would not call itself an association, the 1968 congress signals the awareness of the mobilizing potential of these new forms of organization. At the 1972 congress in Murcia, however, SF leaders dedicated an entire session to the AAC, assigning Josefina Weglison, who was on the junta of the AAC Federation (FNAC) and later served as the provincial leader of the family associations (DP) in Madrid, to lead the discussion.69 According to Weglison’s presentation, Spain had reached a new phase in which women were participating in greater numbers in political and professional life, and the SF should try to channel more of this participation if it wanted to remain relevant. In order to accomplish this goal, the SF could take advantage of the “new form of participation, of community integration . . . associationism”. While the associations

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would be paths of “participation and penetration”, the text left no doubt about the vertical nature of the desired community integration. Thus, the SF should promote associations that would be “channels of action, planned, directed and aided by the SF”. While the report mentioned a range of associational formats, from professional to sport to cultural, it highlighted the AAC as particularly attractive vehicles to mobilize ordinary women, as well as to reincorporate SF members who had left the organization once they married and had children.70 In order to carry out this new charge, the 1972 SF congress voted to create a “Department of Participation” that included “associations” under its bailiwick. The ambitious aims of the department were to “promote, orient and tutor” female associationism by fomenting the “associational spirit” of women, facilitating the legalization of women’s associations, collaborating with the family association leaders and offering the resources of the SF to new associations.71 At the 1974 congress in Logroño, these measures were further elaborated in a session on “Promotion and Political Participation of Women”. This presentation advised SF leaders to keep contact with SF associational members to maintain influence, to develop joint projects on which the SF and the associations could collaborate, and to “implicate the associations, where possible, in the projects of the SF”. In addition to these concrete suggestions, the presentation articulated the general argument that associationism was an important part of Spain’s political future even more strongly than at the previous congress 2 years earlier, perhaps reflecting the growing sense of internal crisis among regime supporters. Thus, more than merely a “new stage” of development, the text’s conclusion argued that associations were a crucial “defense against attacks on religion, family and nation and to counter a growing materialism”.72 Whether the initiative was taken by the SF or the DP, promoters saw their most important task as identifying suitable women leaders, who would have the social status and political loyalty to be entrusted with the association. Thus, the DP Baleares reported that he had discussed with other Movimiento leaders in the province “to choose the ideal person” and had come up with the highly respected (considerada) wife of a general.73 In Orense, the organizing committee appointed by the DP and the SF included one of the provincial SF bureaucrats, but all were stalwart Movimiento supporters, according to the DP.74 In Teruel, the DP even chose two women to represent a “future” association at the Federation’s first national assembly in 1968, since there was no time to formally constitute themselves ahead of time.75 In one case,

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the Secretary General of the Federation intervened to recommend the appointment of women she trusted to get the Baleares association off the ground.76

Grass-roots origins: Conservative and dissident AAC While the vast majority of AAC seem to have originated from some combination of SF and Movimiento promotion, there were also some associations—both conservative and dissident—that emerged from grass-roots initiatives. In the former category, the most dramatic case is that of the first Asociación de Amas de Casa, whose initial members met in December 1963, before the Movimiento had begun fostering them and even before the 1964 Law provided the legal structure.77 At that first meeting, four women wrote a set of statutes without any blueprints or models to help them. They later re-wrote the statutes in 1965 to conform to the new 1964 Law, and held their first general assembly in that year with about 50 women attending. While the initial impulse for this “first female association of its kind”78 is not explicitly stated, one of the early petitions mentions that “a group of women who took part in the November 1963 municipal elections founded the AAC”.79 In fact, the association’s first president, Ascención Sedeño, had been an unsuccessful candidate for the Madrid city council, so she and her supporters may have re-directed their energies to create a new venue for their political ambitions. Another clear case of conservative grass-roots initiative is Barcelona, where the organizing committee of 19 women met in June of 1965 to constitute an Asociación de Amas de Hogar, using the new 1964 law as their guide. According to a memo written by the association, it was the brainchild of two women who were interested in promoting a project to include homemakers in the social security pension system.80 Although the reasons for the different name are not clear, it may have been required to distinguish themselves from the Movimiento project. In any case, in both Madrid and Barcelona, one can see the imprint of powerful and ambitious women searching for new channels of influence, outside an official power structure that may have provided fewer opportunities, especially for women. While these two cases were notable for the role of strong local leaders, there are other examples that suggest at least some degree of local initiative among conservative, or loyalist associations. Thus, the press release announcing the formation of the AAC in Santander explained that it originated from a group of women who got together to study the problems and solutions of “modern life” from their position as

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mothers, daughters, and sisters. Implicitly corroborating this narrative, when the DP responded to the DN’s request for information on AAC in his province in January 1968, he wrote back that one had been constituted by an enthusiastic group of women, without mentioning any role for himself or the SF.81 In Alava, the public unveiling of the association contained a similar narrative, of a group of women who realized that it was the best way to pursue the issues that concerned them. They were aware, according to the article, that such associations were forming in other Spanish cities, and they wanted to be “among the most advanced” (de las más avanzadas).82 The Valencia origins story also gives local women the credit for implementing the idea, while acknowledging the role of the “top-down” campaign in planting the seed. As the President explained, it was when a small group of women learned about the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa at a national congress of family associations (UNAF) in Madrid that they decided to come home and create their own.83 In contrast to these cases, in which grass-roots origins were the exception to the rule, the dissident Asociaciones de Amas de Casa were by definition propelled from below, by anti-Francoist activists who tried to take advantage of one of the few legal channels for organizing women. Following the infiltration strategy of entrismo developed by the Communist party in the 1960s, a group of mostly communist-influenced female activists who had founded the Movimiento Democrático de Mujeres (MDM) in 1965 began targeting newly constituted AAC.84 The result was a small number of AAC, either co-opted or even founded by these activists, which collaborated closely with the Asociaciones de Vecinos and the political opposition, while also trying to reach out to a new female audience. The first AAC that dissident women activists tried to infiltrate was the original Madrid association, perhaps because it was one of the few already in existence in 1965, or perhaps because of the early organization of the MDM in that city.85 Government reports, newspaper articles, and the complaints of President Sedeño track the internal conflict from the expulsion of a handful of women in 1967 to the explosive general assembly of February 1968, when a group of 30–40 dissidents publically challenged the leadership and direction of the association before also being expelled.86 In this case, the association’s powerful leadership was able to defeat the dissidents’ hostile takeover efforts. After this failed attempt, the MDM women in Madrid pursued a related strategy of forming new, local branches of the legal associations, in the working-class barrios of Tetuán and Getafe. A half dozen MDM

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militants met with 15–20 neighborhood women in each location and submitted the applications without the names of any recognized militants who would raise red flags in the background checks. Three more dissident associations followed in 1970, in the neighborhoods of Ventas, Chamartín, and Moratalaz, and in Aluche in 1972.87 That year, another Madrid association, the Asociación Castellana de Amas de Casa y Consumidores, was formed, although it was not until the spring of 1973 that anti-Francoist activists gained control of the governing board, and in 1974 the association voted to secede from the conservative FNAC.88 During the Transition, the dissident associations formed their own provincial umbrella organization, the Federación de Asociaciones de Amas de Casa de Madrid, which in turn became the Federación de Asociaciones de Mujeres de Madrid in 1980.89 Whether this pattern of co-opting the legal framework of the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa achieved as much success elsewhere in Spain requires more research, but similar cases have been documented, particularly in Valencia and Valladolid. Thus, reports from provincial delegates who attended the underground planning sessions for the feminist congress that took place in December 1975 divulge that the AAC were key legal platforms for anti-regime activists in several populations in Valencia and in Valladolid (“an association with a lot of muscle”/mucha pujancia), while in Málaga groups of “interesting women” were working inside conservative associations. At the same time, the reports reveal that such entrismo either didn’t exist or had failed elsewhere. The Gallegan representative reported that about 40 women had been expelled from the AAC in that province after winning spots on the Junta in a recent election, leaving them without a formal associational base. In Oviedo, Santander, and Barcelona, the AAC had been resistant to any “politicization”, while in Albacete there were no women’s associations at all. Another scenario was that radical women used other associational frameworks, such as the women’s sections of the AVs in Barcelona or the Club de Amigos de UNESCO in Alicante.90

Beyond the AAC statutes: “Still-born” or functioning associations? Whether an association emerged out of “top-down” or grass-roots efforts, its future vitality depended on local enthusiasm and commitment. Associations “created on paper” (hechas sobre el papel) were no more than “still-born infants” (criaturas que ya nacen muertas), in the words of the President of the AAC of Orense.91 Unless an association took on a life of its own, whatever the nature of its origins, it could

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never be more than a criatura, which also implies the dependency of a life that owes its origins to another person. While a definitive portrait of associational vitality would require more research, what emerges from the available documentation is a wide range of activity and vitality rather than a single pattern. On the one end of the scale would be a case like Avila, in which the DP reported, both in 1967 and a year later in 1968, that he “had heard no news” of any AAC, and that he and the provincial SF delegate were pessimistic about the future formation, given the “idiosyncracies and individualism” of the province.92 On the other end of the spectrum was Granada, an association promoted by the SF with 23 founding members, but which had grown to 400 members in the first few months, drawn not only from the SF, but from Acción Católica, Opus Dei, and a “numerous sector” of women who had no previous affiliation.93 A DP report of 1970 confirmed the trajectory of this association, which “had been very active since its constitution in 1966”.94 A general perusal of the provincial reports suggests some level of initial enthusiasm in various provinces, following the pattern of other family associations. Thus, in Pontevedra, the DP reported in 1968 that the AAC “functions fairly well and has begun to realize a useful and positive work”, while in Soria there was a “well-functioning association”, according to that DP. In Orense 100 women attended the first meeting “with lively interest”, while the DP of Burgos described the 350 women at that assembly as very enthusiastic about the aims of the association.95 From Murcia, the association’s new President wrote that they could barely keep up with the membership requests, which could be as high as 100 from a small town.96 In Teruel, the DP’s initial pessimism on the potential for an association, given the demographic make-up of the city’s bourgeoisie, was revised the following year in a report that predicted a “well-functioning” association, based on the enthusiastic junta and an initial cycle of well-attended events.97 During this same year, the association reported that it had grown from its initial 50 members to 252.98 While it is more difficult to track the ongoing vitality of all the associations, it is easy to identify a handful that continued to grow and flourish. Associations like those in Burgos, Baleares, Barcelona, Madrid, and Huesca had large memberships, published their own bulletins, organized a full schedule of activities, and received outside recognition of their standing in the community. The Barcelona association that was founded in February 1966 with 19 women already had “thousands” of members, several active committees, and had gained representation

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on several provincial government boards by the time the Junta composed its first “history” 2 years later.99 The Barcelona association clearly remained an important local center of gravity in the movement, the “pilot and point of departure; in a word, the guide for all the provinces”, according to the president of the Baleares association.100 Baleares itself claimed over 1,000 members in 1971 at the inauguration of its new center, which was usually a sign of a thriving association.101 The provincial association in Burgos had over 1,000 members by October 1976, as well as several local branches, including a particularly active one in Miranda de Ebro. The association had its own center, a bulletin entitled Jimena, and an enormous governing board of 22 members, reflecting a wide range of activities and responsibilities.102 In Huesca, the association’s bulletin Campana chronicles the life of another active association, which also formed local branches in various towns and seemed to have an ongoing string of well-attended activities. As one member wrote, the recent talk she had attended was so full that there were women standing at the back outside the doors, and she estimated that almost the entire membership must have been present, as it was at the general assembly held a couple of months earlier.103 Even well into the transition period, the Bulletin (XI/78) claimed that it was “one of the most active and populous associations in all of Spain”. Compared to the uneven vitality of the “loyal” AAC, how dynamic were the dissident associations? Given their activist core, one would expect a high degree of enthusiasm and commitment, but at the same time it is not clear how successful they were in recruiting members beyond this core. They did achieve a fairly high profile through public statements and, as the transition unfolded, through their participation in citizen movement protests and demonstrations. What is less clear is how well they functioned as associational spaces in which ordinary women could learn new collective practices. It appears that, during the dictatorship, none of the independent associations attained the level of membership and participation that the most successful conservative associations did, although evidence is limited. In the government files on the barrio associations, there are no membership lists, but the estimated attendance at the initial assemblies, when recorded, was generally small. In Ventas, there were 10 women on the organizing committee, and 20 women attended the first assembly in Aluche while 60 did so in Carabanchel.104 A meeting called by the association in Getafe in 1973 attracted 25 women, but the police reported that only two of them actually belonged to the association.105 Interestingly, in 1971 a police report responding to a request to shut down these associations dismissed the

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potential subversive impact by remarking on the small size of meetings, as well as the lack of dangerous activities.106 In Madrid, the Asociación Castellana became the largest of the dissident associations. After the initial takeover, in which almost 100 members dropped out, the association expanded from 53 members in 1974 to almost 300 by the end of that year. Many of these new members were acquired in a provincial organizing drive in various populations outside the urban center of Madrid, such as Alcobendas, Parla, Leganés, and Alcorcón. In each of these locales, a small group of 5–10 women would constitute a branch of the association and then continue to recruit more members. In 1975, close to another 300 members joined, bringing the total to 571, spread between the main association in the city and 19 branches in the province. Not surprisingly, the most dramatic surge in membership came during the transition, with 743 added in 1976 and another 556 in 1977. In 1978, the momentum slowed, with 166 more inscriptions, and only 40 in 1979. By this point, there were almost 2,000 members. Furthermore, after 1973, most of those who joined remained on the membership list until the dissolution in 1990, although few women joined in the 1980s.107 While the Castellana association, with its multiple branches, seems to be the largest of the dissident associations, the pattern of gradual growth during the dictatorship followed by a dramatic upswing during the transition was probably a general one. Indeed, it fits the broader mobilizing patterns suggested in Chapter 2, in which Movimiento family associations, in this case the loyal AAC, experienced their main growth spurts in the 1960s and early 1970s, while the AVs and, in this case, the dissident AAC, peaked in the mid- to late 1970s. Once again, the result was a continuous arc of mobilization from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, but this time highlighting female participation.

Leadership of the AAC Who were the women who brought vitality to these associations? As with the female leaders in the Asociaciones de Vecinos, the existing evidence doesn’t point to a single social or occupational profile, but there are some clear patterns that point to different paths into public service. As with the AV women, some AAC leaders had the advantage of previous organizational experience, which presumably developed their administrative skills and networks. While it is not clear how many AAC officials held previous leadership positions in other Movimiento organizations, the most common origin was the SF. Indeed, the official SF position

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was to recruit former members who had married and started a family to return to public service through the AAC. One such case was a woman who ran for President of the AAC in Malaga after being a member of the SF for many years.108 In Granada, the DP reported that the founders were “veteran members of the SF”, and a founding officer of the association in Orense held a current leadership position in the organization, while all the committee members were of “undoubted adhesion to the Movimiento”, according to the DP.109 In addition to previous administrative positions, at least some leaders were professional women. Thus, about half of the 19 members of the first governing board of the Madrid association listed an occupation. And, in Pontevedra, the first President had to step down a few months into her term because she couldn’t find the time, over and above her 8 hours of office work and her own housework. Two other members of the Junta also worked as civil servants, and a third was employed as a notary.110 In Bilbao, the first President was a pharmacist and mother of six. What seems to distinguish these professional women from their counterparts in the AVs was their embrace of the ama de casa identity, whether they worked outside the home or not. Still, a common pattern that emerges in both cases is the propensity for women with pre-existing social capital to take on leadership positions. However, there also seems to be evidence that a leadership post in the AAC could serve as a “political trampoline” for ambitious women seeking a career path in “public service”. Thus, in the 1971 elections for “family” representatives to the provincial and local councils, the AAC Federation (FNAC) reported one member elected to a provincial legislature (Oviedo), 8 city councillors, 23 provincial Movimiento officials, and 24 local Movimiento officials.111 An example of this sort of trajectory was the DP in Burgos in 1976, who began her “public service” career in the SF, then served as President of the Burgos AAC in the late 1960s, and was elected to the provincial Movimiento board in 1971, before being appointed DP in 1974.112 Whatever role AAC leadership played in an individual’s trajectory, it was clear that it was a fully respectable choice for upper-class women. Class status is revealed by evidence of higher education degrees, by service on charity organization boards, and by family affiliation. For example, the President of the Barcelona association, Margarita Font, was a Dama de Sanidad Militar, while the Madrid President, Ascención Sedeño, had been Director of a School for the blind in Havana, and after her return to Madrid served on the boards of the Sociedad Cubana

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de Beneficiencia and the Asociación Española de Amigos de America. Of the four founders of the Madrid association, the other three were also university educated, and Sedeño’s daughter and future association president studied law, was a founding board member of the Asociación Española de Mujeres Juristas and was married to a former Cuban ambassador.113 In Bilbao, all the founders were “persons of prestige in our province”.114 Likewise, Irene Castell, the first President of the AAC Valencia, helped found a Fundación de Cáritas Escolar, and served as Inspectora Técnica de Educación before her retirement in 1971.115 In terms of charitable positions, two of the Huesca leaders were appointed to the boards of UNICEF and the Red Cross, while in Burgos, the President also served on the “Pro-Cathedral” board of directors.116 The “bourgeois” respectability of the associations was reinforced by the governing board’s tendency to appoint “persons of prestige” to serve as “honorary” presidents or members. A common choice was the wife of the Civil Governor of the Province, as occurred in Almería, or someone with a noble title, like the Marquesa who held the position in Burgos.117 In Baleares, the founding junta asked the governor if his wife would agree to be the first official member of the association, and he took them to his home where his wife filled out the forms in the presence of reporters.118 Other female dignitaries, like Franco’s wife, Carmen Polo, or the Bourbon heir’s wife, Princess Sofia, were asked to serve as honorary Presidents of, respectively, the associations in Barcelona and Madrid. In Barcelona, the association also appointed a Cuadro de Honor, consisting of the wives of all the major political officials in the city.119 Such choices epitomized the image encapsulated in the Madrid President Sedeño’s identifying phrase Damas de Orden, which communicated an implicit class, as well as a political, orientation.120 While there was no article in the statutes that specified class status, there seemed to be an implicit assumption that these associations were for “ladies”, not working-class women.121 While there was a certain degree of snobbery in the concept of a “ladies’ association”, the bourgeois respectability of the AAC dramatically expanded the opportunities for this class of women to develop leadership skills. Thus, in Francoist society, there were few outlets for ambitious upper-class married women, beyond Catholic organizations and charities, and in most of those they were under male supervision. The SF was an important channel for elite women, but most of the national leaders were unmarried. In the AAC, it is hard to know how many “ordinary” bourgeois ladies with no previous organizational experience took on leadership roles, but there must have been some, given

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the creation of so many new governing boards in associations across the country. In any case, the implicitly “bourgeois” identity of the loyal AAC marks the most important distinction with the dissident AAC personnel. As with the other types of associations, lack of data and diversity make it difficult to sketch a clear profile of either leaders or members. But, given the ideological affiliations of many of the activist core, there was a clear effort to identify themselves as working-class women, or mujeres de barrio, in direct contrast to Sedeño’s damas de orden. Whether this identity was reflected in the class status of the rank and file as well as the leadership is less clear. In the case of the Asociación Castellana, information on professions in the register is difficult to interpret. Few members have professions listed, and most of these fall in the category of whitecollar service workers or professionals when they are not listed as amas de casa, but most often the box for profession is simply left blank. The white-collar connection is corroborated by an El País article of September 30, 1976, which claimed that the dissident associations had recruited especially from the ranks of white-collar workers. Likewise, the organizing committees for the associations in Ventas, La Estrella and Aluche included some amas de casa, but also teachers and office workers. It is more difficult to situate the amas de casa in the class structure, since their profession crossed social boundaries. In these cases, the general character of the neighborhood provides some clues, although it is still difficult to identify the distinction between the manual working class and the white-collar lower middle class. In terms of the leadership of the dissident associations, however, it seems likely that the most common profile may have been shared with the female leaders of the AVs, and, to a degree, with the conservative AAC. That is, most of the women who took up leadership roles in any type of association probably had either professional or educational resources, or previous legal or illegal political experience that helped prepare them to assume leadership roles. Of course, there were many more spots for female leaders in the AAC than in the AVs, which provided aspiring women with a rare public venue for developing their skills and ambitions. At the same time, this venue was perceived as quaintly marginal to the central issues of public life. The result was an old dilemma, the same one captured by Virginia Woolf in her classic essay, Three Guineas, on the advantages and disadvantages of all-women’s schools in simultaneously nurturing and isolating an emerging generation of female leaders.

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“Location” of the AAC: State or civil society? Even if a group of women were able to breathe life into an association, evidence of functional vitality did not, in and of itself, place an AAC within the milieu of civic associations, unless they operated with at least some degree of autonomy from state supervision. Even more than with the other Movimiento associations, the general assumption—perhaps shaped by gender hierarchies—has been that they were subservient to the authorities, wedged between the competing power structures of the Movimiento and the Sección Femenina. However, there is plenty of evidence that the control exercised by these authorities was limited. Thus, although the provincial DNA/DNF and SF personnel often played an ongoing advisory and even supervisory role in many AAC, neither organization had the resources, nor time, nor inclination to closely monitor and direct their operation and development. The fact that these associations were focused on “specific” homemaker concerns worked in favor of their autonomy, as such concerns were not central to the “general” political strategies of either the SF or the family association leadership. Furthermore, even inside the national AAC organizational structure, the Federation (FNAC) never achieved the seamless vertical integration imagined by the DN, leaving space for horizontal diversity and pluralism among the member associations. Finally, evidence for the limits of state control can be found in the existence and ongoing operation of the dissident AAC, which continued to function despite apparent police knowledge of their “subversive” orientation. Limits of “vertical integration” in the Movimiento The limitations of the Movimiento’s control, even over loyal AAC, was, as with its other family associations, primarily a question of resources. Thus, DPs were always underfunded and stretched thin, responsible for supervising dozens of family associations around the province. There were the usual pleas from associations for subventions and the typical polite refusals from the DP, except for the occasional token contribution.122 As the President of the Madrid association wrote pointedly in accepting a small subvention from the national leader (DN) in 1976, assistance in the past had been limited to listening rather than concrete resources.123 The role of the DP and the DN in dispensing advice rather than money was often freely admitted, as in the 1973 annual report of the AAC Almeria, which stated that their junta met regularly with the DP, or in a letter from the AAC Alava thanking the

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DN for supporting them with his experience and good ideas.124 It was also not uncommon to invite the DP or DN to be the keynote speaker at a conference or general assembly, as in the case of the I Jornadas de AAC held in Valencia in August 1973,125 or the II Jornadas Nacionales de Consumidores, organized by the Barcelona association, which invited the DN to join the honorary board of directors leading the event.126 But in most cases, the tone of this relationship appeared more collegial than directly subordinate. Perhaps the best evidence of the DN’s advisory as opposed to supervisory role was the response from Movimiento officials to conflicts within the FNAC. Despite the fact that the statutes of the federation gave powers to the DN to nullify decisions as well as to appoint some board members, neither the DN nor the DP, nor other regime officials, were inclined to intervene as long as none of the parties displayed subversive tendencies. While they often wrote detailed reports about the nature of the internal conflict, and received letters begging their intervention on behalf of one of the aggrieved parties, their reports were largely even-handed descriptions and their advice was centered on internal resolution of the conflict. For example, when the provincial junta of Barcelona decided to withdraw its association from the FNAC after a contentious national assembly in Valencia in October 1973, Movimiento officials investigated the origins of the conflict, but once they had confirmed that the Barcelona President Margarita Font was “loyal” to the regime, they saw no reason for action. The reports make clear that they didn’t really understand the complexity of the conflict, but the general conclusion that its roots must have laid in the personality clash between the Presidents of the Federation and the Barcelona association confirmed the lack of potential political danger.127 In response to several letters from provincial associations begging the DN to call an extraordinary general assembly to restore unity in the FNAC, he responded that he had no authority to do so and that the Federation was an independent entity that had to solve its own internal problems.128 Likewise, at the congress itself, the DP of Valencia could only join the President of the Federation in trying to persuade President Font to reconsider her decision for the benefit of the “unity of the movement”.129 Whatever their personal opinions about the internal conflicts within the Federation, there is a sense that as long as the AAC stayed within the bounds of their mandate, family association officials were content to let them alone. The Barcelona association was also a special case, along with the Madrid association, since neither of these had been legalized through

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the Movimiento bureaucracy and both exhibited strong and independent local leadership. Thus, while the Barcelona leaders chose their own name in a sign of independence (amas de hogar), the Madrid AAC argued that the Movimiento project usurped its own ownership of the national ama de casa movement. Even before the constitution of the Federation, Madrid President Sedeño publically protested the Movimiento’s “theft” of their name, and launched a legal challenge to “patent” it.130 After the case was rejected, she explained the conflict to the members as the clash between a “free and independent” grass-roots female association and the “eternal masculine power”.131 The DN framed the conflict very differently, as the “ridiculous” pretension to monopolize all ama de casa organizations, which would amount to “pure totalitarianism”, in his words.132 After being rebuffed, the Madrid AAC remained outside the FNAC until 1972, when the leaders negotiated a merger in which members of both juntas were integrated into a combined leadership body.133 Whatever the merits or pretensions of Sedeño’s protests, it is clear that the Madrid AAC, like the Barcelona association, was not vertically organized into the Movimiento hierarchy. Limits of vertical integration in the Sección Femenina Movimiento officials may have also been more inclined to leave supervision of the AAC to the SF, assuming a “natural” gender connection to these female associations. However, this gender connection was more tenuous than it seemed, despite the avowed interest and involvement of individual SF personnel in the AAC. Thus, apart from the single report at the 1972 national congress, the SF national leaders paid remarkably little attention to the AAC. For example, the national executive committee (Junta de Regidoras) never discussed the AAC during its meetings in the 1960s. In 1964 and 1966 the committee discussed relations with “non political like-minded groups”, including youth and student organizations, with a brief mention of the Movimiento associations in general.134 At this point, evidence indicates that the SF had as yet little institutional connection to the Movimiento associations. For example, one 1966 circular sent to provincial SF leaders that included suggestions on how to more effectively “politicize” Spaniards by working with “like-minded groups” (grupos afines), and with other delegations of the Movimiento, made no specific mention of associations of any kind.135 A second circular from the national committee implied that cooperation with these other Movimiento delegations was minimal, citing the need to “overcome the great political problems that arise” from the lack of such good relations.136 Further evidence that the SF was not deeply involved with

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the AAC in the 1960s is that neither the 1964 nor the 1966 national congress mentioned them at all, and the 1968 reference was perfunctory, with none of the sessions developing the theme. In the annual report presented at the 1970 national congress, collaboration with “likeminded groups” finally included “associations” as a category, but only the associations for parents of “subnormal” children were specifically listed. The 1972 paper presented by Weglison and the creation of the Department of Participation to replace the “Department of Political and Religious Training” certainly mark a turning point in national SF policies regarding the AAC, but don’t represent a fundamental change in the relationship. Thus, the new department’s first progress report delivered to the 1974 congress made clear that most of its goals to “promote, orient and tutor” were still in the planning stage.137 It was only in July of that year that the first circular sent to provincial SF personnel directly mentioned the AAC, and then it was as competitors in organizing women.138 The circular’s call for more direct participation by the SF in the AAC implied that such participation was limited in the present. And even if SF personnel had been involved in the initial organization of the AAC, the 1972 paper had already recognized that “the reality is that some of these associations have completely cut themselves off from our sphere of influence”. While this reality generated some concern, the lack of consistent attention to the task of promoting and controlling the AAC makes it clear that this was never a high priority for the SF leadership, and became even less so in the closing years of the regime. Instead of consolidating its control over the female sphere, SF national leaders appeared to be more interested in jockeying for power within the regime hierarchy, both as an organization and as a group of female political elites.139 As one of the national leaders said in 1957, the SF “had to push outwards and upwards, inserting ourselves in the politics of men in order to influence that politics”.140 The opening of electoral opportunities for women, who could run for local and national office after 1963, helped propel what seemed to be a shift toward “political” action, or the need for the SF to act as a “political agent”, in the words of a paper presented at the 1966 Gerona congress.141 Furthermore, it is clear that politics and political participation signified election into the formal power structure, not the kind of “informal” activism of the “non-political” associations. Thus, soon after the creation of the “Department of Participation” in 1972, it was re-named the “Department of Political Participation and Associations” to distinguish between the two realms.142 Under the rubric of the first category was

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the election of SF women into political positions, and significantly, it was this category that dominated the department’s first progress report in 1974. Thus, the report’s author enthused about the “vigorous campaign to incorporate women into politics, awakening new inquietudes”. In 1975 and 1976, the SF leaders participated in the debates over the creation of “political associations” and whether or not their members should join them. In circulars sent out to provincial officials during these years, the only mention of associations was in the context of this new “political” version, and how both women and the SF could become protagonists in this opening up of political life.143 The political promotion of women was part of a “modernizing” discourse within the SF, which recognized the evolving role of women in Spanish society and even implicitly disparaged their traditional role. As the first paper presented at the 1970 national congress in San Sebastian noted, women’s incorporation into the work force was a reality, while the second discussed the need for more participation of women in political life, given the evolution of society. The sense one gets from this evolving discourse is that SF leaders were much more interested in capturing these new “modern” women in the labor force as well as the universities, than in pursuing homemakers and mothers, who were never discussed in the context of potential politicization. Thus, a 1974 circular on a “plan for political action” specifies participation in the “working world”, among youth and the unions, and in “political” associations.144 And, in the series of lectures organized for SF personnel in Barcelona between 1959 and 1974, there were several on women in the workforce, in the unions, or in the universities, but not one on amas de casa and their associations.145 In general terms, amas de casa appear in SF discourse as objects of tutelage, not as potential or actual political agents, and certainly not as peers of the SF women. While Movimiento officials might have assumed a “natural” gender connection between the SF and the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, in fact the SF leaders seemed more interested in “pushing upwards” toward equality with their male colleagues in the “political elite”. Within the language of the equality/difference paradox, the SF leaders were attempting to use the “difference” that had created the original space for their movement to launch them as equals into the “general” political hierarchy. As a result of its priorities and its sense of identity, then, the SF did not appear to be invested enough in the AAC to even attempt bringing them under control, let alone to achieve “vertical integration”. Despite the role of SF personnel in the original promotion of the AAC, the SF organization seemed to become less, not more

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interested, as time went on, leaving the associations the space in which to develop their own identities, goals, and projects. Limits of internal vertical integration: The National Federation (FNAC) If the loyal AAC were not seamlessly integrated into the external hierarchy of either the DNA/DNF or the SF, neither were they fully subjected to the internal hierarchy of the Federation. As the conflict between leaders of the Federation and those of the Barcelona and Madrid associations demonstrate, the channels of authority could be, and often were, openly questioned by local leaders. From the original constitution of the Federation in 1968, some provincial association leaders protested what they viewed as authoritarian decision-making and a lack of respect for local/provincial autonomy. Thus, when the Federation board sent out the call for a constituent assembly in early 1968, along with a set of ready-made statutes, not all the provincial leaders agreed to endorse the rubber-stamped procedure. The most strident critique came from the Madrid association, whose President had not yet given up the claim to have exclusive rights to organize amas de casa across the nation. Although its representatives attended the first assembly as observers, President Sedeño described the Federation as a top-down framework, devoid of real content. In her words, it was convoked “by the SF”, and included associations not even constituted. As a result, she claimed, most of the representatives were “fascists” (falangistas) sent by provincial Movimiento officials.146 Even leaders of associations without such vested interests were concerned about their autonomy. For example, the board of the provincial association in León submitted a list of suggested changes to the statutes, which included adding the phrase: “Protecting at all times the functional autonomy of each association”, and deleting one of the powers of the President of the Federation as “excessively broad and vague”. While the letter expressed enthusiasm for the project, it cautioned that the statutes should promote unity without shackling the provincial associations.147 Not only the association not receive a direct reply, but several months later its leaders found out by reading in the newspaper that a final version of the statutes had been approved.148 Even though the Secretary General of the Federation, Belén Landaburu, made a special trip to León to sooth ruffled feathers, the provincial board delayed approving membership in the Federation until the next general assembly.149 While the León case caused a major ruckus, it was not the only association whose leaders expected room for grass-roots input. Thus, the

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junta in La Coruña suggested changing the title from ama de casa to madre de familia or to mujer casada,150 while in Lugo the board asked for a meeting of provincial representatives to clarify some of the “doubtful” points in the statutes.151 In Mallorca, the provincial President wrote that, until the association had a “minimum of members”, she wouldn’t feel comfortable discussing and voting on such a major commitment.152 The Navarrese junta went so far as to decline the invitation altogether, since their provincial statutes would have to be altered by an “unlikely” vote of the general assembly in order to allow them to join a national federation.153 Even those juntas which only wanted to delay their adhesion until the officials could discuss the terms with their members were treated with what was viewed as authoritarian dismissal by the Federation. Thus, the Lugo association had its invitation to the constitutive national assembly abruptly cancelled at the last minute because they hadn’t given their unconditional support. In a scolding letter protesting the decision, the President pointed out that such behavior only made it more difficult to convince the members that joining the Federation was in their best interests.154 One final case demonstrates how even the perception that the Federation was being imposed on the provincial associations could spark resistance. The conflict in Orense unfolded after the provincial junta claimed not to have received either statutes or an invitation to the national assembly. The crowning insult, however, was that the name of the Orense association was still included among a list of founding members of the Federation. While the missing invitation was probably a result of a slip-up in the DP’s office, the Federation’s admission of its error did nothing to soothe the outrage and suspicion of the Orense association leaders. Federation Secretary General Landaburu’s downplaying of a “mere” bureaucratic mistake missed the symbolic message of having “imposed” adhesion on an association that had not chosen it.155 Not only had the association not chosen membership, complained the avowedly Falangist provincial leaders indignantly, but they hadn’t even thought about it, since their own goals had to be pursued “from the bottom up, without official paternalism”. Until the grass-roots “structure” was in place, the letter concluded, there was no point in constructing a political “superstructure” that would only weaken the movement. At the heart of this protest was the claim not only for autonomy but also for pluralism within the “big tent” of the Movimiento, in which “all its tendencies and forms could thrive”.156 These hesitations and critiques were expressed not only in private correspondence, but also in a press release signed by the Presidents of

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10 provincial associations which used the Orense case to voice their general concerns.157 In trying to extinguish the brushfire, Landaburu had to issue repeated assurances about the independence of each member association, and to convince them that “totalitarianism has nothing to do with our operation”.158 While the assurances of provincial autonomy eventually convinced most of the associational leaders to join up, the simmering tension reached a boiling point with the dramatic decision of the large and prestigious Barcelona association to withdraw its membership from the FNAC. As early as November 1969, 20 members of Barcelona’s association publically disagreed with their association’s decision to join the Federation.159 But the troubles between Barcelona and the Federation began at the 1970 general assembly, when a statute modification proposed by the Barcelona representative was simply dismissed by the Junta of the Federation, without even allowing the assembly to discuss it.160 Significantly, the key element of the proposal was that all members of the Federation governing board should be elected by the national assembly, instead of appointed by DNA/DNF officials.161 The Barcelona proposal’s implicit critique of the Federation’s unrepresentative structure was echoed in a letter sent by the Baleares President to Landaburu after the assembly, in which she complained that all the important and interesting issues that had been brought from the provinces had been ignored. In an era in which it was “fashionable to talk about women’s emancipation”, concluded the letter, the Federation was too paternalistic.162 Over the next couple of years, the leaders in both Baleares and Barcelona continued their critical posture toward the Federation, at the same time as they developed their own horizontal relationships.163 At the general assembly the following year, Barcelona President Font was pointedly absent,164 but at the same time she and her association were busy planning a major event, the I Jornadas de Consumidores, that would further stress the tension between horizontal and vertical forces in the Federation. While the title of “consumer” rather than “homemaker” kept the congress from being a direct challenge to the authority of the Federation to convoke national gatherings, it was clearly viewed by some Federation leaders as a direct provocation, even though the Federation was invited to send representatives.165 Presumably in direct response to the upcoming Jornadas, a proposal that no member association should organize a “national” event “without going through the Federation”, in order to protect its “prestige”, was passed by a majority of those present at the December 1971 general assembly.166 Nevertheless,

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17 provincial AAC sent representatives to the Jornadas in Barcelona in January of 1972, even though the Federation pointedly did not.167 It was not until the national assembly in October 1973, however, that the tensions erupted into open conflict. Landaburu threw down the gauntlet by accusing Margarita Font of continually and openly disagreeing with the actions of the Federation for some time, most recently in an editorial in which she had attacked its leadership. In order to counter such disloyalty, Landaburu demanded that the Barcelona President clarify whether she was “with or against” the Federation. The DP of Valencia, where the congress was located, seconded the call that Font “declare herself united with the goals of the Federation”, but the Barcelona President refused to pick up the glove, saying only that she could best support the Federation by staying silent.168 A week later, the Barcelona association formally submitted its petition to withdraw from the Federation, and in January of 1974 the Federation Junta accepted the request.169 In the Barcelona petition, as well as in the response from the Junta of the Federation, one can see the clash of personal egos that was emphasized in the government reports, but embedded in this dispute were two different visions of the homemaker movement. From the perspective of the FNAC junta, the Federation’s goal was to project a united (vertical) front that spoke with a single voice which one could only be “with” or “against”. In a report produced by the Federation for government censors just before the congress in Valencia took place, the Barcelona association was accused, not of political subversion but of “divisive impulses”, as well as a “not always prudent proselytizing voice” that had made it stand out as a “visible head”. The report concluded by advising that the government only deal with the Homemaker movement through its national federation rather than through individual provincial associations.170 In response, the Barcelona position emphasized the unrepresentativeness of the Federation’s leadership, especially the appointed Secretary General, who had no votes to back up her “despotic” claims to speak for the movement. The Federation should be led, in the words of Barcelona’s Font, not by appointees using the position as a “political trampoline”, but by those with grass-roots experience in the movement (she mentions the President of Baleares) who gained the respect—and the votes—of their peers. In a separate letter to the DN, she assured him that her association remained loyal to the family association movement, and that there was no crisis in opening “other channels” of collaboration.171 In fact, the Barcelona association went on to join

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the Federación Nacional de Consumidores and to play an active role in the consumer movement.172 From the Barcelona perspective, then, the Homemaker movement could and should be connected by various horizontal ties that placed the focus on local initiative and autonomy rather than vertical integration. While the Barcelona position seemed to be in the minority within the Federation, the ongoing and public nature of the dispute between horizontal and vertical forces made the Federation itself a site of negotiation rather than an instrument of the authoritarian state. As with the other Movimiento family associations, the vertical structure of the homemaker association movement was more fragile and contested than it appeared on paper. While the surveillance of the Movimiento hierarchy as well as the SF was a real constraint on the independence of local homemaker associations, there remained a degree of autonomy that gave them at least potential access to the space of civil society. The anti-Francoist AAC Perhaps the best evidence of a degree of autonomy for the AAC was the very existence of the dissident associations. It was precisely the weak links in the supervisory chain of command that were exploited by the anti-Francoist activists, whether they co-opted existing associations or founded new ones. In the Madrid case, for example, the police knew that dissident women ejected from the loyal association were constituting new associations in working-class barrios, but no action was taken. Thus, a police report in August 1971 stated that there was evidence that women expelled from the Madrid AAC had participated in constituting new associations. Madrid President Sedeño was also an energetic informant, notifying the police that two of the expelled members were on the governing board of the Ventas association (founded in 1970), and three on Tetuán’s.173 As late as February 1975, Sedeño sent a letter requesting the “annulment” of the Asociación Castellana, arguing that its leaders were mostly expelled members from their own ranks, and that most had political and/or criminal records.174 While the government did eventually stop approving new AAC with dubious political credentials, the legality of the existing independent associations was never reversed, and they did not face serious repressive consequences for their actions until a consumer boycott in February 1975 prompted the 3-month suspension of all the dissident Madrid associations that had promoted it. With this profile, it hardly seems necessary to argue that the dissident AAC stood squarely in the realm of civil society, rather than in the complex position of partial autonomy occupied by the loyal

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associations. At the same time, government surveillance of legal organizations limited their collective activities, so that there was more overlap than one might expect between the public face of the two types of AACs, at least until the end of the dictatorship. Even beyond the censorship issue, if the activist leaders really wanted to expand their base among ordinary amas de casa, they had to focus on some of the same issues that the conservative organizations did. But designing an agenda that could appeal to both groups was not easy. The 1971 police report that dismissed their potential subversive impact, both due to the small turnout and the lack of dangerous activities, points to the challenges faced by the activists in effectively utilizing the legal space of the AAC.175 The activist leaders sought to square this circle by framing an appeal to the working-class women of the poor neighborhoods, with a program that mixed community issues like schools and sewers, perceived ama de casa issues like consumption, and class issues like salaries and political prisoners. Another ingredient in this mix was an emerging feminist agenda, which included the transformation of women’s legal, social, and political role in society. Similar in many ways to the orientation of the “women’s sections” of the AVs, they faced the difference/equality conundrum from another angle. While the sections sought to integrate women’s issues into the broader community program, the independent AAC had to explain the relevance of “general” issues to their ama de casa mission. In both cases, activists sought to meld difference and equality in a symmetrical whole, but for potential recruits the upshot may have been confusion or frustration rather than harmony.

Conclusion What conclusions can we draw about the complex position of women in the emerging associational milieu? On one level, the project of this chapter has been to recover and recognize women’s participation in the civic world of the associations. It is clear from the evidence presented here that women played an active role in the Asociaciones de Vecinos, where they struggled, first for inclusion and then later for greater attention to their perceived interests, especially through the formation of “women’s sections”. For the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, the goal has been to insert these female associations into the larger civic milieu, by making the case that many of them led vibrant public lives, operating in at least partial autonomy from the Movimiento and the Sección Femenina, despite their formal subordination. At the same time as women’s presence has been recovered, the chapter has also explored the reasons why recovery has been necessary. What

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has been suggested here is that the incorporation of women as a group into civil society, whether through the AAC or the AV, was a problematic process that reflected the unresolved tensions in the Western citizenship tradition. When women were incorporated as “women”, they tended to be marginalized from the “general” goals, in associations dedicated to what were perceived to be the “private” interests of amas de casa. When no efforts were made to incorporate “women” as a group, however, only extraordinary individuals could thrive in a culture that assumed male protagonism and leadership despite formal equal access. Thus, the difference/equality conundrum, which propelled women between the extremes of problematic visibility and voiceless invisibility, and made it difficult for both contemporary observers and scholars to acknowledge and recognize their contribution. In making such claims, the point is not to assign blame to either male or female participants who were unable to transcend this conundrum, but to acknowledge its pervasive continuity, even at a moment when Spain was preparing and enacting a dramatic political transition from a conservative authoritarian regime to a democratic one. At the time, democratic activists assumed that it would be a simple matter to move from the “backward” gender “difference” model of the Francoist state to what they assumed was a more “modern” and “progressive” equality model in the democratic state. But rather than a narrative of clear progress, the reality of the gendered associational milieu was more convoluted. With SF leaders seeking equality with their male counterparts instead of female bonding with their homemaker sisters, and radical feminists asserting difference from their democratic male vecinos, there was no clear path out of the conundrum. What the experience of the AAC and AV demonstrated was that, in reality, both frameworks were two sides of the same coin that had been tossed in the air over the last 200 years. What emerges is a constant struggle—still unresolved today— to define a space that is both visible and invisible, different and equal, particular and universal. The importance of the AV and the AAC can be found in the degree to which they were part of this struggle, not as the flagships of women’s liberation but as sites where the limits and possibilities for female citizens were tested and explored at a crucial moment of transition in Spanish history.

4

“What is a Family Association?”1: The Civic Discourse of Familiarismo

Ultimamente se está hablando mucho en el país en torno a las asociaciones.2

Introduction: The associational milieu as a discursive “field” The article entitled “What is a Family Association?”, published in the official mouthpiece of the Delegado Nacional de Asociaciones (DNA) in 1968, provides a window into the broader discursive phenomenon that came to be labeled the movmiento familiarista, or simply familiarismo.3 Through internal publications, regional and national conferences, general press coverage, and the national network of Movimiento personnel, the thousands of individual family associations became discursively linked in a broader project, a master “frame” that transcended specific local issues and practices.4 Within the emerging associational milieu, the family association movement produced one version of a civic discourse that could explain the logic of associationism and assign meaning to the idea of civic participation.5 At the heart of the familiarista discourse was defining a role for popular participation in public affairs within a collaborative model of cooperation between ordinary Spaniards and the government. This collaborative model of state/citizen interaction distinguished the family association discourse from the more reivindicativa (demanding) participatory discourse developed by the Asociaciones de Vecinos (AV). While sharing an investment in civic participation, the two discourses competed within the broader “field” of the associational milieu to fix the meaning of key concepts that would explain their purpose in the social order.6 155

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Although the differences between the discourses produced by the two movements are important, so was the common ground on which the debate occurred. Thus, their competing efforts helped set the parameters of a “Conversation” whose different “sides” could be recognized as parts of a broader phenomenon.7 Implicit in this “Conversation” was a process of re-imagining civic identity as a subject in dialogue with the state, which opened into more explicit discussions about democratic citizenship during the transition itself. Thus, the discursive re-constitution of the civic subject prepared the ground for how “defining oneself as democratic” could be imagined during the transition.8 As such, the discursive terrain of the associational milieu was a constitutive space in which collective meanings about citizenship and civic participation were generated. As Lauren Berlant puts it, “practices of citizenship involve both the public sphere narratives and concrete experiences of quotidian life . . . the rhetoric of citizenship does provide important definitional frames for the ways people see themselves as public, when they do”.9 Within the dynamic model of citizenship construction, the “public sphere narratives” which articulate what people think they are doing are as important to the making of democratic citizens as what people did in the concrete activities of associational life. One of the most striking aspects of this evolving “Conversation” about civic identity and participation that began in the mid-1960s and culminated during the transition was the range of possible meanings for key concepts.10 Within the structural limits of the authoritarian state, there was significant room for maneuver, in terms of what could or could not be said about civic participation.11 Furthermore, it appears that no “side” was able to definitively impose its meanings on the “order of discourse” that structured the associational milieu.12 Instead of a fixed hierarchy, the field was marked by “floating signifiers”, in which different discourses struggled to invest the key “nodal points” with their own meaning.13 If political agency is linked to “representational and symbolic capacity”,14 then the presence of multiple interpretations of civic identity demonstrates the lack of hegemonic control over a discursive field that developed a pluralistic life of its own. Such pluralism prevented the establishment of what Laclau and Mouffe call “objectivity”, in which the dominant meanings are so naturalized that they are unassailable.15 Significantly, this discursive pluralism was not only a feature of the associational milieu as a whole, but also applied to the specific discourses of the family and neighborhood movements. While this

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diversity is not surprising in the decentralized neighborhood association movement, it clashes with the official expectation of the family association movement as integrated into the vertical hierarchy of the Movimiento. However, despite the rigid hierarchy imagined by Movimiento theorists and top officials, they were no more successful in controlling the meanings assigned to the movement than they were in monitoring the concrete operation of each association, as illustrated in Chapter 2. The result was a wide-ranging discussion with a variety of positions about the significance of civic participation in public affairs and the relationship between associations and the state that pushed well beyond the boundaries set by the family movement’s creators. While an official Movimiento position was present in each aspect of the discussion, it never achieved the level of a “hegemonic intervention” that could put an end to the ambiguity and pluralism.16 Significantly, the different positions within the discussion cannot be neatly categorized into schools of thought, ideological affiliation, or even local vs. national officials. The family association statutes laid out a clear blueprint of vertical hierarchy, but they also illustrated the inherent tension within the project between Movimiento leaders’ desire to expand participation and control it. Thus, much of the internal debate within the family association movement merely exposed and explored these contradictions without being able to resolve them. At the same time, the pluralism opened up by these internal tensions weakened the institutional bonds between the Movimiento and the family associations. To the degree that its contested terrain undermined the vertical structure of its origins, the pluralism of the family association discourse provides further evidence that the movement operated in at least partial autonomy, opening a space in civil society where Spaniards could reconstitute their “horizontal” collective civic identities and work out the terms of a more interactive “vertical” relationship with the state. In the theoretical language of social capital, effective horizontal relations create “social trust”, while functional vertical relations with government institutions create “civic trust”, both of which operate to nurture the expansion of social capital.17 While not everyone agreed on the nature of these horizontal and vertical relationships, I would argue that the debates themselves constituted the fundamental building blocks of a conversation about redefining the two basic axes of citizenship toward a democratic participatory model.18

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Constituting the discourse of “Familiarismo”: Venues and media channels The constitution of the family association movement as a discursive site for the production of new civic identities was facilitated by the Movimiento’s nation-wide personnel and media networks. Despite its growing loss of political power within the regime coalition, the Movimiento retained a local and provincial degree of articulation exceeded only by the Church’s parish structure.19 The process of constituting “what some are starting to call the movimiento familiarista” began with the Movimiento’s national campaign to publicize its associations and to spread its ideas of family participation in public life.20 The documentation sent by local and provincial Movimiento officials to the head office of the family association movement (DNA and later DNF) offers a glimpse into what appeared to be a broadly disseminated promotional campaign, especially during the early 1970s. The national mouthpiece for the family association movement was the magazine Familia Española, which was either read directly or excerpted in local publications, like the issue of Hoja Familiar of Cáceres, in which the article “What is a Family Association?” was re-printed.21 More episodically, local and regional conferences and assemblies for Movimiento leaders were also occasions for explaining the collective purpose of the new family associations. Thus, 100 people attended the Provincial Federation of Family Associations’ three-day course for local leaders in November 1968 in Santander, which included lectures on how to start an Asociación de Cabezas de Familia (ACF), exploring possibilities for public involvement, promoting local folklore, and strategies for publicizing activities.22 In the opening speech, the President of the Federation talked about the “associational phenomenon” that had arisen with the loss of prestige of political parties and the “need to give society authentic instruments of expression”.23 In Avilés in December of 1970 there was a similar “mini-course” on associationism, at which speakers from the DNF addressed the “family problematic” and how to solve problems through family associations.24 At the Provincial Assembly of Movimiento officials in Ciudad Real in December of 1972, one of the main topics was potentiating the “channels of participation” represented by the associations,25 and in Almería during the same month, the Provincial Assembly of Family Associations held their third annual conference, which included a presentation on “Family Representation and Family Associations”.26 In this latter case, organizers sent the text of the presentation to each local association in the province a month before

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the conference to give members the opportunity to read and discuss ahead of time. Significantly, the information circulated at these events reached the broader public as well, through notices published in non-Movimiento local media on the proceedings. Beyond coverage of major events, even the constitution of a new association could merit a story, as in an El Diario de Avilés article which included a virtually verbatim copy of the goals laid out in the statutes.27 Beginning in 1974, the familiarista message was broadcast throughout Asturias in a weekly radio program that addressed family issues and publicized upcoming activities.28 Newspapers sometimes took the opportunity of a conference or event to interview the DP or even the national representative (DN) of the DNF. Thus, in a May 1971 article published in Santander’s Gaceta Regional, the DP encouraged those who still didn’t know about the associations to join up, under the caption: “we aspire to join together all interested heads of families”.29 In the Voz de Almería, the DP was quoted as insisting that the constitution of family associations was the main concern of the DNF.30 More substantially, on the occasion of the Regional Assembly of Family Associations in Alicante in February 1972, an editorialist waxed enthusiastic about the tremendous hopes many people had focused on familiarismo.31 Bolstering such individual examples, an article in one of the Madrid association’s local bulletin in June 1971 made a casual reference to the extensive coverage given to the family associations and their achievements in magazines and newspapers.32 Several years later, Madrid’s DP confirmed this impression about press coverage by amassing a list of 50 articles published in the month of April 1975 alone that referred to family (and neighborhood) associations in the province.33 While this evidence of dissemination is anecdotal, it supports the claim made by one commentator that “lately, many people are talking a lot about the associations”.34 What all of this publicity suggests is the constitution of a discursive phenomenon called the movimiento familiarista. In other words, it implies that many people around the country were aware, not only of the existence of their local association, but also of its symbolic linkage to a national project. On one level, this awareness was exactly what the Movimiento leaders hoped to achieve with their campaign. However, in practice, creating a new discursive subject opened the possibility of alternative answers to the question, “What is a family association?” Thus, while the Movimiento leaders sought to disseminate a fixed image of a vertically integrated associational movement,

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the campaign introduced and legitimized the key “nodal points” of the family association discourse, such as civic participation, convivencia (peaceful co-existence), and collaboration with the state, without being able to fix their meaning.

The blueprint for Familiarista discourse: The ACF statutes The official perspective of a vertically integrated movement is clearly visible in the blueprint provided in the boilerplate statutes. As Movimiento officials around the country were charged with forming the first ACFs, they were given standardized statutes from which little deviation was allowed.35 Personnel in the head office wrote the first set of official statutes for the ACF in the fall of 1963, when the Movimiento launched its campaign. The statutes left a blank space for the name and the headquarters of the ACF, but supplied the rest of the blueprint, including the required “loyalty” to the Delegado Nacional de Asociaciones (DNA), the newly created branch of the Movimiento. On a basic level, this process of distributing and even imposing a uniform set of statutes was a clear attempt by the Movimiento hierarchy to “fix” the meaning of the associations with a powerful “hegemonic intervention”. Furthermore, the statutes dictated that the life of the associations would continue to be bounded by both an external and internal hierarchy that reflected the Movimiento leaders’ vision of a vertically integrated social order. In the first case, the association was situated as the vertical “channel” between the family and state, bringing the interests of “the Spanish family” to the attention of the authorities. Furthermore, this relationship to the state was defined by a vertical concept of collaboration in which the association was the dependent partner. For example, the defense of consumer interests was to be pursued by “lending full collaboration to the competent organisms in questions of provisioning and consumption”. Similarly, the clause on youth activities began with the order to “offer the necessary collaboration to the corresponding official organisms” to facilitate the development of young people, male and female. In addition to aiding needy families, members were also directed to collaborate with the official state charity boards (Juntas de Beneficiencia). These references make clear the Movimiento leaders’ vision of a civic participation that was orchestrated by the state, with associations acting as assistants to public authorities, not equal partners or challengers. The vertical integration of the society was matched by the internal hierarchy laid out in the statutes. A clear gender hierarchy was implicit

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in the principle of family representation by “head of household”. While membership in the ACF was not explicitly restricted to men, only widows and adult women living on their own would qualify as “heads of household”. More subtly, the goals of the ACF were dedicated to “facilitating the mission of the father of the family”. Women were generally expected to join the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, which addressed their “specific” interests, just like the associations of school parents, large families, and those with disabled children. In contrast, the heads of household in the ACF were to speak for the “general” interests of the entire family, thus neatly embodying the gender distinction between the male as universal and the female as particular. The internal hierarchy articulated by the statutes also infused the relationship between members and the governing board. In fact, it was the gendered metaphor of the family that united both forms of hierarchy in a coherent vision. As one author explained the vision laid out in the statutes, the association operated according to the same “political relationship” as did the family: that is, “the obligation of all members of a family to collaborate with the head of a family is exactly the same in our Associations”.36 Thus, while the “organs of government” included the “Junta General” (general assembly), the Junta Directiva (governing board), and the President, the distribution of power between them favored the “head”. In particular, the President was designated as a separate “organ of government”, invested with the “most high representation and hierarchy of the Association”, and charged with representing the association to the Authorities, the Movimiento (the one mention of this body in the statutes) and other organisms. The “top heavy” structure of the association was reinforced by the 6-year term of the governing board, defined as the “representative” of the association. Finally, although the General Assembly was defined as the “supreme organ of government”, it comprised all the members of the association only when there were no more than 200 members. With larger associations, members would vote for 200 representatives who would constitute the assembly, so many ordinary members would never have the chance to vote on or discuss the business of the association. Even this function was limited by the mandate to “adopt resolutions submitted by the Junta Directiva”, which made it clear that policy initiative lay with the executive branch. The idea of leadership embodied in these statutes is subtly expressed in the form letter sent to local heads of household inviting them to the constitutive assembly where “the people who are going to rule (regir) the association will be chosen”.37

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While the hierarchical framework laid out in the statutes seems clear enough, there were other more ambiguous elements that betray the underlying tensions in the project. Thus, there were sections in which participation was linked to grass-roots representation, horizontal linkages between families, and channels of communication that originated from below, not from above. For example, while the mandate to “represent and defend the common neighbor-family interests of its members”, and “bring to the public authorities the aspirations of the Spanish family in order to strengthen it and improve its social and economic condition” reinforced the vertical connection to the state, it also implied room for dialogue. Even more explicitly, the association was to serve as an “adequate channel for the public representation of the family” and do everything possible to “favor the family’s participation in social life”. Following this general mandate, the statutes spelled out a number of specific activities and concerns that would constitute the public defense of the family. Thus, the association would defend the consumer interests of its members, forming cooperatives if necessary, support “public morality” and “health” and lend “moral and economic” aid to needy families. In addition, it would work to establish cultural and recreational activities, schools and professional institutes, sporting facilities and playgrounds. This mandate to intervene in so many areas of public life left discursive space for the possibility of initiatives from below, which would not necessarily contradict the requirement to collaborate with state-generated projects. There was even ambiguity in the governing structure of the association. Thus, despite the powers given to the President and the Junta Directiva, each individual member was given explicit “rights” within a “regime of self-government”: the right to elect and be elected to the organs of government, to take part “with voice and vote” in the Assemblies and to “bring proposals and information to the organs of government”.38 And, while the statutes required “loyalty” to the Movimiento, there was no explicit mention of doctrinal adherence to Movimiento principles and thus an implicit acceptance of ideological pluralism. Even the apparently unequivocal uniformity of the boiler plate statutes was not as fixed as it seemed. Included in the process of forming an individual association was the requirement to read aloud and vote on each article of the statutes. While such a procedure was no doubt meant to be pro forma, it implied the right to revise specific articles, “based on the lived experience” of the association members, according to one example.39 In this case at least, the members saw themselves as actively

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constituting the “meaning” of their association, not simply mouthing the words of a prefabricated script. Another case in Madrid suggests that some associations may have modeled their statutes after the official version but subtly changed the wording to reflect their own priorities.40 In this instance, the goals of the ACF followed the format of the official statutes, but included more emphatic adjectives to define the members’ specific aspirations and the scope of the association’s mandate. For example, in this version, the association’s role was to inform public officials of the just aspirations of the Spanish family in order, not simply to “strengthen its social and economic development” but to defend a just economic development that would raise to an adequate and dignified level the family standard of living. Likewise, the association’s mandate was altered to increase the active “participation of the family in social life”. A more dramatic change in the ACF statutes was approved by the Provincial Federation in Alicante in October of 1970. In this vote, the federation representatives decided to rename the “head of household” associations with the more generic name of “family associations”, to signal their openness to a broader membership. While it took the DN a year to respond to the request, he eventually endorsed it enthusiastically.41 More significantly, he apparently used these new provincial statutes as a model for a revised “family association” version of the 1963 ACF boilerplate statutes.42 These “family association” statutes were then issued in 1974 and promoted by the DN as a modernized version of the ACF. While most existing ACFs did not change their names or statutes until 1976 or 1977, most new ones were constituted as “family associations”. In this example, even the Movimiento hierarchy acknowledged that the associational project was a work in progress and responded to independent initiatives from below. While none of the statute initiatives described above constituted direct challenges to the Movimiento’s vision of the family associations, they destabilized the foundational blueprint with the implication that the parameters of the movement were not set in stone. All of these “loopholes” in the vertical hierarchy of the family associations were more than just careless oversights. On a fundamental level, they illustrated the inherent tensions in the Movimiento leaders’ new discourse of participation, in which celebrations of pluralism were juxtaposed with assumptions that they would remain in charge. As the critics of the family association proposal had recognized, these associations were a gamble that contained significant risks (see Chapter 1). The Movimiento leaders hoped to use the enticing concept of grassroots civic participation to generate a broader mass base to strengthen

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its own weakening position in the regime’s hierarchy. At the same time, the weakened position of the Movimiento made it more difficult to establish “objective” control over the family association discourse that it had launched, thus opening the potential—and in fact the reality—of discursive contestation.

Defining the boundaries of a culture of civic participation In the contested space opened by the creation of the family association blueprint, a “social discussion” about the goals and purpose of the associations took shape.43 One of the “nodal points” on which all advocates of the family associations agreed was that Spanish society was insufficiently participatory and communitarian. In abstract terms, several commentators criticized the “unthinking individualism” of the Spanish temperament and raised the challenge of getting their countrymen to think and act collectively, to be “re-born”, as one article put it.44 Many repeated the Movimiento assertion that the family, not the individual, was the basic human unit, and that the new associations should build on this communal structure. Others framed associationism in historical and developmental terms, as part of a process that culminated at the international level with organizations like the European Economic Community and the United Nations.45 In this historical plane, Spain had overcome its period of “neutralism” toward international questions of general interest, and the end of isolationism had to permeate all levels of society.46 In more practical terms, family association leaders at the local level were continually lecturing residents on the virtues of participating in the collective project of the association and chastised them for not living up to that ideal. As one editorial noted disapprovingly, “the obligation of the member is not reduced to a name on the register”.47 The plea from leaders for more “participation” from the rank and file is a running refrain in the bulletins and circulars distributed by associations. People can’t wait for others to solve collective problems, and everyone needs to contribute to the well-being of the whole, as one author put it.48 Another example accused residents of treating the association like “a society dedicated to paving streets” when they failed to show up en masse for recent festivities.49 On this fundamental level, then, advocates of the family associations united around the promotion of a new culture of civic participation in public affairs. As a result, this principle constituted a key nodal point in the Movimiento-inspired associational discourse.

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While all the participants in this discourse agreed on the need for more civic participation, unity dissolved when family association advocates tried to explain its significance and its potential impact on the social order. In unpacking this national debate, it is not always easy to sort out which sectors or interest groups within the family association movement were identified with specific positions, but more important for the argument of the chapter is the existence of competing opinions and the fact that participants in the movement were exposed to distinct visions of their movement that allowed them to come to their own conclusions. In particular, debates revolved around the associations’ role in promoting horizontal relationships among the members, as well as vertical relationships with the state, in its role as “representative” to the public authorities.

The horizontal axis of civic participation: Convivencia and community Along the horizontal axis, the discussion revolved around what sort of social relationships the associations were promoting—the individual, the family, or the community. In the narrowest sense, joining an association could be pitched as self-interest. Thus, when the President of the Federation of Large Families in Burgos responded to an interviewer’s question as to why parents should join, he explained that the “principle benefit enjoyed by any member is that the association can handle and resolve their bureaucratic issues”.50 However, this sort of individualism was rare in a movement that generally embraced communitarian over “liberal” values. More common was the official Movimiento position encapsulated in the boilerplate statutes, which identified the object of participation and protection as “the Spanish family”, whose collective interests would be promoted through collaborating and assisting the authorities in the functioning of local institutions. From this perspective, the ultimate goal was to “strengthen the family institution and increase its participation in communal life”. Movimiento theory had always put the family at the center of Spanish society, as one of the three “pillars” along with the municipality and the syndicate, and giving more voice to the family in public life was one of the core justifications for the family association project. Nevertheless, most of the local associational discourse seemed less interested in the associations’ impact on the family than on “communal life”, despite the fact that this phrase appeared nowhere else in the

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statutes. In identifying the community, rather than the individual or the family, as the raison d’etre of civic participation, this perspective promoted a significant expansion of horizontal linkages and networks beyond the bounds of the patriarchal family and the official statutes. For these participants, like the founders of the ACF Peñaflor in Sevilla, the goal of participation was to create a horizontal sense of community that would improve the basic convivencia social51 or, in some cases, revive a nostalgic past. The Spanish word convivencia is not easily translated, but embodies the concept of “thick” social relations based on geographical proximity and cooperation beyond the bounds of one’s own family. As one ACF member put it, “a neighborhood is not simply a collection of streets and plazas, homes and businesses. Without downplaying nor transcending this material dimension, a neighborhood consists fundamentally of its human element. Thus, we begin with the principle that for a neighborhood to exist, it is necessary for all its inhabitants to be conscious of its existence, that they form a collective.”52 A similar sentiment was expressed by another author stressing the importance of building human relations: “it is necessary to increase to a maximum level the friendly contacts, the constant convivencia, the mutual aid when it is needed”.53 In another article defining the goals of “community”, the author linked it explicitly to a social Catholic vision of respect for humanity, rooted in religious faith, personal sacrifice, and the norms of justice. At the same time, he felt compelled to state that “community” was not derived from communism, that boogeyman for communitarianism gone wrong.54 What is striking about all these comments, expressed by participants from various local associations, is the common concern with improving community life. From this local perspective, associationism may have been viewed as a new tool to reinvent or reinforce traditional village structures of sociability, especially in the context of economic, cultural, and demographic transformation.55 In particular, many members seemed to view them as a new secular space for defining and enforcing community norms, in a context in which migration or incorporation into larger urban districts was weakening existing ties. Association bulletins published numerous letters and made references to frequent visits in their offices from members who complained about everything from garbage in the streets, to laundry hanging from windows, to children trampling flower gardens. While these complaints were probably not new, they were framed in these notices within the new language of “civic responsibility” offered by the associations. Thus, the justification for doing the right thing was now more likely to be presented in this

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language of civic responsibility, superseding the older concept of “public morality”, despite its inclusion in the ACF statutes. The speech by the Civil Governor at the constitution of the ACF Santa Brigida, in which he defined the purpose of the association as preserving the moral and religious values of the community stands out as an isolated case, not even repeated by the other speakers at the inauguration ceremony.56 Instead of preserving moral values, most local commentators assumed the association would be the core of a secularized local community based on civic ties, not overtly religious ones. Reflecting a broader shift in Spanish political discourse away from the national Catholicism of the 1950s, family association leaders seemed to be moving away from the traditional religious authority over public life that had been at the core of homeowner association statutes constituted in the 1940s. In this vein, representatives at a provincial congress in Barcelona in 1972 voted to approve a presentation in which “public morality” was explicitly re-framed as civic convivencia.57 Likewise, a Madrid association criticized public infractions as “uncivil”, and encouraged residents to adopt “good civic sentiment”.58 “Unless we become aware of our citizen obligations”, wrote one editorialist from another association, our neighborhood won’t attain the level of cleanliness necessary for our convivencia.59 One of the tasks of the association, then, was “to civically educate in what is respectable”,60 to “achieve a higher level of citizen training”,61 or to create “conscientious citizens”.62 Through the incorporation of this language, the categories of “neighbor” and “citizen” were blending together, as in the explicit plea to “fulfill your obligations, as good neighbors and as good citizens”.63 What is missing in much of this civic language produced in the local associational bulletins is the reference to hierarchical structures of authority, whether religious or political, in favor of shoring up horizontal community ties forged by responsible neighbor/citizens. In these commentaries, civic participation seemed to be about building what we might call “social trust” rather than looking to the authorities for solutions.64 As one member explained his conversion from apathy to activism, he was persuaded that helping the ACF was the same as “helping ourselves”.65 These “men of tomorrow”, wrote another author, “get their strength from living associationally, learning how to discuss their problems, defending their points of view, and respecting those of others, until they arrive at the convivencia at the heart of mutual respect.”66 Significantly, the language of civic convivencia that permeates these local bulletins, in which a primary goal of the association was to deepen these horizontal ties, was simply not the main focus of the official statutes,

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which positioned the associations as channels between the family and the state. While these two visions were not necessarily contradictory, they did point to the emergence and eventual crystallization of very different conceptions of the ACF’s role in the social order. Another expression of this divergence was the debate over whether the community represented by the association should speak in one voice or many. Would civic participation naturally lead to a united community, or was pluralism the hallmark of the new associational milieu? On the one hand was the older Falangist interpretation articulated by the DN, when he claimed that family associations should be “the only and exclusive representation of the totality of Spanish families”,67 or even that membership in them should be mandatory, as some members of one association argued.68 On the other hand were those who followed the newer Movimiento position articulated by the General Secretary José Solís Ruíz after 1957, (see Chapter 1) in arguing for the need to recognize the existence of multiple channels of association and thus the implicitly voluntary nature of convivencia. In this vein, the association President’s response to the position favoring mandatory membership was to insist that a community could not be formed by coercion. Likewise, in explaining why there were two bureaucratic channels for forming associations (the 1964 law and the DNF) a Movimiento official asserted that it was “normal and logical” to have a “duplication of channels” and that both were “equally valid”.69 Similarly, an article describing the process by which a youth group decided whether to affiliate with the Guardia de Franco or with the ACF framed it as a positive choice: “until now, the only youth groups that have existed were the Guardia, the Falange and perhaps another; but Spain is big and these were not sufficient to satisfy the needs of the youth of our era”.70 The debate about unity vs. pluralism extended to the internal structure of each association. Was joining an association akin to “accepting its atmospheric system” and “knowing how to adapt oneself to everyone else”?, in the words of one article on the “fundamentals of family associations”.71 Should model citizens, as another author insisted, be “united and collaborate in everything”?72 Or were family associations diverse melting pots that “accepted all ideologies: monarchist, Falangist, Buddhist, Communist, Protestant”, and operated according to majoritarian principles?73 This latter position was summed up by the DP of Pontevedra as “a free convivencia, within our diversity”. As he went on to say, “I didn’t fight the war, although I suffered it . . . but because I didn’t, I never felt either victor nor victim . . . I believe I can understand a wide

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gamut of ways of thinking and can participate in all dialogues that aim honestly towards that free convivencia in our diversity.”74 These quotes occupy opposing corners in the discussion about the nature of the horizontal relations between community members and, implicitly, between Spaniards re-defining the parameters of a civil society that had been sparsely populated. The limited civil society of the 1940s–1950s was governed either by the religious authority of the Church, which was the cultural and social monitor of the public sphere within national catholic ideology, or by the totalitarian pretensions of the Movimiento, with its fascist ideology of vertical integration. While these positions were still represented in the family association discourse of the 1960s and early 1970s, what was also emerging, especially from the local associations, was a new vision of a secular community, able to balance diversity and convivencia within an ethic of civic responsibility. While this debate on the nature and boundaries of the horizontal social order was not explicitly framed in the language of citizenship, it raised many of the issues relevant to defining the role of democratic citizen participation in public life. Membership in the civic community: Gender in the ACF Another of the issues visible in the debate was the question of membership in the new civic community, and particularly the role played by men and women. Despite the patriarchal structure of the family associations and the overwhelmingly male membership of the ACF, the gendered dimension of community membership was more ambiguous than it might seem. Even the official Movimiento position that the family was the primary locus of associational life implied a joint project in which each member had a role to play, albeit within the hierarchy of family authority. For those whose priority was improving community life, the need for women’s participation was even clearer. Thus, in concrete terms, it was women who let their children climb on trees and who threw garbage into the street, so their “civic responsibility” could not be ignored. However, raising the issue of responsibility implied a discussion of rights, which opened the door to a broader discussion of women’s participation in the ACF and in society at large. In fact it is remarkable how much the local leaders of the ACF discussed the integration of women into their associations and, more broadly, their place in what was generally recognized to be a changing society. Opinions differed, but it is significant that the movimiento familiarista had no single position on women’s public role, and that readers of local bulletins were exposed to a wide range of positions on

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the issue. On the one hand, supporters of the traditionalist gender ideology promoted by the regime emphasized the necessity to reinforce women’s place in the home as a bulwark against the disintegrating forces of modernity. While many commentaries began with the acknowledgment that “feminism has done some good things”, the conservative voice questioned whether the woman who pursued higher education was prepared for her “real” role as mother,75 or if the mother who worked was not hurting her family.76 In more ideological terms, the DP in Palencia argued that the increasing discussion of such ideas as the “equality of men and women”, the “oppression of women as mothers”, and “birth control and disdain for maternity” were part of the Marxist plan to destroy the family.77 In response, his defensive “family politics” campaign touted the woman as the heart of the family, and sought to convince her that sex was for procreation, not pleasure, and that work and politics were “distractions” from her true calling.78 At the same time, others within the family association discourse called for the acknowledgment of a greater public role for women. Once again, these ideas about an evolving role for women could be found within the ranks of the Movimiento. Since the 1967 Electoral Law granting female suffrage and women’s eligibility to run for elected office, leaders of the Movimiento had realized the advantage of recruiting women as voters and candidates. More explicitly, the national leadership of the Sección Femenina increasingly focused on women’s incorporation into Spanish society and politics, as discussed in Chapter 3. Thus, it was not surprising to hear an SF speaker at a Barcelona family conference proclaim that “we must push the participation of women in the active political life of our country to ever greater limits”.79 This notion of a new era for women was expressed succinctly by the female candidate for city council in Palma de Mallorca, who talked about her identity as a “woman of the moment” and her obligations as a “good citizen” to help solve the problems of her city.80 While the direct reference to female citizenship was unusual, this discussion about women’s role in the associations raised the issue of how to define her responsibilities and rights in the emerging civic realm. For example, in one editorial asking the government to pay more attention to the lack of childcare facilities, the author reversed the traditional priorities of the woman by arguing that “because of her children, she is unable to fulfill her community responsibilities”. From this writer’s point of view, while one could not deny the demands of maternity, these needs had to be “equilibrated” with those of the workplace. Poor women had no economic choice but to work, and for middle-class women it

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was the best way to “incorporate into social life as active individuals and attain a full development of their personality”.81 Often supporters of this position framed their argument within a developmental model of modernization that linked new gender roles with a modern society. Thus, an article entitled “The Hour of the Woman” attacked the civil code as “anachronistic” in the inappropriate limits it placed on women in “modern life” and supported complete legal equality.82 In a more lighthearted approach, one editorial joked about how shocked people were when women first got behind the wheel of a car, but how common it was in (modern) countries like the United States.83 While each of these commentaries raised different specific issues, all of them sought to expand women’s place beyond the family role defined for her in the regime’s official ideology. On a more practical level, many local ACF leaders seemed to acknowledge the need to incorporate women into the larger community through their associations. Despite the formal exclusion of most women as members, many associations made explicit efforts to reach out to women, to convince them of the relevance of the association to their lives, and even to participate in it. At the same time, these appeals to women reflected the tension between their formal exclusion from the rights of equal membership and the offer of an informal inclusion based largely on their obligations to the community. Most commonly, local ACF leaders resolved this tension by extrapolating from the family metaphor of complementary gender roles. In the words of one didactic editorial, just as the family was seen to unite the stronger and weaker partner in perfect “inter-penetration”, where the man initiates and the woman supports, so in the association, the author noted, members needed the supportive presence of women. The article concluded that the associations “had to make more room for women in their activities”.84 Most of the explicit appeals to women in the local associational bulletins followed this logic of gender complementarity. Thus, one editorial called on amas de casa to help their husbands implement the agreements of the association on where to park and how to take care of trees, since it was the women who were capable of “getting things done” in the neighborhood.85 Likewise, when local leaders interviewed Josefina Vigleson, a female member of the Cortes and family association official, they asked her how women could participate in their own neighborhood of Moratalaz. She responded that, even if women were not heads of household, they could still contribute to the ACF in a number of ways, from watching over the cleanliness and beauty of the neighborhood, to informing the association of problems, to helping neighbors

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who were in need.86 These appeals to women implicitly recognized their important role in community life, while accepting their second-class or “special” status in it. This balance was also apparent in the decision of many local associational leaders to insert specific “women’s pages” in their bulletins, which they hoped would attract female readers. Most of the material on these pages mirrored that which could be found in the so-called “female press”, addressing such issues as beauty, household projects, child-rearing tips, and “how to be a good wife”.87 As one editorial put it, the bulletin wanted to incorporate all perspectives, including those of women, “who have the tough job of administering at home”.88 While not deviating from the complementary model of gender roles, other voices in the local associations made the case for more formal female participation. Thus, there was increasing talk about encouraging the few female members who did belong to run for election to the governing board. Along with their new roles in public life in the society at large, women were certainly capable of occupying a leadership post within the association, several authors argued.89 Moreover, reasoned another, having a female representative on the board would “provide a link between the Association and the women of the neighborhood”, whose concerns she could bring to the table.90 In another expression of this trend, the Barcelona federation voted in 1972 to increase the number of women eligible for formal membership by extending the right to all married women whose husbands were either absent or had abandoned them.91 Some local associations went as far as changing the name of the ACF in order to offer formal membership to all married women. Thus, in November 1972 the ACF Fuencarral-Tetuán petitioned to change its name to the ACF y Mujeres Casadas (married women).92 And when the ACF representatives in the Provincial Federation of Alicante made their pitch to change their name to “family association” in 1970–1971, the President explicitly linked the proposal with the desire to “include the problems of married women and grown children”, although they were only to be incorporated with “voice, not vote”.93 The DN’s approval of the new “family association” statutes and its later national promotion of them in 1974–1975 marked a significant turning point. The statutes’ mandate to “orient family convivencia, in the transcendent sense of its communal life, in a climate of communication and understanding among its members, in order to affirm the inter-generational cohesion and the stability of its reciprocal relations” was far removed from the explicit elevation of the head of household in the ACF statutes.

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But the fact that most ACF did not adopt the new “family association” statutes, if at all, until late 1976 and 1977 suggests that what the Barcelona Federation had called the “polemical question of female capacity in the family associations” was never resolved under the dictatorship. Only when the Movimiento was dissolved in April of 1977 did all remaining ACF leaders have to accept what had become the dominant “equality” paradigm of incorporation embodied in the AV. At the same time, most of those ACF that successfully transitioned into AV after April 1977 (as opposed to dissolving) had been coopted by oppositional activists eager to jettison the Movimiento past of their associations. Thus, when the ACF Coslada was re-born as an AV in July 1977, one of the major distinctions emphasized by the bulletin was that “you, woman” are fully incorporated, in contrast to the “dictatorial law” of the ACF which invited you to “come by the office” and participate informally (de hecho), but never gave you full rights (de derecho).94 Implicitly, the new AV leadership linked the old “difference” model of female incorporation with the dictatorship, and trumpeted the “equal” inclusion of women as a sign of rupture with the old regime. Before this point, the distinction between de hecho and de derecho participation embodied the discursive tension in the family association movement which was shaped by the “difference” framework of citizenship and its ambiguous incorporation of women.

The vertical axis of civic participation: A political project? While defining convivencia, or horizontal community ties, was a key theme of the family association discourse, so was the community’s vertical relationship with the nation-state. The dilemma for family association advocates was how to frame this vertical relationship, what one author called the “citizen or national task (tarea)”, that stretched beyond the boundaries of their neighborhood.95 The problem was that, within the Franco regime, “politics” had been a taboo concept since the Civil War, associated with national division and petty partisan interests. But, given the various areas of legitimate public interest defined by the ACF statutes, many supporters saw the need for some “political-like” vocabulary to define the “citizen task”, especially when trying to describe the goals of a body whose mission was to bring the “just claims” of the family to the attention of the public authorities (poderes públicos). To resolve this semantic problem, family association advocates employed various concepts, from nationalism, to organic democracy and corporatism, to nebulous adjectives like “supra-political”, in order

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to define the evolving vertical relationship between the people and the state in a positive light. And, despite the generally formal disavowal that this relationship was “political”, the debates over the links between associations and the nation-state were implicitly staged in some version of a political arena, where the nation came together to make decisions about the present and future. Furthermore, as was the case with the discussion of horizontal relations between community members, not all participants agreed on the exact nature of this relationship, even under the umbrella of the collaborationist state/society model that the Movimiento promoted. The result was a multi-faceted debate among family association advocates, rooted in the practical question of how to work with the state to get things done in their local communities. Once again, the internal tensions within the Movimiento’s project to mobilize the population did little to clarify the relationship between family associations and the state. Thus, on the one hand, the Movimiento campaign in the early 1970s to give family associations special corporate privileges to nominate candidates to represent the “family” in both the Cortes and the local governments linked them directly with the “political” realm. Presumably, this campaign was part of the Movimiento leaders’ attempts to strengthen their position in the regime, by allowing associations under their supervision to vote for the one-third family representatives in the Cortes.96 But in the public defense of the project, Movimiento officials emphasized how it would empower and provide the family with authentic “channels of representation” in the government.97 Other sectors of the regime who viewed the campaign as a Movimiento power grab cooperated to defeat it. Instead, the “Law Concerning Public Representation of the Family” codified what Movimiento supporters called the “inorganic” procedure of individual head of households voting for family representatives.98 Before this point, however, the campaign generated several years of public debate that linked the family associations directly with the political sphere.99 At the same time, many Movimiento officials were invested in maintaining the distinction between their two associational projects, the “family” and the “political” (see Chapter 1). The result was often a definitional challenge for Movimiento officials seeking to define the “citizen task” of the family associations. One DN used the word “suprapolitical” to define the “authentic protagonism of participation in collective tasks”, while the editorialist who did the interview thought a better word was “supra-ideological”.100 When the DP of La Coruña was asked about his opinion on the “political representation of the family”,

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he rejected the word “political” and said that they were pursuing the “representation of family interests in the organization of the state”.101 Others also tried to define the “public tasks” of the associations without recourse to the dreaded word. When the President of the ACF in Alicante talked about the need for the association to “have weight in local public life”, he explained that, although the goals were not political “in a strict sense”, by the fact of its “public pressure” (gestión), it has to influence “the polis”.102 Another version of this discursive hair splitting asserted that “the goal of the family associations is not political. Nevertheless, by nature they have to concern themselves with issues like education, which is controlled by a Minister who holds a political position . . . it’s clear that from the first act, a family association enters the political scene.”103 Movimiento officials working within the Francoist framework also had recourse to the language of nationalism to define the “public project” of the associations without reference to “politics”. For example, at the founding of the ACF Aguilar de la Frontera, the DP’s opening speech focused on citizenship and patriotism, with the association framed as part of a larger project to “place Spain in the position where she belongs”.104 In this vein, others linked associationism with “serving”105 or “elevating”106 the Spanish people, pursuing the “glorification” of our country,107 or “bringing able men to the service of Spain”.108 In the most bombastic style of the Movimiento, one author claimed that the family associations united families in order to give their children “a country in order and in peace”, all for the “Greatness, the Unity and the Liberty of the Country”.109 Another traditional Movimiento vocabulary that supporters could adapt to the associational milieu was the framework of “organic” democracy. Thus, officials at the Madrid provincial federation’s first general assembly approvingly cited the definition provided by Falangist law professor Fernández Miranda as their inspiration: “the organization that . . . realizes the participation and presence of the people in the State, by natural historical channels and not by artificial and extrinsic creations”.110 Defenders of organic democracy made the distinction between inauthentic, “masonic-liberal” democracy practiced elsewhere, and the “authentic”, “true” democracy pursued in Spain.111 A Movimiento official in Madrid made just this point in a speech to the ACF Alto Estremadura, by insisting that the multi-party system could not unify Spaniards, but a single party was not the best model either. Instead, he argued, “the associational formula constitutes the perfect instrument for a convivencia and rigorous participation of citizens in

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politics, given that the ultimate goal of democracy is participation and popular control”.112 This idea was disseminated widely in 1972 through the DN, Carlos Bonet, in his speeches, and in the family movement mouthpiece La Familia Española, in which he equated democracy with “real participation of the people in the tasks of the State, whatever forms that participation takes. Spain has chosen its own path to democracy, through the establishment of three important channels of popular representation: the family, the municipality and the syndicate.”113 While not necessarily contradicting the organic democratic framework, other Movimiento stalwarts inserted the associations in the Falangist tradition of economic corporatism. From this perspective, the family associations had an essentially economic function, as the structure on which to place an interlocking series of cooperatives for consumers. If the family was the “unit of consumption”, it needed to be on equal footing with the “units of production” represented by business. Associations could provide the source of this “equilibrium”, which could be achieved through “serene dialogue” between consumers and producers. In this vision, family associations were part of a plan to “humanize economic structures from their base in the family”.114 This lens can be glimpsed in the inaugural speech of the President of the ACF San Brigida, who (in contrast to the Civil Governor cited above) championed “cooperativism” as the best way to defend the economically weak, and promised to create a wide range of producer and consumer cooperatives during his tenure in office. The ACF, he concluded, should be guided by “economic strength”, and “could be the matrix, the womb in which all of these types of cooperatives could be grown”.115 While various Movimiento-inspired strands of the debate were invested in developing a non-political language of civic participation, many participants in the family movement seemed unaware or unconcerned about the negative connotations of describing their mission in the language of “politics”. In fact, there are many instances of the apparently un-self-conscious use of the adjective “political” to describe the activities and goals of the associations. Thus, the DP of Baleares defined the “political-social project” of the associations, arising from the family’s need for political and social influence.116 And the provincial head of the Movimiento in Alicante explained that the Movimiento had been given the responsibility of promoting the political participation of Spaniards, through the family associations, the syndicates, and the local governments.117 In Camargo (Santander), the local ACF submitted its own set of statutes in 1963 that stated its goal to be “a channel of political representation to the public authorities”.118 Even

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more ambitiously, the outgoing President of the Provincial Federation of Family Associations in Murcia described, albeit privately, the family associations as “an undertaking of political development within our constitutional order”.119

Associations and the state: Defining the collaborative relationship Whether the function was labeled political or not, the discursive correlation between the family associations and the political sphere was pervasive. Furthermore, the participation of associations in public affairs required some theoretical elaboration of the relationship between society and the state, and it was on this subject that the most far-reaching discussion took place. While there was general agreement within the loyal family association movement on the need for a collaborative, as opposed to confrontational, model of state/society relations, supporters debated the level of autonomy or independence on the “society” side of the relationship. In contrast to the official position of the Movimiento hierarchy, which assumed that the associations were little more than channels of the state’s will, others in the family movement envisioned more of a dialogue than a monologue. What was implicitly at stake in this debate, I would argue, was the existence or potential for an at least partially autonomous “civil society” to take root in the unlikely soil of the authoritarian state. The official position of the Movimiento, as expressed in the original order constituting the ACFs, envisioned an unbroken continuum between associations and the state, with the goal to achieve a “more extensive inter-penetration and a more intimate collaboration with the authorities”.120 In this vein, the DP of Palencia in 1973 talked about the associations as “channels of training” (formación) for the “inculcation and reinforcement of values” in the defense of the regime.121 In similar language, the provincial head of the Movimiento in Córdoba explained his promotion of associations because “they constitute adequate organs for carrying out an efficient policy of penetration, which will take concrete form later in the next municipal elections”.122 This vision was obviously shared by several of the city councillors recruited to help organize the local ACF in their town, when they tried to insist that membership should be obligatory rather than voluntary.123 Despite the utilitarian vantage point of these provincial officials, their ideas fit the classic conception of “organic democracy” as the “vertebration of the nation”. For these officials, then, “collaboration” was a mechanism for Spaniards to participate IN the State.

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While few family movement participants would have challenged this interpretation directly, many officials seemed to understand the underlying tension between the Movimiento’s desire for voluntary participation and the compulsion to control and channel it. As a national-level functionary put it in his report on the constitution of an ACF in Zaragoza, “each ACF has to be able to act with the spontaneity necessary to obtain the voluntary participation of men in public affairs”, while at the same time “the structure of each association” [must] “be in complete agreement with the doctrinal principles” of the Movimiento. In an ironic illustration of this tension, one of the changes this functionary imposed from above was the deletion from the association’s statutes of an “advisory council” that he felt compromised the independence of the association. He explained that since its members were non-elected and also held official government posts in Zaragoza, the council could end up dominating the elected governing board of the association. Instead, he intended to “concede the maximum independence and liberty of the Association” through its elected officials.124 The delicate balance required of these elected officials was summed up by the DP of Ciudad Real, in his praise of the outgoing president of the provincial federation. The President, he noted, “has united loyalty to the provincial head of the Movimiento with sufficient independence to effectively carry out his mandate”.125 In another case, the DN approved a provincial federation’s decision to dramatically revise its statutes, thus providing room for autonomy, while reinforcing dependence with the message that “we take your requests seriously” before coming to a decision.126 All of these officials working on the ground to define what they saw as the delicate balance between independence and integration hinted at an associational space that was not entirely “in” the State. There is some evidence that it was precisely Movimiento officials involved in promoting the associations at the local level who were most aware of this delicate balance. For example, there are cases in which the DP clearly realized that without a degree of autonomy there was little incentive for many people to join the associations. In one frank report, from the DP of Salamanca, he related how his initial attempt to form an ACF was rebuffed by community members because he wanted to appoint three of his own men to the governing board. When the DP dropped this requirement and emphasized the autonomy of the association, the local organizers changed their mind and constituted an organizing committee.127 The same DP asked his colleague in the national office to be lenient in accepting the original wording of another ACF’s statutes, since they coincided in spirit with the official ones, and

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“would facilitate spontaneity and diversity.”128 In a similar case, the DP of La Coruña complained to the DN of the difficulty in getting parent associations (APAs) to associate with the Movimiento because of the rigid model of incorporation, and argued that the associations should be “free and sovereign”.129 More publically, the DP insisted that an APA did not have to be “dependent” on the DNF to affiliate, and that his role was simply to “coordinate” those associations that worked for the good of the family.130 In another interview, the DP of Salamanca similarly described his role as “helping to organize” associations which “govern themselves with independence”.131 The point about self-government was also made by the DP of Madrid, in his response to an indignant letter from a local Mayor. When asked why he, as Mayor, was not consulted on the “appointment” of members of the governing board of the new ACF, the DP informed him that the Junta would be independently “elected” by its own members.132 Likewise, in another case, the DP of Zaragoza explained to the city councillors defending mandatory membership about the principle of “freedom of association”.133 In some instances, it was the DN who defended freedom of association, advising his provincial delegates not to intervene in the internal personnel disputes of local associations, but to let each one resolve the conflict through its “statutory process”.134 Thus, in response to the Madrid DP’s request to expel a troublesome ACF President, the DN reminded him that each ACF was an independent association over which he had no disciplinary jurisdiction.135 In other cases, Movimiento officials were the objects of complaints lodged by association personnel maneuvering for more autonomy. With reference to the principle of electing one’s own leaders, the President of the Provincial Federation in Albacete asked the DN why subventions were being funneled through the non-elected DP instead of directly to the elected leaders of the associations. “Is our authority and representation not legitimate because we have not been appointed?”, he asked pointedly. A strong family association movement cannot be at the mercy of a man who is not even part of the movement, he concluded.136 In another case, the Junta of the Provincial Federation of Castellón complained to the DN that a Movimiento official was trying to nullify their choice of representatives to be sent to the national conference of family associations and replace them with his own. The petition exemplified the tension between submission and independence by asserting, on the one hand, that the association did not want to contradict the decisions of local authorities, but, at the same time, that the DP “had no right to interfere in Federation business”, and his action “prevents us from being

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able to exercise our rights”.137 What is interesting about these petitions is how the associational discourse helped participants recast what were probably ordinary power struggles between local elites in an increasingly expansive language of “autonomy” and “rights”. The casual utilization of the language of autonomy in many local petitions suggests its broader adoption in the family association milieu. Thus, for example, the Junta of the Federation of Large Families in Castilla defended its decision to affiliate with the Movimiento, because “it would not try to control us at all”.138 In more lofty language, an ACF bulletin defined the constitution of ACFs “under the principle of liberty . . . and self-government”, as “part of the Movimiento” but whose “self-determination” must be respected.139 Another formulation was to reject “paternalistic tutoring” or “outside pressures that constrain us”,140 or more directly, to “give the associations more authority” instead of being “a type of dependent branch of the city government”.141 While most of these texts did not go further to explore the theoretical implications of this invocation of autonomy, one of the presentations at the 1972 Provincial Assembly in Ciudad Real spelled out the impact for the relationship with the State. While the state’s role was to provide channels for family participation, it proclaimed, the result should be to “establish a dialogue between society and the State, between the people and power”. The text even went on to cite Alexis de Toqueville on the necessity of “the intermediary organ of the association, disconnected from all party affiliation”, of which the family associations were the most effective and authentic examples.142 The association as “intermediary” thus marked the opposite pole of the debate from those who placed it “in” the state. Without directly employing the concept of “civil society”, the arguments about independence vs. control were in fact disputes about the existence and boundaries of such a space, even within an authoritarian regime. Collaboration and public policy The same stakes were apparent in the debate about what role the associations should play in requesting or even generating specific public policy solutions to the collective problems of their communities. Once again, it was a Movimiento official who best summed up the tension between the requirement to “collaborate” with authorities and the mandate to “defend” family interests in the public realm. In a private report produced by the DN’s office, about the suspension of several ACFs by the DP in Zaragoza, the author laid out the ambiguities clearly, “while it is evident”, he noted, “that we must exercise a rigorous control over

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the mode and form of operation of the ACFs, it is necessary to keep in mind the kinds of demands on the state (el carácter reivindicativo) that these associations must include in their petitions in order to defend family interests. It is these claims”, he continued, “that, even when they are pursued within legal limits and without threatening social peace and public order, are sometimes restricted or limited to the detriment of the common good.”143 The unstable nature of this balance is illustrated by Movimiento leaders’ decision to dedicate an entire session at a conference for local Movimiento officials to the problematic “Relations between Family Associations and Local Authorities”.144 What was problematic for many state officials were the claims by local associational leaders that collaboration with state projects was not limited to rote implementation. As the President of one ACF stated, the role of the association was to provide input and feedback about the viability or efficacy of those projects, “exercising a constructive criticism, calling their attention to possible errors of public policy and helping to crystallize new programs”.145 Another local participant expressed a similar sentiment, that collaboration “does not mean that the Association has to always be on the side of the city government, but to exercise constructive criticism”.146 Similarly, an article in another ACF bulletin asserted that “the defense of our rights and legitimate interests can take us, in some cases, to collaboration with official organisms, but in others it can take us to formal disagreement through adequate legal measures”.147 Most of these claims appeared in local associational bulletins, but their repetition implies a broader shared vocabulary. Some local associational leaders went further, insisting that, in addition to assisting government personnel in the implementation of official policies, associations had the power to initiate their own policy recommendations. From this perspective, one editorialist argued that the role of the association was to “influence the path taken by the Administration”, while another claimed the right to be “active political subjects” creating a policy “by” families instead of a policy “for the benefit of” families.148 Following this line of thinking, the President of the Provincial Federation in Barcelona argued that “we try to come up with solutions that show authorities the path to take that will help us fulfill our aspirations”.149 In another formulation, a local author described the ACFs as “pressure groups” or “currents of opinion” originating in society and later influencing the state.150 More substantially, the leaders of one ACF modified their statutes to include the ambition to “function as a center of local initiatives”. The idea that collaboration was a two-way street appeared in other places in the new statutes, as in the

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call to “cooperate in the efficient functioning of local schools, including sending proposals to the proper organisms” or to “solicit the adoption of corresponding measures” as well as inform them of the families’ aspirations. In the section on promoting consumer interests, the reference to collaboration was removed entirely, replaced by the pursuit of these interests “through all legal means, including the formation of entities with this goal”.151 Significantly, many government and Movimiento officials interpreted such initiative as overstepping the boundaries of the associations. In a letter from the DP of Valencia complaining of the “politicization” of one local ACF, he accused it of acting more like a “pressure group” than a Movimiento association, operating under the (implicitly mistaken) assumption that “the people have to be protagonists of, more than participate in, activities”.152 More bluntly, the Mayor of Madrid complained that they “want to constitute a parallel Administration”.153 A window into this debate is provided by an account of one Madrid association’s conflicts with city officials over its “protagonism” in local affairs.154 The tension began when some city councillors took offense at the written suggestions submitted by the ACF Coslada on improving the organization of the annual fiesta sponsored by the municipal government, “as if they would listen to us”. The conflict boiled over when the association took the initiative to investigate accusations of underweight bread in certain bakeries. When the police chief discovered that the association’s committee had been testing loaves of bread, he accused them of “usurping” his powers. In the editorial defending the association’s actions, the author cited two official Movimiento sources, the Comisario de Abastecimiento y Transportes and the Asamblea Nacional de Consumidores, to the effect that consumers had the right to “watch over” (vigilar) food quality because officials couldn’t be everywhere at once. In sum, “any citizen can freely exercise the inspection (fiscalización) of the products they buy”. Associations versus the state While few government officials would have publically disagreed with the technical existence of these rights, they undoubtedly knew how easily helpful “protagonism” could slide into a “demanding” (reivindicativa) dynamic of associations “versus” the state, especially if problems brought to the attention of authorities remained unresolved. Thus, at the same time that the previous editorial insisted there was no intent to “usurp” authority, it clearly challenged that authority by calling into question its efficacy: “we only seek to do what those who are obligated

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and paid to do by the people are not doing”. Although not everyone would state it so baldly, this conclusion was implicit in many of the specific policy recommendations made by local associations. What developed in these increasingly demanding petitions were the outlines of an empowered citizenry which acted, not only to cooperate among themselves, but also to ensure that the state worked in their interests. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, it is even possible to track the evolution in local family association bulletins from friendly suggestions to increasingly bitter criticisms as their initial proposals went unheeded. Likewise, one can see in these petitions the shifting balance between holding citizens accountable for the condition of their neighborhood through encouraging “civic behavior”, and the increasing willingness to hold the state responsible for its inaction. Thus, the true “obligation of citizenship”, asserted one editorialist, was to protest “bad government” and work to improve it.155 Based on this logic, if the “obligations” of citizenship placed demands on residents, it was easy to make the leap to the “rights” of an empowered citizenry granted by that status. In this vein, a family association representative in Palma de Mallorca attacked the “discrimination” that resulted in unequal treatment of peripheral city neighborhoods, because those who lived there “are citizens with equal rights and obligations”.156 The presentation on “urbanism and housing” discussed by the Provincial Federation of Barcelona made almost the same argument about the lack of attention to infrastructure in the outer neighborhoods, “as if these citizens don’t pay the same taxes as the rest”.157 How much of this new language of the empowered citizenry was a result of the “politicization”, or infiltration by anti-regime activists, that was feared by the DP of Valencia? There is in fact evidence that some voices in the discussion came from “subversives” who had co-opted the family associations as legal frameworks in which to mobilize against the regime. One of the earliest public cases of this sort of “politicization” occurred in the Basque Country, where four family associations were suspended in 1970 by the Civil Governor after they issued a statement about the violated rights of the Basque people.158 After this point, there are also scattered reports of communist infiltration into the family associations.159 One particular focal point of radicalized family associations emerged in Zaragoza, where leaders boasted that belonging to the Movimiento did not prevent them from being “an embryo of authentic mass organization”.160 While the Madrid landscape remained more diverse, it is possible to track the evolution in the leadership of some of the early Movimiento-affiliated associations, in Moratalaz, Coslada,

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and Vallecas, for example, as they adopted increasingly critical and then oppositional stances. In Moratalaz, the turning point came in 1972, when a new President promoted “democracy, without adjectives”, in pointed contrast to the official “organic democracy” defended by the regime. Like the leaders in Zaragoza, the Moratalaz President admitted that the family associations could be “an adequate medium to mobilize the civic concerns of a person” “in a country where there have been no political associations for 35 years”.161 But even such an admission only implicitly trespassed on forbidden discursive territory, since mobilizing around civic concerns was a “nodal point” in the family association discourse on which all parties agreed. The result, in all but a few exceptional cases, was that even associations coopted by subversive leaders did not publically transgress the boundaries of the familiarista discourse about civic participation, both in order to avoid repression and, more to the point in this discussion, because the activists had come to recognize that there was enough room within the discourse to pursue many of their basic goals. To illustrate this point, it is important to recognize that it was not only “subversives” who had come to discursively situate the associations “versus” the state. When the state failed to respond to the needs articulated by the associations, many loyal Movimiento officials understood that they would lose credibility if they didn’t support their associations “versus” the state. In particular, Movimiento voices speaking in the name of familiarismo could be heard lambasting state agencies for abandoning their protectionist corporate ideals as the impacts of the government’s liberalized economic policies became increasingly apparent in the late 1960s and early 1970s. For example, the DP in Madrid laid out a full critique of the market-based economic policy that protected producers without taking into account consumer interests, and urged the family associations to “demand objective and clear information” on what the state was doing to prevent fraud, control prices, and enforce quality of products.162 Likewise, the President of Madrid’s Provincial Federation of Associations of Large Families criticized the government’s failure to implement Movimiento-promoted laws, such as the recently signed “law protecting large families”, which was effectively “dead letter”, in his words. The Federation’s goal, he said in his opening speech, was to “force” the government to distribute the subventions ordered by the law and to further expand benefits.163 Of course, these loyal Movimiento officials were careful to confine their criticism to specific policies or individuals. For example, in one DP’s otherwise scathing attack on the total lack of cooperation offered by the state bureaus

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charged with building and repairing housing units, he blamed individual bureaucrats who “don’t listen, are paternalistic, impose excessive centralization and, as a result, commit many errors”.164 The significance of such criticisms voiced by loyal Movimiento officials in the name of the family association movement is complex. On one level, these criticisms were launched by one branch of the state (the Movimiento) against another (the liberal technocrats who were displacing them), and thus reflected divisions within the state, rather than between the state and civil society. But, whatever their motives, when the Movimiento officials issued their critiques of state policies in the name of the family associations and the citizens who belonged to them, they spoke as if they were outside, not inside the state. It was this positioning of the associations “versus” the state that overlapped with critiques made by “subversives” hoping to undermine the Francoist regime, even though their ultimate intentions were quite different. The result was a virtual chorus of voices, all proclaiming that “the voice of the family will have to be listened to” by an often reluctant state. This positioning by these very different actors of the family associations versus the state marks the outer boundary in the familiarista debate over the nature of the relationship between associations and the state. Between the extremes of incorporation into the state and full autonomy vs. the state, family association advocates and participants negotiated the fluid boundaries of a state/civil society relationship. Whether or not the family association leaders claimed to engage in “politics”, between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s, they increasingly asserted the right to intervene in public policy, to make suggestions, to “watch over” the public sphere, and even to criticize the state’s failure to address their concerns, all of which eventually created an ever more direct relationship or dialogue with the state about issues of political significance. Furthermore, the opening and gradual expansion of that dialogue carved out a more autonomous location for the family associations than that originally imagined by Movimiento theorists. At the same time, however, the dialogue cannot be characterized simply in terms of grass-roots leaders pushing the limits established by top officials. Thus, many Movimiento officials themselves realized the inherent ambiguities between incorporation and independence in the associational project and worked to negotiate a balance with local associational leaders rather than blindly imposing a vertical hierarchy that they realized would have killed the associations. Those who took this route contributed to, rather than detracted from, the deepening conversation about how best to

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define the role of the family associations and their relationship with the state. In the end, the result was not a fixed blueprint but the emergence of a new discursive terrain in which a multiplying number of groups and individuals struggled to flesh out ideas about civic participation that were linked implicitly, if not explicitly, to a re-imagining of citizenship practices.

The family association movement during the transition The family association discourse culminated in the immediate postFranco period, between the death of Franco in late 1975 and the dissolution of the Movimiento and all of its affiliated organizations in July of 1977. During this brief period, family association defenders tried to re-tool their movement for the new democratic era. While they ultimately failed to disassociate themselves from the old and now discredited regime, it is striking how much familiaristas could draw on elements of the civic participation discourse developed under the Franco regime to make the case that they could contribute to the new democracy. The claim to channel participation in public affairs was still a viable goal, and Movimiento officials had been linking that participation with “democracy” for several years. While the adjective “organic” was quietly dropped, it was now easy to claim that they had “always supported democratic aspirations” in their non-partisan defense of the family and would continue to do so.165 Thus, when the DP of Barcelona gathered his associations together in February 1976, he called for a reactivation of the Federation, based on its traditional “democratic spirit”.166 Such leaders’ democratic credentials required independence from both the Movimiento and the Francoist state, but this language was also readily available in the family association discourse that had developed over the previous decade. When the DN argued in a 1977 speech that the family associations were effective in making demands on the state (reivindicaciones) as well as in forming citizens, he was in familiar discursive territory.167 He did admit that mistakes had been made in the past, and recognized that “paternalism and bureaucracy” had thus far blunted the success of familiarismo as the path toward the “self-promotion” of the family.168 Similarly, the DP of Oviedo talked about having to convince people that the Movimiento was there to “help”, not serve as an “organ of control”.169 Summing up the ambitions of the familiaristas at this transition moment was the manifesto of the Baleares Provincial Federation, issued in January of 1977, in the wake of the victory of the December 1976 national referendum on political reform. Like

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everyone, it stated, “we want more participation, more convivencia and more social well being among all groups, no matter their ideology”, in the construction of an “authentic democracy”.170 Of course, for many people the family associations were too closely linked with the old regime, too “politicized” in a different sense by their origins in the Francoist regime to be salvaged as part of the new democracy envisioned by the opposition. Indeed, the leaders of many of the movement’s surviving associations felt the need to rupture all links with their “family” past and transform themselves into Asociaciones de Vecinos. Despite the functional similarities between the two types of associational statutes in 1977, there was clearly a powerful symbolic weight to defining oneself either through the language of vecino or family. Thus, the debate in the Asociación Familiar Vicente Alexandre over this question in January of 1978 was animated and highly contested. While the AV option won by a vote of 62–35, some of the members on the losing side complained about the new “vecino concepts and ideas that they want to impose on us”.171 While vecino is often translated as “neighbor”, it has deeper connotations of belonging to a broader community, and of the solidarity that arises out of “sharing meaningful common things over a long period of time”.172 Most of the family associations that voted to embrace the “vecino concepts” adopted the boilerplate statutes that were circulating during the spring of 1977, but a few chose to submit their own original versions.173 What is interesting in these cases is how family association language remained embedded in the new AV statutes, further demonstrating the continued viability of many of the basic concepts of familiarismo. Thus, the new Leganés statutes defined the association’s goals as the “representation of vecinos’ interests and the defense of all common interests to the public authorities, transmitting to them their aspirations and soliciting the adoption of corresponding measures”. While the focus in this text is on vecinos, the phrasing is actually more similar to the Asociación Familiar statutes. Moreover, older conceptions of the family unit, even in its patriarchal version, creeps into other clauses, as in the aspiration to “organize all the activities and services that facilitate the mission of the padre de familia [singular, which signifies father], especially those which are not economically feasible to do alone”. And, while all vecinos and adults could be members of the new AVs, another clause endowed only “heads of families” with the right to petition the Junta Directiva to waive the dues in cases of economic hardship. Finally, the list of member prerogatives retained from the AF statutes included the right to “ask the President for help in defense of their family interests”.

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In another case, the new statutes of the AV Suanzes reflected the apparent attempt to root out all “family” language, with its goal defined simply as the defense of the interests of the vecinos, within the framework of the “fundamental rights and liberties of man” recognized in the European Constitution of Human Rights. Nevertheless, much of the wording of the statutes was clearly modeled on the former “family association” version. Thus, the list of rights and obligations was almost identical, with the deletion of the right to ask for family assistance and its replacement by an original version of the right “to express freely one’s opinion or critique respecting the operation of any organ of government of the Association”. In the articles on internal governance, the model was again the family association statutes, including the clauses about democratic principles, self-government, and the principle of representation, only slightly re-worded: “the Association will organize itself by the principles of democracy and representation through the following organs”. The point is that, even in this case, when the members clearly sought a rupture with the “family” framework, they found much of the language of the old statutes transferable with little or no modifications. Added to the other examples, this case suggests that, despite the dramatic changes occurring in the political sphere, there existed significant common ground across the political chasm of “family” vs. “vecino” community associations, especially in terms of the language of civic participation that they both employed. At the same time, that political chasm between “family” and “vecino” made it virtually impossible to recognize such common ground, let alone acknowledge it. The result was the collapse of the family association movement and its exclusion from the emerging “citizen movement” and the transition narrative.

Conclusion Rather than existing in some ideologically incompatible realm, however, the ACF/family associations had always been situated inside, not outside, the boundaries of the evolving Conversation about civic participation. Even though it was not until the political transition that this discourse incorporated the explicit language of democratic citizenship, from the outset in the mid-1960s advocates of the family association movement launched a wide-ranging discourse about the scope and nature of civic participation, the relationship between citizens and the government authorities, and the role of associations in public policy. Overall, familiaristas supported the creation of a new culture of civic

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participation, in which Spaniards were encouraged to develop deeper “horizontal” relationships with each other that could form the basis for constructive “vertical” dialogue with the state. The “nodal points” that everyone seemed to agree on were the need for more collective participation in public life and for better articulation of channels that could communicate between ordinary Spanish families and the state. And, while the associations’ statutes laid out a blueprint for their hierarchical vertical integration within the Movimiento, the blueprint was never able to “fix” the potential implications of community organizing as long as there were no ideological red flags. Thus, what is most notable about the family association discourse was the room for different positions, whether about the place of women in the ACF, the moral or secular bases of convivencia, the independence of the associations, or their “political” identity. These conflicting positions reveal the degree to which the family association movement functioned as more than an object of indoctrination, instead serving as a site for Spaniards to explore new citizen identities and frameworks, albeit within certain formal ideological limits. Seen from this perspective, those who joined the family associations began a discussion of the fundamental components of a theory of democratic citizenship that helped constitute the parameters for “defining oneself as democratic” during the transition.

5 Women and Familiarismo: The Civic Discourse of the Homemaker Associations

Everyone is talking and talking about our association.1 Like the other family associations, the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa (AAC) generated a public or semi-public conversation in which “everyone was talking” about their goals and their role in the lives of their members as well as the larger society.2 Through articles in local newspapers, associational bulletins, correspondence between local and national officials, and local, regional, and national conferences, participants in the AAC movement constituted their own discursive site in which ideas about female collective participation in public life could be aired and debated. While in some ways the homemaker association discourse can be viewed as a subset of the “general” family association discourse, it was also an explicitly female space, defined by the limits and opportunities of the gender difference model which generated it. As a female space, the AAC discourse was situated on the margins of the “general” family movement, but, at the same time, it also provided a readily accessible public site in the late 1960s and early 1970s in which women’s issues, as well as discussion about their changing roles and identities, could take center stage. Furthermore, one of the most notable characteristics of this discussion was the diversity of the positions taken, or, once again, the range of possible meanings given to the key concepts, even within a generally loyalist ideological framework. While the authors of most AAC declarations spurned “feminism” for what they viewed as its “extreme” rejection of traditional roles, those speaking for the Homemaker movement generally accepted that “modern times” called for an evolution or re-evaluation of women’s roles, both private and public. The result was a dynamic “Conversation” in which women’s place in society was interrogated and debated at the 190

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associational level rather than imposed from above. As with the more general familiarista discourse, no “side” was able to fix a set of dominant meanings. In hosting such an open conversation, the homemaker association discourse implicitly destabilized rather than shored up the “separate spheres” gender ideology of the Franco regime, which continued to assign women the exclusive roles of mother, homemaker, and guardian of public morality within a patriarchal family structure. This ideology was institutionalized from the outset of the regime through a series of laws and state policies. Thus, the 1938 Labor Charter restricted women’s work and made its mission to “protect” women from the need to work. As women were discouraged from entering the workforce, they were encouraged to have children, while birth control and abortion were made illegal. Women were offered financial incentives to quit work when they had babies, and to have more children, with the award of supplemental income to large families as well as prizes each year to the largest. The regime also instituted gender-segregated education, both to protect public morality and to implement distinct curricula that indoctrinated boys and girls into their future prescribed roles. The legal structure of Spanish family law also reinforced the propaganda of distinct sex roles. One of the first things the Franco regime did was to reverse the legislation of the Second Republic that had provided basically equal political and civil rights for women. Instead, the regime reinstated the nineteenth century Civil Code, which defined the husband as head of the household and the wife as obliged to obey him. Wives had no control of their finances, no custody of their children, they couldn’t travel without their husband’s permission, and, of course, they had no political representation. While AAC advocates did not reach an alternative consensus about what women’s role in society should be, the variety of positions expressed on the topic had the effect of problematizing rather than indoctrinating. This problematization essentially exposed Spanish women to the basic themes of the “second wave” feminist “woman question”, including such issues as relations with men, legal status, the work force, and the changing identity of the homemaker. In doing so, the AAC contributed to a broader emerging trend within the society of the dictatorship, what María del Carmen Muñoz Ruíz has called a “generalized state of opinion” in some sectors of the population to put the “woman question” back on the table for discussion.3 From the debate on women’s legal status in the conservative ABC in the mid-1950s, to the SF’s Teresa’s campaign declaring that “women want to work”

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(1956–1958), to the homemaker magazine Ama’s addition of a section on “professions” (1961), to the reformist Cuadernos para el Diálogo’s special issue dedicated to “women” in 1965, one can see the fracturing of the hegemonic public image of Francoist womanhood, even among conservative voices.4 In institutional terms, the Sección Femenina led a series of successful campaigns, most notably the 1962 Law for Political and Professional Rights and its 1966 amendment, which removed some of the obstacles to women entering the labor force, especially at the professional level.5 While at first glance, it might seem paradoxical that quintessentially traditionalist women’s associations like the AAC would participate in this larger resurrection of the “woman question”, in fact it had always transgressed political boundaries, even in the era of “first wave feminism”. Thus, Inmaculada Blasco has argued that the Catholic women’s associations of the early twentieth century carved out an independent women’s agenda that could be defined as “feminist”, while scholars of the SF, like Victoria Enders and Inbal Ofer, have suggested that the SF leaders also viewed themselves as participating in the effort to promote improvements in women’s status in society.6 Whether or not these efforts can or should be grouped under the category of “feminism”, they certainly defy a binary framework in which attention to the “woman question” falls neatly on the “modern” or “progressive” side of the political spectrum.7 Further confusing the left/right political spectrum in this case was the complex presence of the dissident AAC in the discursive space of the movement, at least in the case of Madrid. One could argue that, before the era of the transition, there was only one public face of the homemaker association movement, regardless of the political differences between conservative and dissident associations. For the most part, the mainstream Spanish media treated it as a single movement, and rarely offered the dissidents a platform to distinguish themselves from the conservative associations. And for the most part, the conflation suited the leaders of the dissident associations since, if they wanted to maintain the cover of their legal venue, they had to be careful not to cross the political line in public pronouncements and declarations. The result was a considerable overlap in the public issues raised, and the positions taken, by both types of AACs. Nevertheless, the dissident associations did manage to push the envelope and subtly expand the limits of this female discursive space, even while retaining a relatively covert presence.

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At the same time that AAC advocates joined in the debate on the “woman question”, they also participated in the more general family association discussion themes, including those concerning collective representation, collaborating with the state, and civic responsibility. Thus, the discourse that emerged in this period of the late 1960s and early 1970s was equally concerned with how the associations could benefit the status of women, on the one hand, and how they could help solve social problems and contribute to the common good, on the other hand. It was in fact the mingling of the “woman question” with the participatory concerns of familiarismo that produced a unique and unexpectedly dynamic space for an explicit re-framing of the nature of female citizenship. The upshot was that the homemaker association movement emerged as one of the most important sites for exploring women’s changing roles, especially in the context of the broader participatory framework of the associational milieu.

Defining the subject of the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa: Family, homemaker or woman? At first glance, the homemaker associations, like the other family associations, would not appear to provide fertile ground for the evolution of such a dynamic discourse. As with the ACF, most of the AACs were constituted in a top-down process designed By Movimiento family officials to create channels of participation for the family in public life, not for opening debate on the status of women. The general goals laid out in the boilerplate statutes were then publicized and developed through officially sponsored national conferences and workshops. However, while the statutes and national conferences provided a common script for the role of the homemaker associations as imagined by the Movimiento leaders, there was enough flexibility in their operation to allow individuals and associations to emphasize some functions more than others. These varying perspectives on the primary goals of the Homemaker movement can be seen in associational bulletins, interviews and speeches given by leaders, or written statements of purpose. What these differences reveal is the process by which local leaders and associations appropriated an “imposed” framework to make it relevant for their interests and projects. At the same time, the emerging discussion about the primary function of the homemaker associations opened the door to a broader reconsideration of women’s role in society, even

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though that was clearly not the original intention of the Movimiento family officials. As with the other family associations, the ambiguity about the primary function of the AAC was embedded in the statutes themselves, whose language permitted a range of interpretations about both their subject and object. As a subset of the family movement, they were expected to serve and benefit the interests of the family, as the fundamental social unit, but as “special” associations they also targeted amas de casa as their subject. The two subjects were obviously related, but precisely because the relationship between them was assumed to be natural and consubstantial, the statutes never explicitly defined how the “specific” and the “general” subjects came together. Instead, they simply laid out a series of goals and functions that targeted one or the other subject without recognizing potential tensions or specifying a hierarchy of interests. Thus, the “moral and material” interests of the ama de casa were directly acknowledged, but the defining clause “especially related to the family” both links these interests to the family but also leaves open the possibility that non-family interests could be addressed. Likewise, the associations were to promote “professional development”, but to help her carry out her “complex mission” in the home. At the same time, they were to provide assistance to help resolve the problems created when the ama had to seek work outside the home, and to pay special attention to the vulnerabilities of illness and widowhood. The statutes also defined a civic role for amas de casa in defense of general family interests, through cooperating with schools in the education of their children, collaborating with public entities in questions of “family consumption”, and getting involved in the “urban problems” of their town, especially promoting parks and playgrounds for children. This civic role, with its focus on children and household consumption, was framed by the understanding of the ama’s domestic responsibilities, but it also established a conceptual bridge between private and public life that suggested a re-thinking of their existing responsibilities. Within this ambiguous framework, there were a range of positions on what the goals of the AAC were. From the perspective of most Movimiento family officials, the associations seemed to function only as a subset of the larger family movement. In other words, the relevant “unit” of analysis was the family, not the homemaker, and it was in the common defense of the family that all activities should be measured. Thus, in the DN’s speech at the First Jornadas Nacionales of the homemaker associations in 1973, he argued that these associations arose as true defenders of the “rights of the home”, and that, on the path to

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the “perfection of the family institution”, the homemaker associations occupied a primary place. Following this logic, the goal of the associations was to “dignify the moral and material situation of the family”.8 Similarly, in response to a question about the role of the AAC, one Movimiento official in Madrid responded that, like other family associations, their task was to search for solutions to the problems of family life.9 When women’s roles were raised in this official discourse, it was to affirm their identity as “mothers of the family”. Thus, the Madrid official quoted above distinguished the AAC by their focus on “women in the family environment”. Likewise, the Civil Governor of Toledo defined the associations as “tied to their [women’s] specific function in the home”.10 But this acknowledgment of women’s specific role in the family led many of those within the AAC to focus on the ama de casa’s ability to carry out that role. In other words, it is possible to detect a subtle distinction between a position in which homemaker interests were subsumed within family interests, and another in which the homemaker herself was the subject. Thus, in a circular distributed by the Madrid association governing board to its members, the text explained that the goals of their movement were similar to those of the padres de familia, but included specific goals for amas de casa, like the project to incorporate women into the social security system.11 In fact, the project to create a Mutualidad, or pension fund, for amas de casa, was one of the primary stated motives of the founders of both the Madrid and the Barcelona associations, in recognition of the ama de casa’s “social economic labor” in the home, in the words of the President of the Albacete association.12 The subjectivity of the homemaker herself was even clearer in a 1971 circular of the Madrid association, which stated the goal of organizing Spanish amas de casa in order “to defend their interests and aspirations, as consumers and administrators of the family economy, looking for solutions to problems that arise in the role of madre de familia”.13 In similar terms, the President of the National Homemaker Federation (FNAC) defined the goals of the upcoming conference of homemaker associations as: “analyzing the real problematic of the ‘mujer ama de casa’ of today, in all aspects of her mission in the family and in the society that surrounds her”.14 Such solutions could be framed either in the language of mutual aid or of self-improvement. Thus, the DP in Baleares emphasized how the AAC there was helping amas to carry out their functions,15 while in contrast another Movimiento official urged the associations to “raise the cultural and human level” of their members, “to be more useful to their family

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and society”.16 Acknowledging both approaches, the President of the newly formed association in Albacete explained that the goals of the association were both “cultural development” and assistance in solving problems related to women’s role in the home.17 In the latter category were projects like the Mutualidad, as well as the promotion of (part-time) child care centers and playgrounds, or the negotiation of discounts at local stores.18 Another “assistance” issue was the so-called “problem”, or shortage, of domestic service, which was mentioned as the original motivation for the associations in Baleares and Avila.19 In the category of “development/training to take on woman’s mission in the home” were a range of activities and courses, from tips on decorating the parlor to courses on plumbing and electricity.20 While most homemaker associations organized at least some of these mutual aid and self-help activities, the predominance of such activities in some associations, such as Burgos, can be interpreted as an implicit statement of purpose, suggesting that they defined their mission as the collective support of women’s domestic responsibilities.21 More explicitly, the Burgos association submitted a petition in 1967 supporting the re-classification of ama de casa as a profession,22 while the Valencia association defined its charge as valorizing “our great mission in the world”, so that “the most important profession for women” would be more respected in society at large.23 While such language seemed to focus on “guiding women toward the home”, in the words of the Salamanca president,24 other voices in the movement framed “development” or “promotion” more broadly to encompass the “woman”, not just the “ama de casa”. Once again, there was a subtle difference between these two subjects, with the “promotion of woman” opening into a broader discussion of her non-familial role. Thus, when the Huesca association stated its primary goal as the “promotion of woman” in a 1972 article in the bulletin, their activities related to the home were framed as only one part of women’s evolving position in “modern times”, which required a full understanding of local, national, and international problems. In this context, argued the author, women had to “cultivate themselves” and “feel the desire (inquietud) to achieve their full self-realization”, which included their thorough incorporation and active participation in governing bodies. The article concluded that it was the association’s primary goal to help individuals do this, while the secondary goal was to promote their collective participation.25 While most associations would not have gone so far as to replace ama de casa with woman, the phrase promoción de la mujer did appear frequently, for example, in the opening speech

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by Belén Landaburu at the First Symposium of Amas de Casa in 1969, which defined it as “one of the most important conquests of the 20th century”.26 Finally, there is evidence in some associations of an internal evolution from promoting amas de casa to promoting women. Thus, while the goal of the Granada association in 1967 was defined as “defending and helping the interests of the home”,27 in 1973 members began organizing an annual event, featuring exhibits, lectures, visits to museums and concerts, called the “Campaign for Culture and the Promotion of Woman” (Campaña pro-cultura y promoción de la mujer). More generally, the promoción de la mujer discourse intensified in the wake of the UN’s declaration that 1975 was to be the “International Year of the Woman”. As one of the major forms of female association in Spain, homemaker association leaders clearly felt the need to sign on to this international project, and most of them organized special events, lectures, and celebrations, which were explicitly linked to the UN’s goals of “promoting equality between men and women” and “integrating women into development”. Thus, the Huesca General Assembly of February 1975 began with a talk on the implications of the “Year of the Woman”, which focused on the campaign for equality.28

Debating the role of women in society: Between feminism and “immobilism” As this example illustrates, the discussion about how the associations would or should benefit women opened into a broader conversation about the role of women in Spanish society, that included a range of positions on such issues as relations with men, legal status, the work force, and the changing identity of the homemaker. On the one end was what most homemaker association statements defined as “extreme” feminism, on the other was the defense of women’s “traditional” role, but in the middle was what appears to have been a majority position that “modern times” called for an evolution or re-evaluation of women’s roles. As an editorial in the Huesca bulletin pronounced in its first issue, “modern life, progress and social evolution have dramatically expanded the possibilities for women in society”.29 As a result, declared a speaker at the I Jornadas de Amas de Casa in Valencia in 1973, it was the associations’ task to prepare the “woman of the future”, for which the “old formulas that could serve in another era” were inadequate.30 For some, the woman of the future would be a modernized and improved version of the mother and homemaker. Achieving this

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transformation required a dual strategy of self-improvement or formación and public promotion of the value of the ama de casa in the modern age. In regards to the former strategy, Madrid’s President Sedeño likened the creation of the association’s cultural center to a “nascent female ateneo”.31 At the same time, she wrote elsewhere, the association promoted homemakers’ status as “co-directors of family development, and of the administration and provisioning of the progressive welfare of the Spanish family”, rescuing them from the discourse of “everyday anachronistic folklore (costumbrismo)” in which they were trapped.32 More publically, the conclusions of the speech on the “woman of the future” summed up the dual strategy: first, the “continuous education of women in the home, towards a more responsible position in the home and the society”, and second, the recognition of the “social value” of women’s work in the home. The most conservative version of this re-valorization was to frame women’s domestic labor as a major bulwark against social disintegration. As a petition from the Burgos association explained, the serious problem of “delinquent, deformed youth” in contemporary society was primarily due to the “disorder of family life”, defined as the “relaxation of paternal authority” and the “abandonment of the mother’s mission in the home”. The solution, according to the petition, was to reinforce the traditional family by recognizing the labor of the ama de casa with social security and other worker benefits.33 In a similar vein, the Lugo association governing board invited women to its inaugural assembly with a celebration of the undervalued work that homemakers did, especially in the education of children, which explained the still low rate of juvenile delinquency in Spain.34 But this unmodified defense of the “traditional family” was a minority position. As the speaker at the I Jornadas argued, the crisis of contemporary society could not be resolved with “immobilism”, and the stage of “paternal authority in the home” had been replaced by shared responsibility between men and women. More common was the defense of the “ama de casa as a profession like any other”, which deserved social and legal recognition.35 While they were all for progress and liberation for women, explained one author in the Huesca bulletin, this shouldn’t mean vilification of the honorable service rendered by homemakers in pursuit of their vocation.36 At the same time that women’s domestic labor had to be recognized, women also had to achieve a balance between this labor and “emancipation”, argued the speaker at the I Jornadas. Instead of the erroneous interpretation of “emancipation” as the abandonment of the vital

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domestic role, she explained, the solution was to reduce the time spent at home through the “rationalization” of housework. Rationalization of domestic tasks would leave more room for homemakers to “transcend their narrow personal perspective” and orient their actions toward the larger “problems of the world” that required the “union of all forces working together.” In another version of this message, the President of the AAC Alava defended the primary role of family responsibilities, but advised that an exclusive focus on them “reduces their world too much”. To expand their horizons, she concluded, homemakers could spend no more than 4 hours a day in activities not related to the home.37 A talk delivered to the Madrid association by board member Josefina Trillo-Figueras reached similar conclusions. Women still needed to be the center of the home, she declared, but mothers had to be at the same cultural level as their husbands and children. As such, it was not enough to keep a clean house, but to cultivate intellectual curiosity, a “critical spirit”, and knowledge of the world. In pursuit of this goal, she advised that members listen to the news and attend expositions and lectures, and promised that the association would work together so that each of them could become “this type of woman”.38 “This type of woman” was also modeled in biographical sketches of notable female figures from the past and present that were published in associational bulletins. During the launch of a lecture and article series on “Women in Legend and History”, an editorial in the Madrid bulletin argued for the need to “bring these women to light”, since they were largely ignored in standard history texts.39 In subsequent issues, readers of the bulletin were exposed to a series of “herstory” heroines, beginning with Queen Isabella I, the “first queen of unified Spain and Mother of America”. From a more contemporary perspective, the Huesca bulletin printed front page photos of the first three women elected to the city council in the 1973 elections, with a commentary on how their “breaking barriers” made the rest of them a little more integrated into society. Following the biographies of these women, there were several more profiles on “our women”, including one on the Secretary General of the Housewife Federation, Belén Landaburu, and on the DP of the Sección Femenina, described as “another woman who rose to a prominent public position without minimizing her femininity”.40

Debating the role of women: In the labor force Whether this expansion of women’s horizons included entry into the labor force was a matter of serious debate for participants in the

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homemaker associations. Only 15 percent of Spanish women participated in the labor force in 1960, but that was almost double the percentage of 20 years earlier.41 In addition, the recent SF campaign for the 1962 Law for professional rights had already opened public debate about the issue. That the AAC were fully involved in this emerging debate is illustrated by the vigorous discussion generated by the position paper, “The Labor of Amas de Casa Outside the Home”, presented at the First National Assembly of the Federation in 1968.42 However, most voices in the movement seemed to accept the basic position that the entry of women into the workforce was an “irreversible fact”.43 Indeed, Secretary General Landaburu insisted that everyone had the right and obligation to work, including women. In addition, she argued, marriage shouldn’t be the “only solution” for women, since many women might need to work at some point in their lives.44 Even the most conservative defense of traditional family roles, exemplified by the Burgos petition referred to earlier, accepted that women with no children or grown children, “can and should work”. In a similar vein, the AAC Lugo Junta issued a press release entitled “Should the ama de casa work outside the home?”, which acknowledged that women without small children or those with great economic need should be in the workforce. Given the intense interest generated by the question, concluded the article, the association was planning to hold a series of talks presented by a variety of experts.45 Along with the basic acknowledgment of amas de casas’ integration into the workforce, at least during some stages of their life, participants in the conversation discussed the quality of the work women were capable of and deserved access to. Implicit in this discussion was the recognition that even middle-class women who didn’t need to work might want to do so. Gone were the days when the only jobs open to women were “midwife, cigarette seller or queen”, said Landaburu, quoting the late nineteenth century writer Emilia Pardo Bazán.46 According to an article in the Madrid bulletin, these days it was clear that women could do whatever men could if they had the skills, and access to wellpaying jobs would save them from searching for a husband “out of desperation”.47 In fact, declared another article in the Ceuta bulletin, more women were entering the labor force for “intellectual vocation” rather than economic need, and the author expressed hope that this trend would increase, as Spanish society developed.48 Along with this discussion of (implicitly middle-class) women’s capacity for meaningful work, some expressed concern that prejudices and discrimination would keep women from moving into those jobs. In

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an article supporting the constitution of an advisory commission on women’s work by the Ministry of Labor, the author asserted that women’s participation in the workforce should be on equal terms to those of men, with the same rights and protections.49 These concerns were elevated to major claims in the movement with the position paper on “Women and Work” presented at the II Jornadas Nacionales held in Granada in 1975, which asserted the right to equal work, as well as measures to make work and domestic responsibilities more compatible for amas de casa.50

Debating the role of women: Legal status Beyond the right to work, the homemaker associations also participated in a broader discussion of women’s legal status, by sponsoring lectures like the one on “Women and Civil Law” or “The Rights of Married Women”, both presented by the Madrid association.51 More than descriptive accounts of existing laws, the speakers criticized the dependent legal status of women in Spain and called for serious reforms. The Madrid association seemed to have a special investment in this theme, since the President’s daughter, Ascención de Gregorio, was a member of the Asociación Española de Mujeres Juristas (AEMJ), The Spanish Association of Women Jurists, which was probably the major voice for legal gender reforms in the early 1970s.52 Thus, Gregorio wrote most of the articles in the Madrid AAC bulletin on this topic, informing readers of the battles being waged by the AEMJ in lecture series such as “Rights that Women don’t have”, and explaining the finer points of the discriminatory 1889 Civil Code. While the Madrid association may have had a special commitment to legal rights, the issue was certainly present in the broader homemaker association discourse. Thus, it was the Federation’s Landaburu who used her position as procuradora (deputy to the Francoist Parliament) to make the case for equalizing the “age of majority” for men and women in the Cortes.53 In another case, one of the featured speakers at Granada’s third Campaña Promoción de la Mujer, was the writer Josefina Carabias, who criticized the “monarchist power of divine right” that husbands had over wives in the Spanish Civil Code. While the conference was local, the speech was highlighted in the national newspaper coverage provided by YA, which gave it broad distribution.54 Even the taboo issue of birth control, which would become a major feminist topic during the transition, was introduced in the Burgos association’s “International Year of the Woman” events, with one talk in February 1975 by a priest

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on the Church’s position and another several months later by a female doctor on the “actual state of birth control” in Spain.55 The upshot of all these individual articles and speeches on the status and role of women in Spain was to disseminate what had become a quite complex and remarkably variegated debate on the “woman question” to the ordinary housewives who read the bulletins or attended the lectures. The basic concept that the status of women was an unresolved and evolving issue that should concern them and their associations constituted the parameters of what may have been a new conversation for many of the readers and participants. While they may have been exposed to some of the same ideas in the “feminine press” as well, the AAC discourse situated the “woman question” in the context of the associational milieu, where it was linked with the broader civic agenda. And, while there was no clear agreement on what women’s roles should be, there was an emerging consensus among AAC advocates that the world had changed and that women, even amas de casa, had to change with it. Thus, despite both contemporary and later observers’ presumption that an ideologically conservative movement targeting homemakers would be tied to a traditional and rigid gender ideology, the reality was the emergence of a more complex and open-ended discourse on the evolving role of women in a changing society.

The AAC in civil society: Citizens and consumers In contrast to the discussion of what the associations could do for women, there was another complementary strand of the discourse that was concerned with the contribution women and their associations should make to that changing society. As one of the conclusions of the I Jornadas Nacionales put it, the homemaker associations sought convivencia with other family associations to solve social problems.56 From this perspective, women were not the object of concern but the subject of civic responsibilities often explicitly defined in the language of citizenship, as did the Madrid association’s President, when she referred to their “citizen activities” in a press conference.57 While the focus on “citizen activities” may seem, at first glance, to have little direct connection to the discussion of women’s evolving status, it was precisely the linkage between the “woman question” and the discourse of civic responsibility that made the homemaker association movement such fertile ground for the exploration of female citizenship. In general terms, there were a range of potential “civic” goals, like those laid out in the Madrid association’s committee structure. Thus, the

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housing committee addressed the issue of scarcity of affordable housing, as well as the “civic aspect” of the “place where we live”, including public health, lighting, pavement, green spaces, and the protection of historical buildings. The “provisioning” committee engaged in “constant activity fighting against the high cost of living, abusive price increases and denouncing disproportionate profits”, while the education committee’s goal was that no child would be without a school to attend.58 Associations could maintain a range of goals, but it also seems clear that the emphasis on “citizen activities” differed, depending on the locally defined priorities of the members. Thus, when the Salamanca president cited above was asked about the association’s promotion of “women as citizens”, she referred briefly to the park and garden committee’s project to build more playgrounds, implying that she had not given the issue much thought.59 In contrast, the leaders of the Barcelona association went to the trouble of changing their statutory goals in 1969 to reflect a shift in priorities toward civic goals. Thus, where the original 1966 statutes defined the purpose of organizing amas de casa as “stimulating their pride in the management of the home and supporting their family-related activities”, the new version began with the “social and civic promotion of the Spanish woman”.60 Even within this broader civic framework, local perspectives on defining the association’s main goals are visible. Perhaps the best example is the Madrid association’s unique focus on its patriotic mission, which appears nowhere else in the homemaker association discourse.61 Thus, the 1967 “Declaration of Principles” drawn up by the junta identified one of the association’s primary motives as patriotic service to the nation, in the pursuit of the “best common good for all citizens”, as well as in defense against those viewed as the “enemies of our country” who “seek to alter the Spanish Peace that we have so miraculously achieved”. In the press conference cited previously, President Sedeño explained that this “fervent patriotic love” framed their civic mission and defined their “citizen activities”.62 A more common way for AAC leaders to frame an association’s citizenship mission was through consumer activism. The idea that women were “key to balancing the forces of production and consumption”63 was widely shared in the family movement and the homemaker association federation (FNAC) as a whole. Thus, the goal was important enough for Secretary General Landaburu of the FNAC to present a paper on the topic at the Valencia congress in 1973.64 Given the emerging “consumer society”, Landaburu argued, consumer action was one of the most important roles of the homemaker associations. While the ama de casa

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had always been at the center of household consumption, she acknowledged, the increasing challenges had made this a key issue in recent years. In even stronger terms, the Guipúzcoa AAC Junta issued a press release which defined the association’s main goals as the “active participation of the consumer and ama de casa in the economic development of the country”, the “investigation of the reasons for high prices and bad quality” and “helping the ama de casa become a more demanding consumer”.65 While various associations supported consumer activism, the Barcelona association leaders seemed to define their collective identity around this goal. One might even argue that, in the Barcelona case, the “consumer” identity of women came to supplant that of ama de casa (or even “woman”). The culmination of this transformation can be marked with the association’s withdrawal from the FNAC in 1974 and its incorporation into the Federación Nacional de Consumidores, but the collaboration with the nascent consumer movement began earlier. Thus, in 1972, the Barcelona association sponsored the I Jornadas de Consumidores, which featured a series of presentations on consumption problems, including a speech by Enrique Villoria, President of the Consumer Federation, on the “importance of consumer associations and their development in Spain”.66 When Barcelona’s President, Margarita Font, had the opportunity to present the Jornada’s program to Franco himself, she claimed that the association “had been created fundamentally for the defense of consumers”.67 At the II Jornadas 2 years later, Font went further, arguing that the constitution of the Barcelona association had “marked the practical beginning of the consumer movement in Spain”.68

Homemaker vs. consumer associations: A gendered division of labor? Font’s attempt to claim ownership of the “consumer movement” was more than a semantic issue, as evidenced by the turf wars between Movimiento homemaker and consumer associations. While at one level, these turf wars revolved around resources and subventions, at a more abstract level, we can see a gendered debate with high stakes. At issue was whether the traditional private homemaker–consumer could be transformed into the “general” or public citizen–consumer. On the one hand, the (mostly male) consumer association leaders tried to draw a clear line between the AACs’ “educational and social work” role and their own more political function in representing consumers to the

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state. As Enrique Villoria put it in 1971: “In general terms we are faced with two problematics: that of the ama de casa is centered in the care of her children, the market basket, her own social welfare . . . and that of the home in general. In addition to these activities, the AAC undertake important work of a social character, helping needy families, fashion shows, religious consultation, legal advice, cooking and nutrition classes and painting exhibits.”69 A similar reading of the “private” identity of the homemaker–consumer was reflected in a 1972 interview with two government officials from Toledo probing their opinions on the usefulness of the homemaker associations. Thus, the Civil Governor pinpointed the ama de casa’s ability to detect changes at the “level of the market basket”, while the President of the Provincial Congress thought the associations could channel the “feminine intuition” of homemakers involved in the daily problems of domestic life.70 In contrast to this limited view of amas de casa’s private relationship to consumption issues, the President of the Homemakers’ Federation responded to Villoria’s dismissive categorization with a defense of the FNAC’s (public) role as representatives of consumer interests and challenged his depiction of the associations’ work as “reduced to [gender specific and private sphere] fashion shows and cooking classes”. “While we offer some of these activities to attract more members”, she acknowledged in her letter to Villoria, “our job is much more profound than that, above all defending our family budget as the country’s principle consumers.”71 But it was Font of the Barcelona association who publically confronted Villoria’s claims, in a letter distributed to all the members and released to the press. Attacking Villoria’s article as an attempt to “pigeonhole us” in a type of association that didn’t fit what they did, Font defined their goals as the “tenacious defense of the family budget” and defended their right to be considered consumer associations.72 Support for this position was provided by F. Hernández Castañedo in a series of articles on consumer issues and the Consumer movement in Spain that he wrote for the SF’s official journal, Teresa. The author, who claimed to have initiated the first campaign for a Consumer movement in 1955, treated the homemaker associations simply as a subset of the Consumer movement, without any efforts to distinguish their terrain. Not surprisingly, Castañedo’s name appeared as co-author with Margarita Font on a pamphlet about consumer rights.73 But beyond his particular bias, it is significant that Teresa only mentioned the homemaker associations at all in this consumer context. In other words, a reader of this journal would have probably concluded what Font argued

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explicitly, which is that the AACs were fundamentally, if not exclusively, oriented toward consumer activism.74 The tension between consumer and homemaker associations never seemed to erupt in a complete split, but it provided ongoing opportunities to debate the division of labor between the two types of associations. Thus, Villoria was still invited to speak at the Barcelona Jornadas in January 1972, while he included the homemaker associations at the I National Assembly of Consumers, sponsored by the Consumer Associations, only 2 months later. Homemaker associations continued to invite him to speak and to publish his articles, as did the active León association in 1974. But his visit was followed by that of Margarita Font, who gave a talk on the “Role of the Homemaker Associations in Modern Society”, which seems to indicate that everyone understood the parameters of the debate.75 Indeed, when the DP in La Coruña responded to Villoria’s inquiry about the potential “room” for a consumer association there, his response indicates that he immediately understood what was at stake. Thus, he explained that there were three active homemaker associations whose main focus was the defense of consumers, and that they “did everything a consumer association would do”, including sending petitions to the authorities on prices, quality, and scarcity of goods and representing consumers on the regional price commission. If these functions were taken away, the DP informed Villoria, the AAC would lose their identity and their purpose and probably “dissolve themselves”. Given that they “covered” consumer issues so well, he concluded, he saw no reason to encourage the formation of a specific consumer association.76 For this Movimiento official, at least, the AAC in his province had already successfully transformed the (private) homemaker–consumer into the (public) citizen–consumer.

The AAC as spaces for civic education The AAC’s contribution to resolving social problems constituted the outward face of their civic role. Less visible to the outside world, but equally important in the associational discourse was the internal civic education of the members. In part, this goal of what one association bulletin called “citizenship sociology”77 overlapped with the general concerns of the family association movement, which recognized that Spaniards had to re-learn the principles of participation and convivencia, as well as the framework of community rights and responsibilities after decades of demobilization. At the same time, the AAC advocates explicitly

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acknowledged that the path to civic engagement would be different for women, and would have to be framed in terms that women understood. For example, in one editorial purporting to define the specific meaning of the “fashionable” new word, convivencia, the author explained the progression from domestic harmony to “an opening towards others” that led to greater participation. Women had always invested energy into building these horizontal human bonds so necessary to combat individual egoism, she explained, but it simply needed to be directed more outward.78 In similar terms, another article used the same word “opening” to distinguish between a narrow vision of caring for one’s family, which, from the author’s point of view, still consumed too many women, and the “fraternization and dialogue between people who have much in common”, which she claimed happened in the associations.79 The associations also provided training in the language and practice of self-government, perhaps an even more important function for many amas de casa without prior experience in such organizations. The statutes made clear that the associations were ruled by the “system of self-government and representation”, and that each member had the rights to “elect and be elected”, to take part in assemblies and debates and to make suggestions and register complaints to the governing board. Leaders disseminated such statutory rights to members, as in Huesca, where “Your Rights” were printed in an issue of the bulletin (XII/72). In another example, the Madrid association junta sent a letter to each of its members to announce the upcoming internal election, in which they proclaimed the “democratic conception of free participation” in voting for or against the slate of candidates.80 Some AAC leaders recognized the special significance of preparing homemakers to participate in associational elections at a moment when married women (along with their husbands) had just been given the right to vote in the larger national political arena, “after thirty-one years of general civil inactivity”, in the words of Madrid’s President, delivered at a press conference organized by the association. The press conference was held on the occasion of the new 1967 Electoral Law on Family Representation, which laid out the procedures for married women and heads of household to elect, for the first time, 108 “family” representatives in the Cortes.81 The press conference was held in conjunction with an informational letter sent to the members, explaining the new rights of women to vote, as well as the need to teach them about its importance.82 Not surprisingly, given Sedeño’s failed run for city council, she made this civic education a priority in the Madrid association. Thus, at the

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1969 General Assembly, the President presented the crystal voting urn “as a symbol of the civic liberty of exercising the right to vote, which for the first time in Spain would be exercised by the amas de casa as electors of their own association”.83 More explicitly, the President organized a “civic education” lecture the following year, in preparation for the upcoming national elections, entitled “Importance of the participation of women in the electoral processes of the nation, as a voter and as an eligible candidate.”84 While the Madrid association leaders took up this issue as soon as the 1967 Law was passed, the idea that women needed to be urged and educated into their new role as voters appeared elsewhere too. Thus, in the lead up to the 1973 national elections, the bulletin of the Huesca association included several “get out the vote” articles urging women “to pull yourself out of the lethargy of centuries” and “awaken in yourself the citizen consciousness with its rights and responsibilities that you can’t escape”.85 At the same time, it is clear that the citizenship curriculum of the associations was not limited to, or even primarily located in, the voting booth. To the contrary, analysis of the associational publications directed toward members reveals that the responsibilities of citizenship, and thus women’s “integration into citizen life”, encompassed a broader vision of participating in, and contributing to, the community at large.86 For example, the bulletin of the AAC in Huesca included a regular column entitled “Citizen Collaboration”, which instructed readers about their duties in maintaining public cleanliness and order. The clear message embedded in admonitions to water flowers on their balconies or keep the noise down at night was the link between citizenship and the public good, or, in the words of another association’s editorial, “acting in favor of the entire community, in which you yourself participate”.87 In even stronger language, a Huesca editorial published in 1972 urged readers to claim “our right to constructive protest” instead of simply grousing with friends about social problems.88 Likewise, the Granada association subscribed to issues of the local press, which were available for members to become informed about local problems, explained the annual report.89 In more general terms, the DN summed up this expansive vision of citizenship in his speech honoring the Barcelona President’s “citizenship talents” (dotes de ciudadanía), which he defined as her “concern about the larger community and her readiness to collaborate in finding solutions for its problems”.90 There were clearly two sides to this vision, one which opened up a more communitarian role for the isolated ama de casa, and one which closed down more “political” definitions of citizenship. In the

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former vein, a Madrid association report asserted that the homemaker associations provided a channel for a “sector of citizens” which had remained “anonymous and silent” for centuries.91 In fact, another Madrid-generated document elaborated, Spanish women were “longing” for an association to belong to, as evidenced by the many letters received from women around the country who were inspired by the “community sentiment of union, which would save them from their loneliness”.92 Thus, a crucial element of modern convivencia, according to a 1972 article in the Madrid bulletin Trocha, was open dialogue and fraternization with those who shared common interests, like amas de casa. Gone were the days when amas de casa moved in very limited circles and when the image of two women talking evoked assumptions of gossip or tattling on one’s neighbor. The article concluded by insisting that this definition of convivencia, as dialogue, interchange of ideas, and clarification of concepts should constitute the basis of modern social life, whether between husbands and wives in the family or among homemakers in their association. On the other side of the coin, while dialogue and collaboration were the goals of civic engagement, the conservative homemaker associations joined most of the other family associations in presenting an organic harmony as opposed to a noisy contestation of opposing interests. Civic commitment to the community occurred within a basic common understanding of what was good for the community and how it was organized. One way of articulating this position was to claim an “apolitical” identity, which was one of the main conclusions of the I Symposium of AAC in October 1969.93 In Franco regime terminology, “apoliticism” was a code word for “non-ideological” or “non-divisive”, but also a declaration that they were not in the business of either regime change or even regime governance. Within a framework of “unbreakable adhesion to the Caudillo”,94 however, the AAC could work in collaboration with the state in pursuit of its civic mission. As an editorial in the Madrid bulletin put it, “Our association has proved its civic credentials (civismo), complying with the fundamental laws, while also asking for, in a civic manner, compliance on the part of the constituted authorities.”95

State/civil society relations: Debating the terms of the collaborationist model While this model of mutual compliance within a framework of absolute loyalty seems straightforward, in reality the specific details of this quid pro quo, including the division of labor between citizen responsibility

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and the obligations of the state in defending public welfare, were open to interpretation. As in the case of the larger Family movement, then, within the basic parameters of the collaborationist model of state/civil society relations, different positions emerged, especially on the question of how far associations could go to achieve government compliance. At stake, once again, was the degree of autonomy and independence permitted to citizen associations within the authoritarian regime, as long as their basic loyalty was affirmed. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the general principle of collaboration with the state was widely accepted as the basic path toward improving community life, especially regarding the particular concerns over household consumption. Thus, in the section on “Citizen Collaboration” in the Huesca bulletin, the calls for women to do their part were matched by polite requests that the city government do the same. More broadly, homemaker association leaders often had close relationships with government officials, who were invited to events and gave speeches endorsing the association’s contribution to public life, particularly in their role as consumer “experts”. In the words of one official’s speech at a Symposium in Barcelona, the working “arrangement” relied on the homemaker associations to inform him of consumer problems like fraud and shortages, and, in return, to serve as conduits for information the government wanted to disseminate to consumers.96 This fruitful symbiotic exchange was the principle behind the national government’s subventions for consumer associations that were included in the “III Development Plan”, to help “foment the active presence [of the consumer] in the search for solutions to the economic problems of the market.”97 Similarly, in the Homemaker Federation’s petition to receive this subvention money, the authors insisted on the associations’ role as “link between isolated consumers and the Administration”.98 Included in the proposed budget was a publicity campaign that featured a weekly analysis of prices and the establishment of a consumer consulting office to receive and channel complaints. But AAC advocates saw more to this collaboration than simply serving as a conduit for information to and from various organs of the state. The movement’s leaders also wanted formal representation on administrative bodies dealing with consumer and homemaker issues, so that the voice of their associations would be taken seriously. In a public letter from the Federation explaining why the junta had requested representation on the provincial Cost of Living Commissions, they argued that citizen representatives would help the commissions produce information which ordinary citizens would trust, at the same

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time ensuring that the “voice of the consumer would be heard by the administration”.99 In fact, by the early 1970s, homemaker associations were given seats on various local, provincial, and national administrative bodies dealing with prices, provisioning, social security, and education. While the collaborative model was accepted by all the conservative AAC, there was more debate about the specific terms of the relationship. On the one hand were those, exemplified by Madrid’s President Sedeño, who defined their role in more deferential terms, “like a friend who advises and warns”, she wrote in the association’s “Declaration of Principles”. In this spirit, she concluded, their actions were guided by “friendly advocacy” (gestión amistosa) and “respectful requests”.100 In the press conference called to publicize the “Declaration”, President Sedeño added that their effectiveness as consumer advocates did not require constant “criticism and censure”, but a positive relationship with the authorities.101 “To be well received”, she later argued in the association’s bulletin, “we have to express ourselves in letters, not placards (‘cartas, no con pancartas’)”.102 For those who followed Sedeño’s example, the respectful tone in which requests were made was crucial to cultivating this positive relationship. As illustrated in the opening paragraph of the Madrid association’s 1971 annual report on the economic situation of the Spanish family: “Besides reiterating our desire for collaboration and our support for the efforts of the Administration in everything that contributes to the common good, we would like to present some possible solutions that we believe can contribute to the successful implementation of the difficult task of reconciling consumer, producer and commercial interests.”103 The final element of the deferential approach was to offer positive and encouraging feedback to the government, as did Sedeño, in a public thanks to the Minister of Commerce for his recent statements of concern about rising prices.104 Similarly, in the 13th annual assembly of the Madrid Association, in April 1975, the published conclusions expressed thanks to the government for its concern about consumer issues and offered to help the authorities implement their consumer policies.105 Such praise was often returned by government officials who were clearly looking for exactly this sort of harmonious collaboration. As a senior official in the Administration said during a complimentary speech to the First Symposium of Homemaker associations, the more they “coordinate their efforts with those of the government”, the more effective they would be.106

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However, without straying outside the framework of the collaborative model of state/civil society relations, there was room for more critical positions as well. Thus, some participants in the movement criticized specific policies or the lack of government action on issues of concern, while at the same time asserting their “apoliticism” and unquestioned loyalty to the regime. In some cases, associations seemed to have official positions, but in other cases, individual voices are visible adopting the deferential or the critical perspective. For example, a close look at the Madrid association’s bulletin reveals a marked distinction between the voice of the President and founder, Ascención Sedeño, and another member (and future President) of the junta, Josefina TrilloFigueras. In contrast to the generally deferential tone of the former, Trillo-Figueras took the government to task in strongly worded critiques of its consumer policy. In one piece, entitled “We Believe”, she acknowledged the attempts of the state to pass appropriate legislation, while at the same time highlighting its inability to enforce compliance, that is to “MAKE, IMPLEMENT, OBLIGATE AND, ABOVE ALL, TO CREATE SOLUTIONS” (HACER, REALIZAR, OBLIGAR Y SOBRE TODO PLASMAR SOLUCIONES), using capital letters for emphasis. Likewise, while Trillo-Figueras lauded the state’s official recognition of the homemaker associations, she demanded more than pretty words, que cuentan con nosotros, that is, that they should be taken seriously.107 The bottom line, insisted another hard-hitting editorial written by Trillo-Figueras, was that the government had to take responsibility. In it, she lambasted the National Institute of Statistics for publishing misleading figures claiming a decrease in the cost of living for 1971, and demanded that the Institute consult the amas de casa, who knew that the cost of living had gone through the roof, not stabilized. When it came to the question of blame, the article acknowledged the common theory that “intermediate” officials had “derailed” policies set by the ministers and the government, but refused to let the government off the hook. Even if true, it continued, the government should still shoulder responsibility for the mess. The piece ended with a spirited call for the real incorporation of consumers into the decision-making process: “we want to be advisers, so our worries and suggestions can be heard and discussed, but never marginalized”. Since no one could accuse them of being “political”, Trillo-Figueras concluded, everyone knew they spoke the truth.108 The most consistently critical posture was taken by the powerful Barcelona association and its President, Margarita Font. In particular, Font critiqued the lack of meaningful incorporation of consumers

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into the decision-making process. Despite the formal representation of homemaker associations on various administrative bodies, she asserted frequently, either their representatives were marginalized or the commissions themselves lacked the teeth to intervene in policy-making. As one 1974 press release complained, it had taken 3 years after the order approving the creation of the National Advisory Committee for Domestic Commerce and Consumers (Consejo Nacional de Comercio Interior y de Consumidores) to actually constitute it and appoint representatives of consumer associations, but these were still not enough to make it “authentically representative”. Significantly, the full text of the press release which La Prensa chose not to publish went further, admonishing the Administration that, instead of filling the council with individual políticos more interested in personal ambition than consumer issues, it needed to form an advisory committee comprised of leaders of the largest consumer associations. Until then, the text declared, the council was nothing more than a “smokescreen” (cortina de humo) to distract attention from the government’s inaction.109 In another discussion of the issue in the association’s own bulletin, the author expressed disappointment that this potential “organ of participation” had turned out to be a “state monopoly” (organismo estanco), and made clear that Associational leaders had communicated this sentiment in a recent meeting with Administration officials.110 More than a year later, this criticism was incorporated into the conclusions of the Homemaker Federation congress, which demanded that consumer associations should constitute 51 percent of a newly established National Institute of Consumption (Instituto Nacional de Consumo), and that decisions made should be binding. Furthermore, the document insisted that consumer and homemaker associations should be able to make those decisions in complete independence from the Administration, a position which pushed the limits of the collaborative model of state/society interaction.111 The contrast with Sedeño’s approach to the same issue, as articulated in an interview in Arriba, illustrates once again the contrasting approaches within the collaborative model. When asked if she thought that amas de casa had sufficient representation in the decision-making organs of the Administration, she responded merely that “we had hoped” for more than the advisory status granted to the Council.112 For some consumer advocates, even the Barcelona association’s more forceful stance did not go far enough in pressuring the government on consumer policy. In what might be defined as “the outer limits of

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the collaborative model”, F. Hernández Castañedo’s series of articles in the SF journal, Teresa, between 1973 and 1975, criticized what he called the “silence” of the consumer and homemaker associations, and urged more decisive action on their part. While acknowledging that the Barcelona association was an exceptional case, (X/73) he argued that even they had to go further than issuing press releases in order to wage an effective battle in the “war of prices” (VIII/73). Within the framework of legal action, they had to convoke meetings and assemblies, “even making themselves disliked by the Administration by publicizing the latter’s mistakes” (XI/73). In order to do this, he continued, they had to maintain their independence from the Administration (X/75) and take advantage of their apolitical status to fight more aggressively in defending consumers, since none would question their basic loyalty (X/73). While the Administration had been talking a good game about consumer defense, he concluded, it was clear that only outside pressure would turn rhetoric into action (X/75). Despite Castañeda’s criticism of the homemaker associations, his continued loyalty to the regime demonstrates how much space for debate had already been carved out within the collaborative model over the role of civil society in resolving what many considered to be Spain’s consumer crisis. At the same time, we can see the limits of the collaborative model by what attitudes and behavior were considered beyond the pale by all the loyal AAC advocates. Perhaps the most dramatic example during the dictatorship was the tumultuous general assembly of the Madrid association in 1968, during which several dozen dissidents (“members” or “infiltrators”, depending on the narrative) caused a ruckus by making unscheduled demands from the floor, which included calls for more direct action. The response from other provincial associations to the dissidents’ demands provided a clear opportunity to publically define their strategy of operation in contrast to the more confrontational model represented by the dissidents. Not surprisingly, Sedeño articulated her “deferential” position, defining the association as an “advisory association” not a “pressure group”, and that her supporters preferred “peaceful dialogue” to “marching with placards”.113 But the responses from other associations were equally definitive. All the Catalan associations (including Barcelona) published a joint statement condemning any homemaker association that did not follow “prudent moderation”, and asserting their “civic sobriety” in contrast to the “feminist tendencies that threaten to derail our pure citizen behavior”.114 In a separate statement, the Tarragona association leaders asserted their commitment to “do good things, like ladies, without bad manners nor

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tumultuous assemblies”.115 Likewise, in a later attempt to distinguish themselves from the dissident homemaker associations demonstrating in the streets, the Barcelona association affirmed that there were “other ways to deliver protests to the government” that did not require the “disturbance of public order”.116 While these responses reveal the strategic divergence between a collaborative model of working with the state to help consumers and a more confrontational model of associations exerting pressure “versus” the state, it is important to acknowledge that both models articulated strategies of civic engagement for women’s associations. Whether the relationship with the state was deferential, critical, or confrontational, all three positions helped to enlarge a dialogue between citizens and the state that encouraged a mobilized and at least partly autonomous civil society to organize participation. Furthermore, the fact that these were female associations for amas de casa opened participatory channels for a sector of the population traditionally ignored by most other groups, even the official women’s organization of the regime, the SF. As a result, both “loyal” and dissident homemakers’ associations contributed to the significant expansion and articulation of a discourse of civic participation aimed at “ordinary” Spanish women.

The homemaker association discourse in the “general” public sphere But how far did this discourse extend, beyond the internal bulletins, lectures, and correspondence of the “female sphere” in which the associations operated? Given the habitual marginalization of women’s issues within the “difference” framework of the Franco regime, were the homemakers’ associations even present in the “general” public sphere? Significantly, there is substantial evidence of wider newspaper coverage, an “explosion of publicity in the press all over Spain” that disseminated the Conversation about women’s status, their participation in public life, and the role of their associations in defining new rights and responsibilities for amas de casa.117 The complaint voiced by the Palma de Mallorca representative at the 1971 General Assembly of the Homemaker Federation that local newspapers wouldn’t publish their announcements and press releases without a fee seemed to be the exception to the rule, as the other provincial representatives agreed that the media had been very accommodating.118 General newspapers printed stories on the associations that announced their activities and reported on their assemblies and conferences, including the raucous Madrid

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assembly of 1968, when dissidents disrupted the scripted agenda. They also published the conclusions of major conferences, as well as formal press releases submitted by the associations to disseminate messages to consumers or relay them to the government. Often linked with these events, reporters did interviews with association Presidents, probing their views on goals, activities, and the place of amas de casa in Spanish society. At the same time, such reports also provided the occasion for more general commentary about women, amas de casa and associations, which could include the reporter’s own usually supportive and admiring opinions on the valuable work they were doing. There was no question that the associational leaders themselves understood the value of the press as a channel to the general public. As the Madrid association spokeswoman admitted at one of its first convened press conferences, the lack of an internal press organ made it essential to publicize activities through the general press.119 In these circumstances, an association often called the first press conference or press release to announce the constitution of the association, giving the leaders an opportunity to articulate their goals and invite local women to join up. For example, in March 1968 in Santander, the newspaper Alerta printed a letter inviting all amas de casa to join the newly formed association, and insisting on the need for “massive participation” if it were to meet its goal of “solving the problems of modern society”.120 Likewise, in Alava, El Correo Español printed an announcement of the formation of the association in that province, “to make sure the voice of the ama de casa was not lost in isolated laments”, but represented where decisions were made.121 In Albacete, the association’s “first public declaration of intent” invited all women “who share our concern” (inquietud) to join them at the first Assembly.122 Associational leaders also utilized the press release as a way to publicize their position on specific issues, as with the statements responding to the 1968 Madrid association assembly. Thus, the Madrid association issued its “Annual Report on the Family Economy,” whose 1971 edition was published in Ya, Informaciones, Arriba, and Alcázar.123 The Barcelona association was particularly proactive in feeding information to the press and using it to mobilize support, as even the critical Teresa reporter acknowledged. For example, the association’s working paper on rice prices that was delivered at the II National Assembly of Consumers was sent to the press along with a general call to refrain from purchasing rice until the price fell.124 Equally assertive was the July 1974 press release articulating the Barcelona association’s critical posture on the National Consumer Advisory Board, and the April 1975 statement

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calling the constant increase of prices a delito social (social crime), which had “a big impact in the national media”, according to an editorial in the Burgos paper, Voz de Castilla.125 There is even some evidence that the Homemakers’ Federation governing board attempted to coordinate national publicity campaigns, exemplified by the circular sent to provincial associations in January 1971 urging participation in a campaign under the slogan “The Need for Social Security for Amas de Casa”. The circular included “talking points” and suggested that they give interviews, write articles, and submit letters to the editor in their local newspapers.126 The Federation also used the national press to remind the public of the movement’s accomplishments, as in the letter the junta submitted to ABC, explaining how the AAC representatives on the provincial Cost of Living Committees would help consumers get better information.127 Not all newspaper coverage was initiated by the associations themselves, however. Thus, there are many examples of journalists providing stories on events and activities, whether a national conference, the annual general assembly of the local association, or a course on first aid or gardening. Sometimes these articles simply communicated a sense of activity and excitement, as in the coverage of the Santander association’s activities in the provincial press, which included photos of packed rooms full of participants, headlines announcing “complete success”, and references to the “long and interesting discussion among the numerous amas de casa in attendance”.128 Likewise, the Diario de Mallorca reported that the first social activity of the Baleares association was a “huge success”, with a room “so full that hundreds of amas de casa couldn’t get in”.129 Interviews with the Presidents, often on the occasion of one of these events, communicated the goals and aspirations of the movement, as did María José Rogla de Colón of Baleares, when she answered the reporter’s questions about immediate projects, advantages of joining, and the reasons why the association was founded. In his conclusion, the reporter quipped that it sounded so good, it was too bad they didn’t admit male amos de casa.130 The news coverage also provided space for less flippant commentary about what the associations offered to Spanish society, often linked with positive images of modernization. Thus, on the occasion of the I Symposium of homemaker associations, Diario Femenino published a piece entitled “The promotion of women through associations”, which discussed new roles for women and how associations were a form of “collective actualization” that had been recently opened up in Spanish society.131 And in Santander, the novelty of courses on automobile repair

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and plumbing provoked several articles on women’s new roles, including one entitled, “Now Women make much more than sweaters in their free time”, and another with a photo of women standing around a motor with the caption, “and they say they learn as rapidly and as well as any man”. In the text of the first article, the reporter quoted one of the association’s leaders about women’s growing consciousness of their role in society, in addition to their important roles as mothers and homemakers. Learning how to repair cars was thus framed within a discourse of “searching for new horizons”. Such interesting activities were sure to increase membership, concluded the female reporter.132 Beyond the novelty of women repairing cars, many journalists expressed admiration and respect for the civic mission of the associations, at the same time that they tried to dispel stereotypical dismissive images of female groups. On a basic level, (implicitly masculine) readers of “general” newspapers had to be convinced that these associations were not some “amiable salon” or a “cozy club of friends”, but associations with serious purpose.133 Thus, one piece highlighted the “subtle knowledge of the problems of prices, provisioning and quality” that the homemaker association representatives had displayed at a recent conference,134 while another advised the government to listen to the conclusions of another conference, which reflected the associations’ dedication to defending the domestic economy.135 Perhaps the most revealing example of a journalist’s effort to take them seriously was a lengthy article about the first election held by the General Assembly of the Lugo association. Accompanied by a photo of women voting, with the caption “exactly what happens when we men go to the polls”, the reporter described the atmosphere in the room, in which different candidates were surrounded by groups of supporters and everyone was involved in animated debate. In contrast to the somewhat patronizing photo caption equating women’s civic behavior with that of men’s, the reporter’s conclusion implied that men could actually learn something from these women. Thus, he marveled that he had witnessed more engagement in that room as they exercised their “social liberty” for the first time, than in the majority of elections with male voters in recent years.136 The intense engagement journalists witnessed at the 1968 General Assembly of the Madrid association elicited a similar sense of surprise and even respect that women were capable of such behavior. When dissidents tried to disrupt the meeting with demands from the floor, the usually scripted proceedings devolved into “nearly two hours of discussions, shouts, insults, shoving and interruptions among members with

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different criteria about their own problems”, according to a story in Ya.137 The Pueblo story was entitled “The Homemakers Disagree: Shouts, Discussions, Threats of Aggression and Expulsions”, and featured photos of women standing and shouting, including the President gesticulating angrily from the podium.138 And Madrid announced a “Stormy Homemaker association Assembly”, in which “a good number of members left the room after disagreeing with the President”.139 While in the President’s mind, the press coverage conveyed the image of “a fist fight between uncouth women” instead of the “elegant and disciplined spirit of association”140 that she believed the majority embodied, the conflict was also framed in the press as an intellectual debate, in which both sides passionately defended their position. Ya published two telling cartoons in the same edition that illustrate how the assembly might have placed the homemaker associations in a new light for some (implicitly male) readers of mainstream newspapers. In one, a group of men were complaining sheepishly that “our children are debating in the university, our wives in the assemblies of the Homemaker association, while we are the only ones with nothing to say!” In the other, a husband involved in a domestic argument with his wife is nervous about disagreeing with her, “after the training she brought from the assembly of the Homemaker association”. As in the story about the election, this coverage implies not only that the associations should be taken seriously but that their demonstration of civic engagement could perhaps serve as a model for Spanish men. In some cases, reporting on the homemaker associations could lead to veritable “conversion” experiences, such as those described by several reporters, who became convinced of the importance of the associations in the course of doing research on them. Thus, one self-defined “conservative man” narrated his new acceptance of the need for Spanish women “to promote themselves”, and applauded the efforts of “our magnificent amas de casa”.141 Another female reporter admitted that “they told me you were dreamers who wanted to change the world, but now I see you are pursuing necessary and easily-achieved goals for amas de casa”.142 The conversion of both of these reporters occurred when they realized the inaccuracy of another stereotype of female groups, that of extreme feminists. Thus, the “conservative man” relaxed when he met the President and realized she was not “radically advanced”, but followed the motto of “half tradition, half change”. And when the female reporter understood that the point of the associations was not to “distract amas de casa from the care of their home” or worse, to convince them “to abandon the home”, she was ready to sign on.

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At the same time, these stories suggest that the associations did generate some anxiety, which reveals as much about their perceived role as do the accolades. For example, in the course of the usual questions about goals and activities, one reporter attending the I Symposium for Homemakers asked a representative if the movement represented “an assault on the key positions of power in the country”, which of course was denied by the respondent.143 The reality of anxiety or resistance was apparent in the sometimes defensive commentary in association publications. Thus, in an interview with the Civil Governor of Toledo, the reporter for the Madrid association’s bulletin bluntly asked him what he thought about the fact that “when men speak of homemaker associations, they think of interference with their privileges”. In another interview with the President of the Consumer Federation, the same reporter asked if he would support his wife joining a homemaker association, and if he were in favor of, or against, female associations, implying that some men were against them.144 Likewise, an editorial in the Huesca bulletin reported overhearing a conversation between two men, who expressed concern that women pursuing their rights through associations would stop being mothers. The author reassured her readers that women were capable of assuming new rights without abandoning their responsibilities.145 Such defensiveness from AAC advocates demonstrates the degree to which the associations were viewed in some conservative circles as pursuing a form of empowerment that threatened the existing gender social order. While the mainstream Francoist press may have been largely enthusiastic, with pockets of anxiety about the potentially destabilizing implications of female associations, the minority anti-Francoist press saw no potential at all. Thus, in one of the few mentions of homemaker associations in the reformist journal Cuadernos para el Diálogo, an article on the consumer movement referred to them as “anachronistic and anecdotal”.146 Likewise, an article in Doblón described them as focused on petty issues like store hours or blood donation campaigns, not as “real” consumer activists.147 During the coverage of the 1968 Madrid assembly, another unflattering portrait linking the associations to Francoist authoritarianism emerged in some reports. In this vein, in the Informaciones story taken from Europa Press, President Sedeño was quoted as saying that she would not allow the “rebels” to destroy “her” association, and that she refused to answer any questions about her behavior at the assembly.148 More pointedly, Revista SP portrayed her as an obsessive anti-communist, and validated the dissident position by giving equal space to the “opponents’ ” perspective on the conflict.149

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While the negative images of the Movimiento homemaker associations as either bourgeois tea parties or authoritarian Francoists were in the minority during the dictatorship, they would become dominant during the transition, in the emerging democratic press epitomized by El País. In contrast, the image of the homemaker/consumer activist that received some acceptance in the public sphere of the dictatorship was relegated to the margins of an equality-based discourse in which the ama de casa and her “different” concerns were viewed as relics of a traditional order Spain was trying to slough off.

The “dissident” AAC associations The article acknowledging an oppositional voice within the Madrid AAC was one of the rare platforms provided to the dissidents in the mainstream press of the dictatorship. As in the case of the more “political” AV, their discursive access to the broader public sphere was limited until the onset of the Transition. At the same time, the dissident activists were able to utilize the “cover” of the homemaker association identity to achieve a legal presence, issue press releases, and even organize demonstrations. For the most part, however, before the Transition a casual observer would have had difficulty distinguishing the voices of the dissident from the conservative homemaker associations. This blurring was partly cultivated by the dissidents themselves, who attempted to stay inside the legal parameters allowed by the regime, but it was also reinforced by the lack of context or framing in the press coverage. Perhaps the idea of radical amas de casa was so incongruous as to be virtually “unimaginable”. President Sedeño acknowledged the confusion in a public statement in June 1976, in which she felt obliged to distance the loyal federation from the tactics being pursued by others using the name of amas de casa.150 After this point, the homemaker association discourse became increasingly bifurcated, as the dissidents explicitly sought incorporation of their associations, along with most AVs, into the emerging democratic “citizen movement”, while the conservative associations continued to pursue their pre-transition platform. Before 1975, however, one could argue that there was only one “Homemaker Asssociation” discourse in the public sphere, although the dissidents were able to push the limits of what could be acceptably asserted. The overlap was clear in the broader homemaker discussions about the status of women, as well as on a range of consumer issues, particularly the rising prices of essential goods, but also government services like schools and housing. In these areas, both types of homemaker

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associations generally agreed on the nature of the concerns and the need to appeal to the government to help resolve these problems. At the same time, a close reading of their public pronouncements reveals subtle differences in tone, language, and framing that pushed the boundaries of the conversation without, for the most part, splitting it into incompatible parts. The overlap was evident in the dissident association pronouncements about the high cost of living and what was needed to make life more affordable for Spanish families. As one 1971 broadsheet declared, that issue alone was enough to justify amas de casa “having our own associations”.151 Another open letter from the Getafe association in the same year complained about the disconnect between prices and salaries and asked for norms to protect quality control and prevent price gouging.152 Yet another petition from all of the Madrid dissident associations in September 1973, presented in the name of “amas de casa and administrators of the home economy”, requested fixed prices for primary consumer goods and an across-the-board salary increase.153 In June 1974, the Tetuán association issued a press release on the “superhigh cost of living”, which included the previous demands, in addition to the participation of their associations in government bodies on which economic decisions were made.154 Even the demand in this latter document for the “radical transformation of commercial structures” toward the suppression of “grand monopolies” and “intermediaries” was not beyond the pale of the Movimiento corporatist discourse, which could take on similar anti-capitalist positions. Likewise, the suggestion in the 1971 broadsheet that the members should “go together” to “ask for explanations” from the authorities and prod them to move beyond “nice promises” was within the bounds of the most critical wing of the “collaborationist” model. Where the dissident associational leaders diverged in their discussion of the cost of living was to situate it, if only obliquely, within the taboo framework of class deprivation and discrimination. Like the AVs, they adopted the indirect language of class by focusing on the problems of the mujer en los barrios, or women in the working-class neighborhoods, which was one of the two major themes at the first provincial assembly of the dissident Madrid associations.155 By locating the cost of living problem, in addition to schools, health care, transport, and housing, under the theme of la mujer en los barrios, the agenda implied that these problems were more deeply felt by the poorest sectors of the population. Thus, the dissident AAC implicitly defined themselves as speaking for working-class homemakers, in contrast to the conservative homemaker

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associations, whose appeals were framed in the name of the generic “Spanish family”. The barrio framework overlapped with the AV discourse, but at the same time the dissident AAC pursued a gender-specific angle on women in the barrios that carefully kept their discourse safely within the “female sphere” of the homemaker associations. As AAC representatives explained later at the December 1975 feminist congress, even though barrio problems were not specific to women, they had provided an avenue of mobilization for many women whose economic and educational disadvantages restricted their social participation to their immediate surroundings.156 While the inclusion of this theme at the 1975 congress demonstrates that it was eventually incorporated into an emerging feminist agenda, its origins seem to lie in the discursive constraints of the homemakers’ female sphere. In other words, in order to maintain the legal cover of the homemaker associations, the dissidents had to keep some version of the “woman question” at the center of their program, even though many of them had become politicized in a Marxist-influenced discourse that prioritized class over gender. This juxtaposition between class and gender discourses within the dissident homemakers’ associations made them a fertile space for constructing linkages across the gender/class divide. It would be interesting to know how much the institutional “cover” co-opted by women radicals pushed them in this direction or whether the “gender difference model” simply provided them with a new opportunity to integrate the gender issue into leftist politics. In either case, the “promotion of women” was another key component of the dissident discourse that coincided more with the conservative homemaker associations than with the AV before the Transition. While the first “women’s sections” of the AV were not formed until 1976, AAC representatives at the 1972 provincial congress in Madrid railed against the “discrimination against women and especially the ama de casa”, in the realms of education, work, and family relations, and identified this discrimination as the second major theme along with “women in the barrio”. More publically, the Tetuán association leaders sent a letter to the editor protesting the “outmoded” ideas about women portrayed in a popular TV program, which contributed “to woman enclosing herself in the narrow limits of her home and forgetting that she is also a human being who lives in a world in which she has the right and responsibility to participate directly”.157 Although the letter sparked at least one outraged response by a reader, who rejected such “advanced ideas”,158 the idea of the ama de casa “opening” herself

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to the world was promoted by some within the conservative homemaker associations as well. Likewise, the assertion that women should be raised to be not only mothers and wives, but also women and citizens, as expressed in a radio interview given by Tetuán’s President in 1974, also fit within the “modernizing” sector of the loyal homemaker association discourse. Even the demands for legal reform, such as equalizing the age of majority, establishing shared custody of children, the right to work, and ending the discriminatory adultery laws, were not outside the bounds of the vigorous discussions on such controversial issues within the loyal homemaker association milieu.159 At the same time, the dissidents’ positions on the “promotion of women” subtly pushed the limits of the acceptable spectrum of positions within the AAC. While even dissident homemaker associations could not completely reject the domestic role, as some later feminist organizations would, there was no sense of the sacred mission revered by most conservative associations and no suggestion that women could ever be equals while confined to this role. Thus, the Tetuán President claimed that women could not be protagonists, even in their homes, as long as they were economically, legally, and culturally dependent on their husbands. To remedy this situation, she argued, women had to conceive of work as not simply a provisional phase in their lives but as an ongoing source of independence and the first step to equality. In this formulation, the “right to work” came close to what would be the overt feminist position of the “obligation to work” as a condition of equality. And yet, perhaps because they still had to speak in the name of amas de casa, this leap remained more implicit than explicit before the Transition. Thus, a recruiting broadsheet of the Tetuán association, distributed at the end of 1975, maintained the inclusive position that “we” are “workers, amas de casa and professionals”, all women “sick and tired of the daily problems” that can only be solved “through dialogue and collective effort”.160 This statement of how the association should go about solving the daily problems of women also did not seem out of place in the broader realm of homemaker association discourse. As articulated in this formulation, “dialogue and collective effort” was fully compatible with the collaborative model of working for change. And yet, at the same time, the dissidents edged toward the more confrontational model being developed in the AV, while trying not to cross the line into political dissent. At the heart of a more confrontational stance was the willingness to make demands instead of requests, and to back up those

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demands with a physical and collective presence in the public sphere. The collaborative vs. confrontational positions were explicitly articulated in the unscripted debate at the 1968 Madrid assembly, in which the dissidents demanded direct action that would lead to “conquests”, while President Sedeño defended “peaceful dialogue” over “marching with placards”.161 After being expelled, the dissidents formed their own associations in pursuit of this more activist strategy. However, it soon became clear that the Franco regime did not accept the legitimacy of peaceful demonstrations, even in solving “everyday issues”. The realization that even apparently “non-political” collective public protests would often be repressed by the regime led the dissident associations into increasingly more direct contestation of the Francoist rules of the game. In Madrid, a key event was the peaceful demonstration in October 1974 at the city hall to demand an immediate expansion of the school system to enroll every child in the city. Organized by all the dissident associations, the women gathered outside the city hall and waited while a commission of their leaders went inside to present the petition to the mayor. However, the police insisted that the women outside disperse, refusing to let them wait for the commission’s return and even arresting four of them in the process.162 In a letter of protest after the incident, the dissident associations articulated what would become a central demand of the emerging citizen movement, which was the peaceful and legal development of associations, although it was still framed within the regime’s own claim to “expand the bases of citizen participation” and encourage the “peaceful convivencia” of Spaniards.163 The crucial turning point, however, was the boycott of consumer goods in February of 1975, in which the dissident associations (along with some AV) called for Madrid’s residents to “civically demonstrate our disagreement with the constant increase in prices by NOT BUYING ANY FOOD OR OTHER ITEM ON FEBRUARY 20 AND TURNING OFF THE LIGHTS ON THIS SAME DAY FROM 7:30 to 8PM”. In response, the government suspended the associations that had signed onto the boycott, claiming that it had been an “invitation to undermine public order and social convivencia”.164 The boycott and the suspensions received significant press coverage, which seemed to have the effect both of discrediting the government and of “outing” the dissident associations. La Vanguardia’s (9/III/75) sarcastic commentary wondered why amas de casa were being punished for buying fewer expensive goods and saving electricity, as the government had often instructed them to do.

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And the Ya article (26/II/75) quipped that the government had decided that “ladies” were among the most revolting sectors of the population as they entered the UN’s official “Year of the Woman”. Whatever the impact on the government’s credibility, the February 1975 boycott’s effective political “outing” of the dissident associations, especially at a moment when opposition movements were beginning to surface in the public sphere, seemed to mark a change in the face they presented to the public. While they continued to petition about price increases and urban services, the AAC dissidents also began to adopt the more explicitly democratizing claims of the AV. As in the case of these other associations, the regime’s refusal to accept the consequences of its own efforts to “expand citizen participation” led a growing number of activists to a direct defense of the rights of association, of public meetings, and of expression.165 In a letter to the head of the interim government, soon after Franco’s death, the dissident association leaders asserted that these were “minimum democratic rights” that were essential to a “pluralistic and progressive” future.166 At the feminist congress in December 1975, which included delegations from all the dissident AAC in Madrid, the resolution that women had to be “co-protagonists in the important task of configuring a democratic transition in the country” marked the culmination of this discursive evolution under the dictatorship.167 The dissident associations’ progressive incorporation into the explicitly democratizing discourse also provided the wedge that led to the public bifurcation of the Homemaker Association movement during the Transition. A September 1976 article in El País that mapped the ideological divisions and distinctions between the different homemaker associations provides a convenient marker of the end of one discursive era.168

The homemaker association discourse during the Transition Once the Transition began, the space occupied by the homemaker association discourse altered dramatically. Whereas under the dictatorship, homemaker associations had provided the pretext for much of the public discussion about women’s roles and their place in society, during the Transition their access to the broader public sphere was greatly reduced. Because the emerging democratic-oriented press marked the ama de casa identity as conservative and anachronistic, journalists largely ignored the homemaker associations and the Movimiento-associated National Federation was barely mentioned in the press narration of the transition.169 Even the dissident associations

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appeared only as “tactically linked” to the emerging “citizen movement” as affiliates rather than constitutive members.170 The dissident AAC leaders themselves acknowledged this marginalization, which they attempted to overcome by organizing a provincial “citizen movement congress” in Madrid, where all groups would have an equal place at the table, but it never materialized.171 The implicit epistemological division between vecino and ama de casa contributed to the difficulty in identifying a place for the latter inside the parameters of the rapidly consolidating citizen movement.172 While the mainstream press focused on the “general” goals of the political transition, amas de casa were shunted to the margins of a universalizing discourse that viewed “difference” as outside the emerging democratic consensus model.173 When journalists chose to write about the dissident AAC, it was mainly to capture the voice of the average ama de casa annoyed with her grocery bill. Thus, in a piece entitled, “Homemakers against the increase in prices”, a representative of the AAC of Tetuán was quoted opining that increases in coffee and school fees seemed to be part of a trend. Another piece, “Homemakers criticize the economic measures of the Government”, describes a letter of complaint from one of the dissident Federations, and several other stories chronicled objections raised against economic policies that failed to aid impoverished families.174 The paradox of their position in the press coverage of the economic crisis was that, while the homemaker associations were called on to speak for the average ama de casa, they were treated as no more than a window into the private realm of the individual homemaker. The associations were rarely quoted on any issue other than basic market basket concerns and there was no meta-narrative of interpretation beyond this story of disgruntled amas de casa. Women’s activism in these associations was narrated rather than analyzed, with no attempt made to connect them to the broader social and political transformations under way. Despite the new legitimization and politicization of consumer movements, which opened up the possibility of an enhanced participatory model of citizenship, journalists eager to follow the democratic transformation of their country did not generally explore the gendered potential of consumer activism to incorporate women into the transition. And yet, a closer look at the discourse being produced by both types of homemaker associations reveals that they were wrestling with exactly these questions of gender and citizenship, although they offered different versions of how the homemaker–citizen would integrate into the emerging political framework. For the conservative associations, the challenge was to maintain their vaunted “apoliticism”

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while encouraging members to use the new channels of participation to defend the interests of amas de casa and their families, so that “we also have a voice”.175 Thus, on the eve of the December 1976 Referendum, an editorial in the Huesca bulletin urged the association’s members, “as half the citizenship”, to take their political rights seriously and educate themselves as to the implications of voting either way. In the next issue, an editorial affirmed that their association had to remain apolitical but at the same time claim an active role in the upcoming elections so as not to be marginalized.176 Over the next couple of years, the conservative homemaker associations continued their service as sites of civic education, but adapted to the changing political context. Thus, associations sponsored talks and fora on the “present political situation”, including the 1977 elections and the Constitution.177 For example, the Barcelona association sponsored a talk on “new horizons for democracy” in October 1976,178 while the Burgos association sponsored a lecture on the economic policies of the different political parties in February of 1977, and on the implications of the Constitution for the family, marriage, and women in November 1978. In one of the local branches in Burgos province, a roundtable focusing on the “Christian and moral perspective” on the Constitution generated a lively discussion, in which panelists answered the “many” questions of those in attendance.179 Even the internal functioning of the associations were drawn into the civics lesson. Thus, the announcement of the upcoming general assembly of the Burgos association in October 1976 called on members “to integrate themselves in the spirit of a true democracy, defined by intercommunication of all members, as the present moment requires”,180 while a report on a recent assembly in Huesca in April 1978 scolded members for not “responding to the democratic call” to put themselves forward as electoral candidates for the junta.181 The common denominator in all these cases was the call for what the Barcelona association called “responsible participation in the opening towards democracy”.182 While conservative AAC leaders avowed that they would not guide this participation toward explicit “political” ends, they did encourage amas de casa to use the new channels to defend their “human rights” as homemakers and consumers, their religious values, and the sanctity of the family as the “essential nucleus of convivencia”. As the DN Reig Martín elaborated on this last point, members had the responsibility to examine the party platforms on the “defense of the family” and not allow the family to become the “price of democracy” (el saldo de la democracia).183 At the same time, conservative AAC advocates sought to

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continue their struggle as consumer activists, waging war against high prices, bad quality goods, fraud, and so on. In the words of another editorial, the new democratic system provided the “legal support” for what homemaker associations had been demanding all along, which was to be taken seriously in their efforts to improve the quality of life for them and their families.184 The importance of the consumer identity, already central in some of the associations under the dictatorship, was formally articulated in the 1978 statute revision, which created the “Spanish Federation of Associations of Amas de Casa and Family Consumption”, and more explicitly in 1984, with the new name “Spanish Federation of Associations of Amas de Casa, Consumers and Users (Usuarios)”. From the perspective of members of the conservative homemaker associations, what had changed was not the issues they stood for, but the—hopefully improved—channels for pursuing them in the new political context. What had also not changed was their identity as specifically women’s organizations defending the perceived interests of Spain’s amas de casa. This identity put them at odds with both the mainstream democratizing discourse, which rejected the “difference” gender model as anachronistic and/or divisive, and the feminist discourse, which sought to channel it toward a radical transformation of women’s roles. In response to both these positions, the conservative homemaker associations defended the need to valorize and defend women’s special role in society. In the words of one editorial, “We are not feminists, but we do demand the right and obligation for married women to participate in the active social and economic life of the country.”185 The problem with the “so-called liberation of women”, complained another article, is that it seemed to require the destruction of the family and the abandonment of women’s important “natural” functions. The author agreed that the traditional ama de casa had been limited by her narrow world, but the solution was to expand that world as well as demand greater respect for her contributions.186 On the one hand, insisted another article, changing diapers should be no less valued than running a business, while on the other hand, women needed to do more than change diapers.187 Madrid’s founding President Ascención Sedeño summed up this perspective in her 1981 speech on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the association’s constitution. Instead of insulting amas de casa as submissive and exploited, she explained, we only ask the feminists to respect them without value judgments, “like any other citizen in a state of law”.188 While the conservatives agreed with the principle of equal opportunity under that law, they thought feminists took the principle

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of equality to a “ridiculous” level, in the words of one article, instead of encouraging women to carry out their own job “with dignity”, in the words of another.189 Dignity also included formal recognition of their job, through their inclusion in social security as well as in the “active” or working population.190 The underlying theme in all these statements seemed to be a continued balance between demanding respect and a voice for amas de casa, and helping them earn that respect through education, “opening” to the world and active participation in its affairs. This double challenge had been and continued to be the goal of the conservative associations since the late 1960s, and their leaders proudly took credit for some of the changes already underway. In two remarkably similar assessments of the accomplishments of the homemaker associations, one in Sedeño’s 1981 speech cited above, and the other by the founding President of the Huesca association on her retirement in 1978, the major theme was the “new” ama de casa, and the association’s contribution to her development.191 The Huesca President claimed that “many of them would never have heard a lecture or attended cultural courses or participated in sporting activities, if it hadn’t been for this association, which knew how to create a comfortable and simple environment that would entice amas to leave their homes and promote themselves”. In Madrid, Sedeño also proudly described the new “associating” ama de casa, “who participates in courses, lectures, chats and symposia, who informs herself about daily issues and those not directly touching her, and has in the process become more prepared, both to defend her interests as a consumer, or in other realms, to dialogue with her family”. This work that the association has been doing, she concluded, was “perhaps as important as the securing of her labor, judicial, social and political rights”. Unfortunately for the members of these associations, few outside their ranks seemed to agree with this assessment, including, not surprisingly, those in the dissident homemaker associations. In contrast to the conservative AAC leaders’ efforts to dignify women’s homemaking role and give them a specific voice in the new political regime, the dissidents wanted their associations to be women’s channel out of that role. As the representatives of the Asociación Castellana said at a press conference, they used the issues of daily consumption to attract amas de casa, and hoped that they discovered wider horizons along the way.192 In contrast to the conservative associations’ narrative of ongoing modernization and increasing participation over the previous decades, from the perspective of the dissidents, they had to reverse “forty years of inactivity”, which had created passivity and a low level of consciousness.193

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The space they occupied, according to a representative of the dissident provincial association of Madrid, was between the vecino movement on the one side, which was organized around men’s schedules, and the feminist movement, which was too advanced for their members.194 Indeed, in the conclusions of the Primeras Jornadas de Ama de Casa, organized by the dissident associations in Madrid in the spring of 1977, the word “feminism” did not appear.195 Instead, they talked about guiding amas de casa along a more moderate road toward their own liberation. To achieve this goal, women needed resources, from equal education, to professional training, to accessible birth control and free childcare, as well as legal equality, all key demands of the associations, even though these were not at first made in the name of feminism.196 Still, this mandate made clear that the point of these resources was not to create better and more educated amas de casa, but to give them the opportunity to transcend that identity by entering the workforce. Buried in a paragraph on “domestic service” in these conclusions was opposition to any proposal to pay amas de casa a salary, instead of working to give them “the same time as the rest of society to develop themselves, participate and incorporate into social labor”. More explicitly, as one author reporting on an AAC assembly put it, “the Homemaker associations will have a reason to exist while there is still one woman whose job is her housework”.197 Working from an assumption shared by both Marxists and feminists of the era, the dissident leaders believed that women’s larger integration into political and social life could not occur without permanent incorporation into the workforce. While this message had been implicit from the origin of the dissident associations, it came to the fore during the Transition, when it became clear that the leaders saw the homemaker identity of their associations as transitional. Their own “transition” culminated in 1980 when, without waiting for the “last” ama de casa to abandon her role, the dissident Madrid provincial federation changed its name to the “Federation of Women’s Associations”, consistent with its now explicitly feminist platform. In the re-named Federation, the development of an explicitly feminist identity did not exclude a continuing commitment to the other major theme of the dissident AAC, for example, the mujer en los barrios. In fact, it was in the merger of these two themes that the so-called “double militancy” wing of the feminist movement took shape. As the preamble to the conclusions of the 1980 provincial congress explained, the Federation planned to pursue two paths, one, developing “general feminist themes”, and the other “working in the barrios for solutions to the concrete problems that affect women”.198 From the representatives’

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perspective, both these paths were linked under the central goal of “bringing feminism to women in the form of concrete and everyday struggles”. In contrast, the “radical” feminist position on this type of platform was articulated earlier by a Vindicación journalist, who dismissed these other issues as “merely” “civic-social demands”, which were not “specifically feminist”, even though she admitted that these represented a “first step” in women’s consciousness-raising.199 Whether feminism could or should be separated from the “general” political struggle was precisely the issue that divided the emerging feminist movement. For the dissident homemaker associations, the broader political struggle was the constant frame of reference. From the initial calls for political amnesty and legalization of associations to the more abstract demands for “real democracy”, the dissidents sought to tie the specific issues of women’s rights and barrio problems to the larger transition underway. As the Castellana association leaders put it in a press release early in the transition process, the recent rise in metro fares was a symptom of the problems that could only be solved when a real democratic process had begun.200 In another pronouncement on consumer issues, representatives from all the dissident Madrid associations likewise insisted that freedom of association and speech were integral to their platform, “because only within an authentically democratic society, in which all currents can freely express themselves, can we solve consumer problems”.201 The Madrid representatives even insisted on this connection in their meeting with the Minister of the Economy, who was mystified by the demand for democratic liberties, when these “had nothing to do with homemaker associations” in his mind.202 It was this discursive framing of the Transition as a struggle for “real democracy” that distinguished the dissident from the conservative AAC. Whereas leaders in the conservative associations accepted that a transition was underway, and sought to find their place in the emerging new order, they expressed no personal stake in the outcome, as befit their self-proclaimed “apolitical” identity. Nevertheless, while this distinction should not be minimized, advocates of both types of AAC shared the concern that amas de casa understand and participate fully in the transition process. Just as the conservative associations sponsored discussions and lectures on the elections and the Constitution, so did the dissident associations take on the role of civic education. Thus, the Tetuán association organized an information session on the December 1976 Referendum203 , while Ventas set up a round table on the first legislative elections. The Ventas

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announcement explained that, as women and members of the society in which they lived, they had a right to participate, but did they really know what elections were, how they functioned, and the value of voting?204 The key to participation, according to the Primeras Jornadas de Amas de Casa, was to turn out massively, and be “well-informed and unmanipulated”.205 The unspoken fear from the dissident camp was that amas de casa were more likely to be manipulated, by their husbands, or the church, or conservative parties speaking in the name of the “family.” In contrast, while the dissidents did not promote a specific party, they discouraged voting for the most conservative parties, like Alianza Popular, and urged their members to look for parties that supported a democratic constitution with equality for women, urgent measures against the economic crisis, childcare and professional development for women, family planning centers, and co-education.206 This general stance was not that different from that taken by the conservative associations, which didn’t endorse specific parties, but did encourage women to vote based on the issues they thought should concern them, like abortion and divorce.

Conclusion While both types of AAC encouraged women’s participation in the larger transition process, their civic discourse was located at the margins of the emerging “egalitarian” framework within the mainstream democratic press that made it difficult to frame women’s “special” interests as anything other than secondary or even divisive. In this context, both types of associations struggled to adjust to the new situation, and both ended up in similar places by the end of the Transition, that is, within a re-framed “female sphere” that was either conservative or feminist in perspective. This trajectory contributed to their lack of incorporation, both in the contemporary transition narrative about the “citizen movement”, but also in subsequent “progressive” readings of popular participation during the transition. In contrast, the discursive space available to the AAC under the Franco regime was differently configured, with more legitimacy granted to the “female sphere” within the gender difference model of the regime’s ideology, but defined by a clear hierarchical relationship with the “general” public sphere. Once again, the difference/equality conundrum constrained the impact and development of these women’s associations, in this case, their place in the public imagination.

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Within these constraints, the AAC launched a dynamic public conversation that brought together emerging debates about the “woman question” with the general association themes of civic responsibility and public engagement with the state. From one angle, the AAC developed as potential sites for the collective “promotion of women”, while from another angle, they were channels for women to engage with the larger social and economic problems, which involved both civic education and making their voices heard in the public sphere. While these ideas about collaborating with the state in order to solve community problems were drawn from the broader family and neighborhood associational discourses, AAC advocates recognized that there were special challenges and rewards to incorporating amas de casa into this project, in which only female associations were truly invested. Not all the voices in the AAC movement agreed on the specific contours of either the woman question or the proper model of civic participation, but the very heterogeneity of positions taken demonstrate how vital this female public sphere became in the years between the creation of the associations in the late 1960s and the transition in the mid-1970s. Such heterogeneity also helped de-stabilize the Francoist model of womanhood, even though most of the voices professed loyalty to the regime itself. The anti-Francoist associations certainly contributed to this destabilization, but in the public sphere their pronouncements were mostly indistinguishable from those of the conservative associations until 1975, after which the two discourses began to diverge. The point is that, during the Franco regime, the ideological differences between the two types of associations were less apparent in the public AAC discourse than were the common themes of promoting civic participation, engagement, and modernization of Spanish amas de casa. On this common ground of transforming the isolated and private ama de casa into an active citizen, the AAC helped lay the groundwork for re-imagining female citizenship during the Transition.

6 The Civic Discourse of the Neighborhood Associations of Madrid: From Community Improvement to “Citizen Movement”

Considering the enormous and rapid expansion of the peripheral neighborhoods in the big cities, the resources of the state are not sufficient to cover the great necessities that, in every sphere, arise for their inhabitants. For the same reason, situations exist in which the inhabitants cannot enjoy the benefits and shoulder the responsibilities of an ordered and balanced community life. At the same time, there is a legal structure that offers a solution to these problems, fundamentally regulating the natural right of Association. We are imbued with a strong work ethic and willing to cooperate with the state, in those areas in which, either the state doesn’t have the resources to extend itself, or it has left this area to the free initiative of the citizens. —Statutes of AV Carabanchel Bajo, Article 2 (1973)1 As this Asociación de Vecinos’ (AV) declaration makes clear, in many ways the civic discourse of the two types of community-based associations overlapped, in their concern with building horizontal ties and establishing a vertical working relationship with the state in order to achieve their goals of improving the collective quality of life in their towns and neighborhoods. In this sense, both types of associations operated on the same terrain of the emerging associational milieu, developing practices and concepts that destabilized and expanded the boundaries of citizenship identity under the authoritarian regime. At the same time, 235

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the ideological gulf between them, as well as the different chronological and genealogical development of the two associational movements, created two separate discourses that were developed in disparate sites. As a result, while each movement was exploring the parameters and goals of civic participation from the mid-1960s, it was not really until the transition itself that they competed directly in the public sphere to represent the voice of the local community. At that point, the AV exploded into the public sphere as a new discursive phenomenon called the “citizen movement”. It was this citizen movement that succeeded in imposing its “side” as the legitimate voice of popular participation in the democratic transition, while the family association movement’s ideological affiliation with the Francoist past determined its defeat.

The discourse of the Asociaciones de Vecinos: A conversation in statutes The fact that, before the transition, the two types of associations followed distinct trajectories should not be surprising. Thus, the “topdown” origins of the family association movement created a set of formal rules that were more or less fixed in prefabricated statutes, which helped establish a general framework from the outset, even though its details were contested at the grass-roots level. The Movimiento’s own efforts to create a “movement” also helped foster the connection between individual associations and thus solidified the national discursive phenomenon of familiarismo as early as the late 1960s. At the same time, these efforts have left the historian with a centralized archive that provides a convenient window into that national discourse, as it took shape in various public and semi-public formats, from associational bulletins to local newspapers. In contrast, the AV did not emerge out of a common mold, which situated them more specifically in their local geographical context, while allowing for more creative autonomy in their stated goals. On the other hand, the grass-roots and dispersed origins of the Asociaciones de Vecinos made the process of constructing discursive links between them more difficult. The lack of an official “patron” like the Movimiento, as well as the financial constraints of local community organizations, limited the publication of newsletters or bulletins in the early years before the transition. Finally, the tenuous legal status of many of the AV, which waited years for formal approval, limited their access to the mainstream press. Even the underground or dissident press paid little attention to them, since most of the opposition movements were still focused on

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traditional political forms like the trade unions, even if their militants participated as individuals. As a result, it was not until the mid-1970s and particularly after the death of Franco, that the Asociaciones de Vecinos coalesced into a public discursive subject called the “citizen movement”. Until this point, then, the discussion of how to frame their project was primarily an internal one, carried on by the members within the confines of each association. At the same time, there is also evidence that, at least within an urban metropolis like Madrid, individual associations were aware of each others’ existence and opened what could be defined as “semi-public” lines of communication between them. From anecdotal references, we know that organizers of newly forming AVs sometimes consulted with veteran associational leaders, who could provide the experience that Movimiento officials offered to the family associations. Thus, the AV Diego Velázquez reported in 1968 that its representatives had met with residents of various neighborhoods in Carabanchel, assuring them that “they used to have the same problems and even worse”, but that “the irresistible force of our deeply rooted AV, supported by the enthusiasm of our members, has made possible realities that seemed like dreams to the initial organizers”.2 Anecdotes like these imply that there was a shared project beyond the immediate boundaries of each association, undoubtedly reinforced by the shared structural problems of rapid and uncontrolled urbanization, but that it was limited by geographical proximity. While it is difficult to go beyond the anecdotal level in documenting the scope and extent of this inter-association communication, more systematic evidence can be gleaned from the various sets of statutes that were submitted for approval to government censors.3 By reading the statutes of one urban center—in this case Madrid—as texts in an ongoing conversation, it is possible to catch a glimpse into their evolving ideas about civic participation and the role of Asociaciones de Vecinos in Spanish society. At the same time, what emerges clearly from such a reading is the cross-referencing of statutes from one association to another, with concepts, phrases, and sometimes entire articles re-appearing in more than one place.4 Such evidence of crossreferencing suggests that statutes were passed around and that founders of new associations looked to existing models for inspiration. In short, it is possible to trace the outlines of an emerging discursive category of Asociaciones de Vecinos, although the debate was limited geographically and in its access to the broader public sphere. And, while the design of statutes might seem like an arcane form of communication, the fact that government censors actively intervened

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in the process suggests that they took this conversation seriously. Furthermore, what the censors seemed most intent on preventing was precisely the discursive linkage among associations, or even the links between associations and the larger community. Thus, beyond the obvious search for Marxist idioms, censors tried to forestall a common civic language that could easily spill over into the forbidden realm of “politics”. While Movimiento officials could make such general civic claims about the family associations without raising eyebrows, government officials were increasingly nervous about the expanding scope of non-affiliated voluntary associations. This nervousness generated more intervention on the part of censors examining new statutes, which in turn altered the boundaries of the emerging discourse. However, the intervention of censors did not stop the horizontal conversation among associations that was reflected in copied or borrowed statutes. This pattern is clearly illustrated in the few cases in which exact replicas were approved in different associations, but more common was the selective borrowing of particular phrasing. What the evidence seems to indicate is a process of cross-fertilization rather than a mere “rubber-stamping” of goals articulated by someone else. Cases like Orcasitas (1974), which copied Tio del Pozo Raimundo’s (1969) statutes verbatim were quite rare. Instead, many associations seemed to work from a blueprint of existing statutes, adopting some sections and changing others. Thus, Portugalete’s (1974) statutes copied Tio del Pozo Raimundo’s goals, but added five more points not included in the original. In some cases there is evidence that the organizers were working with more than one set of statutes, since phrases or articles traceable to different origins found their way into the document. In the case of Palomeras Suroeste, for example, while several of the goals were taken from Palomeras Altas, the third clause matched an article from Alcalá de Henares—Universidad. In either case, the process implies a thoughtful discussion of existing models and of why they may or may not have fit the particular vision of the newly constituting association. The borrowing of statutes began right away, although after 1969 its incidence rose dramatically, especially in the working-class barrios on Madrid’s periphery, where the AV Puerto Chico’s statutes were clearly foundational. Nevertheless, there were still sui-generis statutes without clear genealogies, and even more original versions of familiar concepts, obviously re-phrased by a drafting committee trying to capture the sentiment more accurately. Whether borrowing was extensive or minimal, the fact that there were few replicas suggests that the process of

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writing statutes was a product of local grass-roots discussions, not the pre-fabricated imposition of a cadre of conspiratorial agitators. At the same time, borrowing indicates that these local discussions were taking place within an increasingly shared framework, perhaps facilitated by the anti-Francoist militants who had connections in other neighborhoods, as well as by the common urban problems faced by residents, especially in the peripheral barrios. What this complex picture reveals is a broad awareness of other similar—but not identical—associations that created a new category to be debated and defined, at least implicitly, in the apparently arcane wording of associational statutes. Thus, when the statutes of the AV Chalets C/Josefa (Pozuelo) (1976) made casual reference to the resolution of “problems typically taken up by asociaciones de vecinos”, they relied on the existence of this common framework, whose parameters had been forged in dozens of drafting committees around the city over the previous 15 years. The comparison of different sets of statutes written between 1960 and April 1977 in Madrid, after which most new associations adopted a boilerplate version, reveals both differences and similarities with the family association discourse. Thus, both discourses were marked by a fluidity of concepts and terms that reveal the open and unfixed nature of the conversation. In the case of the AV, each association seemed to be searching for the right language to express its members’ aspirations, which resulted in numerous subtle distinctions in the statutes. While family associations did not have the same leeway in composing their statutes, the individualization of goals in that movement emerged in other forms of communication, such as the bulletins. The overall impression created by both these movements was of experimentation and expanding boundaries, rather than over-determined scripts. At the same time, in the case of the AV it is also possible to trace the emergence of a common framework, both with regards to the internal functioning of associations as well as to their place in the public sphere. Internally, this consensus revolved around a developing sense of participatory and egalitarian procedure that would eventually be labeled “democratic”. Looking outward, the statutes increasingly made their claims from an imagined independent and critical space that looks like civil society. So whereas the family association movement evolved from a vertically structured monologue to a dialogue that was more fragmented and open, the AV followed a different trajectory from its dispersed, grass-roots origins to an increasingly shared conceptual terrain, even without the aid of a fully public conversation.

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It was only with the “birth” of the “citizen movement” in 1976 that this conversation burst into the public sphere, with most Spaniards unaware that the groundwork had already been laid over more than a decade of rhetorical and conceptual experimentation. Even so, the “naming” of the “citizen movement” and the national attention that resulted was a transforming moment. Before this point, the Asociaciones de Vecinos’ impact was largely limited to the communities in which they operated. This kind of local impact continued and expanded during the transition, as the number and membership levels of Asociaciones de Vecinos grew dramatically between 1976 and 1978. But in order to have a broader impact on the political transformation underway after 1975, these grass-roots organizations had to be “framed” in a public discourse that identified and infused meaning in new political categories, like the “citizen movement”. It was these discursive categories, developed in the democratic press of the transition, that allowed individuals to, in the words of Gerard Imbert, “position” themselves as “social subjects” as they faced the transition.5 Conversely, the press’ identification of the “citizen movement” as a symbolic actor in the transition injected popular participation into a narrative that was otherwise dominated by the actions of the king and political leaders. The point, then, is not to diminish the importance of the “citizen movement” during the transition, but to link it to a longer developmental process.

The roots of AV discourse in Madrid: From homeowners to vecinos In Madrid, at least, the point of departure in this developmental process was 1960, even before the 1964 Law of Association. In that year, the first of a new generation of AVs were established, which broke the mold of the early “prototype” homeowner associations in several ways. Unlike the homeowner associations of the 1940s, these were not reconstitutions of pre-war entities. Furthermore, they stretched the parameters of these early prototypes by offering inclusion to all vecinos of the neighborhood, not just the homeowners, and by spreading beyond government-sponsored housing developments, or colonias. Finally, the new associations expanded their reach from the “private” realm of managing services to the more “public” realm of community-building and the common good. These fundamental, if subtle, differences transformed the “place” from which the new Asociaciones de Vecinos would operate, as well as the claims they could make on their members, the larger society and the state.

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Despite these innovations in the early 1960s, the formal similarity of the new associations with the earlier versions helped smooth their legalization with government censors, who saw more continuity than change. Thus, the 1960 police report on the founding of the AV in the Colonia Diego Velázquez noted that the goals were social, cultural, and recreational, “similar to various entities in distinct colonias of Madrid”.6 In the 1961 report on another AV in Moratalaz, the officer described the objectives as fitting within the parameters of existing associations; that is, “urban organization, improvement and conservation of public services”, even though the stated goals were much broader.7 While most of these AVs founded in the early 1960s went on to affiliate themselves with the Movimiento family associations after 1963, the independent origin of their statutes and their “vecino” vs. family framework made them the initial reference point for later AV statutes.8 Another quality that distinguished the new AV from the homeowners’ associations was the absence of the Falangist language that permeated the 1940s statutes, replaced by a more neutral juridical articulation of goals and objectives. Instead of claiming to support the “national syndicalist revolution”, these statutes simply promised to stay clear of politics. Gone also was the moral surveillance of the 1940s, replaced by norms of “brotherhood” and “cooperation”. And instead of references to the hierarchical order of the new state, these statutes began to define a space for an autonomous institution, a “subject of law” with its own personality that allowed it to have rights, contract obligations and “realize all acts appropriate in civil life”.9 In terms of their goals, there was also a subtle shift in emphasis, from the organization of collective urban services benefitting homeowners to broader community-building and thus more abstract notions of the “common good”. While such aspirations were not absent from earlier statutes, in the 1960s they took center stage. Thus, the statutes of the Asociación de Vecinos y Propietarios of San Juan Bautista (1963) aimed to “stimulate relations of friendship and neighborliness (co-vecinidad) among members”, while those of Barrio Estrella talked about “brotherhood and cooperation between all the residents of the neighborhood, fomenting their more intimate union”. Moratalaz was the only one to spell out the goals of improving or establishing urban services, like water, transport, and telephones, but this list was preceded by a more general declaration of the “defense of general interests based on vecindad, promoting collaboration and fraternity as well as cultural activities”. A 1960 revision to the statutes of one of the earlier homeowners’ associations, in Manzanares, illustrates this shift nicely. While in 1949,

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Article 1 laid out the “establishment of common services for members and their families”, the later version added “and the defense of the general interests of the community”.10 Thus, while the homeowners’ associations claimed to manage a set of private material resources based on their common financial investment, these new associations explicitly moved into the more relational terrain of community-building, the horizontal realm of convivencia. Furthermore, the aspiration to establish networks of communication transcended the private circle of members. The Moratalaz, Estrella, and Diego Velázquez statutes all included clauses that asserted their association’s right to establish (public) relations with other similar associations to help them achieve common goals. The rhetoric of community-building prefigured and paralleled that of the family associations. But a vecino-based community implied a more inclusive and horizontal structure than the hierarchical family. Thus, membership was open to all vecinos and even anyone who sympathized with the goals of the association (Diego Velázquez, Moratalez), and membership carried with it a set of articulated, though not yet extensive, rights, and obligations. The right to attend General Assemblies, “with voice and vote”, as well as the obligation to follow its decisions and those of the governing board and the Statutes, appeared in several cases. In Barrio Estrella’s 1960 statutes, members only had the right to elect a delegate to attend the General Assembly, but in the 1965 revisions all members acquired the right of attendance. A couple of the statutes even went further in trying to define how members of a community should treat each other, “with courtesy and cordiality” (Estrella, 1960), or “observing the norms of citizen convivencia” (San Juan Bautista), an unusual early reference to citizenship. What this meant was spelled out in the next sentence, obliging members to “support majority decisions even though your opinion may be different”.11 These clauses seemed to be reaching for a new language of public behavior, defined less by moral and religious expectations and more by civic values. In a process that once again prefigured what would happen in the family association movement, members looked more like citizens than property owners or parishioners. The shift from homeowners to vecinos was nicely illustrated in the two different versions of San Juan Bautista’s statutes, written in 1962 and 1963. In 1962, the statutes defined an association of homeowners, uniting to help administer the land and services owned in common, after a long prologue about the legal complexities of shared property responsibilities (like those in a condo complex, for example). Membership was

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open to property owners only, and even these had only “voice” but no vote in the general assembly, which was controlled by the Presidents of the apartment buildings. The rights and obligations of membership referred directly to the sharing of common services, like access to roads, rather than to procedural expectations. Interestingly, these statutes were rejected by the government, as having more to do with civil property law than with associationism, according to the official report. When statutes were re-submitted the following year, the association welcomed renters or owners, all of whom could attend assemblies and “take part in decisions”. In addition to stimulating friendship and neighborliness, the new goals included caring for and improving the neighborhood, organizing cultural and recreational activities, watching out for common rights and interests, and fomenting all possible neighborly cooperation to satisfy communal needs. While the new AV statutes broke down the class distinction between renters and owners, the “community” they defined was still not completely horizontal. There were often categories of members with different rights, including “protecting” members, probably important people in the community who had donated monies or pulled strings to help get the association off the ground. In addition, while membership was not explicitly limited to “heads of households” as in the ACF, it was often implied in the ambiguous meaning of vecino. Thus, vecino had an older juridical meaning which was closer to “head of household”, while it was also evolving to mean something closer to the English “neighbor” or “resident”. In the early 1960s, it was clear that most statutes had the first meaning in mind. For example, while statutes may have welcomed all vecinos when defining membership, other articles which specified that a member’s family had the right to enjoy services, or, as in the case of Estrella, that there were 240 vecinos (i.e., one per housing unit), make it clear that the horizontal community of members obscured a shadow realm of female and juvenile dependents who enjoyed benefits but not rights. In other words, despite the lack of the explicit gender hierarchy contained in the ACF statutes, the early AV contained a similar, if implicit, vertical family structure. Despite these limits, the basic principles of a civic community that were established in the handful of statutes dating from the early 1960s marked a break with the earlier generation of homeowner associations and established the basic parameters for those that followed. Thus, after this point, most AV statutes continued to include a mixture of specific urban goals with broader aspirations to community solidarity. Likewise, subsequent statutes experimented with different ways of

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expressing the nature and goals of a civic community with only the occasional reference to the older “moral” vision of a community bound by surveillance.12 While these early statutes introduced a new language of horizontal community membership, they did not, however, explore the “vertical” relationship of the civic community to the state. The only relevant reference in the statutes of Moratalaz is ambiguous: “our mission, as responsible citizens, ends where the responsibility and competence of the authorities begins.” It is not until the late 1960s that AV statutes began to explore their role in influencing public policy by dialoguing, pressuring, or cooperating with public officials, and thus to define the terms of a relationship between the state and what could be called civil society.

Constituting the civic community in the AV Discourse: The horizontal axis While the emerging civic community of the Asociaciones de Vecinos shifted the emphasis from concrete services to relationships, the larger structural context in which such relationships were essential was the “urban crisis” and the very material problems it engendered, as the preamble cited at the beginning of this chapter illustrates. Thus, many of the statutes included clauses referring to the need to either improve or construct water pipes, sewer lines, street lights and traffic signs, trash collection, and transportation networks, in addition to other services like medical care and schools, day care centers, and homes for the elderly. A few statutes made reference to a specific urban crisis that sparked the constitution of the association, beginning with Puerto Chico in 1967. In that case, the owners of newly built houses had been slapped with an extra 60,000 peseta bill by the construction company before they would be allowed to move in, and organizers formed the association to pressure the company to stick with the original contract. In several other cases, like Palomeras Bajas, (1968) UVA Vallecas and Cruz Blanca (1969), the associations emerged to defend residents against the impact of urban plans (the Planes Parciales) calling for the expropriation and demolition of existing housing units. Convivencia and the common good Beyond the material interests of everyday life, however, the statutes strove to define the horizontal links of convivencia that drew neighbors together in a more substantive version of community life that “transcended the ordinary relations of neighborliness”. (AV Zona Residencial

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del Bosque, Pinar de los Reyes, 1969). Building on the language of the first statutes of the early 1960s, later versions developed a vocabulary of civic consciousness and responsibility to define the lofty aspirations of a neighborhood community that would be something more than a provider of practical services or kinship networks. Aside from the goals of urban improvement, then, nearly equal space was dedicated to cultural, recreational, and sport activities, from organizing teams and competitions to promoting neighborhood cultural centers and film series. Moreover, the goal was more than simply entertainment, as the AV Barrio Concepción’s (1966) statutes made clear. Thus, Article 2 called for the “organization of recreational and sport activities that create an ambience of pleasant convivencia in the neighborhood”, which elsewhere was elevated to “maintaining human convivencia”.13 The statutes of the AV San Juan Bautista (1963) had explicitly modified this concept of convivencia with the adjective “citizen”, and while this linkage was rare before 1977, the connection to the common good was implicit in many cases.14 For the AV Cruce Villaverde (1974), the vecinos had met in order to “collaborate more actively in the positive progress of society,” while the UVA Vallecas sought help for needy members and vecinos, and San Blas promised to attend to the social and family needs of everyone in the barrio. The horizontal as well as voluntary nature of this convivencia clearly contrasted with the hierarchical framework of the 1944 statutes of Colonia Prosperidad, which pledged to “promote convivencia . . . as ordered by the Instituto Nacional de Vivienda”. Moreover, the claim to be speaking for the general good of the community implied a civic identity that transcended the private concerns of members. This may have been the distinction that framers sought to capture in the explicit use of the word “civic” to define the association’s community mission. Thus, in addition to the “social, cultural and recreational” goals set out in Estrella’s 1960 statutes, Yebenés (1969) referred to the “civico-social mission” of the association, Cadalso (1970) promised to sustain a high level of “civic education”, while Juan Covas (1970) pledged “collaboration in the civic and social perfection of the community”. Other concepts linked to the language of civic responsibility were: the “public good”, “fraternity”, and even the “integral promotion of man through collective solutions” (San Blas, 1969, Villa Rosa, 1973). The AV Tetuán (1975), like the preamble at the start of the chapter, referred directly to the right of association as one of the “natural rights of man”. While the statutes do not always make the explicit distinction between “private” and “civic” aspirations explicit, the AV founders

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clearly imagined the associations as operating on both levels, as did their “family” counterparts. On the “private” level, many of the clauses about cultural, social, and sport activities outline “self-help” measures, creating sports teams, organizing film series, providing legal consultation, opening cultural centers, that is, providing benefits not available to the general public. But references to more general urban problems, like sewers and streetlights, obviously affected the entire community, and evoke a broader “civic” mission, as in the AV Hortaleza’s (1974) goal of “establishing and maintaining a strong bond between all those interested in the [urban] problems of the area, which is essential for solving them”. Significantly, as time went on, the government censors increasingly sought to narrow the scope of the associations’ objectives to the more practical, material, and private concerns. Thus, when Colonia Obrera (1971) proposed the same phrase about the “integral promotion of man” that had appeared in San Blas’s statutes (1969), the goals were judged too imprecise and the statutes were returned for revision. In the second draft, the statutes promised only to “promote cooperation of all persons who possess interests of whatever type in the colonia to better defend those which are common”. Thus, censors increasingly sought to enforce an explicit focus on the private material interests of members, not the general welfare of residents or the community in general. Through this strategy, each association would implicitly be kept in the “private” realm, representing only the interests of its members. For example, while the first draft of Carabanchel Alto’s statutes (1974) pledged to “promote the defense of the consumer by all legal means”, the second draft prompted by censor requirements promised the “defense of its members in their role as consumers by all legal means”, an important distinction between the public good and the private. And the AV Las Matas (1976) was forced to modify its “defense of the general interests of vecinos” with the phrase “who are in the association”. But until censors prevented the AV from doing so, many of their statutes reached beyond their members in making claims about the “general good” of the community. (Re)Defining membership As the collective claims for the associations’ role in public life expanded, so did the boundaries of the civic community they represented. By targeting the vecino, the first AVs of the early 1960s had opened the door to a more horizontal community than that embodied in either the 1940s homeowners’ statutes or in the ACF. While at first this potential was only implicit, since the first AV organizers effectively envisioned vecinos as heads of households, by the late 1960s this was already changing. By

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this point, there were still a few new associations that limited membership to owners (Yebenés) or to only one vecino per household (Cadalso), but it was more common to add other categories, most commonly “renters”, or those with “interests” in the neighborhood, or simply “residents”. Puerto Chico (67) explicitly noted that members could be heads of household or not, wording which was included in Tio del Pozo Raimundo and Leganés. Palomeras Bajas (1969) was the first to invite renters only, but when Tio del Pozo tried to limit membership to those “without property titles”, the censors turned it down, presumably for fear of the revival of class politics. In general, however, few AVs tried to re-create a formally class-based structure. The most significant re-thinking of the citizen community boundaries from the late 1960s was around gender and age. San Blas (1969) was the first to specify “vecinos of either sex”, (followed by Alcalá-Universidad and Palomeras Altas, 1973) and Ciudad Los Angeles lowered the age of full membership from 21 to 18. Censors rejected claims for juvenile membership in this and other cases, so several associations responded by creating a category of youth membership without voting rights to appease the critics. Thus, in Leganés’ (1973) second draft, youth members had the right to attend Assemblies and make proposals, but not to vote or hold office. By explicitly including women and minors, the associations were moving further away from the patriarchal family structure of the homeowner or family associations and toward a more egalitarian vision of the neighborhood community. Adding to this perception was the increasing tendency to drop the earlier categories of “special” members, especially honorary and auxiliary members, and to subsume all (with the exception of youths) under a single class of “universal” membership. While membership rights were being formally equalized, however, it was clear that women were not really imagined as equal members. In fact, what is most notable is the lack of discussion about women’s potential role. While this “invisibility” fits the pattern of an emerging “equality-based” discourse, it is worthwhile to contrast the discursive treatment of women in the AV with that in the family association movement. Thus, even though most women were explicitly excluded as members from the ACF, there was much earlier and more extensive discussion about the “integration” of women, because of the conscious need to modernize the regime’s view of women. In contrast, aside from the occasional call to incorporate women in the Asociaciones de Vecinos,15 there was little explicit discussion about this topic until 1976, when a feminist rhetoric began to appear more frequently. If women were

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mentioned at all before this, it was largely through the lens of their role as wifely helpmate, not as equal citizen. Thus, when the AV Ciudad San Pablo inserted a women’s page into its bulletin in November 1974, it was identical to those that appeared in ACF bulletins, containing “recipes, child-rearing tips, economizing, embroidery and patterns for sewing”. Only one intriguing anecdote provides a glimpse into another voice in the conversation about gender and membership in the civic community. When the AV Barrio Concepción formed a “women’s section”, its female representative wrote a piece in the bulletin entitled “Who are we?”, in which she outlined their goal, “not just to aid the Junta, but to make the presence of women in the Junta stronger and stronger, to demonstrate our capacity so that one day in the not too distant future we can take charge”. The exceptional nature of this claim is highlighted by a casual comment by a male author in the same issue, which described the function of the women’s section as engaging in “charitable activities, in collaboration with the parish” without even registering the self-empowerment rhetoric of the other article.16 The general lack of interest in women’s equal incorporation as a “problem” reflects what was probably the general assumption that the citizen–neighbor was gendered masculine.

Rights and responsibilities What expanded more unambiguously than the boundaries of the imagined community were the formal rights and responsibilities of each of its members. Thus, whereas the Retiro statutes of 1935 included no category of membership rights, its 1966 revision created this category for the first time. From the early 1960s, when statutes like Retiro’s included a short list of rights—for its full members—including the right to “voice and vote” and to “elect and be elected”, subsequent associations continued to elaborate on the rights members had to participate in the public project of the association. Puerto Chico (1967) marked a departure by proclaiming that “all members have equal rights” as long as they paid their dues and followed the statutes, and this phrase subsequently appeared in a number of statutes. Some of these dropped the qualifications and simply asserted the equality. The elaboration of specific rights was less uniform, reflecting differing notions of what civic participation and the relation between rank-andfile members and elected officials should look like, but this was an area which the AV statutes explored in greater depth than did the family associations, given the latter’s predilection for “corporate” vs. individual

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rights. As in other parts of the statutes, the evidence of cross-fertilization and adaptation was clear, making it possible to track both a common evolving discourse of member rights as well as the distinct phrases used to encapsulate those rights. In general terms, the associations recognized two types of rights, reflecting the “active” or “passive” rights of belonging. The former were linked to participation while the latter were linked to benefits, and, while both were included, it was the active rights of participation that received most of the attention. The “active” side of member rights regulated the nature and extent of participation in the direction of the association. This was first explicitly defined as “the right to intervene in the operation of the association” by Barrio Concepción (1966). In Puerto Chico’s statutes it was the “right to intervene in the development and perfection of the association”, along with a list of seven articles that became the “rights” blueprint for many other associations, although often with changes in specific wording. These included the right to attend Assemblies, as well as to vote and speak. In addition, it included a number of rights about access to information—like the right to have any questions about the association answered or the right to view financial records. Retiro defined “intervention” as the right of members to have their voices heard by the Junta, while Alcalá de Henares—Universidad referred to “freedom of speech” and “freedom of vote” in the Assembly. Defining members’ rights with respect to their elected officials raised the broader question of the horizontal or vertical nature of the association’s internal structure. As early as 1966, Barrio Concepción pioneered the concept that members had the right to “intervene in the direction of the association”, which imagined a quite different structure of power than the 1940s obligation of members to “obey the Junta Directiva”. Puerto Chico spelled out what “intervening in the direction of the association” meant, including the right to offer suggestions and initiatives to the Junta or the Assembly. Zapporra added further emphasis, with the right to “participate in a real and effective manner in the direction and operation of the association”. San Blas appended the right to make complaints to the Junta, and to expect a written reply, while Ciudad San Pablo claimed the stronger right of members to censure the Junta. Zappora, followed by Portugalete and Villa Rosa, defined “the right of censure” in procedural terms, through the “presentation of proper motions to the President of the Junta” regarding the “work of any organs of government”. A different version of membership oversight of the governing authorities was Alcalá de Henares—Universidad’s clause allowing members to “contest agreements that contradict the statutes”.

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The formulations of the relationship between members and their governing bodies varied widely. On one extreme, a few new associations, like Buenos Aires (1974), included no mention of member rights in regards to the Junta. On the other extreme was the right to censure it, as in Las Matas’ (1976) statutes, which included the right to “censure, to inspect finances and to control the activities of the Junta.” Between these two extremes was a more collaborative model, implied in the rights to “offer suggestions” to the Junta, “have one’s voice heard by the Junta”, “be informed of the actions of the Junta”, or “petition the Junta if you think your rights have been violated” (Blanco, 1976). While these clauses defined the “active” side of citizen rights, the “passive” rights to enjoy benefits and services were also acknowledged, but the attention paid to defining participation seemed to override the concern with securing benefits. Retiro defined the right to “enjoy services”, while Cadalso (1970) employed the phrase “to enjoy benefits”, and these phrases subsequently appeared in various statutes (Juan de Covas, Alcalá). Several associations, following Puerto Chico, included the right to “participate in common activities” rather than enjoy benefits, at least one included both (Alcalá), and Buenos Aires (1974) concocted a hybrid formulation, to “participate in benefits”. In general terms, it was the active verbs, like “censure”, “offer”, “bring”, “participate”, “inspect” (fiscalizar), “contest” (impugnar), that predominated over the passive verbs, like “enjoy” and “receive”, in the enumeration of member rights. At the same time as participation was codified as an important right of membership in the civic community, it also appeared as an obligation, as in the requirement to “attend the Assembly meetings” (Carcabas, Ciudad San Pablo), “attend the Assembly and vote” (Zaporra), or “accept posts” (Alcalá). These clauses imply the concern that members would not voluntarily take up their rights and might need to be disciplined to do so. One interpretation of these disciplinary provisions is that the founders of the AV had a similar vision to the creators of the Family movement, all of whom saw themselves as creating a new participatory culture which would be unfamiliar to many members, raised in the de-politicized environment of the early Franco regime. In this reading, members might have to be trained in the habits of civic participation. In the few surviving AV associational bulletins from before the transition, the complaints about lack of participation and the efforts to increase collaboration form a running commentary that is indistinguishable from the family association version. As one article put it, members needed to realize that their role went beyond paying their dues on time.17

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In order to help educate members about this role, the statutes experimented with different ways of requiring participation. As was the case with rights, the earliest associations contained short and simple lists of obligations, basically restricted to the procedural responsibility to follow the statutes and pay dues. But beginning with Barrio Concepción and Retiro in 1966, the statutes experimented with more elaborate instructions. Thus, Barrio Concepción added a third clause, commanding members to “collaborate in the effective operation of the association”, while Retiro required them to “collaborate with the Junta to resolve common problems” and “watch over (velar) the interests of the association”. Various versions of this sentiment included Cadalsos’ “lend collaboration to the activities of the association”, or Juan Covas’ “participate actively in the goals of the association”, or even Alcalá de Henares—Universidad’s “watch over the good name and prestige of the Association”. The consequences of not doing so were spelled out in some cases, where members could be expelled for a “lack of solidarity” (Vallecas) or for “acts against the goals of the association” (San Blas). In all these cases, membership implied a collective responsibility to each other and to the entity of which they were a part. On the other hand, these clauses embodied the narrower version of solidarity favored by the government, in which these were essentially private associations concerned with their own members’ interests. In contrast, other associations broadened the scope of civic obligations, as in Puerto Chico’s mandate to “work for the closer union of the vecinos”, or Ciudad Los Angeles’ version, which tagged onto this phrase the clause “to create a friendly atmosphere and a healthy culture” (costumbrismo). And yet others emphasized strengthening the bond between association and vecinos. Thus, Tetuán required “collaboration with the Association for the common good and for needy vecinos”, while Vallecas asked members to “work so that the Association benefitted all vecinos and took into account their problems”. Most elaborate was Jardín Leganés (1974), which directed members to “pursue the closer collaboration of members or vecinos in order to establish friendly relations of good neighborliness and social and cultural promotion”. A different way to frame the obligation between association and community was the requirement to “bring all neighborhood-related issues to the Assembly” (Carcabas) or to “submit all neighborly disputes to the association” (Aeropuerto). These clauses supported a more “civic” definition of the association, as a representative of broader neighborhood interests, thus extending the debate carried on in the articles on the associations’ goals.

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While the differences among the associations was significant, what all the AV statutes shared was a sense that the individual had a responsibility to contribute to the collective good and that this was a responsibility that might need to be developed in the context of the Franco regime. At the same time, this emphasis on the obligation and right to participate established a set of practices linked to a style of citizenship that placed more weight on the “active” rather than the “passive” axis. Although the significance of this distinction was not being made explicitly at the time, the stress on participation over benefits would become one of the key principles of the “citizen movement’s” active model of democratic citizenship after 1975. Internal organization: The language of self-government The rights and obligations of members developed as part of a broader language of representative self-government. The most dramatic innovation of the 1960s associations over those of the 1940s was the adoption of parliamentary procedure, elections, and the general terminology of sovereign self—rule. In its most explicit form, El Bosque declared that it “is governed by the system of self-government and by the principle of representation”. In contrast, in most of the 1940s statutes, articles on elections were simply deleted, while any philosophical references to “sovereignty” were replaced by simple enumeration of the responsibilities of the different governing bodies. While the adoption of this language of self-government was generalized, once again it is the subtle differences in positions that reveal the most about what was at stake in this statutory conversation. Along these lines, one of the most important issues to work out in the new language of representative government was the distribution of powers between the governing bodies, particularly the “executive” branch of the Junta and the “legislative” branch of the Assembly. The philosophical foundations of self-governance lay in the principle of representation, but there were different ways to imagine its implementation. At the heart of the issue was the location of sovereignty, which most of the associations placed, either directly or indirectly, in the Assembly. Some statutes used the phrase “full sovereignty” to define the power of the Assembly, while others called it the “supreme organ” of the association or, in the case of Mejorada (1977), the “expressive organ of the will of the members”. However, the power of the Assembly was sometimes limited, either because the association was “governed by the Assembly and the Junta” or because it was “governed by its statutes”, which implicitly restricted its decisions. In another version of restricted

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sovereignty of the Assembly, San Blas (later adopted by Palomeras Altas, Colonia Obrera, and Juan de Covas, among others), referred to “the legitimate agreements of the Assembly and the Junta”. In both these latter cases, decisions were only legitimate if they fit the parameters of the “constitution”. The decision as to whether to qualify “agreements of the Assembly” with the word “legitimate” once again implies a conversation, this time about representative government and the limits of majority rule. Similar distinctions were clearly being made in the subtle difference in delineating the right of the Assembly to elect the Junta. Thus, San Blas mandated that the Junta be “named after a vote in the Assembly”, Puerto Chico said the Assembly would “freely designate” the Junta, Tio del Pozo Raimundo specified “designate by voting”, and Carcabas required “election by a majority of the Assembly”. Within this debate, the clearest trend from the early 1960s was the shifting of power from the Junta to the Assembly. On the one hand, whereas 1940s statutes included injunctions to “obey” the Junta, in the 1960s only one association included this phrase (Carcabas, 1967), and even this case was qualified by the important caveat “if they follow the laws”. Subsequent statutes were more likely to replace “obey” with “observe” (acatar), “fulfill”, (cumplir) or “respect”. Furthermore, the object of “respect” was more likely to be the Assembly itself, as in Cadalso’s “fulfill the agreements of the Assembly”, or the more general “organs of the Association”. On the other hand, most of these statutes stipulated that representation of the Assembly was transferred to the Junta, or that the “governing bodies are the Assembly and its representative, the Junta”. Even in this transfer, though, there were distinct visions of the distribution of power between the “executive” and “legislative” branches. While Puerto Chico referred to the “permanent” transfer of representation to the Junta, Carabanchel Bajo made no reference to the permanence of the authority “delegated” by the Assembly. A more pointed rejection of Puerto Chico’s language occurred in the 1977 revisions of Ciudad Los Angeles’ statutes, originally modeled on Puerto Chico. Instead of the permanent transfer of representation, the new statutes delineated that the agreements of the sovereign assembly “will be put into practice by the Junta, which also will enforce the compliance of the members”, marking a clear boundary between executive and legislative power. While all of these examples wrestled with the division of power between assembly and Junta, only one association, Chalet c/Josefa, was “governed by the Junta Directiva” alone, although there were several others which did not clarify the power relationship

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between the Assembly and the Junta, giving them equal billing as the governing organs. Thus, while self-government was assumed across the board, there was an implicit debate about the principles of popular vs. shared sovereignty, and executive vs. legislative authority, reminiscent of the constitutional struggles between the two main liberal political parties, the Moderados and Progresistas, in the nineteenth century. The disagreements over applied sovereignty emerged in the important issue of which organ had the right to admit or expel members. Like the ACF, Puerto Chico and its imitators gave the right of admission and expulsion to the Junta, fulfilling its mandate that “government administration be permanently transferred to the Junta”, even though sovereignty lay in the Assembly. But many others modified this categorical right, presumably in order to limit possible abuses of executive authority. Thus, Tio del Pozo Raimundo, in many ways a follower of the Puerto Chico model, agreed that the Junta had the power to admit members, but that it was obliged to do so if statutory criteria were met. For San Blas, Alcalá, and others, individuals could appeal the Junta’s decision in the Assembly, while Aluche required that the Assembly confirm the Junta’s decision. In all of these cases, the Junta’s governing power was to be limited by some broader framework, whether the statutes or the sovereign members. In several other cases, the right to expel was shifted completely to the assembly (Cadalso, Matas—by a 2/3 vote), sometimes based on a proposal made by the Junta (Fuencarral, Portugalete), but with the final deliberation made by the membership at large. The minute differences in emphasis on the right to expel members provide yet another indication of the complexity and experimentation involved in defining the parameters of what will later be explicitly defined as “democratic procedure”. Further evidence that self-government was an evolving concept can be found in the varied attention to electoral procedure itself. San Blas pioneered this effort in 1969 with articles that described how candidates could present themselves or be presented, at least seven days before the election, and in 1974 an addendum defining the rules of election propaganda was added. Sartenilla (1973) provided a more detailed breakdown of the process of nomination, the fixing of lists, and the posting of names, all within a precise time frame. Ciudad Los Angeles added an appendix on election procedure in 1974, on the occasion of the first election since its constitution. The appendix laid out three phases, from the publication of an election to the presentation of candidates to the campaign, when candidates would have the opportunity to express their ideas in meetings and the association’s bulletin. The Chalets c/Josefa

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gave specific guidelines on the actual election of the Junta. Thus, the vote would be by hand or secret if 10 percent of the members requested it, and positions would be voted for one at a time, not in a list. If no candidate won 30 percent of the vote, it would go to a second round, and in the case of a tie, the winner would be the person already on the Junta. The electoral instructions suggest that the process was not considered obvious, and the need to add articles after the fact indicates that associational members felt the need for more guidance, once faced with the reality of actual elections. In general terms, what all of this procedural diversity in the statutes reveals is that there was no simple process of adopting a prefabricated “democratic” model of self-government, but of contesting and creating the parameters of that model.

Constituting the civic community: The vertical axis At the same time as the associations experimented with the new language of self-governance and civic participation, which explored the horizontal nature of civic ties, this discussion inevitably raised the issue of their “vertical” relationship to the state. Thus, if the association were a “sovereign” body, it would have been hard to avoid defining its position in the larger social order and especially its autonomy vis a vis the state. As in the case of the family associations, this relationship had to be defined surreptitiously, without direct recourse to the taboo language of political identity. Indeed, government censors insisted on the inclusion of an article denying “political” involvement, even in the sense of seeking to influence public policy. Despite these statutory limits, from the late 1960s most associations clearly aspired to function on precisely this level, of getting the government to formulate or implement policies that would improve life in their neighborhood. The emergence of this aspiration over the course of the 1960s is nicely illustrated in the revision of an article first found in the 1961 statutes of Moratalaz, but reformulated by Barrio Aeropuerto in 1971. In 1961, the statutes defined the “efficiency of transport services” as one of the common goals of the members, and it promised to pursue this, “even, if it should be necessary, to organize our own means of transportation through hiring private companies”. But the 1971 statutes, modeled on the 1961 Moratalaz version, dropped the last phrase and defined the association’s mission in regards to “transport services” with the action verb vigilar, or keep an eye on. Through this simple change of wording, the role of the association in “promoting” public transport had evolved from self-help to public watchdog.

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Civil society and the state More broadly, from the late 1960s, many of the new statutes explicitly positioned the association as an intermediary between the members or vecinos and the government. Barrio Concepción (1966) pioneered what would become a common mandate to gestionar, or take steps to arrange the management of problems, with the authorities. For Yebenés, the association was to establish a relationship between vecinos and the authorities, and for Carcabas it was to maintain contact with official organisms and represent the interests of members. A phrase that appeared for the first time in Palomeras Bajas (1968) was that the association filled the need for a “more authoritative voice” in dealing with the authorities, while el Bosque claimed to “represent the vecinos to the State, province and city”. Others, like Tio del Pozo, claimed the right to “present proposals” to the authorities for projects that would improve the neighborhood. And Palomeras Altas (1973) introduced the rather stronger insistence to recabar, or insist on, effective action of the authorities to solve problems. Not surprisingly, government censors also paid attention to this new language, once again intervening directly in the discussion in the early 1970s. Thus, censors tried to impose a framework in which associations assisted rather than dictated, as in “collaborating with the competent Authorities”. For example, Carabanchel Alto had to replace its mandate to “present solutions” with “cooperation with competent organisms to find solutions” in its second draft of statutes submitted for approval. Different versions of this phrase appeared in many of the associations formed in the mid-1970s, often contained in the second draft, as in the cases of Aluche and Alto Arenal, which replaced recabar effective action of the authorities to solve problems (taken from Palomeras Altas) with “solving problems in collaboration with competent organisms”. What the government censors’ fiddling with terminology reveals is that they took the claims of these associations seriously and sought to limit their reach into the realm of the public sphere. With the insistence on the language of “collaboration”, government censors implied their rejection of an autonomous realm of civil society where independent associations “presented solutions” and pressured the government, in favor of the endorsement of a more limited version of popular participation in projects defined and controlled by the state, similar to the official Movimiento position on the family associations. Once again, the apparently arcane disputes about the wording of statutes provide a window into an unlikely site for re-negotiating the terms of civic participation.

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While censors tried to limit claims for civic autonomy, there were other sections of the statutes that made a similar case in more subtle ways. Usually embedded in the first or second article declaring the constitution of a new association were several different models for defining the space that justified the creation of the association in question. One model appealed to juridical procedure, describing a “private entity” with a “legal personality” that would allow it to make contracts, own property, and so on. Others, following the lead of Palomeras Bajas, explicitly defined themselves as “civil societies”, operating in the public sphere and separate from the state. A third set referred to the 1964 Law of Association as the framework, as in the case of Portugalete, “conforming to the law of association, [this] neighborhood association is constituted”. And finally, some associations included no reference to an outside framework of legitimization, as in “an association is constituted by all those who are connected to the goals of the association”. While using different terminology, all of these models marked out a space that was separate from the state, even though only a handful made this explicit. Thus, Cadalso articulated what was only implied in the rest, that it was an “association of civil law independent of any corporation or public entity or political or syndical organization”. Likewise, Carabanchel Bajo declared in its preamble that, “since the government cannot meet the needs of the neighborhood, we need to step in and work with them”, justifying the creation of a “private entity” outside the state. Whether defined as “private” or “civil”, the statutes were clearly reaching to define a new autonomous space from which to make claims to or on the state.

The end of experimentation: The boilerplate statutes of April 1977 The statute experimentation of the 1960s and 1970s came to an abrupt end in the spring of 1977, when yet-to-be-legalized associations in Madrid, probably prompted by the regional Federation of Asociaciones de Vecinos, adopted a new common strategy of submitting a set of boilerplate statutes rather than composing (or re-composing) their own originals. This strategy was a collective response to the frustration with the stalling tactics employed by government censors in the years before the April 1977 Law of Association. As is clear from the earlier discussion, censors would reject drafts of statutes, and not only for substantive reasons. Many drafts were returned, after months of waiting, for minor technical reasons, like the need to differentiate between the powers of

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the “general assembly” and the “extraordinary assembly”, or, as in the case of the AV Alto de Arenal, the need to define commissions as “internal bodies”. The boilerplate statutes were designed to expedite the legalization process by removing known red flags and refining terminology to meet censors’ objections before the fact. At the same time, the authors pushed the envelope in areas where government officials had been inconsistent in their censorship, clearly hoping that an avalanche of identical statutes would oblige censors to capitulate on certain principles. In the end, however, it was not the new statutes but the April 1977 law that compelled the government to legalize the remaining associations and opened the door for the creation of dozens of new ones. After this point, the government censors and the associational leaders apparently worked out an agreement to streamline the process of legalization based on the adoption of the boilerplate statutes.18 In any case, the introduction of the boilerplate statutes marked the end of a period of creative dialogue about the identity and function of Asociaciones de Vecinos in Spanish society. At the same time, the boilerplate statutes represented the culmination of the statutory conversation about civic participation, since most of the sentiments and terminology were obviously drawn from existing statutes. Moreover, these statutes represent a kind of resolution to the various debates about the associations’ horizontal and vertical relationships, and implicitly, about the rules and parameters of democratic participation. In this synthesis, the statutes affirmed the public and civic nature of the association’s goals, as well as its autonomy vs. the state. Thus, the goals defined the horizontal parameters in the broadest possible terms: from the “moral and material improvement of the residents of the neighborhood, to the promotion of social and cultural services, the defense of general interests and the development of the values of convivencia which will lead to the emergence of social bonds and human solidarity”. Although Article 4 specified that the association would be independent of any political or religious group, and exclude all goals not related to neighborhood issues, the claims of the first article conserved the contested right to represent the “general” interests of the neighborhood and defined those interests in very broad public terms. Expanding on this civic definition of the association’s role to represent the community, membership was expansive, open to residents of both sexes who were over 21. Members were enjoined to “pursue the closer union between members and vecinos” and to “collaborate fully with the association for the common interests of members and

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needy vecinos”. Article 2 compiled an extensive list of specific activities/institutions that could be organized to pursue those interests, like libraries, lectures, sporting events, excursions, child care centers, parks, and schools. In addition, it mandated cooperation to solve housing and urbanization problems, eliminate pollution, and attend to the problems of immigrants. The space in which the association would pursue these interests also represented a significant synthesis of the ongoing debate about civil society. Thus, Article 3 proclaimed that the association would cooperate with the Administration, while at the same time “preserving its autonomy”. The articles defining “self-government” were clearly drawn from earlier versions of statutes, with a focus on language that empowered the “Assembly” and the individual members over the “executive” governing board. The “full sovereignty” of the Assembly was directly stated, and the word “delegated” was chosen to describe the authority vested in the Junta. While this authority was “permanently” granted to the Junta, it was qualified by the responsibility to “submit details and accounts to the Assembly”. The long lists of rights and responsibilities for members compiled virtually all of those that had appeared in different versions over the years. Rights included the prerogative to attend the Assembly meetings, with “voice and vote”, the right to occupy posts, to enjoy benefits and services, to participate in joint activities, to monitor finances, to be informed of associational business, to offer suggestions and initiatives to the Junta and the Assembly, and finally, to “intervene in the development and perfection of the association”. The one major omission was the right to “censor” the Junta, which had appeared in several statutes, and perhaps its exclusion provides evidence of the compromise nature of these boilerplate statutes. Responsibilities began with the original obligations to pay dues and follow the statutes, as well as the agreements of both Junta and Assembly.

The statutes of the AV versus the ACF How different were the AV statutes from those of the ACFs or the later family associations? While there are some significant differences, they also both raised similar questions about the new role for voluntary associations in Spanish society. Both types of associations laid out a similar public terrain of operation, although the defense of “public morality” was unusual for an AV established after 1964, and aligned the ACF with the earlier Falangist associations of the 1940s. Both also wrestled with different versions of the associations’ relationship with the governing

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authorities. Like some of the AVs, the ACFs emphasized their “collaboration” with authorities, but this formulation also assumed their semi-independence from those authorities, that is their location in some other space, such as civil society, from which they could collaborate. The fact that the ACF-imagined civil society was constituted by individual families instead of neighborhood communities reflects important differences in the boundaries between public and private, and the gendered limits of membership, but their claim to define “vecino-family interests” undermines any clear opposition between the two. The restriction of membership to heads of household would seem to define a fixed boundary between the “family” and the “neighborhood” community, but, despite the de jure contrast, there was a de facto assumption in many early AVs that only one member of each household would belong to the association. In contrast, the new “Family Association” statutes in the mid-1970s explicitly included “married women” as eligible for membership. In other words, in all of the associations of the early 1960s, there was a process of re-thinking the categories of public and private that resulted in the expansion of a space neither private nor integrated into the regime, a space which had barely existed in the corporatist Francoist discourse of the 1940s and 1950s. In terms of the models of “self-government” that each type of association offered, once again there are obvious differences but underlying similarities. The ACF clearly had a more authoritarian edge, given the powers of the President at the top of the “hierarchy”, the long term served by members of the governing board, and the limits on direct participation in the assembly for larger associations. On the other hand, both types of statutes contained the basic components of self-government, including elected officials, representation, and the basic rights to participate. While there was no explicit mention of the “sovereignty” of the Assembly in the ACF statutes, these were innovations that emerged in the late 1960s in the statutes of the AV and even then never became universal. In other words, none of the differences between AV and ACF statutes in the 1960s were great enough to constitute them as incompatible discourses, despite the ideological commitments of the Movimiento promoters. If we view both the Movimiento and the AV discourses as complementary strands of a broader conversation about civic participation and the role of citizens in public life, we can begin to grasp the substantive and evolving nature of this conversation, which began, not in 1976, but in the early 1960s. What happened after 1975 was not the eruption of a new discourse but its coalescence within the new framework of the “citizen movement”.

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The Asociaciones de Vecinos in the transition: The birth of the “citizen movement” This coalescence occurred in the months after Franco’s death, as a result of the growing tendency in the democratic press to lump all the Asociaciones de Vecinos together into a single collective actor. Through this process, the associations took on a discursive meaning in the unfolding transition narrative being constructed by the press that transcended the particular activities of any specific organization. The use of the term “citizen movement” emerged in the spring of 1976, especially after the organizers of the first major public demonstration of the transition, held outside Madrid in Aranjuez, issued a formal declaration in its name.19 Most important in terms of diffusion was the term’s adoption by the major national newspaper of the democratic transition, El País, which was inaugurated in May of 1976. By 1977, its usage was ubiquitous and institutionalized, as in the creation of the DEINCISA, a society which offered professional advice to all entities of the “citizen movement”, in their efforts to develop citizen initiatives.20 Beyond signifying a popular collective actor, the “citizen movement” also came to symbolize a particular participatory vision of the democratic transition, which could be contrasted to the elite-dominated negotiations of the institutional Transition. The coalescence of the associational milieu was also made possible by certain institutional developments, from the adoption of a common set of statutes, to the formation of provincial Federations, to the first coordinated protest movements in the public sphere. Madrid’s provincial federation was formed in 1974 with two dozen local associations, but this number increased to 150 by the end of 1976. The coordination of broader activities began in earnest after the poorly planned demonstration in Aranjuez in May of 1976, which managed to bring out several thousand people. Coordinating bodies included the provincial Federación de Asociaciones de Vecinos, whose membership had skyrocketed but whose illegal status hindered its activities. More flexible were the Coordinadoras de Zonas, which sprang up in larger districts to coordinate individual associations. Unlike the Federation, a Coordinadora did not need to submit formal statutes for approval, giving it more operational freedom. Strategy meetings held in late May to discuss the Aranjuez event produced the Coordinadora de Entidades Ciudadanas, which played a crucial role in organizing the first Semana Ciudadana (Citizens’ Week) and its culminating event, the demonstration of 50,000 people on Calle Preciados in June.21 In September,

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the same Coordinadora organized a demonstration in Moratalaz, in which 100,000 marched to the call for “Bread, Work and Liberty”. The event, appearing on the front page of the emerging mouthpiece of the democratic transition, El País (15/IX/76), as a “Manifestación Ciudadana”, or “Citizen Demonstration”, brought sudden and extensive visibility to the movement. At the same time that the AV were beginning to coordinate their activities and achieve a new level of collective visibility, local AV advocates linked these activities to the larger political debate opened up by Franco’s death. On one level, there was a certain continuity in the discourse, especially in the rhetoric of participation, community-building, and enriching convivencia. But these “horizontal” ties were also now explicitly framed as part of the larger transition from a dictatorship and its alienating urban policies to a more humanizing democracy. As one article in a local AV bulletin, entitled “What is an AV?” put it, the “fundamental object is the need to reconstitute the social fabric destroyed by the dictatorship”.22 Similarly, an editorial in another bulletin talked about the need to “recuperate” the street life of the neighborhoods, in order “to transform the monster city that we suffer into a human city of free convivencia”,23 while yet another proclaimed the need for a “new urban culture”, understood as a “common good produced by everyone for the benefit of all residents”.24 The 1976 membership registration form for the AV Parque Aluche identified the present moment by the “broad awareness of the need for increased participation in public affairs, centered in our case on the citizen life”. Most extensively, the program printed by the AV Carabanchel Alto to announce its sponsorship of the upcoming annual barrio fiesta in May of 1976 reads like a manifesto on urban transformation through convivencia. For the first time in many years, it declared, “we” are going to organize the fiestas de barrio ourselves, instead of taking part in the official municipal celebration, which had always been “cold and impersonal”. Since 80 percent of the barrio’s population was born elsewhere, “citizen fraternization” had been limited, according to the organizers, who hoped that the fiestas would serve as “bonds of unity and friendship”. The program urged residents not to sit passively but to become the “protagonists” that, as “citizens, we have the right and the duty to be, and which we cannot delegate to anyone, beginning with our fiestas”.25 In addition to explicitly framing the discourse of convivencia within the larger social and political transformation under way, AV leaders

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also abandoned all apolitical pretenses and added their voices to the broader calls for regime change. No doubt the political radicals who had joined the associations as a cover for their clandestine activities were at the forefront of this effort. Thus, it is not surprising that the first major “political” issue taken up by the AVs was a general amnesty for political prisoners, which was a central demand of all the opposition forces. Amnesty was mentioned in the January 1976 General Assemblies of the AV San Blas, Parque Aluche, and Carabanchel Alto, and appeared frequently in manifestos. The agenda for Carabanchel’s meeting had explicitly included discussion of the “socio-political changes going on in the country”,26 while for San Blas it referred to the “need for proclaiming amnesty and the bases of democracy in the context of citizen rights”.27 In Parque Aluche, the Assembly voted for “liberty and democracy” as one of their demands, along with education, health, and transportation.28 Participating in the discussion were those family associations whose leaders had joined the democratic opposition, like the ACF Coslada.29 The association’s bulletin put so much energy into promoting democratization that the President felt compelled to articulate “why our Association has to fight for democracy and liberty”. It also ran an ongoing campaign attacking the “unrepresentative” local government and calling for the Mayor’s resignation and more popular participation in municipal politics. In contrast to those who claimed that the citizens of Coslada were too uneducated to decide for themselves, the only necessary qualification was the “will of the people” expressed through “authentic channels”.30 While this new “political” language can probably be attributed to the party militants in the associations, it was the regime’s treatment of the associations that provided a concrete bridge to the broader political discussion. In particular, the interim government’s continued refusal to legalize the provincial Federación de Asociaciones de Vecinos in Madrid, as well as many of the local branches, provided a natural segue from “a-political” community issues to democratic rights, beginning with the right of association. From legalization of associations, it was easy to follow the logic to general civil liberties and finally democratic city governments, as did the (illegal) Federation.31 Likewise, the Aranjuez manifesto called for “full freedom of assembly, speech and the right to demonstrate, as absolutely necessary guarantees to carry out our activities for the defense and improvement of living conditions for thousands of citizens”.32 When the interim government held its December 1976

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reform referendum without yet legalizing the associations, many of them called for abstention to protest the lack of liberties under which the vote was held.33

Citizen movement theory: A “democratic alternative” While the citizen movement coalesced around the combined efforts of AV advocates and the democratic press to create this new political subject, a core of citizen movement “theorist-participants” went further to define how the movement could impact the democratization process,34 to create a role in what Gerard Imbert calls the “collective imaginary”.35 In other words, they sought to spell out the terms of the citizen movement as a protagonist in the transition to democracy. What emerged from this discussion was an alternative popular version of democratization to the one being hammered out in the pacts between party elites. In numerous books and articles published during the period, these theorists placed the citizen movement at the center of a grass-roots vision of the transition that privileged popular participation. Thus, the subtitle of Tomás Villasante’s book, los vecinos en la calle was una alternativa democrática a la ciudad de los monopolios.36 This democratic alternative was rooted in a classic participatory and communitarian model of democratic citizenship, but it also reflected the contemporary crisis of other radical models of popular empowerment. In particular, the associations offered a way for many Marxist social theorists to experiment with other languages of political empowerment than that provided by the language of working-class revolution. The most influential of these was Manuel Castells. Many of the Spaniards writing in the mid-1970s appear to have read his Luttes urbaines (Urban Struggles), which was published in Paris in 1973, and during the transition Castells participated in and promoted the citizen movement in Madrid through public lectures and articles.37 Castells wrote from a Marxist tradition but argued for an independent category of urbanoriented collective action, which was rooted in the power structures of urban life, and which he distinguished from class-based labor struggle. Thus, he framed the city as a “social product” that generated its own field of contestation.38 This new terrain opened the door to imagining different kinds of popular alliances that could not be reduced to the class struggle. Castells differentiated popular urban movements from working-class movements by their citizen consciousness. Furthermore, he argued that these movements emerged out of the exhaustion of older forms of pursuing

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grass-roots democracy, like the trade union movements and political parties.39 What is visible in Castells, and in Spanish theorists like Borja and Villasante, is the transition in “left” political theory, where terms like “grass-roots democracy” and “active citizenship” came to replace “socialist revolution” and “dictatorship of the working class”. Even the revolutionary ORTs Lucha Popular adopted the term “citizen movement” in May of 1976 to complement its Marxist language of “workers” in their “struggle for the barrio”. In mid-1970s’ Spain, then, it was precisely the neighborhood associational movement that provided the inspiration and the opening for a leftist theoretical re-assessment of democratic citizenship as something other than bourgeois political rights. In this re-assessment, if democratic citizenship were going to be more substantive than a series of passive rights, then ordinary citizens would have to have direct input into public policy, especially as it affected their everyday lives on the local level. To facilitate and channel this input, these theorists conceived of the Asociaciones de Vecinos as ideal conduits linking the private citizen with their community and the state at the level of municipal government. As another author put it, “the contestation leads to an alternative concept of local governance, with citizen organizations not only presenting petitions, but demonstrating a model of what a local government should be and what it needs to do to function democratically”.40 Local democratic power would then be coordinated with national power, through the participation of city governments in the legislative decisions that affected local life. What Villasante imagined was a double-layered process of empowerment, first through the imposition of popular control over the city administration, and then through the creation of channels from this local power base to national government. In this way, the Transition would open an avenue of direct political participation for ordinary citizens.41 Likewise, the participation of ordinary citizens at the local level was the key to a truly democratic transition: “this fundamental grass roots power that is articulated democratically in the transformative process is the hinge around which the transformation of the social structure and the progress of history rotates. Only by resolving this problem of power at the grass roots level is it possible to imagine a new society” (p. 54). In other words, the rhetoric of participation that had informed the associational culture from its inception was now the key to a radical democratic alternative to the Francoist regime. At the center of this participatory democratic vision was a transformed local government, which would serve as the conduit for grass-roots initiatives. What made this vision both compelling and plausible was the

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frustration felt by many citizen activists at the slow arrival of the democratic transition at the local level. It is important to remember that the municipal governments remained in the hands of Francoist elites until after the national political transition was completed, that is, until the local elections of late 1979, so that it was not clear right away what form municipal government would take. The Francoist local government was headed by a Mayor appointed by the Ministerio de Gobernación, and in Madrid he was usually either an ex-Minister or a businessman. The Mayor in turn appointed nine council members and three assistant Mayors, who together made up the majority of the Comisión Muncipal de Gobierno, where most important decisions were made. Only a minority of six members were elected by the voters. As late as the spring of 1977, the Mayor of Madrid publically stated that he thought the position of Mayor “had too much responsibility to be elected democratically”.42 In response to this situation, one of the major demands of the citizen movement was the immediate democratization of the city governments. As Villasante argued, the old local regimes should be replaced by provisional city governments, composed of representatives from all the democratic forces, from parties to labor unions, to AV and Amas de Casa, to youth and cultural organizations, and so on. Once this democratic coalition was in place, they could proceed to restore democratic liberties and prepare for free local elections. Less clear was the exact nature of the relationship between the citizen movement and the future democratic municipal governments. While the need for autonomy from the authoritarian state had been obvious, not everyone agreed on the boundaries between a democratic state and civil society. There was broad consensus that the associations should be some sort of link between citizens and the state, but the extent of their incorporation into city policy-making raised more questions. On the one extreme was the implication that the association itself was the perfect “representative and democratic organism” that could replace the city government.43 On the other extreme was the suggestion that the associations’ role was completely distinct from that of the city government, and that its job was to maintain the independence necessary to exercise ongoing monitoring.44 The AV Majadahonda’s opening of a debate about the associations and city politics suggests that the implementation of local participatory democracy would require serious debate. Most in the citizen movement, however, seemed to assume some sort of direct representation of the associations in local government. The illegal provincial Federation junta had already included “direct

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participation of vecinos in municipal government through the associations” as one of their three demands in the clandestine November 1975 issue of the bulletin. Similarly, an author in the bulletin of the AV La Paz declared that if democracy was to be “more than a myth in our country, each AV should collaborate in the election of municipal representatives”. Over the next 3 years, versions of this goal or demand appeared in multiple formats. Thus, the AV San Blas voted in its June 1976 general assembly to “collaborate to achieve the full democratic participation of vecinos in the municipal government”. In the platform voted on by the AV Arganzuela, their goal was to construct “a citizen and democratic alternative for their district” based on their identity as “an organ of democracy, citizenship and popular control” (I/77). A broadsheet circulated by the AV Parque Aluche in February 1976 demanded that as “citizen associations” they needed to demand democratic municipalities with “channels for our associations to take part”. And a lecture sponsored by the AV Palomeras Altas in 1979 laid out a proposal that would give the AV formal representation in various municipal bodies.45 At the heart of these claims for direct representation were largely communitarian assumptions about democratic practice, which clashed directly with the liberal model of a democratic polity that was reflected in the elite discourse of the political parties. Thus, implicit in the demand to allow the AV formal representation on city councils was the assumption that it represented a single set of interests, unsullied by political or ideological divisions. Indeed, many in the neighborhood association movement assumed that the AV could be THE voice of the neighborhood, representing the people united in yet another form: “Above all, we search for unity among us.”46 One might argue that the associations’ more “corporatist” understanding of participation was a common feature of the associational milieu, reinforced by both Marxist (class) and Falangist (organicist) precedents. Thus, both family and neighborhood associations came together in a communitarian strand of democratic citizenship that embraced unitary notions of the common good articulated by the voice of the people, in contrast to liberal notions of competing individual interests fighting it out in the (presumably) equitable arena of democratic procedure. The implicit debate between these two visions of democratic citizenship culminated with the new municipal electoral law, which came down firmly on the liberal side of the equation by codifying the individual vote in the ballot box as the only legitimate form of democratic suffrage and the only basis for representation.

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In the meantime, citizen movement theorists who sought to make the case for the potential of the associations to channel citizen participation in the decision-making process tried to explain how the traditional activities pursued by the AV prepared them for this role. In other words, they theorized the connection between fighting for a local school or sewers and the regime transition. More importantly, they encouraged local associations into making the leap from specific policy demands (actividades reivindicativas) to building more permanent community bonds and taking political positions. Thus, while engaged in their local struggles for improved living conditions or organizing festivals to enrich the life of the neighborhood, associations had been building (and should continue to build) the foundation of a “citizen consciousness”.47 Conversely, without democratic liberties, they couldn’t continue to fight for their sewers and parks and schools, as the President of the ACF Coslada argued in response to the “apolitical” members who didn’t understand why they should care about democracy.48 At the same time, it was often argued, this citizen consciousness had been fomented indirectly through the very structure of the association itself, in the “democracy that we vecinos are accustomed to exercising in our own assemblies, where we organize ourselves, discuss, elect and recall representatives”.49 Beginning with subsistence issues, “we” ended by acquiring “democratic habits”, explained another author.50 Likewise, in contrast to those who would dismiss the political ignorance of ordinary citizens, the associations had demonstrated that “yes, we have a sense of civic responsibility, and yes, we know how to behave civically, and yes, we know how to exercise the right of citizenship when we are permitted to do so”.51 But citizen/vecinos also needed to be reminded that they were constantly operating on two levels, as Villasante said in his speech at the June 22, 1976 Preciados demonstration: “We want to say that we fight against the high cost of living, against speculation, for the legalization of our Associations, and a long etc. But we don’t stop here. The residents of Madrid and its barrios pursue without rest all types of actions towards achieving our most important objective: THE ABSOLUTE AND TOTAL DEMOCRATIZATION OF MUNICIPAL LIFE” (p. 94). Thus, the movement theorists shifted between celebrating the deeper political meaning of apparently non-political activities and insisting on the need for individual associations to make those activities more politically explicit. As the introduction to the Documentación Social special issue urged, “a neighborhood action cannot simply limit itself to the

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improvement of living conditions in the neighborhood; if the critical analysis is deep, it will be apparent that the neighborhood problem is only a consequence of an unjust and oppressive social and economic system”.52 In similar terms, the President of the Asociación de Nueve Barrios in Barcelona said in a public interview: “These demands [for the paving of streets or to build a new school] are made in order to highlight the inefficacy of the present government and the need for a real popular democratization.”53 In making these linkages, movement theorists did more than simply acknowledge or publicize the associations’ activities. Instead, they sought to use the existing “raw material” of the associations to create a new social subject that would both channel and represent a popular democratic alternative to the elite-brokered transition. Gender and the “citizen movement” Given the active process of transforming associations into a new social subject, it is perhaps surprising that few theorists took the opportunity to explore the gender implications of this new subject. While individual associations did pay more attention to incorporating women, both numerically and in terms of the issues raised, the “woman question” remained separate from the democratic theorizing about the citizen—vecino. This dis-connect is even more surprising, considering the potential for re-imagining women’s citizenship within a “direct democracy” framework. As feminist scholars have noted more generally, women are more likely to get involved in grass-roots, locally based organizations, to utilize informal as opposed to formal political channels.54 Furthermore, these movements often focus on issues of traditional concern to women, in their designated roles as mothers and wives. Framed like this, the citizen movement in Spain could have been pitched as a crucial bridge into active political life for women educated and shaped by the Francoist regime. And yet, significantly, the editorials praising the democratic potential of the citizen movement never mentioned women, and usually explicitly gendered the “average citizen” as male, particularly by equating citizens and workers. For example, Jordi Borja explained that the citizen movement organized workers in another dimension of their social life.55 Another commentator explained the difficulty in organizing the “average citizen” because he came home late and tired after working all day.56 To define the average citizen as a “worker” at a time when fewer than 30 percent of adult women worked outside the home had clear gendered implications.

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When women were mentioned at all in general discussions of the citizen movement, it was usually to comment on their absence. Even two of the prominent female leaders in the movement spoke directly to the problems of incorporating women into it. As Rosario Pérez Canto explained, the relationship between women and the citizen movement was a mix of passivity and impossibility, given the domestic responsibilities that prevented them from having time to dedicate to the associations.57 Another activist, Cristina Sobrino, who was the Vice President of the Federation of Asociaciones de Vecinos, admitted that women were a minority presence in the movement and in its leadership. She blamed the shortage on the machismo of Spanish society, but also on the isolation and low level of civic consciousness among the “amas de casa” of the barrios. In her opinion, those women who did join usually came through their concern with a specific problem, and later gained a citizenship consciousness.58 While these critiques carried the seeds of a more general gender analysis, there was no direct discussion of the potential impact of the citizen movement on female citizenship. Thus, it appears that no one ever made the argument that a participatory democracy based on grass-roots organizations was a good way to promote women’s incorporation into the political project of the new democracy. And there was no theorizing about the relationship between formal and informal politics and its relationship to women’s citizenship. In other words, even at a liminal moment when the parameters of citizenship opened up briefly, the framework of discussion was still masculinized. Once again, reflecting the limits of the “egalitarian” model, it was not that women were actively excluded, but that they were not actively included.

Conclusion With the important caveat about gender, the citizen movement marked the culmination of a wide-ranging conversation about the nature of civic participation that had begun in the early 1960s, with the foundation of the first Asociaciones de Vecinos. In contrast to the handful of earlier property owners’ associations, the vecino framework opened the door to a more egalitarian and universalistic conception of the civic community, and to the exploration of how such a community should operate. This discussion involved such issues as the rights and responsibilities of members, the structure of self-government, the distribution between legislative (Assembly) and executive (Junta) authority, the location of sovereignty, the organization of elections and the aspirations

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as well as the rules for community life, or convivencia. Looking outward from the association, the debate focused on the association’s role in representing the “public” interests of the community and the best ways to pursue those interests in a working relationship with the state. While censorship prevented participants from explicitly framing this discussion as a “democratic alternative” to the existing regime, the conversation touched on all the constituent elements of democratic practice and participation. More suggestively, one might argue that there was no pre-ordained democratic model to embrace, given the varied meanings and uses of the concept of “democracy”, including the “liberal” democracy decried by the regime, the “organic” democracy defended by the Movimiento, and the “radical” democracy of the left-wing militants. What is visible in the statutory conversation mounted by the associations, from the early 1960s to the creation of the boilerplate statutes in 1977, is the active construction of one particular model of democratic practice that emphasized participation over rights, and community interests over those of the individual. While it was not until the “birth” of the citizen movement after Franco’s death that the pieces were assembled into a “democratic alternative”, the groundwork had been laid in more than a decade of grass-roots experimentation and discussion. There is no question that the political transition provided the specific context for the transformation of the associational milieu into the social subject of the “citizen movement”, but the evidence presented here indicates that the transition did not give birth to the movement. The fact that this conversation about civic participation had been going on for over a decade before the Constitution was written illustrates how the construction of democratic citizenship was an active process that was not simply a product of the transition but part of its long-term origins.

7 The Civic Community in Practice: Family and Neighborhood Associations as “Schools of Democracy”

The Association . . . wants to be the means and opportunity for you to intervene directly in the resolution of the many problems that this society imposes on you. —Boletín de la Asociación de Cabezas de Familia (Coslada, Madrid, January–February 1975)1 The associational milieu that took shape in the decade before Franco’s death was more than a discursive phenomenon. Tens of thousands of mostly men and some women joined family or neighborhood associations around the country, and for these members the associations were sites in which they could “perform” civic participation in concrete collective behaviors and acts. On this level, the associations organized activities and projects, held elections and assemblies, mounted public campaigns, and appealed to government officials for more investment in their local communities. It is this performative function that led some contemporaries and later scholars to define the associations as “schools of democracy”, places in which Spaniards undergoing a transition from an authoritarian to a democratic society could prepare for their future role as democratic citizens. However, few have pushed the analogy further to explore when and how associational activities contributed to the process of democratization or the creation of democratic citizens. Through a close analysis of what the associations did and how they functioned internally, the object of this chapter is to determine how much of this activity can be linked to the development of “democratic habits” or “citizen consciousness”. 272

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Introduction: When did associations function as “schools of democracy”? In order to theorize the relationship between specific associational practices and democratic citizenship, I have drawn on Iris Marion Young’s framework of how and when voluntary associations contribute to democratic practice.2 Even though Young’s analysis is aimed at democratic societies, her framework can be fruitfully adapted to the authoritarian context of late Francoist Spain. Young identifies three levels of potential activity—private, civic, and political—of which only the latter two are constituent elements of democratic citizenship.3 Associations with exclusively “private” goals focus on the needs of members only, which creates an exclusive identity quite different from the inclusive horizontal terrain of citizenship. In contrast to these inward-looking associations, “civic” associations are outward-directed, aiming to serve both members and the community. On the third level, “political” associations go further to make “claims about what the social collective ought to do”.4 While some associations fit into only one of these categories, many operate on multiple levels, thus requiring the dis-aggregation of specific activities. This is precisely the case with both the family and the neighborhood associations in Spain, which moved frequently, implicitly or explicitly, from private to civic to political activity. What makes the civic and political activities significant for democratic citizenship is two-fold, Young argues. On the civic level, efforts of self-organization develop “communicative interaction” that supports identities, expands participatory possibilities, and creates networks of solidarity. In other words, they nurture what Birte Siim has called the “horizontal” axis of citizenship that comprises communication between citizens.5 But when associations try to influence government policies, they contribute to democratization on another level, by developing the communication between government and the people (the “vertical” axis of citizenship) and broadening the parameters of public debate in the realm of civil society. Under an authoritarian regime, this function looks slightly different, since the expansion of such dialog has a dual impact. Whereas under a strong democratic state, civil society groups in dialog with the government can deepen democratic consolidation, under an authoritarian state, the conversation can be destabilizing. Thus, by overwhelming rigid authoritarian structures, the growth of pluralist claims on the state can contribute to undermining its legitimacy, as occurred in Spain. At the same time, however, the practice of making such claims educates

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future citizens on how to join together in order to “get things done” in the name of the public interest. Whether or not these groups advocate for the overthrow of the regime, they develop skills of “democratic competence” and participatory behavior, by “taking part in organized community problem-solving activity”.6 As they did so, the associations helped nurture a resurgent civil society where alternative political cultures could be explored, even within the parameters of an authoritarian state. Applying this framework to the specific context of the associational milieu during the Franco regime, it is apparent that both family and neighborhood associations functioned on all of these levels, although not to the same degree. While most contemporaries who used the term “schools of democracy” were thinking more narrowly of democratic ideology and electoral practices, Young’s framework opens up critical consideration of a broader range of relevant behaviors that crosses the ideological divide of the milieu. Beneath this ideological division was a broader common terrain that can be linked to new “habits” of civic participation that embodied many of the elements of democratic citizenship. In contrast to the authoritarian model of atomization, passive reception, and plebiscitary acclamation of stateinitiated public policy, both family and neighborhood associations carved out a public space in which individuals worked together for the common good, tried to shape public policy, and engaged in dialog with the state over these issues. Movimiento and neighborhood associations differed as to whether that dialog was friendly (the collaborationist model) or confrontational (the oppositional model), but in the end, the common framework of state/civil society dialog contributed to the development of a more autonomous and participatory citizenry. Key also to the common terrain on which all associations operated under the Franco regime was the impact of massive structural economic changes at the community level. As the Spanish government changed economic course in the mid- to late 1950s, new policies designed to insert Spain into the global capitalist market had wide-ranging unforeseen consequences, not all of them positive. As discussed in Chapter 1, while the new economic policy generated impressive growth rates, the authoritarian state’s neglect of the social infrastructure of development hit urban communities in the form of lack of public services, shoddy construction, and housing shortages. Even rural communities felt the impact of a declining agricultural sector, emigration, or industrialization and incorporation into the urban center, as occurred in the case of many towns on Madrid’s outskirts. In addition, a direct impact of liberalization

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was the dramatic increase in consumer prices, most deeply felt by the amas de casa who did the family shopping and consequently a key issue in the AAC civic and political agenda. Once again, many Spaniards’ perception that the government was not addressing these issues provided an obvious base of civic and political issues and activities around which to mobilize. At the same time, individual associations had different profiles, shaped by a range of complex factors, such as the specific characteristics of the local community, the budget of the association, its legal status, and the goals of the core group of activists. Some associations, especially those linked most closely to the older homeowner model, put a lot of their energies into the (private) maintenance of their own housing development. These could have huge budgets, but most of the money was dedicated to paying for gardeners, security guards, building repairs, and so on.7 Movimiento associations tended to have larger budgets as well, and the outside funding they received from the family association leadership (DN) often helped them secure an adequate social and cultural center, which increased dramatically the pure quantity of activities they could organize.8 In general, the family associations seemed to spend more money on cultural and recreational events and activities, sometimes for members only but sometimes for the community at large.9 Asociaciones de Vecinos (AV) in middle-class neighborhoods shared this sort of profile, with money raised from hefty membership dues, but not surprisingly, AV in poorer neighborhoods had less money, often found it harder to maintain a permanent activity center, and were overwhelmed with basic urban problems which occupied most of their energies. Associations constituted in newly constructed neighborhoods, whether poor or middle class, often put more effort into negotiating infrastructural improvements than in holding fiestas. Finally, associations without legal approval also found it hard to organize public events of any sort, but this status did not keep them from mounting campaigns and working with the state on various issues. Despite the different profiles of the associations, most combined all levels of private, civic, and political activity over the course of their lifetime, creating a powerful cumulative impact spanning the decade and a half before the democratic Constitution was approved in December 1978.

The “private” functions of the associations: From mutual aid society to social club While they were not relevant to the creation of “democratic habits”, most types of associations engaged in “private” activities that occupied

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some portion of their collective energy. Most heavily weighted on the “private” side of the spectrum were the early neighborhood associations that brought together property owners.10 For example, in 1950, the Colonia Prosperidad association voted to separate the “service” section that dealt with community upkeep from the “recreation” section, but many of the others kept the two functions intertwined. In these cases, the association took over maintenance management from the construction company that had built the development. As such, they had to hire workers, draw up improvement plans, collect special tariffs from residents for new water pipes or pavement, and pay the city for trash pick-up and other municipal services. What kept all of this activity in the “private” realm was its provision of services for fees paid by homeowners, who co-owned even shared spaces like the streets and gardens.11 Over time, these spaces did become “public”, when they were turned over to the city in return for the municipal government taking over responsibility for providing the services.12 Beyond these special cases, all of the associations had some functions that fit into Young’s “private” category, and thus lay outside the narrative of democratization. First, there was the assistance offered to individual members that was reminiscent of a traditional mutual aid society. Thus, when an explosion left a member of the AV Primo de Rivera and his family homeless, the association distributed a circular asking for donations to help re-settle them.13 From a different perspective, in 1969 the AV Puente Vallecas reported that its Judicial Commission had handled over 100 cases during the previous year, ranging from marital separations to problems with buying or selling property.14 Beyond mutual aid, most of the private benefits offered to members were social and recreational, and the extent of these depended on the existence of an adequate clubhouse or cultural center where members could read newspapers in the library, attend events, and socialize in the bar. Given the importance of a social center, it is not surprising that one of the major “private” expenditures of many associations was the rent or mortgage payments on their space. After the AV Parque Aluche had held their general assemblies outside in soccer fields for several years, in 1973 they were finally able to move indoors, but at considerable expense.15 Purchase of space was even more costly, as evidenced by the 3 million ptas that took the AV Ciudad de los Angeles several years to raise in its “Operation 3 Million”.16 Once a center was secured, members could utilize the space in various ways. In addition to the general assemblies, there were youth groups,

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women’s sections, and clubs for retired members, as well as special interest gatherings of hunters, chess players, singers, or film afficionados. A well-endowed center had a library, like the Asociación de Cabezas de Familia (ACF) Cuartel de la Montana’s 500 titles, or at least a reading room stocked with daily newspapers and magazines, as well as dominoes and a chessboard. Less expensive to organize were lectures, like the one given on “the family budget” by the President of the Cortes to the ACF San Cristóbal in June 1969,17 or on the new “Education Law”, organized by the ACF Poblado Dirigido Fuencarral in May 1971.18 Attendance figures are rare, but 100 showed up for a lecture on “Sports in Spain”, and another 70 for one entitled “Mathematical Curiosities”, according to the ACF Coslada, in October 1974.19 Aside from educating its members, well-endowed associations also entertained them. Many associations appointed “Cultural” or “Recreational” committees to organize leisure activities, from plays put on by their own theater group, to tourist excursions and film series. Not surprisingly, the most active cultural centers tended to be in middle-class neighborhoods where members could pay higher dues. In Moratalaz, for example, the 2.5 pta dues were doubled in 1963 to pay for the bulletin, and then raised to 25 ptas in 1966, not counting the separate funds for pavement and tree planting. Another affluent community was Cuartel de la Montaña, where the ACF offerings that were described in a circular distributed in 1971 included: language and music classes, theater group, 500 volume library, movie club, sports teams, and excursions.20 There were exceptions to the general correlation between cultural activities and neighborhood affluence. One of the most culturally vibrant associations was in the working-class San Blas, where the AV began organizing sports teams and excursions in 1971, quadrupling the money spent on the latter by 1975.21 In most cases, however, it was only in 1975 and 1976 that these types of associations began offering recreational activities, as in the case of the AV Palomeras Altas, which opened a cultural center at the beginning of 1975,22 or the AV Palomeras Sureste, which only created a “cultural committee” in 1976.23 During the height of the “citizen movement” in 1977 and 1978, most associations dramatically expanded their cultural, sport, and recreational activities, following the lead set by earlier more affluent associations, although most of these were explicitly geared to the community at large rather than to members only, so they ceased to be “private”. During the dictatorship, then, the level of private benefits and activities was closely linked to the nature of the community, and, to a lesser degree, to ACF over AV.

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Homemaker Associations and “private” activities: A special case In a special category with relation to “private” activities were the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa (AAC). Because of the special limits and restrictions on women’s collective activities within the ideological and social constraints of Francoist gender roles, some of the “private” activities organized by the homemaker associations may have had broader “civic” implications. The key distinction was between activities which supported amas’ traditional functions and those that aimed to expand their horizons. While those in the former category would have few broader social implications, the latter need to be evaluated in terms of their potential impact in undermining Francoist gender ideology. That is, they constituted part of the larger social project of the promoción de la mujer, which, at least implicitly, laid the foundation for new rights and responsibilities for female citizens. Certainly, the range of activities that fit under the private rubric was extensive, reflecting both their generally middle-class identity and the lack of other female-friendly venues outside their home and family circle. The Granada association divided its activities into three categories, which provides a useful typology for other cases. The first category was “recreational”, including such events as visits to museums, touristic excursions, fashion shows, or movie clubs. The second category was “educational”, which consisted of self-improvement courses and lectures, and the third was “assistance” or mutual aid, which could involve cooperative services, pension funds, child care, discounts at local businesses, and charity to those in need.24 A typical association would probably offer a mix of these activities, as in the first 3 months of 1969, when the Granada association organized five local excursions, first-aid and guitar classes, and continued its operation of a school bus, a childcare center, and an employment clearinghouse for the supply and demand of domestic labor. Of these activities, those with the least social implications were focused on “helping the ama in her household labor”.25 In this vein, the associations sponsored numerous classes on cooking, decorating the house for Christmas, preparing healthy meals, canning fruit, or arranging flowers. Other activities focused on their role as mothers, including lectures on childbirth and breast feeding, child development, or treating childhood illnesses. In addition, the association bulletins included plenty of articles dispensing advice on how to buy the best produce, providing recipes for economical meals, or instructions on knitting a shirt for a newborn. Sometimes this advice was framed within a “modernizing” discourse, as in the course on the “Domestic

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Economy” offered in Huesca, which featured lectures by economists and nutritionists to bring scientific efficiency to the modern ama de casa,26 or in the lectures on child and adolescent psychology in Palencia, bringing professional expertise to the mothers’ child-rearing duties.27 Whether modernized or traditional, these sorts of activities and advice were private in the double sense of reinforcing women’s private status and responsibilities and not geared toward larger community goals. However, there was another category of “private” activities that pushed the boundaries of traditional gender roles and were explicitly linked with the broader project of promoción de la mujer. Thus, the President of the Santander association explained the purpose of the upcoming activities as “inspiring amas by showing them new horizons that prepare them for modern life”.28 Even an exposition of members’ paintings in Granada was framed as an effort to prove that “women can also paint and express themselves . . . and have interest in art and the wider world”,29 while a class on home repair in Valencia was an opportunity to assert that “it’s time that women stop fearing fuses and wires”.30 A course on auto mechanics in Santander linked participation to the “woman of today” and her “obligation to cultivate herself and search out new horizons”.31 What all these comments make clear is that each of these activities signified much more than the specific enjoyment or knowledge that they conveyed. Admittedly, there was not always a clear distinction between promoción de la mujer and “helping the ama de casa in her tasks”. The home repair course is a good example of an activity that was aimed at helping the ama do her job better, but also expanded the limits of acceptable female behavior. Likewise, the establishment of childcare services or centers was sometimes framed to help amas do the shopping or attend mass, but in other cases to give them free time to improve themselves or to help them balance work and motherhood. Thus, in Guadalajara, the association worked to organize a childcare center “for those amas de casa who have to work”,32 while the center in Burgos was designed for short-term emergencies,33 and in Granada it was only open from 5 to 9 PM on Saturday and Sunday.34 In Lugo, both working and non-working mothers would be able to utilize the planned center,35 while Madrid’s facility offered the option for occasional or daily childcare.36 Other activities, however, had no use value in enhancing household tasks and were clearly aimed at general self-improvement and enjoyment. And, while on one level the project of “self-realization” benefitted

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private individuals, given women’s limited access to such activities as a consequence of their sex, these could take on broader social significance. Whether such activities involved visits to museums and lectures on how to look at paintings or “café-coloquios” on current affairs or even language courses, the focus was on expanding amas’ restricted universe and giving her permission to develop her own talents, not just those of her husband and children. The insertion of poems, excerpts of novels, or reviews of current films in the association bulletins adds to the impression that the project was more ambitious than re-creating the perfecta casada, or “perfect wife”. Even the numerous courses and lectures on exercise and fitness can be framed from this perspective, by countering the traditional self-sacrificing narrative with one that placed value on taking care of oneself. At the same time, the emphasis on personal appearance that included make-up demonstrations, fashion shows, and advice on hairstyles or dry skin fit into a broader modernizing discourse that equated the consumption of beauty products with modernity and liberation. Within the framework of broadening amas de casas’ horizons, the associations also facilitated interaction with amas from across the country, building the sorts of trans-local social networks that would have been unusual for most women of the time, especially homemakers. The most obvious sites for such networking were the numerous provincial and national congresses and conferences. While the national conferences of the Federation often included only a couple of representatives from each provincial association, events like the Jornadas Nacionales de Amas de Casa were open to more women. Thus, at the Jornadas in October of 1975, the 1,100 women who attended surpassed all expectations, according to the organizers. In addition, many came from small towns, including 23 different locations in Asturias and 12 in Valencia.37 One participant explained that such meetings offered the opportunity to “put ourselves in contact with all the amas de casa in Spain”.38 Aside from the national congresses, there are also accounts of local visits between associations, as in the case of the provincial association of Huesca which sent delegations to various towns interested in forming a local branch, including Campo, where they met with “nearly all the amas de casa of the village”.39 While such visits and meetings were clearly designed to help coalesce the associations into a national movement, their potential impact in creating new channels of female sociability in civil society should be acknowledged as a consequence with civic implications. It would probably not be accurate to classify all homemaker collective activities as “civic” due to their impact on gender

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identity, but at least some fall in a liminal space with potential “civic” implications.

The “civic” activities of the associations: From community fiestas to Auto-Soluciones In the broader associational milieu, as well, “private” activities could easily spill over into the “civic” terrain, serving to help develop broader networks of solidarity framed more clearly by the “public interest”, whether by bringing the community together through festivals or by organizing neighborhood improvements. One explicit gesture was to open the social center to the public, as did the ACF Ventanielles (Oviedo) and the AV Puerto Chico (Madrid).40 But there are other examples in which the distinction between member and resident was made consciously and explicitly in order to invoke a public community of citizens. Thus, for example, the editors of several associational bulletins made the explicit point that the publications were meant to be public, not internal: “the bulletin of a family or neighborhood association is the voice of the people . . . the voice of a majority who desire to correct the problems they see around them”.41 Similarly, the first issue of Nexo explained its ambition to be a “link that unites all the residents of the neighborhood”,42 while UR aspired to be the “mouthpiece of our neighborhood and for all its neighbors”.43 Such sentiments reflected the ambitions written into both family and neighborhood association statutes that each association be a public advocate for all families and vecinos in their district, even that it be “the” legitimate voice recognized by members and non-members alike. One of the most concrete ways to identify the association with the neighborhood or town was through linking it with the traditional local fiestas. For example, one of the first projects of the ACF Aravaca in 1965 was to ask the city if it could take over the local patron saint fiestas.44 Likewise, the first public event of the ACF Alto Estremadura in January of 1966 was to organize the Reyes Magos (Three Kings’ Day) parade for the neighborhood children.45 In that event, residents were summoned by a car with loudspeaker circulating through the streets with the announcement: “children, come to the windows and balconies to receive the Reyes Magos who have come from the Orient, invited by the ACF of this barrio to offer you toys, sweets and smiles”. The bulletin noted that, when children poured out of their homes, despite the bad weather, “the success of the first act of the association was secure”. As an editorial explained the importance of the success, “we needed something like this in the

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neighborhood”. The significance of this public debut is even greater, given the origins of the ACF 6 years earlier in a homeowners’ association of a single housing complex embedded in the neighborhood. Thus, it was a public neighborhood festival which announced the transformation of the association from private to civic entity. The purpose of such civic festivals was defined in the program printed by another ACF in July of 1970: “the intention of these local fiestas patronales is to convoke children, adults and the elderly to co-exist together in cheerful and pleasant neighborliness, forgetting their differences and stimulating the fraternal links that bind them”.46 While the financial capacity to sponsor the traditional annual fiestas was at first mostly limited to Movimiento and middle-class associations, after 1975, associations in working-class neighborhoods joined the pattern. Thus, the AV Colonia de la Paz and the AV Carabanchel Alto organized fiestas patronales for the first time in 1976, and more followed suit in 1977 after the mass legalization of neighborhood associations allowed them to sponsor public activities. Even though their resources were limited, the tradition of sponsoring the fiestas del barrio had clearly been established as something that such neighborhood associations did. Furthermore, they often linked the fiestas de barrio to the social and political transformation underway, as in Carabanchel Alto’s 1976 program, which trumpeted them as the “first time organized by residents”, in implicit contrast to top-down official festivities of the past.47 In a similar vein, the President of the AV UVA Vallecas explained the goal of making the upcoming fiestas “simple, popular and free for everyone in the neighborhood”.48 Aside from the local fiestas or the Reyes Magos parade, associations organized other social events to which everyone was invited. Thus, the ACF Caspe (Zaragoza) celebrated a ceremony for “25 years of peace” in 1964,49 and the ACF Buñola (Baleares) sponsored an end of school year fiesta for the towns’ families in 1965, which it hoped to make an annual event.50 In 1973, the ACF Aravaca reported that, as in previous years, it held a series of festivals, including bullfights, dances, and picnics, “to provide happiness and activity to the neighborhood”.51 Entertainment for all the neighborhood children was a common theme, as in the ACF Alto Arenal’s theater production of “Treasure Island”, which attracted 600 young people,52 or the AV San Blas’ children’s festival of music and dance, which drew an audience of 900.53 According to their records, most of the 1968 social activities of the AV Barrio Estrella were also dedicated to youths, including puppet theater, concerts, sports competitions, and the election of “Miss Barrio Estrella”. If festival budgets

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are any indication, residents responded positively to such offerings. In Barrio Estrella, the budget allotment for the fiestas quadrupled between 1969 and 1971 and doubled again between 1974 and 1975.54 The AV Barrio Concepción, which formed in 1966, spent 30,000 ptas on its first annual fiesta in 1968, but doubled that budget the following year. By 1972, it allocated 178,000 ptas for festivities.55 In newly constructed neighborhoods, the association could play a foundational role in creating new festival traditions. Thus, it was the AV in Moratalaz that organized the first Reyes Magos parade in January 1971.56 And in Parque Aluche in 1973, the AV decided that the neighborhood needed its own fiestas, for “improved convivencia and to revive the cultural traditions of our country”.57 In San Blas, the AV created an annual “fiesta of the association”, held for the first time in October 1973. In 1975, the organizing commission decided to add a second annual festival, at the end of the school year, in collaboration with local schools, while the following year the October festival had a turnout of more than 1,000 people.58 This latter event evolved into a political demonstration when the President of the association praised the teachers who had shut themselves inside the local church, and after the concert led 200 members of the crowd over there to show their support. Even without the political implications, such events were important for “community development”, in the words of the Culture Commission of the AV Palomeras Sureste. In their plan for 1977, they pledged to “increase recreational activities, in order to augment the circle of acquaintances and friends, and through these encounters to empower the unity and affection among all of us”.59 Whatever the abstract commitment to an expansive vision of “us”, many associations were pulled into “civic” activities through their engagement with very concrete community problems. In a revealing dialog at an ACF assembly, one member protested the ACF Poblado Dirigido Fuencarral’s expenditure on public lights, “because all the inhabitants of the town are not members”, while the President responded that the association installed lights “because it was dark and residents were being attacked”.60 This exchange sums up nicely the contrast between a “private” and a “civic” mission, even though the response was framed in practical, not theoretical terms. But it is precisely such practical concerns that often pulled local associations into the realm of civic action, whether they initially understood the distinction or not. Many of the issues that concerned members, from inadequate street lights to a host of urban deficiencies, affected non-members as well. At the same time, the state’s unwillingness or inability to provide

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basic services and amenities created the gap for associations to step in with what citizen movement theorist Jorge Borja called auto-soluciones.61 And while auto-soluciones like installing street lights looked a lot like the private maintenance functions of homeowners’ associations, the fundamental difference lay in the public status of the streets and common spaces in ordinary neighborhoods. Rather than a private exchange of fees for services, the public space automatically invoked the broader framework of the “common good”, at the same time as it brought the state into the picture, if only as the deficient partner. The range of civic auto-soluciones was extensive, reflecting the needs of different communities in various stages of urbanization and development. Sometimes the process began with a community survey organized by the association, in which members went house to house to gather data on particular problems. Thus, the AV La Paz conducted a survey on education in December of 1975 to determine how many more “slots” were needed to matriculate all the neighborhood’s children.62 On a similar issue, the ACF Aramayona’s survey of local parents revealed a strong desire to send their children to secondary school, of which the town had none.63 Other surveys focused on urban problems, as with the ACF Alameda Osuna’s questionnaire in April 1976 designed to elicit and clarify the “needs of the neighborhood”,64 or in Arganzuela, where residents were asked about everything from rats to parks to odors from the nearby factory.65 In order to resolve identified community problems through “civic” measures, the association could open a voluntary fund to solicit special contributions, or simply use ordinary dues, depending on the available financial resources. Not surprisingly, the most ambitious self-financed projects tended to occur in more affluent areas. Thus, in 1968 the ACF Alto Estremadura paid 200,000 ptas in teachers’ salaries to support the new public school built by the state,66 and in 1971 it raised the money to install street signs. A resident who wrote in to thank the association for the signs opined that the ACF was “behind almost all the improvements in the neighborhood”.67 In Leganés, the ACF Cerro del Castañar raised money for water and sewer lines, including a nominal contribution by the DN,68 while in Poleñino (Huesca), the ACF took out a loan for the 1 million pta shortfall in the city’s budget to bring domestic plumbing to the village.69 Some auto-soluciones were more modest, however, as in the case of the AV Carcabas-San Antonio, which started a childcare center in 1971,70 or in Ventanielles (Oviedo), where the ACF formed a committee to improve the public gardens, and its members were spotted digging up weeds.71 On whatever scale, the attraction of auto-soluciones was that

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they could be accomplished without the lengthy and uncertain process of appealing to state agencies. Civic activities of homemaker associations: The citizen–consumer While homemaker associations may have participated in some of these civic activities, they played a specifically gendered role in helping amas de casa understand the impact of their role as consumers in shaping economic forces to the benefit of the community at large. On a basic level, the associations sought to give household consumers the information they needed to be “smart buyers”, but it was also made clear that these individual decisions could have broader impact on the market and its pricing structure. Events such as the Jornadas de Consumidores, held in 1972 and 1974, as well as the Jornadas Nacionales de Amas de Casa, held in 1973 and 1975, helped frame consumers’ role in the “coordination between production and consumption”, as well as their “rights” to be well-informed about the parameters of the “new” consumer society that was emerging in Spain. As a pamphlet co-authored by Barcelona President Margarita Font asserted, there were five “sacred rights” of the consumer, including a reasonable level of quality, sufficient protection against contamination, access to a selection of reasonably priced goods and to accurate information about products, and the opportunity to influence economic life and “participate democratically in its control”.72 According to Font, these rights came with responsibilities. Thus, while only a decade earlier, Spanish consumers were oriented toward basic subsistence issues, the new consumer had to acquire more sophisticated knowledge about quality as well as quantity.73 Beyond individual buying practices, another speech explained how the associations themselves contributed by “dispensing information, protests, collaboration and orientation”. The homemaker associations took up the charge to educate and organize the female consumer for her new “social role”74 in various ways. Most generally, the bulletins included numerous articles instructing and advising amas de casa on consumer issues, from how to use coupons effectively75 to detailed breakdowns of the prices of specific goods.76 While at times these were mixed with other pieces on beauty or fitness, some bulletins, like Barcelona’s Hacienda y Hogar, focused more heavily on consumer education. More significant for the civic mission of the association was the organization of consumer actions or campaigns. In the vanguard of this mission, the Barcelona association held weekly “consumer chats” (tardes del consumidor) to brainstorm about strategies and tactics to pursue in the “battle of consumption”.77

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One such strategy undertaken by the Barcelona association was to send “brigades” of amas de casa each week to investigate prices and the quality of products in the market.78 Font later explained that they posted “guards” at the markets from 2AM until noon to follow the products from producer to their sale in the market. When she was asked why the association took on a job assigned to existing government agencies, Font replied not only that the agency didn’t do the job, but also that an unpaid squad of amas de casa was more immune to potential corruption and pay-offs than professional inspectors would be.79 Furthermore, in the words of the association’s 1968 self-narrative, the government could not remain indifferent to the “spontaneous and voluntary collaboration of a group of citizens” who were contributing to the welfare of the entire community. Other collective consumer strategies included the Ceuta association’s daily publication and broadcast of the acceptable price for a series of basic goods, which amas de casa were to use in order to guide their purchases but also to report price gougers to the association.80 Likewise, the Huesca association formed a consumer committee, whose job was to receive and channel complaints.81 The Madrid association employed yet another tactic, of opening booths for selling meat at a fair price in the markets of three populous neighborhoods in Madrid. At the end of the first year of operation of this “socio-economic project”, the association claimed that 700 housewives, whether members of the association or not, regularly bought meat at the booths.82 In all of these consumer campaigns there was an implicit tension between a liberal theory of supply and demand and a communitarian expectation of “fair” prices that was never really resolved. Thus, association bulletins alternated between laying the responsibility at the feet of the consumers, whose rational choice not to buy overpriced goods was their only weapon in the marketplace, and demanding that the government do more to control prices. At least in theory, however, most associations seemed to accept the basic parameters of the market economy, which paradoxically created a larger role for the homemaker/consumer to make an impact. By curbing their “individualism” and refusing to be seduced by the over-consumption patterns of the wealthy, individual homemakers could become part of a larger collective force that could make a civic contribution to the Spanish people.83 The apparently “private” decision to make a purchase or not was thus transformed into a civic act when it became part of a coordinated effort. As the Huesca bulletin put it explictly, amas de casas’ most powerful weapon in helping the state control prices was “the politics of abstaining

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from purchasing”.84 It was precisely the coordination of such efforts that provided the AAC with their major civic role.

The “civic” activities of the Associations: Performing self-government In addition to the range of activities situated in the civic realm because they touched on the broader “public good”, there was also another category of internal activities that qualified as civic because of their direct relevance for citizenship practice. When members attended assemblies, listened to and participated in debates, voted in association elections, and ran for office, they “performed” the procedural responsibilities of democratic citizenship on a small scale. At the same time, there was no fixed “script” for these responsibilities, despite the generally similar statutory provisions for participation, elections, and decision-making. As a result, on the functional as on the discursive level, it is probably more accurate to view the associations as laboratories experimenting with the boundaries of citizenship rights and duties than as homogeneous “schools of democracy” instilling a particular formula. And yet, while the associational milieu may not have provided a monolithic civics lesson, everyone wanted to be seen as following democratic procedure, however it was defined. It was this collective desire to pursue democratic procedure that constituted a common civic script, followed by most of the associations. Making collective decisions in the Associations: Unity or pluralism? The first principle touted by virtually all associations was the need to make collective democratic decisions, but how this commitment translated into procedures varied dramatically. At issue was the conflict over the unitary or pluralistic nature of community interests, which shaped the way internal disagreements were handled. Within the “organic” democracy framework, the community spoke with a single voice, presumably the one defined by the leaders. Thus, in Movimiento associations where the local and provincial hierarchy took charge, decisions could take the form of plebiscitary acclamation. Thus, at the founding assembly of the ACF Santa Brigida (Las Palmas), the provincial head of the family movement (DP) and the local head of the Movimiento read a petition proposing the election of their slate of candidates by “acclamation”. The petition, which had been signed previously by 350 heads of household, went on to explain the “inefficiency” of choosing a Junta during a general assembly, given the number of people present, and

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proposed a specific list of candidates for approval. Significantly, the association’s first annual report described this process as “an election of great democratic purity”, presumably because of the 350 signatures.85 Approval by acclamation, often literally through a massive show of hands or a thunderous applause, was a common method of making decisions, whether in holding elections, reviewing the annual budget, or accepting new statutes. As in Santa Brigida, there was often a single slate of candidates requiring an up or down vote, as is clear in the founding assembly of the Asociación Familiar Vicelles (Móstoles), in which all candidates received 27 votes.86 When it was time to hold new elections in the ACF Poblado Dirigido Fuencarral at the 1971 assembly, several members publically asked the President to continue, and, “given the agreement of the assembly”, he assented.87 In Barrio Estrella, the annual reports between 1968 and 1972 include a single line on the re-election of those whose term had ended, until finally the Secretary decided to retire and a vacancy opened.88 While plebiscitary decision-making fit the organic democratic model, it also made sense on the opposite end of the political spectrum, among those with a left-wing communitarian vision of democratic practice. Thus, the self-proclaimed democratic AVs were just as likely to hold single list elections that required an up or down vote as were the Movimiento associations, as in the case of the “democratically elected” Junta of the AV Mejorada del Campo in 1978,89 or in the UVA Vallecas vote by “universal suffrage” in the same year.90 And in some cases it was clear that this method was being used to stifle potential opposition. Thus, in the AV Moratalaz, some older members complained that the new politicized Junta had tried to control the recent election by presenting a fixed slate, until they insisted on holding an open election.91 In the AV Ciudad San Pablo, a similar battle in the December 1977 assembly led to the election of a new Junta with votes by non-members who had packed the room. While the new President claimed that all those attending were admitted as members on the spot, the old President described a meeting in which the statutes were dismissed as “out of date” and the “pueblo was sovereign”.92 While such complaints are tainted by the resentments of those on the losing end of these battles, such methods were not inconsistent with the communitarianism that characterized both the right and the left wings of the political spectrum. For some members of both family and neighborhood associations, such disagreements were inconsistent with the claim to be “the true voice of resident sentiment”. In this particular story, those on the Junta

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of the AV San Blas struggled to square this claim with their willingness to accept “constructive criticism” in an article about a group of members trying to “destroy” the association.93 In another case, the perception that the “true voice” had been betrayed led dissident members of the ACF Poblado Dirigido Fuencarral to form an entirely new association, because, they told a reporter, “they didn’t feel represented”. In turn, the President of the existing ACF used the same unitary logic to respond that it was the only legitimate representative of the neighborhood. In competing petitions on the conflict, the DP wrote supporting the existing association’s claim to be “the” ACF of the barrio, while the dissidents claimed the right of all individuals to form associations.94 At the same time, there were voices that defended the need for civic pluralism in the community. In one editorial on the decision of the President of the ACF Coslada to resign, “just because some in the association don’t agree with what you are doing”, the author registered his disapproval with the rhetorical question: “How can there not be differences in ideas and opinions in an association if they exist at the level of each family?”95 A similar editorial criticized those who walked out of a heated debate in an AV Moratalaz assembly, “as if this would solve anything”, and insisted that all different opinions were needed in the family associations.96 It is not clear how much the defenders of “one true voice” or internal pluralism spoke from conviction or opportunism, since the arguments were used to bolster personal advantage, but such ulterior motives do not diminish the civic implications of the debate over democratic procedure. Similarly, internal struggles between old and new Presidents or dissidents and defenders of the status quo were often framed as issues of democratic rights or procedural infractions, whatever the petty motives involved. Thus, those accusing the President of the ACF San Fernando de Henares of “dictatorial” behavior in his summary removal of Junta members asserted the statutory power of the general assembly to elect the Junta. In reply, the President asserted his rights as a “democratically elected” official, and complained that his right to “due process” was being violated.97 Likewise, the dissident founders of a new ACF in Fuencarral appealed to Francoist law (the 1944 Fuero) and complained that their “rights and liberties” had been violated.98 In another struggle between a dissident member and the Junta that expelled him, both his defenders and his critics spoke in the defense of the democratic process.99 While the homemaker associations usually lacked this sort of leadership drama, the divisions at the tumultuous 1968 general assembly

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of the Madrid association were partly framed in terms of democratic procedure.100 Thus, from the perspective of the President and the Junta, the general assembly had to “be compliant with the statutes, respect the laws of the association and the legal authorities, and pursue their goals through legal channels”.101 They accused the dissidents of disturbing the statutory order of the meeting and of trying to impose their minority views on the majority by force. The opposition’s demand to be given two spots on the Junta was angrily rejected as against normal electoral procedures, and giving in would amount to capitulating to “inquisitorial extremisms”.102 In reply, the dissidents argued that the President arbitrarily cut off open debate, expelled members without statutory cause, and tried to maintain authoritarian control over the agenda and the proceedings.103 Whichever side one was on, it was clear that anyone attending the assembly or following the conflict in the press had been exposed to a “true political debate” about democratic process.104 However “scandalized” the “ladies of order” might have been, the assembly could be viewed as part of the civics lesson they received as members of a voluntary association. Clearly everyone wanted to be on the side of democracy, but in practice there was no fixed boundary between democratic and non-democratic process. Electoral procedures in the Associations The lack of an a priori democratic process is also clear in the experience of elections, which all associations held, but whose procedures varied greatly. The first election of the AV Colonia Covadonga in 1969 illustrates this point nicely. In a long discussion about how to replace the founding Junta, no one volunteered their candidacy and several members suggested simply holding a vote of confidence and extending the mandate of the existing board. But the President insisted on the need for a formal election, and several members of the old Junta expressed their desire to step down, so the assembly had to agree on a method for electing new members. When no agreement emerged, the President asked the local priest to mediate, and he proposed a “mixed” Junta of old and new members, but his intervention only sparked more debate. After several more rounds of nominations and discussion, one board member finally suggested a slate which was unanimously accepted. This method of open nomination from the floor until a compromise list gained unanimous support was followed again in 1972 and in 1974.105 With its combination of vigorous and contested debate and lack of formal competitive procedure, it is hard to place this electoral process in a single category.

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Lack of formal electoral competition could also be more indicative of member passivity and deference than an authoritarian procedural deficit. Thus, there are plenty of examples of Junta members begging volunteers to come forward as candidates so they could hold competitive elections. In Colonia Diego Velázquez, the bulletin reported that, despite preliminary calls for candidates, when the moment came to present themselves in the assembly, the President was met with a “sepulchral silence”, and the existing Junta had to be re-elected for another 3 years.106 And in Puerto Chico in January 1972, the AV had to report it could not hold elections for lack of candidates.107 In another case, the assembly gave up its right to elect the Junta with a motion to let the newly elected President choose his own.108 Such decisions were lambasted by critics as “dedocratic” nomination “by finger”, to distinguish it from “democratic” voting by assembly, but the examples suggest that procedural categories were not so clear-cut.109 Sometimes, the “dedo” even intervened in the name of democratic process. In one case, enough members complained about the election of the first Junta of the ACF Parque Avenidas that the national Movimiento hierarchy reviewed the case and annulled the election, because the slate “did not have its origins in proposals from the Assembly or some of its members”, but from the appointed DP, who presented his slate along with a lecture on the necessary qualifications for the positions.110 Likewise, in the ACF Villa de Aquinas, some would-be members complained that the election of the first Junta was held privately between friends rather than publically, and the local Movimiento chief urged the Junta to step down, which it did.111 In another conflict, members petitioned the DP when the President fired 11 members of the Junta and replaced them with his buddies without holding an election.112 Even apart from such contested elections, other cases provide evidence of multiple candidates and more unpredictable outcomes. In the election of the Madrid Provincial Federation in 1972, members of 140 associations voted in a first round to nominate candidates. Of the 30 people who received some votes, the top 20 made it into the second round, from which 6 were elected.113 In Fuenlabrada in 1967, there were 3 candidates for each position in the election,114 while in Orcasitas in 1973, 25 members volunteered to run.115 In other cases, the discontinuity between the members of the organizing committee and the first elected Junta suggests a competitive process. For example, in the first election of the Asociación Familiar Villamil-Sánchez Preciado, the President of the organizing committee received the smallest number of votes,116 while in the Barrio Progreso, the elected President edged

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out the President of the organizing committee, who was demoted to Vice President.117 In Lalueza (Huesca), only two members of the organizing committee were elected in a “broad debate” in which “everyone spoke”.118 Discussion occurred not only about who to vote for but about how to hold elections, thus shifting the focus from outcome to procedure, a quintessentially democratic concern. In the first election of the ACF Llaranes in 1965, the President explained the mechanics by which the two candidates had been nominated, and asked everyone if they approved the procedure before holding the formal vote of 97 to 61.119 More explicitly, when the bulletin of the ACF Alto Estremadura announced the upcoming elections of October 1969, it printed the relevant statutes pertaining to elections and how they fit into a “democratic system in which our association chooses its leaders”. In this case, candidates were also nominated before the election, and voting was to be “open list” to preserve access for more members.120 Much of the discussion on electoral procedure took an educational tone, in which leaders clearly felt the need to impart a civics lesson to members unfamiliar with the significance of voting for one’s representatives. Thus, in 1966 the President of the AV Colonia Diego Velázquez critiqued the practice of some individual apartment buildings whose residents chose their representative to the association through a random procedure like a lottery or a rotation instead of according to their qualifications for the job.121 In another instance, he urged residents not simply to vote but to study each candidate and “vote with complete liberty” for the one who would best represent their interests.122 The most well-documented case of a sustained interest in electoral procedure is among the members of the AV Ciudad de los Angeles, who carried on an evolving debate about what one official called “normal democratic procedure”. After the first elected Junta had served its 6-year term, in 1974 the association was ready for its first transfer of power. This fact seemed remarkable enough that the Vice President felt compelled to justify an election as “normal”, rather than an indictment of the Junta’s performance. In order to establish a “normal” precedent, the existing Junta decided to draw up an extensive elaboration and revision of the statutes on voting procedures, which was submitted to the general assembly for discussion. Whereas the original statutes gave the right to nominate candidates to the old Junta, the revisions introduced a system in which either ten ordinary members or two presidents of apartment complexes could do so. Only the President of the association would continue to be nominated by the outgoing Junta,

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although now the assembly would have the right to approve or veto the nomination. While the new rules were accepted “by acclamation”, during the question and answer period of the assembly, several members expressed their disagreement with the continued top-down nomination of the President, which effectively barred access to those not already on the Junta. Even though the assembly had to approve their choice, objected the speakers, members were essentially being “presented” with a candidate. Significantly, this dissident opinion did not make it into the bulletin article describing the election, which focused on the “unanimous ovation” that greeted the Junta’s proposal to re-elect the existing President for another 6 years. Nevertheless, those who attended in person, in “massive numbers” according to the article, did hear the procedural debate.123 Another flashpoint of ongoing discussion in the AV Ciudad de Los Angeles was the method of voting by acclamation, which was periodically challenged by individual members. Thus, after the Junta’s proposal to raise the membership dues was approved “by ovation” at the June 1973 assembly, at the following assembly in January of 1974 one man objected that it was improper to make such an important decision using this method.124 The protest seemed to have an impact, because in the April 1974 assembly, the President interrupted the eruption of applause to declare that the issue on the table required a formal majority vote. The ensuing handcount produced an almost unanimous vote, but the “almost” would have been lost in the “ovation”.125 At a later assembly, one member also raised an objection to voting by show of hands as intimidating, to which the President responded that the association used secret ballots when voting on “polemical issues”.126 Whether or not the objections raised about voting methods resulted in a formal change of procedure, what is significant is that the hundreds of members who attended these meetings were exposed to this ongoing debate.127 The final chapter in this procedural debate occurred during the years of the transition, when dissident members circulated a member questionnaire in April of 1976 to force the Junta to hold more open elections. Of the 969 members who responded, 369 supported change, 248 liked the status quo, and 352 had no opinion. At a meeting between the existing Junta and the organizers of the questionnaire, they hammered out an agreement to constitute a provisional Junta with existing officers and dissidents, who would draw up new electoral procedures.128 The proposed revisions were presented in the February 1977 assembly,

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where they generated a lively debate. While few disagreed with the new system of open nomination and election of all officers, the more diffuse nomination process opened a whole new set of questions about election propaganda, since members would need more information about unknown candidates. The assembly eventually agreed to increase the period between nomination and voting to allow time for campaigning, and to give each candidate a chance to publically present their position to the members.129 The first major election under the new system was held in June of 1978, when the “democratic list” beat the “free list” by 475 to 177. In the case of the Ciudad de los Angeles, the struggle over direct nomination and election probably emerged from a power struggle in which dissident members sought to loosen the grip of existing leaders. But a similar debate in the ACF Poblado Dirigido Fuencarral in 1967 carried no such ideological overtones. As in other large neighborhoods, the assembly of this ACF was comprised of representatives of each apartment block, rather than of all members. In the original statutes, only these representatives were eligible both to vote for and to be elected to the Junta. In the 1967 general assembly, however, the 162 delegates who were present discussed an amendment that would open the Junta to all members, both as candidates and as voters. The existing President agreed, declaring that “we should not and must not close the door to anyone, since everyone in the association should pass through the Junta”. The new statute was approved, and an assembly was scheduled the following month to hold elections under the revised guidelines.130 In contrast, the politically progressive AV Palomeras Bajas retained the indirect voting procedure of having delegates vote for the Junta until January of 1979, which again demonstrates that there was no simple link between ideology and some predetermined democratic process.131 Rank and file participation in the Associations In addition to expanding electoral participation, some associations discussed other procedural methods of defining and increasing rank-and file-participation. For example, when the President of the AV Primo de Rivera complained about private sniping, he insisted on the value of criticism, but expressed publically. In the discussion that ensued, one member suggested that the association put out a “suggestion box” so those who didn’t feel comfortable speaking out in public could have a forum to express their ideas.132 For those who did want to speak, the “comments and questions” period of the general assembly was the

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crucial space that members of many associations utilized to raise their concerns. In the AV Colonia Covadonga, when the Junta had failed to include this item on an assembly agenda, one female member objected. The President agreed to add it, declaring that he had no problem “admitting dialogue, opening discussion and collecting the suggestions or propositions expressed in the general assembly”.133 Interestingly, the 1959 statutes of this association included several detailed articles on the rules of dialog, from the right to speak without interruption to the obligation to stick to the subject or risk being called to order. Such detail spoke to the assumption voiced in another context of “our inexperience in participating in collective organizations”.134 One of the most explicit discussions of participatory procedure and its implications was during the campaign debate between two slates of candidates from the AV (formerly ACF) Campamento in February of 1977. In the course of each slate presenting its philosophy, what emerged was a sophisticated debate about the virtues of representative vs. direct democracy. Thus, the first slate advocated an asambleista associational structure in which most decisions were made in plenary session, while the opposing candidates argued that having an elected Junta that made most decisions was no less democratic. As one speaker recognized, they were arguing about “two different means of educating us democratically”. In the end, it was the asambleista position that prevailed, but the vote was close, 42–36.135 In practice, the degree to which members participated in assembly debates and discussions is difficult to determine, but there is some evidence that they could function as vibrant public fora, opening the floodgates for “the traditional propensity of Spaniards to speak at length”.136 In most cases, there is no more than a hint of what transpired, as in the case of an assembly of the ACF Vilcalváro, in which “after much discussion and the intervention of the majority of those present”, they voted to change their statutes.137 Similarly, the standingroom-only assembly of the AV Parque Aluche in January of 1976 was described in the bulletin as “enthusiastic”, with numerous interventions on various topics,138 a phrase also used by police to describe an April 1971 assembly of the AV Orcasitas.139 Although police who reported on these enthusiastic events were clearly nervous, as long as speakers did not utter “phrases contrary to morality or order”, vibrant debate was not illegal. The level of rank-and-file participation was also clearly determined by the nature of the issues on the table. There is a classic common pattern, discussed in Chapter 2, of broader participation in moments of

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community crisis, when all or most residents were mobilized by a particular issue. One vivid description of an assembly of the ACF Coslada spoke of the “climate of expectation and participation of those present, which increased considerably with the reports of the commissions, to the point that so many people wanted to speak that the President was obliged to ask for patience”.140 Just as the frequency of, and attendance at, assemblies rose and fell depending on the items on the agenda, so the level of debate followed these waves of mobilization. A nice illustration of these fluctuating waves is provided by the contrasting picture of two assemblies of the AV Colonia Diego Velázquez in 1966 and 1970. In reference to the earlier assembly, the editor of the bulletin talked about the grand passions, the raucous discussions, and the differences of opinion expressed by those among the 800 members who jammed the room. In acknowledgment of the periodic nature of such passions, he noted that the last time he had seen such a debate was around the once-pressing issue of paving the streets.141 In contrast, at the assembly 4 years later, the call for volunteer candidates was met with silence and “no one, absolutely no one, asked anything or commented on anything”.142 One common motive that raised passions and participation among the rank and file was the fear of losing one’s home as a result of neighborhood improvement plans, which explains the frequent assemblies held in 1974 and 1975 by the AV Leganés and the AV Zaporra, in which “many interventions” were noted.143 In a police report on one assembly of the AV Zapporra, the informant commented on the fact that all of the many speakers were “culturally as well as socially of humble status”.144 The rich documentation on an individual association like the AV San Blas provides a glimpse, not just of a single meeting, but of a sustained climate of mobilization and participation. Thus, the October 1974 assembly lasted 4 hours and was attended by 500 members, “with many people intervening on each issue”.145 During the committee report on the rising cost of living, “many people intervened, insisting, among other things, on the need for better conditions in the neighborhood’s market”. In February of 1975, the police reported a “passionate” assembly about the poor quality of housing in the neighborhood, which ended with various members suggesting solutions.146 Another assembly in June of that year went on again for 4 hours, during which time “many members intervened, expressing concrete problems in their apartment block or initiatives to create a women’s section or a section of social action”.147 During a routine police inspection of the association in October of 1976, the informant completed this general picture

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of sustained participation with his description of its headquarters and cultural center as “ frequented by a great number of members”. While not every association sustained such a high level of participation, the evidence presented in Chapter 2 suggests that there was a growing culture of asambleismo in the associational milieu toward the end of the dictatorship and into the transition, in which more and more ordinary members were drawn into the collective life of the associations on a regular basis. This growing assemblyism only enhances the argument that many associations offered members the space in which to experiment with civic skills, from voting in elections and intervening in public debates, to revising the procedures by which such activities were regulated. The evidence does not support a simple narrative of evolution from non-democratic to democratic procedure, or from family to neighborhood association. Instead, associations adopted a range of different procedures, increasingly linked together by the common desire to BE democratic, whether in the organic, liberal, or communitarian sense. By the time the larger political transition was under way, not everyone in the associational milieu agreed on the parameters of the democratic process, but they all wanted to follow it. And while this procedure had only been experienced inside the walls of their association, other associational activities reached beyond members to the community at large. Through neighborhood festivals and self-improvement projects, associations implied their commitment to the common good and their responsibility to improve the public welfare, relying on and reinforcing the horizontal bonds that constitute one of the fundamental axes of democratic citizenship.

“Political” functions of the associations: Negotiating with the state While the horizontal bonds of citizenship were celebrated for their contribution to convivencia, most communities lacked the sustained resources to pursue successful auto-soluciones (self-help), which forced them to look “vertically” for outside help. This need did not always send them directly to the state, as many associations began by negotiating directly with the private contractors that built their defective houses or the companies whose bus lines did not extend into their peripheral neighborhoods. In other cases, the state was the obvious interlocutor from the start, since it was the provider of inadequate public services or the builder of badly constructed public housing. Nevertheless, regardless of the initial source of the problem, family and neighborhood

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associations alike were eventually pushed into dialog with the state and thus into the realm of public policy formation. It was these efforts to get the government to resolve their collective problems that crossed the boundary between Young’s categories of “civic” vs. “political” activities. Two models: Collaborationist vs. oppositional Within this general category of “political” activity, there were two basic models of operation, the “collaborationist” and the “oppositional”. In the collaborationist model, the association worked together, usually with city officials, toward a non-confrontational and consensus resolution of the problem. In the “oppositional” model, the association held the government responsible for solving problems, and employed “coercive” measures, from press campaigns to public demonstrations, to force officials to accede to their demands. From the perspective of the more politicized neighborhood associations, the collaborationist model created asociaciones de aplauso,148 subservient to the Francoist state and thus incapable of autonomous action. In contrast, loyal Movimiento associations thought the “oppositional” model limited an association’s ability to get things done and overstepped the boundaries of its mission. In practice, though, both models could produce results, depending on the context, and both operated in the same political terrain, refining and strengthening the “vertical” axis of dialog between citizens and their government. As such, both models explored and strengthened the new links between state and civil society, and nurtured practices of “political” participation through negotiation with the state. At the same time, there was a general trend amongst both neighborhood and family associations away from the collaborationist model, which predominated in the 1960s, toward the oppositional model, which became dominant by the mid-1970s. Many who began as loyal collaborators became frustrated with the Francoist state’s ineffective responses and lost faith in its ability to “deliver the goods”. In this sense, the associations confirmed what many Spaniards either believed or were starting to believe—that the Francoist state was not (or no longer) an effective agent of the common good. The collaborative model in practice: A relationship of mutual trust Throughout most of the dictatorship, however, those in the Movimiento camp accepted that “the commitment of the ACF is the close collaboration with the city government”.149 Their bulletins included effusive praise for city officials: the “district councillor who has always been

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so supportive of us”,150 the municipal officials “who have shared their time with the association, attending assemblies, personally inspecting problems”,151 the “Mayor and city councillors for their enormous efforts in education”.152 The core of this supportive relationship was articulated in the quid pro quo spelled out by the AV Barrio Estrella: “at every moment we have reiterated our adhesion to the Authorities, and we have always received support from them”.153 Even non-Movimiento associations often began with this positive relationship, which seemed to be reciprocated. Thus, the top city official in the district where the Barrio Concepción was located sent his warmest regards on the inauguration of their bulletin: “when a group of citizens takes on the challenge of serving the community, they deserve the utmost praise”.154 Where mutual trust existed, city officials were happy to accept input from the associations about their problems and the associations felt free to offer suggestions about what the city should do. Thus, in February 1968 the recently elected President of the city government’s district council in Carabanchel met with the Presidents of all the ACFs in the district in fulfillment of his campaign promise and vowed to hold monthly meetings in order to formalize their collaboration.155 Likewise, the enthusiastic city official cited earlier asked the President of the AV Barrio Concepción to serve on the district council of the Movimiento, specifically assigned to the section on “city affairs”.156 Similarly, in Ciudad de los Angeles, the local Movimiento chief (also on the city council) asked the President of the AV to represent the association’s interests on their district council.157 Beyond this restricted sense of collaboration as cooperating with government initiatives, those working within this model formulated their own policy suggestions as well. As the Provincial Congress of family associations in Barcelona explained in its agenda, the goal was not only to outline problems but to offer possible solutions.158 And when the ACF Poblado Dirigido Fuencarral held two massive assemblies to talk about the Ministry of Housing’s plan for new housing units, it was not simply to inform but to evaluate: “to see if it might be helpful to offer some observation or proposal regarding the plan, so that changes might be made before the Ministry begins construction”.159 In addition to suggestions for revising housing and urbanization plans, another popular object of commentary was the comprehensive educational reform law of 1970. Sometimes proposals were framed within a joint “civic/political” relationship, in which the association was willing to take partial responsibility for implementation or even funding, as a demonstration of its

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citizen responsibility. Instead of waiting “for them to urbanize us” (“que ‘nos’ urbanizasen la colonia”), the ACF Alto Estremadura explained, residents had to show they were ready to contribute, in this case, to the paving of local streets.160 From the other end of the economic spectrum, the ACF Puertollano (Ciudad Real) asked the Ministry of Housing to help out their housing cooperative, which could not meet their goal without subsidies. The Ministry official who heard the request suggested a plan to build 150 homes affordable to the modest families in the association. The ACF welcomed the plan, but also petitioned for further refinements, like a smaller down payment and different floor plans to choose from.161 But policy suggestions were not always linked with self-help initiatives, or auto-soluciones. Thus, in response to numerous complaints by residents about the city’s method of publicizing new taxes by posting them on the door of the city hall, the ACF Coslada offered to publish them in their bulletin.162 In Valverde, complaints about the lack of cleanliness in the neighborhood led the ACF to propose either an assembly with the mayor of their district or a visit to the civil governor to discuss municipal problems and possible solutions.163 And, in the village of Aramayona, the ACF distributed a questionnaire that revealed, among other things, residents’ desire to move the celebration of the annual saint’s day fiestas to Saturday night. The ACF passed along this information to the city government, “since the fiestas patronales should be organized according to public opinion or at least the majority”.164 As this anecdote reveals, active associations viewed collaboration with the government as more than being cheerleaders for the team. Thus, while the ACF Almunia de Doña Godina’s 1964 program included several items on cooperating with city initiatives, like the literacy campaign or the “25 years of peace” celebration, it also agreed to “pressure” authorities to enforce public morality rules for minors and to “obtain” the city’s commitment to install running water.165 And the “ Study on the Needs of the Barrio and Proposals of Possible Solutions” submitted to the city authorities by the ACF “Virgen de Begoña” spoke openly of the “urbanistic abandon” which had to be remedied, at the same time that it promised to be “at the disposal of the authorities to work and collaborate in everything that leads to the greatness of Spain and the continuity of Our National Movimiento”.166 The ACF Ejea de los Caballeros’ (Zaragoza) subtle version of collaboration was to “be alert and in contact with the city government” during the upcoming process of school construction,167 while for the AV Barrio Estrella, the association “imposed greater celerity” in the completion of various

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city projects, like the installation of a traffic signal and the placement of public trash receptacles.168 The search for a balance between submission to the authorities and a constructive critical posture is visible as well in the contrast between the general praise for officials and the willingness to push them on specific issues. Thus, the same issue of the ACF Cuartel de la Montaña bulletin that praised city officials for their constant support also reported on the association’s conflict with the city over the latter’s unwillingness to allocate a piece of land to build another school.169 And when leaders of the AV Barrio Concepción interviewed the President of their district council, they asked tough questions about what he intended to do to improve garbage collection, or whether the council would support the association’s petition to increase water pressure. As they explained their posture to the associations’ members, the idea was to discuss problems in a constructive way, without “pushing a person up against the wall” (callejón sin salida), but without pretending they don’t exist.170 Sometimes the collaborative balance could be expressed simply through the tone of the suggestion: “respectfully, we submit a solution”,171 or “we hope that the authorities take an interest”.172 A common technique of asking without assigning responsibility made use of the passive voice in constructing a question without a direct subject: “Would it not be possible to plant some trees along the main street?”173 From this respectful posture, associations wrote petitions, met with officials, and even published notes in the local press politely asking the government to take an interest in resolving their particular problems, and “never”, in the words of one local leader, “demanding more than it is reasonable to expect”.174 And sometimes these “reasonable” requests produced results. For example, in 1971 the ACF Fuencarral presented a list of successful gestiones (a word that translates awkwardly as “taking steps to accomplish”) that included an agreement by the local water commission (Canal Isabel II) to cancel back payments for water service, another by the city to post signs at parking garages, a third in which the city agreed to continue a bus line scheduled to be dropped, and finally, a successful petition to the Ministry of Housing to reduce the price of new houses by 6500 ptas.175 In other cases, there was at least partial satisfaction, as reported by the ACF Ventanielles, in its 1965 Memoria: “gestiones were made with local officials in charge of public sanitation, both by letter and in person. We insisted on solutions for the problems of water and lighting, as well as the sweeping of streets. Although we didn’t achieve everything that we desired, there have been improvements.”176 Likewise,

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the AV Puerto Chico reported some successes in its gestiones with the city government, like the neighborhood’s first traffic light and the installation of 16 trash cans, but also the general sense that the association’s pressure had “made the city take an interest in our neighborhood”.177 In the cases when “reasonable” gestiones produced no results, the collaborative model could still be sustained if another culprit other than the government could be identified. In particular, blame was often laid at the feet of the construction company responsible for the housing development. In Madrid, several associations maintained ongoing battles with construction companies to repair houses, keep their promises to reserve land for parks and schools, and finish the urbanization of the neighborhood.178 In pursuing these battles, it was often possible to cast the company as the great enemy of the community, while maintaining collaborative relations with a city government that claimed lack of jurisdiction in their neighborhoods. Thus, the AV Ciudad de los Angeles could attack the Constructora Virelsa with increasingly confrontational language “demanding the rights of other barrios”,179 without sending off alarm bells in the municipal government, whose members viewed the AV as a “model” of how the “union of residents creates power”.180 The homemaker associations and the state: Defending consumers, women and children Like the other Movimiento associations that operated within the collaborative model, the loyal Homemaker Associations (AAC) pursued gestiones, in the form of petitions, reports, public campaigns, and their voice on various official commissions, to convince the government to act. In the words of the Madrid association’s 1969 annual report, “we have carried out various visits and consultations, submitting to the authorities reports and requests, aimed to inform them of the favorable realities and also of the abuses . . . and offering practical and viable solutions to energetically resolve these worrying problems”.181 However, in contrast to the ACF or AV, their petitions spoke on behalf of beleaguered Spanish consumers, as well as on a number of perceived “women’s issues”, from homemakers’ pensions to children’s films. In defining their relationship with the authorities, the AAC leaders clearly envisioned their role as a conduit of information and suggestions from the ordinary ama de casa to the state. The most common theme of AAC petitions was consumption, following the assumption that it was amas de casa who had their finger on the pulse of ordinary Spaniards’ increasingly vocal purchasing woes. In the context of the late 1960s–early 1970s, in which economic liberalization

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seemed to generate constant price hikes, the most insistent demand was that the government take action to stem the inflationary trend. This demand was the first conclusion of the Federation’s 1971 assembly, or, more subtly, achieving a balance between prices and salaries, as the second conclusion of the 1975 assembly put it.182 In the words of a letter from the Leon AAC to the Minister of Commerce, the government either needed to “nationalize primary foods” or raise the minimum wage so that it covers the basic grocery bill.183 In similar language, the Madrid President asked the Minister to “work towards the social planning of production, since in Spain production is oriented towards a capitalist society which doesn’t take into account the broad sector who exist at a low economic level”.184 Other petitions asked the government to step up its vigilance in assuring food quality, by implementing the food safety code185 or by banning the direct home sale of milk186 or by “exercising extreme vigilance in public services”187 or increasing inspection of market produce.188 While none of the petitions suggest the government’s lack of good will, the critiques of specific policies could be quite bold. Thus, in early 1976, the Barcelona President called the government’s recent speech “antisocial”, and argued that the rise in prices should be treated as a “social crime”.189 Likewise, an editorial in the Madrid bulletin expressed incomprehension that “DECISIVE AND EXEMPLARY MEASURES HAD NOT BEEN TAKEN” against speculators in the oil and fish markets.190 Association petitions also addressed other themes related with the perceived expertise and concerns of homemakers, within the “difference” framework of the family associations. For example, one area in which amas de casa felt empowered to make demands was in regards to children’s welfare. Thus, one petition from the AAC in Tenerife addressed the cost and quality of school textbooks, while another from the AAC Baleares protested the elimination of certain courses, and yet another from the Federation raised the issue of inadequate slots for bachillerato students.191 Another child welfare issue first raised by the AAC in Tenerife but later taken up by the Federation as a whole was the lack of appropriate films for children and the need to develop such a branch of the Spanish film industry.192 Similarly, the Granada association petitioned the local government to ban adult movie trailers in child movie showings. At the same time, it requested the completion of a planned children’s playground whose construction had been stalled.193 The other major area in which the AAC consistently intervened was women’s welfare. One subset of this issue was pornography and, more broadly, negative or demeaning images of women in the media. Thus,

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a 1971 petition from the Federation to the Ministry of Tourism asserted the negative moral impact of ads that used women as objects to sell goods, or of television programs that falsely depicted the reality of Spanish homes. In order to counter the harm done to the “formation of women as human beings”, the petition demanded that the government appoint one of its members on the “department of programming”. Another subset of this issue was the defense of women workers, articulated from their conservative moral perspective. Thus, the AAC in Madrid attacked the “inhuman” practice of the Ministry of Education in assigning married women teachers to positions without consideration for their spouses’ residence, which forced many to live away from their homes, and impinged on their ability to properly care for their homes and families.194 In another petition, the AAC Tenerife took up the cause of female cleaning personnel in public schools who were not getting registered for social security, first with the municipal government and then with national primary school officials.195 By far the most important and sustained AAC petition made on behalf of women was the demand to incorporate non-working amas de casa into the pension system through the creation of a “Mutualidad”.196 This aspiration was among the foundational goals of the associations in Madrid and Barcelona, and remained one of the ongoing projects into the Transition era. The Federation began a national campaign in 1971, encouraging its member associations to spread the word in the local media and making a formal presentation to the Cortes.197 The government responded by forming a national commission in September of that year, with three female members from the Sección Femenina (SF), but, under pressure from the Federation, added two of its representatives to the commission in October. The commission approved the idea in June of 1972, asserting that the “labor of the homemaker is an authentic contribution (‘trabajo’) that the woman gives to the community through the family”.198 Over the next 2 years the commission worked to compose a concrete proposal, aided by a survey of ama de casa needs and interests designed by the Federation in collaboration with the SF. According to the survey, which was distributed to 15,000 women, 77 percent of respondents favored incorporation into the social security system, and 58 percent thought that participation should be mandatory. In terms of expected benefits, most respondents identified an old age pension as the primary need, but significant majorities expressed the need for health insurance, burial costs, and emergency economic aid.199 When the commission presented its proposal in late 1974, the government promised

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to move forward in short order, but the change of ministers in March of 1975 de-railed the process. After this point, what a Federation report of December 1976 called the “consuming political situation” never provided another opening, despite promises by various ministers.200 While governmental instability hindered the project’s final approval, so too did the changing priorities of the democratizing elites who labored over the new Constitution. Within a framework of formal gender equality, the recognition of homemakers’ special contribution to the family economy seemed anachronistic and outmoded. Although the project failed to come to fruition, the process by which the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa pursued the Mutualidad embodied the cooperative vision of political engagement in which citizen groups worked closely with government personnel to achieve collective goals. From early on, the Federation and its member associations requested representation on local, provincial, and national committees, “to elevate our voice to the highest levels”.201 In the words of one association bulletin, the point was to “maintain direct dialogue” between consumers and the state, and to “establish channels of reciprocal collaboration”.202 At the end of 1971, the Federation’s annual report touted various appointments to government bodies as one of the notable accomplishments of the year. At the national level, the Federation had gained representatives on the Junta Central de Publicidad, which dealt with advertising claims, the Consejo de Consumidores, which was meant to give consumers an organized voice to respond to business interests, and, of course, the Comisión para la Creación de la Mutualidad de Amas de Casa.203 At the provincial level, a February 1972 ministerial directive ordered the appointment of AAC representatives to the provincial Cost of Living Commissions, which had been created in 1967 to help provide the Instituto Nacional de Estadística with raw comparative data on the cost of living.204 However, appointments to provincial bodies like the Provisioning Board, which monitored food supply, or the Board of Prices, had already occurred in individual provinces as early as 1968.205 Beyond demanding a voice on existing committees, the AAC leaders also promoted the creation of new government bodies which could defend consumer interests in the face of the well-organized lobbies of producers and business. As one early report of the Madrid association argued, consumers were almost totally unprotected in Spain’s booming economy, and it was the government’s responsibility to help create organizational channels that would link the activism and knowledge of the associations with the authority of the state.206 Although it is impossible to verify the impact of their lobbying, the Federation took at least

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partial credit for the creation of the Consejo Nacional de Consumo Interior in 1971, to which two of its members were appointed. At the same time, the associations made the case that the government should help nurture the weaker consumer voice with funding subsidies. In fact, the state’s second “Development Plan” (II Plan de Desarollo) included provisions for subsidizing consumer associations, and the Federation began petitioning for its piece of this pie in 1971.207 This request provides yet more evidence of the nature of the evolving relationship between the AAC and the state. Within the collaborative model, the associations weren’t framed as adversaries of the state, but neither were they merely “cheerleaders”. Their claim to represent and defend consumers, women, and children required support from the government but also independence, given the competing interests whose voices also had the ear of the state. Such a balance required recognition that the state represented a variety of interest groups, but that all groups participated in an essentially common project, which might be articulated as the welfare of the Spanish nation. In any case, there was no question that the AACs viewed themselves as part of this national project, and that it was their job to incorporate the previously unrepresented voice of the homemaker/consumer into this project. The breakdown of the collaborative model of relations with the state The delicate balance of mutual trust required to maintain the collaborative model began to break down when the associations lost faith in the state’s willingness or ability to respond to their “reasonable” requests. If, at this point, an association continued to pursue fruitless gestiones, it was in danger of losing its members for being “impotent and arthritic”, in the words of one angry resident of the Ciudad de Los Angeles.208 Faced with similar lack of progress, a member of the ACF Coslada described the atmosphere at a recent assembly, in which the question floating in everyone’s mind was why the association could not solve any of their problems.209 Loyal family association leaders understood this dilemma and tried to use it as leverage with the authorities in making their requests. Thus, in one letter describing the ongoing struggle over neighborhood repairs, the President of the ACF explained that if the association could not show progress in the upcoming General Assembly “through our hierarchical family representatives”, then the members were pressuring the association to launch a judicial action.210 Similarly, the ACF Alto Arenal’s letter to the district council about the plight of residents unable to get

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the cracks in their walls repaired contained an implied threat of escalating action: “these families could organize a massive scandal”. If the ACF was going to be the “legal channel for the aspirations of the family, in collaboration with the municipal authorities, we beg you to avoid this irreparable error”, it concluded.211 Even when the state recognized a problem, according to the Provincial Federation of Family Associations in Barcelona, its critical posture did not always translate into effective action: “one has to notice the divorce between the spirit of the [recent housing law] and its implementation”.212 The growing frustration of family associations with the results of friendly collaboration with the state is best illustrated by a close look at several case studies of unfulfilled aspirations. The first is the ACF Poblado Dirigido Fuencarral’s dispute with the Ministry of Housing that began in 1966 and was still pending in 1971.213 The neighborhood was constructed in the mid-1950s, but the ACF was formed in 1966 to channel the frustrations of residents into productive negotiations with the Ministry. Residents were unhappy with the increased final price of their homes and with the lack of communal services, from public lighting to what the Ministry called “complementary” buildings, like schools, clinics, garages, and sport and cultural centers. In 1966, the ACF put together a dossier on all the problems and submitted it to the Ministry of Housing, via the Delegado Nacional of the family associations (DN). Dissatisfied with the Ministry’s responses, which included the excuse that it had depleted the budget for the neighborhood, the ACF devised a new plan for a collaborative solution partly financed by the association. If the Ministry would cede the land to the ACF, they would raise the money to build a variety of communal buildings on their own. By the 1967 general assembly, the Ministry had gotten no further than putting their suggestions and demands “under consideration”, and the members voted to pursue legal action against it. During the question and answer period, most of the individual comments criticized the Ministry’s lack of attention to their problems and expressed their “great concern” with how the authorities were handling the issue. In 1968, their case was still “under consideration”, and the ACF wrote angry letters to their representative in the Cortes and to a Minister, again delivered via the DN. Thus far, the ACF had maintained its generally “collaborative” attitude toward the regime, as well as a positive relationship with other government officials, like those at city hall who worked with the association to improve street maintenance, install traffic signs, and build a dining hall for the existing school. The association also operated inside

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the Movimiento hierarchy, channeling all its requests and demands through the family associations’ provincial and national leaders (DP and DN), even asking the latter’s advice about the tone of various petitions. The DN also seemed sympathetic to the residents’ plight, and tried to use his “insider” status to pull the right strings so the ACF could get credit for solving the problem. Thus, in a letter to a senior Movimiento official, he sent all the documentation on the conflict, asking for “personal intercession from our Minister to the Minister of Housing”, “since there seems to be no point in continuing to send petitions” that were not answered.214 Significantly, either such intercession did not occur or it did not produce results, because in May of 1971, the ACF bulletin published an editorial looking back at the previous fruitless 5 years of gestiones. The only possible conclusion, the author insisted, was that “the problem lay less in individual office holders and more in the SYSTEM”, which treated them like “second class citizens”. It is significant that the sensation of “second class citizenship” and “systemic” problems reached middle-class as well as working-class neighborhoods. In the UVA Vallecas, another middle-class development, one can trace a similar process of disillusionment with the failure of systemic channels to open a fruitful dialog with various functionaries and organs of the state.215 As in the previous case, the AV (affiliated with the Movimiento) developed a self-financed plan to build a social center and sports field, as well as a childcare facility and a recreation center for the elderly. Moreover, after its purchase of the land for these projects in 1970, all it needed from the city was zoning approval to go ahead with the construction. In 1971, the AV reached an agreement with a construction company to build the sports facility and day care center, but in 1972, their plans started to unravel. The city rejected the sports facility, pending its decision on how the land would be zoned, a process that dragged on until late 1974, when the association’s bulletin reported the “inexplicable error” that would prevent the realization of the “just aspirations” of the residents. From this point on, the whole tone of the bulletin was transformed, from the easy optimism of the early years, to a growing bitterness against the authorities who willfully ignored their pleas. In particular, the “inexplicable error” exposed the unraveling of a non-confrontational collaborative model that had been touted confidently in earlier years. Thus, in celebrating the inauguration of a neighborhood school in 1970, the President of the AV had bragged: “this is the enormous, great work of the Spanish government, in benefit of everyone. Because the true revolution is made with work, honor and

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sacrifice, from above, from the highest echelons of government, without public disturbances or jacobinisms that only place obstacles in the path of all aspiration to reform.”216 Elsewhere, he chided “the impatient ones” who could not wait for the proper channels, and asked for confidence in the association’s leaders and their gestiones.217 While there was no denying that the association was necessary to remind the authorities of their pressing needs, a united voice simply made it “easier to hear what is good for the collective”. In raising their collective voice, the association could be confident of the “patriotism of those who lead and have the responsibility of governing”.218 However, by 1974, the bulletin was chiding the delays of official entities, “which were not resolving the problems that they were legally authorized to address”.219 Disillusionment with the relationship between the state and its citizens also impacted neighborhoods in which the initial villain was the construction company. In the case of construction company battles, frustration was often transferred to the state if and when battling the construction company had not produced results. Thus, after years of fighting CIOHSA, the ACF Parque Avenida discreetly criticized the “silence of state officials in the face of the general and legitimate interests of the citizens”.220 Following a similar train of thought, one exasperated resident in Moratalaz asked why the city government could not force the company to finish one of its projects.221 More directly, when the Ministry of Housing tried to argue that since the private company that had built Barrio Puerto Chico had dissolved, it was powerless to help, the AV insisted the ultimate blame lay with the state for approving a construction plan that lacked funds for infrastructure.222 The association began a campaign to publicize the neighborhood’s problems and to make the state’s responsibility to solve them clear and compelling. The case of the AV Moratalaz (also affiliated with the Movimiento) illustrates how a conflict with a private company could evolve into frustration with the government’s inability to protect its citizens.223 The basic problem in Moratalaz was similar to that in UVA Vallecas or the Poblado Dirigido Fuencarral, except that the development was owned and planned by URBIS instead of by the Ministry of Housing. Thus, the company had built large numbers of, again middle-class, homes without allocating land for the “complementary” communal spaces like schools, clinics, parks, and recreation facilities that had been included in the 1963 General Plan for the neighborhood. While the association organized campaigns over each of these issues, the most sustained conflict involved the company’s decision to construct 1,200 additional

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housing units on a piece of land originally zoned as a community park. When the city of Madrid provisionally approved the revision of the plan in November 1966, the association turned its attention to petitioning the city to reverse its decision and revoke the construction license. In November of 1967, its petition filed in January of that year was denied, and the association decided to take its case to the national government. The appeal dragged on until mid-1971 because, following Kafka-esque logic, the Council of Ministers refused to hear the case until the November 1966 revised plan had received final approval. In 1969, the association filed a suit with the Supreme Court, but by 1972 it had still not been debated. In the meantime, the company used the license issued in 1966 to begin preparations on the land in 1968, followed by construction in 1970 and 1971. At that point, the association was faced with a fait accompli and had to accept the proffered compromise of no park and a sports facility and medical clinic built far away from their residential hub. Embedded in the association’s basic narrative of this conflict is an evolving commentary on who was responsible for their failed petitions. Early on, the association’s bulletin took a non-confrontational stance toward the problem of urban planning, laying blame at the feet of construction companies, but acknowledging that they were only pursuing their “natural” interests.224 Still, the editors “begged to differ” with the rosy picture of Moratalaz presented in URBIS’ glossy program for the “fiestas del barrio” in August of 1968, which didn’t give the full picture of what “building a neighborhood” required. By the following summer, the July bulletin spoke openly of the “broken promises” of the company, and in November of 1969 it printed the text of a letter to the city government complaining of what the association leaders referred to as illegal construction on the site reserved for a park. Although the letter was informational rather than accusatory, it was accompanied by a Nuevo Diario article about the general epidemic of illegal building in Spain and the need for the state to be more proactive in preventing it. The failure of the city to stop the “illegal” construction in 1970 and 1971 led to more direct attacks on “the people we trusted”, and on an economic system in which “land is the property of a few”, subject to “capitalist egotism” instead of being available for the benefit of all.225 When, asked one editorial, “is a numerous group of citizens with a manifestly just petition going to be listened to as is their right”?226 The final denial of that petition by the Council of Ministers in July 1971 provided a negative answer to the question and eroded the basic assumption that “the people we trusted” operated according to the common good:

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“we cannot predict the consequences of this decision, but we believe it is our duty to inform the state that public opinion is in disagreement with a decision that clearly favors the interests of a private company while cheating the population”. During that summer, the association held a series of assemblies to brainstorm about more effective legal measures, “given the exhaustion of petitions”,227 but by the next year they were forced to admit that “the Association has exhausted all legal measures . . . What can we do?” 228 What did all of this imply about the state? Given the widespread perception that the state had failed to contain “capitalist egotism” for the benefit of the common good, there were two possible explanations: either “the administration is powerless”, or “its personnel is not capable for the jobs they occupy”.229 Government officials claimed to be sympathetic, as in the city government’s report on the “unsustainability” of Moratalaz’ lack of infrastructure, but a close look at their rhetoric revealed, according to one author, a lack of real-world solutions, like the expropriation of property.230 Furthermore, as evidenced by the previous reference to the Nuevo Diario article on illegal construction in Spain, the association’s bulletin was placing Moratalaz’ conflict in a broader context of “the capitalist dragon” voraciously eating up the land while no one was doing anything to stop it. In one article referring to the transformation of the Valencian coastline, the author noted that one could read similar stories in any local newspaper around the country.231 The growing critique of the government’s urban development policy should not be automatically equated with opposition to the regime itself. For many years, the Moratalaz bulletin maintained a supportive stance toward the regime as it critiqued specific policies. Thus, an April 1970 story about the heroism of Nationalist sailors fighting in the “War of Liberation” (e.g. Civil War) left no doubt about political loyalties. More directly, in October 1971 on the 35th anniversary of Franco’s rule, the bulletin’s editor boasted that the huge demonstration in the neighborhood proved that “the majority of Spain is with the Caudillo”. While there were numerous “local complaints” that seemed enormous “from our narrow perspective”, admitted the editor, beyond these problems was the towering figure of Franco, “who created a Spain situated among the leading nations of the world”.232 Beginning in 1972, however, it was clear that an internal debate over the future of the association had opened up. In the spring of 1972, the newly elected President spoke openly about “democracy without adjectives”, while the editor of the bulletin remained a more conservative

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voice, critical of those who “wanted to bring ideology” into the association. As late as 1973, the editor still took the optimistic line that the “association is effective”, problems were being gradually solved, and “with a little patience” they would achieve the rest of their goals.233 However, in April 1974, the bulletin, clearly under new leadership, announced a “new path” and admitted that the old path of “inaction” had not been effective. While warning that they should not be “waylaid by those who want to steer the Association towards problems outside our mandate”, the new editor asserted that the association had to be a more effective instrument for achieving the interests of residents. An evolving oppositional model of relations with the State Charting the “new path” beyond fruitless petitions was the challenge faced by many ACF and AV in the mid-1970s. The realization that systemic channels were not “getting the job done” led many associations to conclude that new strategies were needed for achieving their community goals. This realization did not immediately create a new “oppositional” model of confronting the state, nor did it lead to the end of attempts at collaboration, as exemplified by the ACF Fuencarral’s continuing and sometimes successful gestiones. However, frustration with the default functioning of the “system” led associations to consider other channels of expression. Thus, when the AV San Blas opened the floor of its general assembly to suggestions on how to get the state housing office to pay attention to them, the resulting list reflected a variety of potential approaches that included: (1) calling the fire department, (2) calling a press conference, (3) gestiones with the Mayor, (4) writing to their representative in the Cortes, (5) sending a commission to deliver petitions, and (6) more forceful action based on massive participation of the residents.234 It was this final option that pointed toward a new type of relationship with the state, defined by the AV Carabanchel Alto as “action”: “the residents of Carabanchel Alto have come to the conclusion that ‘gestiones’ alone do not get us anywhere, and that we have no choice but to move from gestiones to action”.235 Similarly, in explaining why the association had moved to boycotts and public demonstrations, the President of the ACF Barrio Venecia in Zaragoza asked the rhetorical question: “What could we do, legally, after gathering the signatures of 4/5 of the families and calling an assembly of 600 people? The ceiling was reached, and the problem was still unresolved after two years.”236 By the time a provincial Movimiento official wrote to the DN in June of 1976, asking whether the

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family association movement would move toward “action and presence in public life”, it was clear that an alternative to the collaborative model had coalesced.237 The regime’s official position was to blame the emergence of the oppositional model on ideological radicalization. As satirized in one associational bulletin, “If one day the people, tired of repeated requests to solve their problems, decide to collectively and physically address those problems, all we have to do is label them as communists or provacateurs.”238 But even Movimiento officials privately acknowledged that the path of “action” could be more effective than collaboration. As early as 1970, when the first “politicized” family associations in the Basque Country were being investigated, the DN wrote that it was not difficult to explain the attraction of a more confrontational stance, “when on numerous occasions the disciplined attitude [of the loyal family associations] doesn’t get the same attention as those, who through their oppositional attitude, get better treatment”.239 Similarly, a Movimiento official reporting on an escalating conflict between the ACF Alcorcón and the Ministry of Public Works concluded that the lack of response was sending a dangerous message to the citizenry: “that their just demands will only be listened to when their protest takes a dramatic and notorious form”.240 As the official looking for guidance on whether family associations should take the route of “action and public presence” admitted, their “responsible citizenship” was ignored while the “notorious” activities were getting all the limelight.241 In a belated attempt to address the issue, the Ministry of Internal Security issued a circular in December of 1976 that acknowledged the public interest in associations, and urged provincial officials to form special committees dedicated to assisting AV in achieving their licit goals through cooperation with housing, health, and education Ministries.242 Even if the circular had been fully implemented, it seems unlikely that it would have restored the level of mutual trust necessary for the collaborative state/civil society model to effectively function after decades of an unresponsive authoritarian state. Instead of trust in the state as the protector of the common good, the oppositional model focused on the state as the source of social problems. Once responsibility was transferred from the company (or uncivil residents) to the state, associations could begin to demand that the state fulfill its duties to its citizens. Thus, a petition submitted to the DN by a school parent association (APA) in Badajoz spoke of the “obligation of the state to give equality of opportunity” to students,243 while a circular distributed by the AV Palomeras Altas in late 1974 declared: “the

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residents should not have to pay any costs of urbanization” and “we need to unite in demanding that the State resolve these problems”.244 This framing of demands implied a discourse of citizen rights that became increasingly explicit. For example, in the spring of 1974 the bulletin of the ACF Coslada began a campaign against its local officials that emphasized their neglect of the duties of “public servants” in “informing the public” about expenditures that “every concerned citizen” had the right to know about.245 The only recourse, according to another article, “was for citizens to demand, serenely, but each day with more forcefulness, that the persons entrusted with something as sacred as the public welfare comply with their obligations”.246 As summed up in the letter to the editor written by several Zaragoza ACF leaders at the end of 1976, “We think it is the domain of the city government to solve the needs of all its citizens.”247 One of the best-documented cases of mobilization around the state’s obligation to its citizens is the AV Palomeras Bajas’ efforts to get public housing for its working-class residents.248 Although it was a poor neighborhood, the local priest who took an active role in the early years of the association helped focus the dialog and provide it with theoretical underpinnings. At the first meeting, sparked by a plan to expropriate residents from substandard housing, the speakers laid out the goal of “opening a dialogue” with the Ministry of Housing, in the hopes of getting a commitment to build “dignified homes” for the 3,500 families who would be left homeless by the demolition. The request was based, organizers told residents, on the equal rights promised in the Francoist constitution, the Fuero. Those present agreed to hold multiple block by block assemblies, announced by a poster proclaiming that “only united can we assure the right to a home”. At the same time as the association asserted resident rights, the priest and other leaders emphasized the need for “honest dialogue with the State within legal channels”, as well as the need to “respect the decisions of the Ministry of Housing”. By the following year, an architect was brought in to present a series of options for residents, which included both the auto-solución of forming a cooperative as well as a plan in which the Ministry would finance and construct the homes. At the series of street-level meetings convoked to discuss these plans, hundreds of residents listened to debates on the pros and cons of forming a cooperative, but eventually voted for the option that placed responsibility with the Ministry. Throughout these discussions, one can also see a parallel debate about strategies, with some continuing to emphasize gestiones with the Ministry, while others suggested sending photos to the press, or inviting reporters to the next

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assembly in order to publicize the conditions in which residents were living. The Ministry apparently accepted a version of the plan submitted by the association, because the campaign died down after early 1970. The mobilization re-surfaced again in early 1972, when the Ministry was supposed to deliver the first 600 homes but kept postponing their completion date. To the 1,000 agitated residents who attended the first February 1972 assembly, the priest suggested weekly meetings, to be in closer contact and to “exert more pressure” on the authorities. He also proposed sending a letter to the Ministry asking for guaranteed dates, but hand delivered by the residents en masse. It was this latter suggestion that was underlined in black by the censor, and in fact the Civil Governor only approved its delivery by a five person commission. Mass assemblies over the construction and distribution of new homes continued to be held into the spring of 1976, after which the members’ attention shifted to other issues. This apparently successful campaign illustrates much more than its positive results. Throughout the process, the association and its members discussed and experimented with different strategies for negotiating with the state in a climate of heightened, although peaceful, mobilization. For the poor residents, most of whom had probably never conceived of petitioning a government Ministry or asserting their right to dignified housing, the campaign was clearly a training exercise in “citizen consciousness”. While their primary motivation was the “private” goal of securing a new home, the collective framing of the problem and the solution brought otherwise atomized individuals into public dialog with the state. As indicated by the censor’s black underlining, however, state authorities believed this public dialog had crossed the line into confrontation. While the DN tried to position public collective action as outside “responsible citizenship”, none of the strategies of the oppositional model would have transgressed the boundaries of citizen mobilization in a democratic society. At the heart of all of these new measures was the effort to bring the dispute into the public sphere where general opinion could be mobilized to bring pressure on recalcitrant authorities. The AV Carabanchel Alto provides a typical case of escalating publicity. The association began by sending a report to the city listing the neighborhood’s major problems in May of 1975. When no progress had been made by July, members voted to establish a 3-month deadline for a response from the city, and in September they followed up with a petition signed by 2,000 residents. When the assembly met again in November, the lack of results produced “through the mechanisms of the

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city government” led the association to change course, toward “publicizing their problems and mobilizing public opinion behind them”.249 The AV Las Rozas took a similar path when it hung a huge poster on the highway overpass denouncing the “dictatorial and cacique intentions of the Mayor”, who refused to engage in discussion with the association.250 Publicity could be gained through writing letters to the editor or calling press conferences, but collective demonstrations of solidarity served the double purpose of establishing a physical presence and attracting reporters to the scene. Staging a march through the neighborhood carrying placards stating the demands was sure to merit a photo and a story in the local paper, although only legalized associations could get demonstrations approved, and then only sporadically. Thus, between May and September of 1976, the AV San Blas staged three approved demonstrations, while four more requests were denied.251 Still, the number and size of demonstrations grew dramatically, especially during 1976, when the first multi-neighborhood gatherings were organized by several associations. In addition to demonstrations, associations organized boycotts, refused to pay city taxes, and orchestrated symbolic acts like the planting of a tree where residents wanted a park.252 In Zaragoza, an ACF made a splash by transforming a contested plaza into a painted garden, with green concrete, flowers and signs that said “Green Spaces, Yes! Gas Station, No!”253

Conclusion In the end, the cumulative effects of this type of public demonstrations and protests were to put a face onto the emerging discursive phenomenon of the “citizen movement”. The vertical dialog between citizens and the state that had once been invisibly conducted in quiet gestiones had been made public. This was certainly a dramatic change in the relationship between state and civil society, but it did not mark the beginning of the dialogue. In other words, associations of all sorts had been learning how to engage with the state to “get things done” well before that dialog had become boisterous and visible enough for the majority of Spaniards to notice it. Furthermore, this chapter has suggested that the boisterous confrontational dialogue was no more intrinsically “democratic” than the quieter “collaborational” model, in contrast to what citizen movement theorists at the time would argue. Conversely, the confrontational model was not less so, as the authorities at the time had been claiming. That is, both models involved the creation and performance of new democratic

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“habits” of civic participation that constructed deeper “horizontal” lines between citizens and “vertical” lines between citizens and the state. The dependent variable was the responsiveness of the state, which would determine the most effective route to pursue community improvement projects. In the context of the declining Francoist regime, the state was increasingly unable to be an effective partner in a dialog with civil society, and, over time, from the 1960s to the mid-1970s, the relationship developed in a more adversarial direction. As a result of the state’s inability to hold up its end of the collaborative bargain, the evolution and development of the “oppositional” mode of pressuring the state to “get things done” crossed ideological lines, including both AV and Movimiento associations frustrated with the state’s lack of responsiveness. In a snowballing effect, the increasingly oppositional stance of the associations then further undermined the regime’s legitimacy and stability, which was increasingly rooted in the material improvements of the “economic miracle”. For those Spaniards who had joined associations to bring those material (and cultural) improvements to their communities, the regime’s apparent indifference to their plight and the failure of the existing legal channels to resolve their problems could have turned many against the regime, regardless of their political affiliations. And, once associations increased the pressure on government officials and institutions, publicizing their unfulfilled demands in the press and even spilling into the streets in demonstrations, they further contributed to the regime’s decline by adding to the growing sense of “ungovernability” that helped pressure regime elites into opening a different dialog, with the opposition parties. Beyond the associations’ role in contributing to the formal transition process, this chapter has suggested that they were crucial learning sites for their members, creating new practices of civic and political participation that constituted the building blocks of active democratic citizenship. Through organizing together to resolve community problems, they thought about and aspired to the implementation of democratic procedure within their self-governing associations. And as they sought solutions to those problems, they created strategies for working with or pressuring the State from an implicit space of at least partial autonomy. In contrast to the demobilized early decades, the new associational milieu created a context in which Spaniards could think about and work toward a “common good” not defined directly by the State. What is also clear is that there was no fixed blueprint for this emerging democratic practice, even though virtually everyone, from Movimiento

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officials to communists, invoked it. One of the striking conclusions of a close reading of associational practices is how much associations were experimenting and debating, performing different versions of their emerging civic identity, which would only coalesce during the transition in the “citizen movement”. What such experimentation demonstrates beautifully is how, from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s, ordinary Spaniards in their associations “constructed” the contours of an emerging democratic citizenship through an active process of creation. This creative process did not necessarily produce a fully articulated model of democratic citizenship, in either its horizontal or vertical dimensions, but a repertoire of behaviors, activities, and strategies that re-constituted the social basis of citizenship identity from the ground up, well before the political elites began to consider its formal reconstitution in the 1978 Constitution.

Conclusion/Epilogue

The process of constructing democratic citizenship culminated with the approval of the 1978 Constitution which, as has been argued here, marks the end, not the beginning of the story. Thus, the story began in the early 1960s, when a complex set of conditions opened a new space for voluntary community associations to (re)create a culture of pluralist civic participation. The space opened at the intersection between a shifting regime coalition, the unfolding economic and social transformation, and the “social capital” available at the grass-roots level of community associations. The resulting “formula” for the revival of civil society within a dictatorship transcends any monocausal explanation, but is certainly linked to the broader evolution of the Franco dictatorship from the earlier dominance of its fascist and totalitarian elements to their gradual displacement by the technocratic pursuit of “authoritarian development”. The contours of the associational milieu that helped reconstitute this emerging civil society were more dense, vibrant, and pluralist than most existing accounts have recognized. Especially when compared to the paucity of associational life during the early Franco regime, which was dominated by the Church and, to a lesser degree the Movimiento, the new generation of community associations established between the mid-1960s and the transition provide enough evidence of vitality, in terms of membership, levels of participation, and public activities to make the case for a significant increase in both density and diversity. While the Movimiento family associations were more important in the 1960s, and the Asociaciones de Vecinos began to take off in the 1970s, what emerges is a sustained and significant culture of civic participation which developed in at least partial independence from the state. 319

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This emerging culture of civic participation included women, but their incorporation as a group was complicated by the combined impact of the authoritarian gender ideology and the broader systemic marginalization of women in the Western citizenship tradition. Thus, the gendered contours of the associational milieu reproduced the classic “difference/equality paradox”, in which the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa offered them a visible and different “female” space that marginalized them from the “general” movement, while the Asociaciones de Vecinos provided them an invisible “equal” place in which women’s issues were seen as irrelevant. While anti-Francoists assumed that the “equality” model was more inherently progressive and democratic than the “difference” model associated with the Franco regime’s separate spheres ideology, in fact neither model offered a satisfactory route for the full integration of women into Spain’s emerging democracy. At the same time, on a more practical level, both types of associations gave many women an opportunity to develop their “civic consciousness” and “democratic habits”. While the vitality, density, and pluralism of the associational milieu is crucial to making the case for a significant revival of civil society from the mid-1960s forward, the milieu’s contribution to Spain’s political transition is measured by what transpired in this new civic space. Thus, on a basic level, the associational milieu provided a site for people to discuss and perform new civic identities and practices. On the first point, the milieu hosted a public conversation generated about and by those who participated and observed the associations, that could assign collective meaning to their existence and their actions. This conversation created a “master frame” that could link the projects of individual associations and extend the reach of their impact beyond the immediate membership. The key “nodal points” of this conversation were the desire to increase the level of civic participation on the part of ordinary Spaniards, whether defined as cabezas de familia, vecinos, or amas de casa, and the search for better channels of communication between their collective voices and the state. Within these parameters, a range of civic discourses emerged that were divided according to gender and political orientation, with the AACs developing their own conversation about women’s roles and collective participation, while the Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familia produced its model of collaboration with the state on family issues and the Asociaciones de Vecinos pursued a more demanding negotiation with the state over community quality of life. Before the transition, each of these evolving discursive milieux remained distinct, carried on in separate venues, from the Movimiento press, to the bulletins of the

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AAC, to the shared statutes of the AV. Even within each of these discourses there was remarkable variety in the positions taken about the nature of civic participation, the role of the associations, and their relationship with the state. What emerges from this variation is the truly experimental and creative quality of the conversation being carried on across different sectors of Spanish society. And while this conversation was not usually explicitly aimed at the construction of democratic citizenship, it included all the constituent parts that could be drawn on to “imagine oneself as democratic” once the transition got underway. In the broadest sense, the associational milieu also functioned as a place where members could act out or perform new practices and identities, whether in holding internal elections, drawing up petitions to the state, or organizing community festivals to enhance the bonds between residents. Whenever associational activities were directed beyond “private” members to the community at large, they had “civic” implications for reinforcing the “horizontal” bonds of citizenship, while petitions to the state reinforced the “vertical” bonds of citizenship, communicating the voices of the people with those who governed them. Over time, such activities worked to put pressure on the authoritarian state, chipped away at its legitimacy, and ultimately helped to train participants in the habits of democratic citizenship. All of the chapters in this study have sought to illustrate how the uneven construction of democratic citizenship was an active process that was not simply a product of the transition but part of its long-term origins. But the end of the story is not as simple as the victory of democracy over dictatorship. At stake during the transition was defining what sort of democracy Spain would have. From the grass-roots perspective of the associational milieu, there was no predetermined formula for democratic citizenship, as evidenced by the broad debates about participation, procedure, and representation that had been carried on since the mid-1960s. After 1975, however, these debates and practices coalesced into the “citizen movement”, whose theorist–activists helped define a “communitarian and participatory vision” of democratic citizenship. Not unlike some of the “sixties” rebels in other Western countries, this model of democratic citizenship called for direct collective participation in decision-making, especially at the local level, and viewed the associations as ongoing sites for grass-roots “assemblyist” contributions to community life and the public good. But in the end, this “democratic alternative” faded away, trumped by the liberal, rights-based model of citizenship promoted by the political elites. From this perspective, the “outcome” of the transition was not the unalloyed achievement of democratic citizenship but its placement along the passive/active axes.1

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The clearest symbol of its location on the passive axis was the gradual demobilization of the “citizen movement” and the direct democracy it embodied.

Democratic citizenship in the constitution In fact, there was a certain paradox, between a Constitution that celebrated the principle of participation, and the eventual demobilization of the citizen movement that strove to make this principle the core of its democratic practice. The notion that popular participation was crucial to the democratic process was constantly intoned. Even the King, in his message to the newly elected Cortes on July 22, 1977, declared that the task of bringing Spain into democracy was “like a community enterprise [that requires] the participation of everyone in our political life”.2 The same concept was institutionalized in the Constitution, which, according to Ramón Cotarelo, “can be defined as a text that is so participatory that, at times, it almost goes overboard regulating this right.”3 Thus, a half dozen articles specifically mention the right to participate, not only in political, but also in social and cultural life. Moreover, specific groups of the population are singled out for special attention. Thus, Article 48 protects the right of young people to participate in “political, social and cultural development”, while Article 27 protects that of “those involved in the general design of educational programs”, and Article 129 protects the right of workers to participate in the “management (gestion) of businesses”. In more general terms, Article 23 recognizes the right of citizens to participate “directly, or by means of representatives, in political affairs”. The right to direct participation is fleshed out in Article 87, which gives citizens the right to initiate legislation through popular ballot measures if they can collect 500,000 signatures. Indirectly, citizens are promised consultation on important issues through the referendum process. While all of these articles protect different aspects of citizen participation, Article 9 goes beyond protection to active promotion. That is, it defines citizen participation as not simply a right but as an active goal of the state. In short, according to this constitutional provision, the state is obliged to “remove the obstacles” to full participation of all citizens in the political, social, and economic life of the country. In Cotarelo’s words, Article 9 obliges the state to engage in “transformative labor” for the benefit of a participatory democracy.4 The right to participate is paired, of course, with a full spectrum of substantive rights to structure that participation within the status of

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democratic citizenship. T.H. Marshall’s three levels of civil, political, and social citizenship are fully embraced and spelled out. Thus, the attention to citizen rights is one of the longest sections in the Constitution, and was one of the first areas of broad consensus between parties.5 In addition to the fundamental civil rights of speech, assembly, and association in Articles 15, 21, and 22, the political rights to suffrage and to be elected to office appear in Article 23. In addition, it is not only the political rights of individuals, but of the groups they belong to that are protected. In particular, certain forms of associationism are explicitly constitutionalized: the right to form trade unions and professional associations. Finally, in Article 14, all of these rights are explicitly applied to women (with the major exception of the right to ascend the throne). The social rights of citizenship follow directly from the declaration in Article 1 that Spain is a “Social and Democratic State”. The state’s obligation to promote the conditions “so that the liberty and equality of the individual and of groups to which they belong is real and effective” are spelled out in Article 9. As Hernández Gil points out, this article puts liberty and equality on an equal footing, implying their mutual dependence.6 However, as Luís Sánchez Agesta argues, there is a distinction between the rights to work, to choose a profession, and to be fairly remunerated, as well as the right to collective bargaining, and other “fundamental principles”, which should inform the state in its policies, but which constitute “rights” only in a vague sense.7 In this category the Constitution recognizes a number of principles, from the right to adequate housing, the guarantee of subsistence for the elderly, the right to health care, and even the rights to enjoy a healthy environment and to have adequate access to sports and leisure activities. While the distinction between social rights and “fundamental principles” is an important one, the fact remains that the Spanish Constitution recognizes and protects a full range of the entitlements contained in the concept of “social citizenship”. Marshall was later criticized for his passive conception of citizenship as a list of entitlements, but theorists still recognize the necessity of these broader rights in providing a context in which active citizenship is possible.8 In other words, social and civil rights create some of the preconditions under which citizens can become effective political actors.

The demobilization of the citizen movement However, almost as soon as the right to active citizen participation was both formally endorsed and given the necessary structural support in

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the Constitution, the citizen movement began to demobilize. There is probably no single answer that explains this paradox, but we can perhaps define a process of demobilization that was propelled both from above and below. The pressure for popular demobilization from above came largely from the new political parties, which made it clear that they intended to monopolize the space in which political decisions were made. In other words, all the parties, from the Communist (PCE) to the conservative Acción Popular (AP), pushed for a liberal representative form of democratic government, not for the communitarian participation advocated by the “citizen movement” and its associations. At first, this division was not apparent. In the early months of the transition, parties mingled with neighborhood associations and other civic organizations in the grand oppositional coalitions, from the Communist party-dominated Junta Democrática de España (JDE) formed in 1974 to the Socialist party-dominated Plataforma de Convergencia Democrática (PCD) of 1975, and especially in the united Coordinación Democrática, formed in March of 1976.9 In fact, many party members belonged to Asociaciones de Vecinos, and the left-wing parties actively courted the popular movement, using mobilizations as a way to demonstrate the strength of the democratic opposition and of their own support. As Luís Enrique Alonso points out, social movements and political parties commingled in the same counter-institutional space within an authoritarian setting, blurring the distinction between them.10 However, when regime elites led by Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez began the process of formal negotiation with the major opposition parties in December of 1976, these parties worked to clarify the distinction and to consecrate formal politics as the location of democratic practice. Drawn into the model of transition by elite pacts, the opposition parties, particularly the Socialists (PSOE) and the PCE, accepted the “ideological construct of a unified community of interests”, which left no discursive space for demands made outside this framework.11 Instead of their earlier instrumentalization of popular mobilization, the democratic parties joined the Francoist elites in fomenting an image of mobilization as intrinsically destabilizing, a remnant of the radical “rupture” model abandoned by rational political leaders.12 The roots of this divergence between the parties and the “citizen movement” can be found in the evolution of the democratic opposition even before Suarez opened formal negotiations. While both the opposition coalitions, the JDE and the PCD, were propelled by political parties from the outset, non-party groups and individuals initially played an active role, especially in local committees. However, at a national level,

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the PCD leadership was more ambivalent about this participation, and the issue became a sticking point when the JDE and the PCD began negotiating a merger in the fall of 1975. Thus, the PCD leaders argued that, while neighborhood assemblies, “democratic groups”, and cultural circles should be encouraged, “the risk of manipulation that exists due to their permeability means they should not have a leadership function”. Within the JDE, there were two responses to this view. Some argued that the democratic action of the masses was too important to compromise in order to pursue unity with the PCD, while the Communist party position that eventually prevailed insisted on the critical necessity of a unified organism at the top.13 When the two groups merged in the Coordinación Democrática in March 1976, only political parties could join the national leadership, while at the local level non-party organizations had a “voice” but not a “vote” at plenary sessions.14 At the same time, the party-controlled Junta of the Coordinación Democrática insisted that any citizen movement demonstrations had to be approved unanimously by all members of the Coordinación, effectively embracing the model of a unified community of interests and demobilizing independent popular pressure on the negotiation process.15 The protagonism of the parties was also enhanced by Suarez’ strategy of courting party leaders and drawing them into personal negotiations, the famous “back-door” conversations that produced the terms of the “consensus”. The context in which these decisions made sense was a democratic culture among political elites defined by the “lessons” of the Civil War.16 Streets full of noisy protesters evoked images of the chaos and discord that had led the country to civil war. As a result, the democratic culture among political elites valued unity and order over popular participation. Despite lip service to active citizenship, in practice the political parties put their energies into securing comparatively abstract citizen rights rather than expanding opportunities for active political mobilization and participation. In particular, the citizen movement demand that the AVs be formally recognized in the Constitution for their service to the public interest was rejected.17 In contrast, trade unions and professional associations, corporatist entities which did not make similar claims on the political sphere, were explicitly recognized. Instead of acknowledging the AV as a political actor, the Constitution turned many of their traditional demands into rights. Thus, the state accepted the movement’s claim that people had a right to decent housing, education, and health care, as well as culture and other intangible goods. While these rights acknowledged the

326 Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

state’s responsibility for community welfare, they also illustrated the distinction between a rights-based vs. a participatory model of democratic citizenship. Their rhetorical invocation also made it easier to project the image of state concern while allowing functionaries the flexibility to determine the actual meaning and content of these “rights”. One of the other major political demands of the citizen movement was that the associations participate in some formal collective way in the new democratic municipal governments that would be elected after April 1979. Once again, the parties were vehemently against what they saw as an infringement on their control of the political process. In September of 1977, the Socialist Party (PSOE) articulated its opposition to the suggestion that associations could mount candidates for the municipal elections by insisting on their “unrepresentative” nature. In the party’s demeaning words, the citizen movement had turned into “a strange mixture, from businessmen to amas de casa”.18 The subtext of the PSOE’s opposition was fear that the Communists and other smaller left-wing parties had more influence in the associations, but the Socialist argument reinforced a liberal vision of democratic participation in which political parties were more representative than groups of “businessmen and amas de casa”. After the 1979 elections, it took another 5 years for the national government to draw up a full-scale reform of local government, to bring its administration into line with the democratic system. The PSOE’s 1985 Basic Law on Local Government reinforced the basic principles established earlier. On the one hand, it enumerated a list of local services that the municipal government was expected to provide, thus complementing the Constitution’s emphasis on social entitlement. On the other, it established party list voting and the indirect election of the Mayor by the city council, which favored party control. The council had the right to set up advisory bodies with non-elected members from the community, but it was not mandated to do so.19 In more general terms, it is significant that the reform of, and access to, local government, a key issue in the citizen movement’s plans for direct democracy, was such a low priority for the central government. The fact that it took almost 6 years to complete the legal transformation of the city governments illustrates the top-down—and centralist—vision of democratization. The pressure to demobilize direct citizen participation from above was paralleled by a process of dissolution from below, which cannot be blamed entirely on the political elites. Numerous authors have critiqued the weakness of Spain’s post-transition civil society. From a long-term perspective, critics frame the mobilization during the transition period

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as more of an exception to the normal rule of low levels of associational life. In a 1999 collection entitled Existe sociedad civil en España?, the editor argued that contemporary Spain lacks a strong civil society and has maintained an overly procedural and institutional conception of democracy.20 Other authors document the low levels of membership in voluntary associations when compared to other newly democratized countries.21 Thus, only about a third of all Spaniards belong to some sort of voluntary organization. Victor Pérez Díaz, the great civil society defender, has disputed these low figures by arguing for the existence of a broader associational life than is captured by traditional political science models. Pérez Díaz points out that thousands of new organizations a year were formed in the 1980s, most of them cultural or recreational in focus. These make, he insists, a strong social fabric, despite the weakness of formal political organizations.22 Even Pérez Díaz, however, perceives a general lack of faith in civil society within Spanish political culture, and its focus on the state as the democratic protagonist. He sees the culmination of this “statism” in the rhetoric of the PSOE-led government of the 1980s, which spoke, in his words, like an enlightened despot whose job was to protect a weak society. At the same time, as anthropologist Gunther Dietz’ work illuminates, many Spaniards look to the state as the permanent solution to their problems. Thus, he notes that most of the immigrant aid associations in Andalucia that he studies see their work as temporary, to be pursued until the state takes over the advocacy of the issues they promote.23 Similarly, many people in the Asociaciones de Vecinos probably felt that their job was finished, once the Constitution recognized the right to decent housing and the 1985 Local Government Law mandated the provision of certain services that they once had to fight for. A general poll from the mid-1980s reinforces this impression, with over two-thirds of respondents agreeing that the government was responsible for the welfare of all citizens, while only 20 percent asserted that citizens themselves were responsible for their own welfare and to resolve their own problems.24 One consequence of this focus on the state was that many AV activists quit the movement to work for the government, getting positions that allowed them to distribute the cultural, educational, and social services they had once fought from civil society to have recognized.25 One set of explanations for this popular statism emphasizes continuity with the past, what José Enrique Rodríguez Ibañez calls the “authoritarian hangover”. Rooted in the centralizing tendencies of the liberal state and reinforced under the authoritarian Francoist regime,

328 Making Democratic Citizens in Spain

the association of politics with unilateral administration and bureaucratic implementation fomented a reliance on a “from above” approach to problem-solving.26 Enrique Gil Calvo contends that, while the space for independent associations did open up during the late Franco regime, it remained sparsely populated. In his view, the Francoist state bought off potential citizens with economic gratification in exchange for their non-participation in public affairs.27 From a different perspective, others have argued that, given the weakness of Spain’s social fabric, the state was the only possible source of democratic citizenship.28 Similarly, Sastre García argues that the transition “from above” was made possible by the weak mobilization of civil society.29 A contrasting argument puts the responsibility for Spain’s “statist” democracy on the “from above” style of the transition itself. Thus, Luís Enrique Alonso blames what he calls the “disciplining effects” of the exclusionary elite practices as well as of the economic crisis. From this perspective, it was disillusionment with the consensus model, paired with the reduced horizon of expectations resulting from the constriction of economic opportunities, that sparked the “disillusionment” (desencanto) after the transition.30 Likewise, José Vidal-Beneyto contends that political elites used the tools of the state to demobilize the citizen movement.31 Rafael del Aguila Tejerina agrees that this demobilization constitutes one of the “structural defects” of the transition.32 How does Spain’s process of mobilization and demobilization compare with other transitions? From a comparative perspective, the Spanish case fits into a broader pattern of “third wave” transitions from authoritarian rule, in which popular participation in social movements and civic forums has been consistently demobilized.33 General interpretations of this demobilization vary, but they are closely linked to underlying assumptions about the nature of democracy and democratic citizenship. On the one hand are those, like O’Donnell and Schmitter, who have argued that popular demobilization is both inevitable and even positive, in that it allows for the consolidation of democratic stability. From this perspective, while popular mobilization can aid in bringing down an authoritarian regime, its continuation actually imperils consolidation by providing a motive for the return to authoritarian rule.34 In this view, it is the institutional framework of the state that defines democracy and the political elites who are entrusted with its operation. By extension, the codification of a juridical and legal status embodies a rights-based concept of democratic citizenship. On the other hand are proponents of what we might call “radical” or citizen democracy, who argue that a “substantive” democracy must go

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beyond the institutional framework to incorporate meaningful popular participation and empowerment.35 I would include myself with these scholars, who see demobilization of active citizenship not as part of some functional modernization process but the result of uneven power struggles that favor elite interests. If demobilization is not functional, it must be explained. Such an analysis brings us back to the crucial balance between state and civil society which, for Iris Marion Young, is one of the keys to a substantive as opposed to formal democratic politics.36 In transitions from authoritarian regimes, many scholars agree that civil society is the weak link in this relationship. As Geoff Eley explains, it is extraordinarily difficult to “institutionalize local popular mobilization in nationally effective forms, when dictatorship had disorganized available democratic institutions”.37 Whatever the cause, weak civil societies have contributed to lack of substantive democratic consolidation in many third wave democracies. So what does the “Spanish model” contribute to these larger debates about the quality of “third wave” democracies? This book has presented the case for a more substantive level of popular engagement in Spain’s political development, in particular during the latter half of the dictatorship and into the democratic transition. But I would also place that popular political participation in a longer historical trajectory, from the so-called “war of independence” against Napoleon in the early nineteenth century to the citizen militias of the mid-nineteenth century liberal revolution to the Republican parties and the labor movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. What Spain has lacked in its modern period is not civil society mobilization but effective legitimate channels for democratic participation of the masses. The weakness of effective channels helps explain the strength of anti-statist anarchism through the 1930s, as well as a broader tradition of “direct action” politics that bypassed state institutions. Even in the authoritarian context of the Franco regime, the community associations formed in the vacuum left by a state that was still ineffective, even as it was more repressive than previous liberal regimes. For most of the modern period, Spain’s political elites have sought to restrain and repress this popular mobilization rather than incorporate and empower it to work for democratic institutions. The political culture of the elites has been marked by a series of “lessons” about the dangers of popular participation, from the local federalist rebellions of the First Republic, to the post-World War I street brawls between anarchists and employers’ hit men, to the deeply mobilized and unstable Second Republic. It was these lessons that guided their behavior during the

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transition, when party leaders trusted more in private deals than in noisy demonstrations. It is the tension between this “statist” tradition among the political elites and a grass-roots current of popular mobilization that came to the fore in the struggle over democracy during Spain’s transition. Thus, at stake in the debate over the future role of the citizen movement was the proper balance between state and civil society in their emerging democracy. But if the statist and excessively institutional version of democracy won this battle in the late 1970s, what is the point in resurrecting the alternative offered by the citizen movement? Going back to the transition itself, making the case for the importance of popular participation in the origins of Spain’s transition bolsters the general argument that successful transitions require this participatory depth. In contrast to the simplistic and, one might argue, dangerous, confidence that a few far-thinking elites and a well-designed set of institutions and laws can “craft” a solid democracy, the Spanish case as presented in this book suggests otherwise. The political elites can craft a set of democratic institutions, but a strong democratic citizenry has to be created by the citizens themselves, in a process that usually begins well before the formal transition. Whether we mark the beginning of that process at the start of the nineteenth century or in the phase that opened up in the 1960s, ordinary Spaniards were important protagonists in creating their democracy. Furthermore, re-framing the transition to democracy as a struggle over democracy problematizes the process and illuminates the different available paths. For the current global “democracy project” to have broad popular appeal, there has to be evidence of democracy’s ability to substantively empower more than the economic and political elites. From this perspective, recovering the different versions of democracy on the table during Spain’s transition can help keep the conversation open, instead of foreclosing other options. Within Spain, one might argue that this conversation has been re-opened in recent years, which have witnessed the largest citizen mobilizations since the transition, from both sides of the political spectrum. Thus, conservatives have been organizing through Catholic networks around issues of gay marriage, abortion, and state-funded religious education, while on the left, mobilization has focused on confronting the Francoist legacy and pursuing public recognition for the victims and the violence of the dictatorship. While each side finds the opposing mobilization threatening for Spain’s democratic stability, what they have in common is the challenge, either implicitly or explicitly, to the elite-managed democratic model. Instead of a threat

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to Spain’s democracy, this revival of a culture of mobilization could be seen as an opportunity to revisit the balance between state and civil society, in a way that enhances popular participation and strengthens the quality of democratic institutions. Through foregrounding the role played by popular participation in creating the conditions for Spain’s democracy, this book highlights different “lessons” from the past, which may be useful in its ongoing evolution in the future.

Notes

Introduction 1. Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). See also Nikiforos Diamandouros, “Southern Europe: A Third Wave Success Story”, in Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies, edited by Larry Diamond et al. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). 2. While the comparative social science scholarship remains very positive, in recent years the transition has come under increasing criticism from some critics who now question the trade-offs made in order to achieve the “consensus” that produced the relatively peaceful transition. In particular, critics argue that the decision to “forget” the repression and violence perpetrated against the losers in the Civil War weakened the foundation of the new democracy with unresolved “truth and reconciliation” issues. The recent efforts to exhume mass graves and acknowledge the victims have provided the material focus for this larger discussion. While this discussion questions the quality of Spain’s democratic transition, it also serves as evidence of the consolidation of the democracy, which can support such a “destabilizing” conversation without apparently threatening the regime. 3. Jean Grugel outlines these approaches in Democratization: A Critical Introduction (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). See my article, “La Transición Española de una perspectiva comparativa”, in Es España diferente?: una perspectiva comparativa, edited by Nigel Townson (Madrid: Taurus, 2010), for a detailed analysis of the various versions of the “Spanish model”. 4. Joan Botella, Richard Gunther, and José Ramón Montero make this general point in the most recent comprehensive synthesis of the transition, Democracy in Modern Spain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004). 5. The foundational study is Manuel Castells, The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements (Berkeley, CA: University of CA Press, 1983), while Victor Pérez Díaz, The Return of Civil Society: The Emergence of Democratic Spain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993) introduced the concept of civil society. Other works focusing on popular participation are: Robert Fishman, Working-Class Organization and the Return to Democracy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), Sebastian Balfour, Dictatorship, Workers and the City: Labour in Greater Barcelona since 1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), Joseph Foweraker, Making Democracy in Spain: Grass-roots Struggle in the South (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), Marcello Caprarella, La crisis final del franquismo, la Transicion y la consolidacion democratica en Madrid: un estudio multidisciplinario, 1973–1986 (Mss version shared by author), Georgina Blakeley, “Democratization and Participation in Spain: The Case of Barcelona”, PhD 332

Notes

6.

7.

8. 9.

10.

11.

12.

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Dissertation, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, 2000, Ruth Collier and James Mahoney, “Adding Collective Actors to Collective Outcomes: Labor and Recent Demcoratization in South America and Southern Europe”, Comparative Politics, 29(3), April 1997, Sidney Tarrow, “Mass Mobilization and Regime Change: Pacts, Reform and Popular Power in Italy and Spain (1975–6)”, in The Politics of Democratic Consolidation, edited by Richard Gunther, et al. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), La crisis del franquismo y la transicion: El protagonismo de los movimientos sociales, edited by José Manuel Trujillano Sánchez and Pilar Domìnguez Prats (Avila: Fundación Cultural Santa Teresa, 2003). See Omar Encarnación, The Myth of Civil Society: Social Capital and Democratic Consolidation in Spain and Brazil (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) and Peter McDonough, Samuel Barnes, and Antonio López Piña, The Cultural Dynamics of Democratization in Spain (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998). Definitions of the parameters of “civil society” vary widely, according to which realms (the market can be included or excluded), how autonomous they are (Marxists have emphasized hegemony and liberals claim independence), and what sorts of groups and behaviors constitute “civil” society (do they have to be “civil”, or can intolerant, divisive behavior be included?). I agree with those who exclude the market, and define “civil society” as the social relationships and structures that, while influenced by the private interests of the market and pressured by the formal institutions of the state, must maintain an at least partly autonomous collective space. It is this autonomy, which is always contested and negotiated, more than any specific “civic” behavior, which constitutes the realm of civil society. Thus, civil society is not an idealized realm of democratic principles, but a contested site of political formation that can be appropriated for different ends. Neera Chandhoke, State and Civil Society: Explorations in Political Theory (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1995), p. 9. The classic work on “civil society” in the Spanish case is Victor Pérez Díaz’ The Return of Civil Society. For a comprehensive theoretical argument on the relationship between civil society and democratization, see chapter 6, “Civil Society”, in Larry Diamond’s Developing Democracy: Towards Consolidation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). The canonical book on civil society and democratic health is Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). Collier and Mahoney, p. 287. Sidney Tarrow also makes this point, in “Mass Mobilization and Regime Change: Pacts, Reform and Popular Power in Italy and Spain (1975–6)”, in The Politics of Democratic Consolidation, edited by Richard Gunther et al. “Civic associations” are defined here as voluntary collectives that operate publically and legally in the pursuit of what are defined as “community or public goals”. Jorge Uria recently made the point about the dearth of studies on associationism in the Franco regime in his commentary at the V Encuentro de Investigadores del franquismo, published in: Memoria e historia del

334 Notes

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14.

15. 16.

17. 18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

franquismo, coord. Manuel Ortiz Heras (Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2005). Whether or not the participants in the 1960s had this sense of historical context, this context distinguishes Spain from “third wave” democracies with almost unbroken traditions of authoritarian rule and weak civil societies. There has been a long debate about the role of the Restoration liberal regime (1875–1923) in Spain’s political evolution, as promoting or hindering democratization. My argument has been that new forms of collective participation developed in the sphere of civil society. See Radcliff, “The Emerging Challenge of Mass Politics”, in Spain Since 1808, edited by Adrian Shubert and José Alvarez Junco (London: Edward Arnold, 2000). For an interpretation of the early Franco regime that emphasizes its repression and totalitarian ambitions, see Michael Richards, A Time of Silence: Civil War and the Culture of Repression in Franco’s Spain, 1939–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) and Carme Molinero, La captación de las masas: política social y propaganda en el régimen franquista (Madrid: Cátedra, 2008). His speech to the Cortes, May 14, 1946. Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco (1939–1975) (Madrid: Editorial Síntesis, 2000), p. 104. For this later period, see the collection Spain Transformed: The Late Franco Dictatorship, 1959–1975, edited by Nigel Townson (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). Juan Linz, “An Authoritarian Regime: Spain”, in Cleavages, Ideologies and Party Systems, edited by E. Allardt and Y. Littunen (Helsinki: Turko, 1964). From a comparative perspective, Michael Mann makes the point that Linz’ inclusive authoritarian category yields too diverse a group of regimes, lumping the Franco regime with its high level of internal repression with the Greek regime that put 100 people to death. Fascists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 44. This framing of the debate is found in Ismael Saz, “Algunas consideraciones a propósito del debate sobre la naturaleza del franquismo”, in Fascismo y franquismo (Valencia: Universitat de Valencia, 2004), pp. 245–263. I am also indebted to Saz for a series of unpublished papers delivered at a conference in Barcelona in 2004 on Francoism and fascism. See also Enrique Moradiellos’ historiographical synthesis, or “Estado de la cuestion”, in his La España de Franco, 1939–1975, pp. 209–225. A different take on the “authoritarian” model is provided by Michael Mann, in which he situates fascism not against a “soft” authoritarianism but as the most extreme form of authoritarianism, or “authoritarian nationstatism” (Fascists, p. 31). The Spanish debate, however, continues to link authoritarianism to Linz’ model. Ismael Saz’ work on the conflicting ideologies that continued to define the internal struggles of the Franco regime has been very helpful in pushing the debate beyond “either/or” categorizations of the regime. As he says, the essence of the regime lay in the dynamic nature of the forces of the coalition (“Régimen autoritario o dictadura fascista?”, in Fascismo y franquismo, pp. 89–90). Robert Paxton’s Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Random House, 2005) defines this coalition as “a key element” of the “new politics” of the interwar

Notes

23.

24. 25.

26.

27.

28.

29. 30.

31.

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period, and leaves room in his “stage” model for a shifting balance of forces, either toward radicalization (increasing power of the fascist elements) or entropy (increasing power of the conservative elements). Paxton showcases the Franco regime as an example of the latter process, pp. 148–149. Two different efforts at hybrid categorization are (1) the “fascistizacion” model, which defines the “regime” as adopting enough elements of fascism to differentiate it from the traditional right, but not enough to constitute a fascist regime (see Ismael Saz, “Regimen autoritario o dictadura fascista?”, in Fascismo y franquismo, pp. 79–90) and (2) Mann’s graduated authoritarian model, which places the regime between the second and third of his ascending categories, that is, “semi-reactionary” and “corporatist authoritarian” (Fascists, chapter 9, “The Spanish Family of Authoritarians”). Javier Tusell’s recent synthesis adopts an evolutionary model, in which the regime started as one form of dictatorship (semi or para-fascist) and ended as another type (modernizing secular). Spain: From Dictatorship to Democracy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), p. 12. Fascists, p. 31. See Carme Molinero, “Present i futur de la historiografia sobre el règim franquista. Balanc sobre algunes línies d’investigació i els seus resultats”, in Jordi Font Agulló (dir), Història i Memòria: el franquisme i els seus efectes als Pa˘ısos Catalans (Valencia: Universitat de Valencia, 2007), for a recent articulation of this argument. Molinero says there are still few good studies on anti-Francoism and little historiographical debate (p. 295). The classic work on the anti-Francoist opposition for many years has been José María Maravall, Dictatorship and Political Dissent: Workers and Students in Franco’s Spain (London: Tavistock Publications, 1978). In her book on the “social discourse” of the Franco regime, Carme Molinero makes this general point about the Falange. La captación de las masas: política social y propaganda en el régimen franquista, p. 12. See Carme Molinero and Pere Ysàs, Productores disciplinados y minorías subversivas: clase obrera y conflictividad laboral en la España franquista (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1998). See also Xavier Domenèch, Clase obrera, antifranquismo y cambio político: pequeños grandes cambios, 1956–1969 (Madrid: La Catarata, 2008). Although the direct translation is “neighbor associations”, the English term doesn’t really capture the meaning of “vecino”, which is someone who shares deep common interests based on geographical proximity. As defined by one communist activist organizing in a Madrid neighborhood, a vecino was “someone with a multitude of networks, through friendship, family and residence” (Informe de la Organización de la Barriada de Legazpi, 21/I/71, PCE Archive). I have chosen, in most cases, to use the Spanish term in order to keep the meanings distinct. Doblón, August 16, 1975. The other major potential source would obviously be oral interviews, but I made the decision to focus on the massive archival material in order to get a larger picture of the entire movement, leaving future researchers to delve more deeply into local personal experiences. I am indebted to the personnel at the Madrid Registro de Asociaciones for working out an agreement by which I was able to view the associational

336 Notes

32.

33. 34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39. 40.

files, which could contain personal information protected by privacy laws, but not to record any personal data. Within this general strategy, because the neighborhood association archive is organized by province, while the family association documents are collected in a single national archive, I chose to focus the analysis of the neighborhood associations on the province of Madrid, but take advantage of the national archive to draw more broadly from family associations around the country. Although this created somewhat of an uneven analysis, I felt it was important to introduce the broad outlines of a movement that have been completely ignored in the scholarship. Conversely, existing scholarship on neighborhood associations, mostly focused on local or municipal-level case studies, can help to place the Madrid case in its broader context. The Foweraker, Caprarella, Blakeley, Trujillano Sanchez, and Tarrow works fit this category. Pérez Díaz’ inclusion of the economic sphere in his definition of “civil society” allows him to incorporate a whole range of market-based decisionmaking in his model, but the political impact of those decisions on the “public good” are hard to demonstrate. The Return of Civil Society. See Mariano Torcal, “The Origins of Democratic Support in Post-Franco Spain: Learning to be a Democrat under Authoritarian Rule?”, in Spain Transformed. For critiques of the status-based conception of citizenship, see Margaret Somers, “Citizenship and the Place of the Public Sphere: Law, Community and Political Culture in the Transition to Democracy”, American Sociological Review, 58, October 1993, Kathleen Canning and Sonia Rose, “Gender, Citizenship and Subjectivity: Some Historical and Theoretical Considerations”, Gender and History, 15(5), November 2001, and David Held, “Between State and Civil Society: Citizenship”, in Citizenship, edited by Geoff Andrews (London: Lawrence and Wishart,1991). The distinction between “thin” and “thick” citizenship is made in Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman, “Return of the Citizen: A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory”, Ethics, 104 January, 1994, p. 353. Recent critiques of the Kymlicka/Norman approach argue that the two axes must remain analytically linked, since the ability to employ citizenship as a path to empowerment rests on the criteria for who gets to be a citizen. See Phillip Cole’s introduction to Philosophies of Exclusion: Liberal Political Theory and Immigration (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000) and Linda Bosniak, The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). As Lauren Berlant puts it, “Practices of citizenship involve both the public sphere narratives and concrete experiences of quotidian life . . . Yet the rhetoric of citizenship does provide important definitional frames for the ways people see themselves as public, when they do”, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), p. 10. Margaret Somers, “Citizenship and the Place of the Public Sphere”, p. 589. Birte Siim defines these two axes of citizenship in Gender and Citizenship: Politics and Agency in France, Britain and Denmark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 4.

Notes

337

41. Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work, p. 171. 42. According to Eva Cox, the conditions for the creation of generalizable social capital are the willingness to participate and the level of associability beyond intimate family ties. “Diversity and Community: Conflict and Trust”, in Citizenship, Community and Democracy, edited by Ellie Vasta (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), p. 82. 43. See Evelyne Huber, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and John D. Steven’s “The Paradoxes of Contemporary Democracy: Formal, Participatory and Social Dimensions”, for a discussion of these levels of democratic practice. Comparative Politics, 29(3), April 1997. 44. See Citizenship Acquisition and National Belonging: Migration, Membership and the Liberal Democratic State, edited by Gideon Calder, Phillip Cole, and Jonathan Seglow (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and Linda Bosniak, The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership. 45. For an excellent framing of the problem in terms of sexual orientation, see Margot Cannaday, The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in 20th Century America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009). 46. See the introduction to Joan Scott’s Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) for a cogent theoretical exploration of the issue. From a different disciplinary perspective, see Ruth Lister, Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives (New York: New York University Press, 1997). 47. “The Good-Enough Citizen: Female Citizenship and Independence”, in Beyond Equality and Difference, edited by Gisela Bock and Susan James (London: Routledge, 1992). 48. This approach has been particularly fruitful in Latin America, where social movements were very prominent in several democratic transitions. See The Women’s Movement in Latin America: Feminism and the Transition to Democracy, edited by Jane Jacquette (Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1989), and Women and Democracy: Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe edited by Jane Jacquette and Sharon Wolchik (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998). 49. See the chapter on “Women’s Organizing”, in Engendering Transitions: Women’s Mobilization, Institutions and Gender Outcomes, edited by Georgina Waylen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) that places this analysis specifically in the context of democratic transition theory. 50. In the notion of democracy as a product of struggle and popular pressure, I have been influenced by Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stevens, and John D. Stevens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992) and Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

1 Dictatorship and Civil Society: Explaining the Roots of a New Associational Milieu 1. The classic article is Seymour Martin Lipset, “Some Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy”, American Political

338 Notes

2. 3.

4. 5.

6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

Science Review, 53, 1959. See Larry Diamond, “Economic Development and Democracy Re-Considered”, in Re-examining Democracy: Essays in Honor of Seymour Martin Lipset, edited by Gary Marks and Larry Diamond (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1992), for a re-statement of Lipset’s original argument, including the link between development and a rise in voluntary associations. For the Spanish case, see Victor Perez Diaz, The Return of Civil Society: The Emergence of Democratic Spain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco (1939–1975) (Madrid: Editorial Sintesis, 2000), p. 138. Pablo Martín Aceña and Elena Martínez, “The Golden Age of Spanish Capitalism: Economic Growth without Political Freedom”, in Spain Transformed: The Late Franco Dictatorship, 1959–1975, edited by Nigel Townson, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 30–31. Martín Aceña and Martínez, p. 34. Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco, p. 147. However, he points out that this consumption was still uneven, with the example of 69 percent of Madrid households with TVs in 1971 compared to 11 percent in the rural province of Soria. Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco, pp. 139–140. The main sending provinces were Andalucia, Galicia, Extremadura, the two Castillas and La Mancha. Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco, p. 139. Susan Harding, Remaking Ibieca: Rural Life in Aragon under Franco (Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina Press, 1984). Edward Malefakis “Spain and its Francoist Heritage”, in From Dictatorship to Democracy, edited by J.H. Hertz (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982). By 1970, 90 percent of school aged children were in school, and during the decade of the 1960s, the university population tripled. Sebastian Balfour, “The Desarollo Years, 1955–75”, in Spanish History Since 1808, edited by José Alvarez Junco and Adrian Shubert (London: Edward Arnold, 2000), p. 282. See Sidney Tarrow’s incorporation of data compiled by Tatu Vanhanen, in “Mass Mobilization and Regime Change”: Occupational Diversity 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s

38.5 42 45.5 51.5 58

Literacy: Index of Knowledge Distribution 39.5 46 48.5 52.5 57.5

12. See Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco, pp. 128–129, for a discussion of the institutional projects submitted: the ley de Principios del Movimiento Nacional, the Ley orgánica del Movimiento Nacional, and the ley de Ordenación del Gobierno. 13. Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco, p. 132.

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14. For an interpretation of the Franco regime that emphasizes the internal struggle between fascist and non-fascist elements, see Ismael Saz Campos, España contra España: Los nacionalismos franquistas (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2003). 15. PCE Report, #447, III/71. Reports sent by militants in Madrid to the party leadership in exile. PCE Archive. 16. Luis Enrique Alonso elaborates a sophisticated version of this general argument in “Los nuevos movimientos sociales y el hecho diferencial español: una interpretación”, in España a debate: II la Sociedad, edited by José Vidal-Beneyto (Madrid: Editorial Tecnos, 1991). 17. See Pere Ysàs, Disidencia y subversión: la lucha del régimen franquista por su supervivencia, 1960–1975 (Barcelona: Crítica, 2004) for an analysis of the regime’s efforts to repress the emerging opposition. 18. Charles Tilly is the classic scholar associated with this claim, but see Sidney Tarrow, “Political Opportunities and Constraints”, in Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 19. Gabriel Badescu and Eric Uslaner present this definition in the Introduction to Social Capital and the Transition to Democracy (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 3. Putnam’s book is Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). 20. Jose Maravall, Dictatorship and Political Dissent: Workers and Students in Franco’s Spain (London: Tavistock Publications, 1978), p. 63. 21. Xavier Domenèch, Clase obrera, antifranquismo y cambio político: pequeños grandes cambios, 1956–1969 (Madrid: La Catarata, 2008). 22. Domenèch makes the point that it was conflict in local spaces that provided the basis for transformation in anti-Francoist strategies. Clase obrera, p. 22. 23. The 1887 Law required only fiscal oversight of associations. Technical advisor’s commentary on the draft of a project for Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familia (Archivo General del Estado (AGE), Gobernación (Ministry of Interior section), caja (folder), 388). From here on cited as “Gob”. 24. According to Rafael Prieto-Lacaci, “Asociaciones voluntarias”, in Tendencias Sociales en España, 1960–1990, V.I, edited by Salustino del Campo (Bilbao: Fundación BBV, 1993), there were 932,000 men in the Movimiento in 1960 and another million in its associations, including almost 300,000 in the Sección Femenina, p. 199. 25. Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco, pp. 71–72. Obligatory membership for students was established in 1953, and in 1942 for the OSE. 26. Cited in Juan Linz, “La realidad asociativa de los Españoles”, in Sociología española de los años setenta (Madrid: Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorros, 1971), p. 312. 27. Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco, p. 74. 28. According to Prieto-Lacaci, in 1956 there were 533,000 members of Acción Católica, about two-thirds of them female (p. 199). 29. According to Fabriola Mota (“La Realidad Asociativa en España”, in Existe Sociedad Civil en España?, edited by Joan Subirats (Madrid: Fundación Encuentro, 1999)) there were about 2500 associations in the Registro Nacional in 1965, but Rafael Prieto-Lacaci (“Asociaciones”) gives the figure of 8329 associations in the early 1960s (p. 199) cited by Juan Linz in “La realidad asociativa” (p. 313). Mota’s figures seem to be drawn from the same Registro

340 Notes

30. 31.

32. 33.

34.

35.

36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47.

48.

I consulted for a later period, since her figure of 6,300 for 1972 matches my own calculations. See Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco, pp. 129–130, for a description of the three projects. Ysàs, Pere, Disidencia y subversion, p. 3. In 1962, the head of the SEU presented a report to the Movimiento National Council in which he asserted that the Movimiento had lost its mission to attract the youth, who wanted effective participation in public life (pp. 6–7). Jose Maravall, Dictatorship and Political Dissent, pp. 26–27. This reform effort failed to save the SEU, which was dissolved in 1965 in the midst of growing university unrest that it could not contain. See Ysàs, Disidencia y subversion, p. 9. Likewise, the attempted reforms of labor unions culminated in the relatively free shop floor elections of 1966, which provided an opening to dissident Comisiones Obreras candidates. Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco, p. 157. Boletín de Estado 27/7/1957, cited in Santiago Miguel González, La preparación de la Transición a la Democracia en España (Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza, 1990), p. 70. José Miguel Ortí Bordás, “El Movimiento y su Consejo Nacional”, in La España de los años 70, edited by Manuel Fraga, et al. (Madrid: Editorial Moneda y Crédito, 1972), V.1, p. 1168. Ysàs notes that the IV National Congress of the SEU in December 1962 contained a discursive mixture of “joseantoniana, democratizantes y tercermundista” terminology, p. 9. “El Movimiento y su Consejo”, p. 1178. Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco, p. 134. Cited in Santiago Miguel González, La preparación, pp. 70–71. Orti Bordas, “El Movimiento”, p. 1180. Enrique Villoria Martínez, Las asociaciones familiares (Madrid: Ediciones del Movimiento, 1971), p. 9. See also other Movimiento publications for elaboration of these ideas. El asociacionismo y el desarollo político, written by the Vice Secretary of the Movimiento in 1969 and El Movimiento y el asociacionismo, by Torcuato Fernández, in 1970. Orti Bordas, “El Movimiento”, p. 1181. Report #447, III/71. PCE Archive. Miguel González, La preparación, p. 81. The first position was defended by Fernández Miranda and the latter by Solís. This debate is discussed in detail by Miguel González, La preparación, pp. 78–81. For example, Miguel González, in La preparación, barely mentions these associations in a narrative focused almost entirely on the failure to turn the Movimiento into a framework for a pre-political party system. “Exposición de Motivos” for the “Anteproyecto de Decreto Organizando las Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familias Incorporadas al Movimiento Nacional (unknown author) ((AGE), Gob. Caja 388). Document is undated, but it must have been written before official approval of the Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familia on June 24, 1963. This entity replaced the Delegado Nacional de Asociaciones that was formed in 1957. Its mandate was “the defense, promotion and boosting of the interests of the family as a foundation of social life and the

Notes

49. 50. 51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58. 59.

341

basic structure of the national community”. One of its four departments was associations, and its responsibilities (at the provincial level) included: promoting groups of families to create associations, helping them with the documentation necessary to constitute them, and providing assistance for those associations already formed. Extracted from the “Norms of Organization” re-printed in Enrique Villoria Martínez, pp. 55 and 57–58. Enrique Villoria Martínez, Las asociaciones familiares, p. 12. “Anteproyecto”. The functions of the ACF are found in Article 5 (AGE, Gob. Caja 388). “Exposición de Motivos”. In Enrique Villoria Martínez’ pamphlet (Las asociaciones familiares) on the family association movement, published some years later, the list of possible activities for the ACFs had lengthened considerably, from studying the problems of families in seminars to creating public services and cultural institutions, to educating consumers, promoting “urbanization” and civic awareness (pp. 17–24). The phrase was used by Florentino Pérez Embid, a conservative monarchist, in an appeal to the Ministry of Justice to kill the Movimiento’s associational project. Cited in Pablo Hispán Iglesias de Ussel, La política en el régimen de Franco entre 1957 y 1969 (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2006), p. 355. The comments are unsigned, but “Gabinete técnico” is handwritten on the top of the document. Included in the folder with the “Exposición de Motivos” and the “Anteproyecto”, they were obviously part of a package presented to the appropriate official in the Ministerio de Gobernación (AGE, Gob. 388). While the Fuero included the right to free association, the exercise of that right was limited by the protection of the “fundamental principles of the State” and the “spiritual, national and social unity of Spain”. Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco, p. 105. See Pablo Hispán Iglesias de Ussel, La política en el régimen de Franco, pp. 350– 353 for an account of how the two associational projects were explicitly linked to power struggles between factions. In structural/institutional terms, this meant that the two worlds of voluntary associations were integrated into different bureaucratic structures, Gobernación (interior), on the one hand, and the Ministry of Culture, where the Movimiento was housed, on the other. Associations had to submit their statutes for approval to the Civil Governor, who made a report and passed the petition on to the Ministerio de Gobernación for final approval. The political police drew up reports on each of the members of the founding committees and rejected anyone with a connection to the defeated side in the Civil War or to “Marxist” movements. Boletín de la Asociación de Vecinos, Entrevías, December 1975, Registro de Asociaciones de la Comunidad de Madrid (RACM) file. Emmanuel Rodríguez, “Lucha vecinal e identidad comunitaria. El caso del poblado dirigido de Orcasitas”, in la crisis del franquismo y la transición: el protagonismo de los movimientos sociales, edited by José Manuel Trujillano Sánchez and Pilar Domínguez Prats (Avila: Fundación Cultural Santa Teresa,

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72.

2003), p. 137. He also provides the figure of 60,000 chabolas in Madrid in 1961, which constituted about 15 percent of the population. As José María Maravall argues, more complex economies are harder to manage within the political framework of a dictatorship. Regimes, Politics and Markets: Democratization and Economic Change in Southern and Eastern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 47. Pablo Martín Acera and Elena Martínez Ruíz argue that the lack of a “social pact” and its wealth-distributing provisions were the main difference between Spain’s “economic miracle” and that of the surrounding European democracies. “The Golden Age”, p. 41. The files of the Ministerio de Gobernación’s office of “Consultation of Local Government” have preserved many of these petitions. To give one example, a group of 15 residents of Granada first petitioned their Mayor for the paving of their street in early 1971, but although they received a favorable response from him on August 25, 1971, on May 10, 1976 they appealed in frustration to the Ministerio de Gobernación because no progress had been made. (AGE, Gob, 3157). In one petition to the Ministerio de Gobernación, 373 residents of a town in Gerona complained that the urban plan proposed by the city government favored the interests of the property owners and wealthy residents, many of them local officials, at the expense of their poorer district and that there had never been any public consultation on the plan (November 1, 1970). (AGE, Gob. 1089). Alice Gail Bier adds that the appointed positions were obligatory, unpaid and often filled by individuals who came from other cities. Crecimiento urbano y participación vecinal, (Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 1980), pp. 114–117. Many of the petitions sent to the Ministerio de Gobernación reflect the frustration that more immediate grievance channels had proved unsatisfactory. In one case (May 10, 1969) residents of a town outside of Avila complained about the stalled construction of a block of houses, begun several years ago but as yet unfinished, and no local officials could explain why. Although the Civil Governor visited several months earlier and was sympathetic to their predicament, his public criticism did not affect the project. The file includes a follow-up letter, sent 2 months later (July 8, 1969) by the Ministry to the Mayor of the town, asking for information about the issue (AGE, Gob. 1089). Eduardo Navarro Alvarez, “La Política de la Vivienda”, in España de los años 70, edited by Manuel Fraga, et al. (Madrid: Editorial Moneda y Crédito, 1972), pp. 847–868. José Manuel Romay Beccaria, “La Política Urbanística”, in España de los años 70, pp. 766–769, 818. José Manuel Romay Beccaria, “La Política Urbanística”, p. 829. Eduardo Navarro Alvarez, “La Política”, pp. 870–873. Eduardo Navarro Alvarez, “La Política”, pp. 898–899. José Luís Carreras Yañez, “Construcción y Vivienda. Materiales de construcción”, in España de los años 70, edited by Manuel Fraga, et al. (Madrid: Editorial Moneda y Crédito, 1972), pp. 651–655. Eduardo Navarro Alvarez, “La Política”, p. 936. “Los nuevos movimientos sociales”, in España a debate, p. 85.

10.1057/9780230302136 - Making Democratic Citizens in Spain, Pamela Beth Radcliff

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342 Notes

Notes

343

73. Alfredo and Gabriel Pérez Pérez, “Movimiento vecinal y su influencia en la transformación de infraestructuras en el barrio de Palomeras de Vallecas durante la Transición: la AV ‘Los Pinos’ de San Agustin”, in La crisis del franquismo y la transición, p. 96. 74. AGE, Gob, 3157. 75. Regimes, Politics and Markets. 76. All information about the early associations, unless otherwise noted, comes from the individual files of each association, found in the Registro de Asociaciones of the Autonomous Community of Madrid (RACM). 77. The only reference to the pre-Franco period is found in Actas from 1939 and 1941, which talk, on the one hand, about a prosperous earlier life, but also about its infiltration and domination by socialists during the Republican period, which led, according to the new Junta, to misuse of funds and the desertion of large numbers of members. 78. Acta, Junta Rectora, September 15, 1939. 79. The Movimiento position was articulated in correspondence dated May 6, 1943 and January 1944 from the Jefe Superior of Asociaciones to the Ministro de Gobernación, Sección de Política Interior. The President’s position was outlined in his undated letter (received October 29, 1943 by the Dirección General de Seguridad). 80. The 1974 Memoria talks about the worrisome downward trajectory of the membership. 81. This pattern seems to fit the national one, according to María Isabel Fariñas de Alba, “Aproximación al estudio del movimiento vecinal en la crisis del franquismo y la transición”, in La crisis del franquismo y la transición: el protagonismo de los movimientos sociales. She cites scholar-participant Tomás Villasante’s assertion that there were a handful of AVs before the Civil War, citing in particular one in Palma de Mallorca, founded in 1931. It is not clear whether these other early associations were also founded in public housing projects, as they were in Madrid, p. 119. 82. All information about these associations comes from their files in the RACM. The six are: AV de la Colonia Prosperidad, established in January 1931, AV de la Colonia del Retiro (1935), AV La Barriada de Casas Baratas del Paseo de las Delicias (1930), Cooperativa Fomento de Colonia Iturbe (1930), Sociedad Colonia de Los Angeles (1929), and AV de la Colonia de Manzanares (1934). 83. Jefe Superior de Policia, Report, January 13, 1944. 84. Jefe Superior de Policia, Report, February 14, 1944, referred to in the reply from the Subsecretary, Politica Interior, March 6, 1944. 85. The literal translation of convivencia is living together peacefully, but it is close to the concept of “social trust”, which defines horizontal relations between non-intimates. See Eva Cox, “Diversity and Community”, for this definition of social trust (p. 79). In Citizenship, Community and Democracy, edited by Ellie Vasta (NY: St.Martin’s Press, 2000). 86. AGE, Gob 222, Letter, September 8, 1960 from Director General de Seguridad, returning the statutes for modification. 87. The 1949 Manzanares statutes opened membership to all “vecinos” of the Colonia, but another article in which quotas were set by the type of dwelling and were paid per family makes it clear that “vecino” meant the owner of the house.

344 Notes 88. From Mobilization to Civil War: The Politics of Polarization in the Spanish City of Gijón, 1900–1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 104–109. 89. Georgina Blakeley makes the more general argument for Barcelona that its long history of civil society mobilization, going back to the late nineteenth century, was an important component of its revival in the 1960s. Democratization and Participation in Spain: The Case of Barcelona (PhD Dissertation, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, 2000). 90. Samuel Huntington, “Democracy’s Third Wave”, Journal of Democracy, 2(2), Spring, 1991, p. 13. I cite his observation without necessarily agreeing with the cultural conclusions he makes, about the links between “Christianity” and democracy. 91. For the influence of Vatican II on the Spanish Church, see Audrey Brassloff, Religion and Politics in Spain: The Church in Transition, 1962–1996 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), José Manuel Cuenca Toribio, Catolicismo social y político en la España contemporánea (1870–2000) (Madrid: Unión Editorial, 2000), Frances Lannon, Privilege, Persecution and Prophecy: The Catholic Church in Spain, 1875–1975 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), William Callahan, The Catholic Church in Spain, 1875–1998 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2000). 92. The emergence and development of radical Catholic circles, especially in terms of their place in the anti-Francoist opposition, are analyzed in: Rebecca Clifford and Nigel Townson, “The Church in Crisis: Catholic Activism and 1968”, Cultural and Social History (forthcoming), Feliciano Montero García, La Acción Católica y el franquismo: Auge y crisis de la Acción Católica Especializada (Madrid: UNED, 2000), Basilisa López García, Aproximación a la historia de la HOAC (Madrid: Ediciones HOAC), 1995, Javier Domínguez, Organizaciones obreras cristianas en la oposición al franquismo (1951–1975) (Bilbao: Ediciones Mensajeros, 1985), Rafael Díaz Salazar, Iglesia, Dictadura y Democracia (Madrid: Ediciones HOAC, 1981), and José Fernández Segura, “La presencia de militantes obreros católicos en el movimiento obrero de Barcelona”, Enrique Berzal de la Rosa, “La oposición católica al franquismo en Castilla y León”, Mónica Moreno Seco, “Cristianos y lucha antifranquista en Alicante durante la transición”, all in La crisis del franquismo y la transición: el protagonismo de los movimientos sociales, edited by José Manuel Trujillano Sánchez y Pilar Domínguez Prats (Avila: Fundación Cultural Santa Teresa, 2003). 93. José Centeno García, Luis Díez Maestro and Julio Pérez Pinillos (eds), Curas obreros: Cuarenta y cinco años de testimonio, 1963–2009 (Barcelona: Editorial Herder, 2009). 94. William Callahan, The Catholic Church in Spain, p. 505. 95. Jose Manuel Cuenca Toribio, Catolicismo social y político en la España contemporánea, pp. 419–423. 96. Shubert, A Social History of Spain, p. 243. 97. See Montero, Acción Católica, Introduction. 98. Both Fernández Segura and Berzal de la Rosa make this point, as well as Rafael Diaz, “eran organizaciones apostolicos que creaban militantes obreros, que a nivel personal luchaban en el combate obrero” (p. 201).

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345

99. Feliciano Montero García, La Acción Católica y el franquismo: Auge y crisis de la Acción Católica Especializada, (Madrid: UNED, 2000), pp. 73–74. Rafael Díaz Salazar, Iglesia, Dictadura y Democracia (Madrid: Ediciones HOAC, 1981). 100. “Declaración Pascual de la Comunidad de la Montaña” (Vallecas), April 14, 1968, in Javier Domínguez, Organizaciones obreras cristianas en la oposición al franquismo (1951–1975) (Bilbao: Ediciones Mensajeros, 1985), pp. 340–341. The “Christian communities” were fora for discussing the new currents of Catholic thought, from labor issues to human rights to the popular election of bishops. 101. Rebecca Clifford and Nigel Townson, “The Church in Crisis: Catholic Activism and 1968”, Cultural and Social History (forthcoming), p. 13. 102. Memoria, Asociación de Cabezas de Familia, San Birg (Las Palmas) 1964 (AGE, Cultura, Caja 27). 103. Information from the Registro of Movimiento associations (AGE). 104. The Asociación Familiar of Santa Brigida. Cited in the Boletín Informativa de la Asoc. de Propietarios y Vecinos de Moratalaz, April 1970. Moratalaz was one of those neighborhoods where virtually all available space was owned by the construction company, and the association fought for years to get its own center. 105. This was the response to the Asociación Familiar of the Distrito Universitario in Alcalá de Henares, when it listed the “parish center” as its headquarters. In letter dated 23/3/1973. It re-submitted on 5/4/1973 with the house of one of the founding members as its address. RACM file. 106. The Concordat was the 1953 document defining Church/State relations under the Franco Regime. AV Barrio Aeropuerto, from the Brigada Regional de Información (BRI) Report, dated January 31, 1971. The documentation was re-submitted with a bar as their domicile. A similar situation occurred with the AV Cadalso de los Vidrios, which received the denial on October 31, 1970, and re-submitted in November with a restaurant as the nominal address. RACM file. 107. The illegal meeting was in Orcasitas, April 1967. RACM file. March 2, 1968 report. 108. José Martí, Relación entre AAVV y Partidos Políticos: Barcelona, 1970–1980 (Barcelona, Thesis, 1981), p. 70. 109. RACM file. September 22, 1958, permiso del párroco. 110. RACM file. 111. RACM file. Only the 1972, 1974, and 1976 requests are in the file. 112. RACM file. Preliminary meeting held October 19, 1967, Assemblies held January 24, 1968 and June 11, 1968. 113. From an interview conducted by Nigel Townson, cited in “Church in Crisis”, pp. 5–6. 114. AV Covadonga (11/69), AV Barrio Aeropuerto (1/72), AV Diego Velazquez (4/74), AV Leganes (5&10/73), AV Palomeras Sureste (X/11/73, X/20/73, V/16/75, VI/75), AV Fuenlabrada (II/76), and AV Villa Rosa (6/74). This list is not exhaustive because the documentation in each association’s file is both uneven and incomplete. 115. To Delegado Provincial de la Familia (DPF), Sin fecha. AGE, Ministerio de Cultura, caja 229.

346 Notes 116. Javier Domínguez, documents of the comunidades cristianas, Organizaciones obreras, pp. 340–348 and 451–452. 117. Javier Domínguez, Organizaciones obreras, p. 415 (“Report on the Hogar del Trabajo”). 118. William Callahan, The Catholic Church in Spain, p. 518. In August 1968, the regime created a special jail in Zamora for clerics, over 100 of whom spent time as prisoners there. As Moradiellos points out, Spain had more clerical prisoners than any European country, including the communist ones (La Espa˘ na de Franco, p. 165). 119. Enrique Moradiellos, La España de Franco, p. 164. 120. Once again, because of the irregular documentation, it is impossible to assert that these were the first instances. 121. RACM file. January 14, 1974. 122. RACM file. VIII/6/1976 report reviews this information. The January ’74 assembly was the first “acto denogado” of this AV. 123. RACM file. June 27, 1974. 124. RACM file. IV/26/1975 report. 125. RACM file. June 12, 1976 denial. AGE, Cultura 148, Acta, Asamblea General, February 27, 1976. 126. RACM file. 127. RACM file, “Proyecto de Estatutos”, Article 5, approved by the General Assembly on july 30, 1965. 128. RACM file, 1966 statutes, Article 6. 129. RACM file, Article 7. 130. For example, Ciudad de Los Angeles (1969) and Francos Rodriguez (1973), which borrowed from Puerto Chico, and Urbanización “Buenos Aires” (Alcobendas), based on the wording from Diego Velázquez. What I have found is a lot of selective borrowing in AV statutes, but few cases of wholesale reproduction. 131. August 1970 (Biblioteca Nacional). 132. RACM file, letter May 29, 1976. 133. RACM file, letter October 9, 1975. 134. RACM file, Budget, 1975. 135. Mikel Aizpuru, “Asociacionismo popular: ¿reverso del modelo de organización social del franquismo? El caso de Barakaldo”, in Estado, protesta y movimientos sociales, edited by Santiago Castillo and José María Ortíz de Orruño (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 1997), p. 486. There are more sporadic cases of politicized entertainment in Madrid, such as the singing of “unauthorized songs” by a group of 130 people in the parochial club on December 2, 1973. (One of the women who founded the AV Cruce Villaverde-Litos Andalucía in November 1974 had been fined for this event, according to the police report of November 22, 1974.) RACM file. 136. RACM files on Ciudad San Pablo, 10 Dic 1975 report, and Ciudad de Los Angeles, June 24, 1973 report. The photo is from Nexo, the Boletín of the AV, March/April 1973 edition (Biblioteca Nacional). 137. RACM file. Included in the 1973 Memoria. 138. AGE, Cultura, caja 70 (n.d.). 139. February 1968. 140. December 1968.

Notes

347

141. AGE, Cultura, caja 32. 142. RACM file. Acta, December 4, 1969. The police report says that neither priest has any “antecedentes”, or political record, and both were members of the younger, post-war generation, born in 1936 and 1938 (April 6, 1969). 143. RACM file. 144. RACM file. BRI Report, August 22, 1973. He was one of 11 signers of the original Acta, and was without “antecedentes”. 145. RACM file. Request dated February 6, 1969. Other requests dated 4/XII/69, 9/IV/70, 23/IX/70. Like the San Blas priests, this one had no antecedentes, and was judged to be a simpatizante, or sympathizer, of the regime (15/III/69 report). 146. RACM file. BRI report, 28/III/77. The initial meeting took place on October 29, 1976. 147. AGE, Cultura, caja 74: Acta, El Molar (29/XI/73), caja 136: Acta, VillamilSanchez (20/III/74), caja 137: Acta Moralzarzal (7/III/74), Acta Legazpi (13/II/74), RACM file: report 19/I/76 and 19/X/73. For more cases of priests founding ACFs, see Chapter 3. 148. AGE, Cultura, caja 65. Date of Constitution: 10/VI/67. 149. RACM file. November 1969 meeting. 150. Boletín, June, 1976. 151. RACM file, April 26, 1971, Acta. All meetings between 1971 and 1973 were held in the Patronato, until May of 1973, when a new centro was opened on land owned by the Patronato. 152. In order to protect his identity, specific references to the association or the neighborhood will not be included. 153. For documentation of the Asamblea on May 8, 1967, see Javier Domínguez, Organizaciones obreras cristianas en la oposición al franquismo, pp. 342–346. 154. RACM file, Report of Comisaria, 25/X/1968. 155. RACM file, Report 9/VI/69. 156. RACM file, Report, 13/VI/69. 157. RACM file, 4/II/70, 6/II/70, 9/II/70 reports. 300, 150, and 300 was the attendance estimated by police at the three assemblies. 158. RACM file. 25/XI/70 report. Other meetings held on 26/XI, 1/XII, and 3/XII. 159. RACM file. 14/II/72 report. It was supposed to be a partial assembly of 500, but twice that number showed up. 160. RACM file. 18/IV/72 report. Unfortunately, the series of reports stops at this point, presumably because the immediate issue had been resolved. 161. Boletín of the Barrio Aeropuerto, February 1966, num.18 (AGE, Cultura, caja 32). RACM file, Ciudad de los Angeles: 10/II/75 report on General Assembly. RACM file, AV Diego Velázquez: Acta, 15/IV/66 General Assembly. RACM file, Comunidad Vecinal Barrio Estrella: Memoria 1973. 162. RACM file. 14/III/77 report. 163. Victor Pérez Díaz, The Return of Civil Society, p. 149. 164. RACM file. May 1975 reports. 165. RACM file. 3/VII/76 report. He was born in 1932 in Toledo. 166. RACM file. 25/VIII/76 report. He was born in 1942 outside Madrid. 167. RACM file. 11/IV/75 report. He was born 1947, in Madrid. 168. RACM file. 28/III/77 report. He was born in 1947.

348 Notes 169. RACM file. 8/III/71 report. 170. The quote is from Dimitrov’s proposal at the 7th Congress of the Comintern in 1935. José Maravall, Dictatorship and Political Dissent, p. 81. 171. Renato Valdés, “La Lucha de las Masas”, VIII PCE Congress, 1972. 172. I found Xavier Domenèch’s version of this interactive model of party militant/social movement suggestive, although his work focuses on the labor movement. Clase obrera, antifranquismo y cambio político. 173. Renato Valdés, “La lucha de las masas en las barriadas y la perspectiva de la huelga general” (PCE Archive). 174. For example, the 24/VIII/68 report from the Comite de la Zona de Vallecas claimed to have “two friends” in the newly forming AVs in Puente de Vallecas. In a 21/I/1971 report from Legazpi, one of the two comrades was working with the CCOO and the second was working with AVs, clubs, and small businessmen. PCE Archive. Microfilm #293. 175. “Documento Interno Sobre el Trabajo en los Barrios del Comité de Madrid”, 10/XII/1971. PCE Archive, Microfilm, #509. 176. “Informe de la Organización de la Barriada de Legazpi”, (Madrid) 21/I/71. PCE Archive. 177. Informe de Madrid, V/1975. PCE Archive, Microfilm #730. 178. Report #509, 12/X/71. The report referred approvingly to Ignacio Gallego’s essay “Por un partido de masas” as a good road map. PCE Archive. 179. Valdés “La lucha de las masas”. 180. Report, V/75. In a 14/IX/66 report, the six members of the committee agreed on the need “to pay more attention to municipal problems and the work of asociaciones de vecinos, and put comrades to work in organizing the masses in the barrios”. PCE Archive, #157. 181. #1–3, Carabanchel: Organo de las Plataformas de Barrio. #1 was published in April 1973, while #2–3 are undated. Fundación Pablo Iglesias.

2 “Measuring” Civil Society: The Scope and Vitality of the New Associational Milieu 1. “The progressive phenomenon of our time: the Association”. 2. Victor Pérez Díaz, The Return of Civil Society: The Emergence of Democratic Spain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). 3. For concise versions of the social movement position, see: Ruth Collier and James Mahoney, “Adding Collective Actors to Collective Outcomes: Labor and Recent Demcoratization in South America and Southern Europe”, Comparative Politics, 29(3), April 1997, and Sidney Tarrow, “Mass Mobilization and Regime Change: Pacts, Reform and Popular Power in Italy and Spain (1975–6)”, in The Politics of Democratic Consolidation, edited by Richard Gunther, et al. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995). 4. See Omar Encarnación, The Myth of Civil Society: Social Capital and Democratic Consolidation in Spain and Brazil (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), Peter McDonough, Samuel Barnes, and Antonio Lopez Piña, “Authority and Association: Spanish Democracy in Comparative Perspective”, The Journal of Politics, 46(3), August 1984, pp. 652–688, and Peter McDonough, Doh Shin, and José Alvaro Moisés, “Democratization and

Notes

5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

349

Participation: Comparing Spain, Brazil and Korea”, The Journal of Politics, 60(4), 1998. Thus, for example, Enrique Gil Calvo blames the current weak civil society on the sparsely populated civil society of the Franco regime, when the state bought off potential citizens with economic gratification. See his articles in El País, “El soborno de la ciudadanía” (December 3, 1992), and “Crédito y credulidad” (January 23, 1993). Cayo Sastre Garcia makes the argument that the “top-down” transition was made possible by the weak civil society of the time: Transición Y Desmovilización Política 1975–1978 (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1997). Peter McDonough, Samuel Barnes and Antonio López Piña, The Cultural Dynamics of Democratization in Spain (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. 10. The authors make this point with reference to “high” and “low” participation, not to civil society per se. Although most of the data come from membership after the transition, Peter McDonough and his colleagues have situated Spain on the low end of associational participation in comparative studies of transitions. See “Authority and Association: Spanish Democracy in Comparative Perspective” and “Democratization and Participation: Comparing Spain, Brazil and Korea”. The Myth of Civil Society. The foundational study is Manuel Castells, The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983), in which he dedicates a chapter to the “citizen movement” in Madrid. See also Alice Gail Bier, “Vox Populi: El desarollo de las AAVV en España”, in Papers: Revista de Sociología 11(1979). More recent studies are: Marcello Caprarella, La crisis final del franquismo, la Transición y la consolidación democrática en Madrid: un estudio multidisciplinario, 1973–1986 (Mss version shared by author), and articles by Alfredo and Gabriel Pérez Pérez, Manuel Domínguez López, María Isabel Fariñas de Alba, and Emmanuel Rodríguez López, all in La crisis del franquismo y la transicion: El protagonismo de los movimientos sociales, edited by Jose Manuel Trujillano Sanchez and Pilar Dominguez Prats (Madrid: Actas de las Jornadas de Historia y Fuentes Orales, 1998). Georgina Blakeley offers a provincial study of Barcelona’s neighborhood associations, but her main focus is on their contribution to the new democratic regime: “Democratization and Participation in Spain: The Case of Barcelona”, PhD Dissertation, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, 2000. Rafael Prieto-Lacaci, “Asociaciones voluntarias”, in Tendencias sociales en Espa˘ na, 1960–1990, edited by Salustino del Campo (Bilbao: Fundación BBV, 1993), p. 197. Prieto-Lacaci, Tendencias Sociales en España, 1960–1990, p. 199. Feliciano Montero Garcia Montero puts the number in 1955 at 600,000. See La Acción Católica y el franquismo: auge y crisis de la Acción Católica Especializada (Madrid: UNED, 2000), p. 248. Juan Linz, “La realidad asociativa de los Españoles”, in Sociología española de los años setenta (Madrid: Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorros, 1971), p. 315. Prieto-Lacaci, Tendencias Sociales en España, 1960–1990, p. 199.

350 Notes 15. Fabriola Mota, “La realidad asociativa en España”, in Existe Sociedad Civil en España? responsibilidades colectivas y valores públicos, edited by Joan Subirats (Madrid: Fundación Encuentro, 1999), p. 48. The associations on the Registro would NOT include the special category associations belonging to the Church and the Movimiento. 16. Juan Linz, “La realidad asociativa de los Españoles”, p. 313, cites the lack of published statistical data as the obstacle to greater precision. Prieto-Lacaci cites Linz’ figure in his 1990 article. 17. Mikel Aizpuru, “Asociacionismo popular: reverso del modelo de organizacion social del franquismo? El caso de Barakaldo”, in Estado, protesta y movimientos sociales, edited by Santiago Castillo and José María Ortiz de Orruño (Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco, 1997), p. 482. 18. The Guardia was a paramilitary organization formed in 1944 with the most committed Falangists from the Movimiento. Stanley Payne, The Franco Regime, 1936–1975 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), p. 346. 19. Feliciano Montero García, La Acción Católica y el franquismo, Basilisa López García, Aproximación a la historia de la HOAC (Madrid: Ediciones HOAC), 1995. 20. William Callahan, The Catholic Church in Spain, 1875–1998 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2000), p. 315. 21. Boletín of the APF Colegio Menesiano (Madrid), December 1972. The Madrid federation statistics appeared in the March 1974 edition. 22. As Victor Pérez Díaz puts it, the Catholic organizations of the 1950s and 1960s were sources of apprenticeship for the political organizations of the later period, so that the Church played the same sort of “prepolitical” function on the left during this period that it had traditionally played on the right. The Return of Civil Society, p. 159. 23. Frances Lannon, “Catholicism and Social Change”, in Spanish Cultural Studies, edited by Helen Graham and Jo Labanyi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 282 and Callahan, The Catholic Church in Spain, pp. 522–523. 24. The small size of Catholic associations before and during the transition marks one of the significant differences between Spain and other democratizing countries like Korea and Brazil. See McDonough, et al., “Democratization and Participation”. 25. This hypothesis is based on anecdotal evidence from Madrid. Thus, several of the APFs in Madrid whose bulletins I have consulted were constituted in the late 1960s, before the law was implemented but perhaps in the context of the public debate about education leading up to the law. The first issue of the Boletín of the APF Colegio del Pilar was published in February 1969. For the Colegio Menesiano it was December 1970. The Colegio Divino Maestro had already published 20 issues by December 1969, and the APF of the Colegio Sagrado Corazón de Jesus was founded in October 1967 (according to its January/March 1973 issue). 26. AGE, Cultura, caja 223. 27. In Abechisco (Vitoria). AGE, Cultura, caja 219. 22/V/72 letter. 28. Boletín of the APF Colegio Menesiano, Editorial, June 1973. 29. The quote is from the December 1972 issue of the Boletín of the APF Colegio Menesiano. Other articles supporting this position can be found

Notes

30.

31.

32. 33.

34. 35. 36.

37.

38.

39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44. 45.

351

in November 1971 (“On the cost of education”, February 1972 and June 1973). Boletín of the APA Colegio Chamberi-Hermanos Maristas, December 1977. One of these assemblies was convoked by the Colegio Menesiano on November 17th, 1977, and the Boletín reported a packed room (December 1977). Held in the Palacio de los Deportes. The December 1977 Bulletins of both the Colegio Chamberi-Hermanos Maristas and the Colegio Menesiano contain enthusiastic accounts of the assembly, although their headcount differs by 10,000. Callahan, The Catholic Church in Spain, p. 589. The Catholic Associations were sometimes called Asociaciones de Padres de Familia (APF) and sometimes Padres de Alumnos (APA), but all the Movimiento associations were APAs. The first Movimiento APA was constituted in Barcelona in April 1969, but the Movimiento’s Registro shows that 1970 is the pivotal year, after which APA form an increasingly larger percentage of the new associations registered. Also, in correspondence from national (DN) to provincial (DP) Family Directors in 1972–1973, it is clear that there was a big push for the constitution of such associations. AGE, Cultura, caja 144. AGE, Cultura, caja 144. The exact date is 11/IV/73. AGE, Cultura, caja 222. 24/V/72 report, DP to DN. The Catholic organization sustained the latter position and wanted to deny the DP a seat on the governing board of the University. AGE, Cultura, caja 228. Report of DP to DN, 14/X/70. In 1970, the DNA was reorganized as the Delegado Nacional de la Familia (DNF). The purpose of the reorganization was to separate the family associations from so-called “political” associations, but this latter project never got the approval of Franco. The documentation of the DNA and DNF can be found in the Archivo General del Estado (AGE), in the section of the Ministerio de Cultura (MC). I looked closely at all the correspondence and case files for Madrid associations, as well as the correspondence between the DN and DPs of other provinces. Thus, the national-level data cited here reflects an incomplete survey of the material. Circular Num. 9/63 por la que se dan norms aclarando el contenido del capitulo II de la orden del Secretario General del Movimiento de 24/VI/1963. AGE, Cultura, caja 219. According to the report of the Departamento del Registro de Asociaciones. AGE, Cultura caja 219, Memoria 1963. Boletín de la Asociación de Cabezas de Familia de Getafe, July 1966. (AGE, Cultura, caja 33). The phrase ama de casa can be translated in different ways, but I have chosen the term homemaker rather than housewife, which has a more limited meaning in English. Las Asociaciones familiares. AGE, Cultura caja 224. Registro April 1977, AGE, Cultura caja 316. Boletín Informativa de la Asociación de Propietarios y Vecinos de Moratalaz, January 1972. Toledo, Sevilla, Segovia, Tenerife, Murcia, Malaga, Madrid, Las Palmas, Jaen, Granada, La Coruña, Castellón, Barcelona, and Almeria.

352 Notes 46. Melilla, Ceuta, Zamora, Soria, Santander, Palencia, Lugo, Huelva, Guipuzcoa, Guadalajara, Gerona, Cádiz, and Avila. AGE, MC, caja 316. 47. These included Albacete, Almeria, Avila, Badajoz, Burgos, Cáceres, Cádiz, Castellón, La Coruña, Cuenca, Gerona, Granada, Guadalajara, León, Logroño, Lugo, Murcia, Navarra, Orense, Palencia, San Sebastian, Vizaya, Zamora. AGE, Cultura, caja 219. 48. Diario de Pontevedra, 27/II/1972. Interview with the head of the Escuela de Padres in Pontevedra. AGE, Cultura, caja 230. 49. La Coruña, 24/I/1973, interview. AGE, Cultura, caja 226. 50. AGE, Cultura, caja 223, correspondence DP to DN. 51. In fact, the DN sends the DP a scolding letter on March 12, 1974, giving her failing marks in her efforts to stimulate the association movement. AGE, Cultura, caja 223. 52. AGE, Cultura, caja 223 and 228. 53. This analysis is based on a close examination of the Movimiento files of the first 75 ACFs which were constituted in late 1963 and 1964 throughout Spain, as well as all of those constituted in Madrid, no matter what the date of constitution. 54. AGE, Cultura, caja 26. In other Zaragoza districts, the ACF of Ejea de los Caballeros was founded by 40 members in March 1964, but had signed up 458 by the end of the year (caja 27), while the ACF in Borja grew from 80 members to 568 by the end of the first year, through the strategy of holding small meetings of 15–20 people (Memoria, 1964, caja 26). 55. DP Report, 21/IV/1964. AGE, Cultura, caja 28. 56. DP Report, 2/V/1964. AGE, Cultura, caja 27. 57. Report written 27/IV/1964 and 30/IV. AGE, Cultura, caja 27. 58. Diario de Córdoba, nd, AGE, Cultura, caja 26. 59. Informe 16/VI/1966. AGE, Cultura, caja 60. 60. General Instructions on associations affiliated with the Movimiento. I/1976. Cultura, caja 180. 61. In the unusually detailed report of the DP Salamanca on the ACF Pizarralles. 2/XII/1963. AGE, Cultura, caja 26. This association grew from 300 to 500 in the first year. 62. AGE, Cultura, cajas 42, 44, 48, 55, 63, 65, 66, 68. 63. Report of the DP, Salamanca on the ACF Pizarrales. 2/XII/1963. AGE, Cultura, caja 26. 64. Letter 8/III/1965, from the DP of Zaragoza to the DN, urging him to lobby the Minister of Education on behalf of the ACF Caspe’s petition. AGE, Cultura, caja 26. 65. ACF San Gonzalo (Sevilla) 1964 Memoria expressed this frustration (16/II/1965). AGE, Cultura, caja 27. 66. Las Palmas. Memoria de Actividades, 1964 (8/II/1965) AGE, Cultura, caja 27. 67. Zaragoza. Memoria 1964 (24/III/1965). AGE, Cultura, caja 26. 68. Parque de las Avenidas, Barrio Aeropuerto, Alcorcon, Virgen de Begoña, Alto Extremadura, Cuartel de la Montaña, Coslada, Moratalaz, Puente de Vallecas, and Ciudad de Los Angeles. 69. DP Report XI/65. AGE, Cultura, caja 42. 70. Letter, DN to DP. AGE, Cultura, caja 29. 25/III/1966.

Notes

353

71. AGE, Cultura, caja 60. Alcazar 6/VI/1969. Included in a letter from the President to the DN. 72. AGE, Cultura, caja 42. Letter from President to DN, 25/V/1969. 73. 2/IX/1969 letter. AGE, Cultura, caja 182. 74. Boletín Provincial of the DP of Madrid, July 1969. AGE, Cultura, caja 182. 75. At the First Provincial Assembly of family associations. Manuscript of speech. AGE, Cultura, caja 226. 76. Solidaridad Nacional 8/X/1970. AGE, Cultura, caja 224. 77. The data were collected by the DNF during early 1977. Unfortunately, only 12of the DPs were able to submit this data, but if their figures are accurate, they were able to verify that 634 of the registered associations in these 12 provinces alone existed only on paper. AGE, Cultura, caja 316. 78. Letter to DN, 6/II/1974. AGE, Cultura, caja 230. 79. Letter to DN, 1972, AGE, Cultura, caja 227. 80. 29/IX/1974 letter to DN. AGE, Cultura, caja 226. 81. Interview, 7/XI/1968, AGE, Cultura, caja 26. Letter to DN, 29/V/1972. caja 230. 82. Letter to DN, March 1974. AGE, Cultura, caja 228. 83. Letter to DN, 10/VI/1972. AGE, Cultura, caja 227. 84. Letter to DN, 7/II/1973. AGE, Cultura, caja 230. 85. Letter to DN, 1/III/1974. AGE, Cultura, caja 227. 86. Letter to DN, 14/X/1975. AGE, Cultura, caja 225. 87. Informe 31/XII/1971. AGE, Cultura, caja 223. 88. Informe 13/II/1974, Letter II/1976. AGE, Cultura, caja 224. 89. 129ACFs, 6 AVs, 1 Asoc. de Propietarios y Vecinos, 6 Asociaciónes familiares, 40 APA, 2 Asociaciónes de Subnormales, 1 Asociación de Consumidores, 2 Federaciones Provinciales. 50 of the “non-functional” associations were ACFs, and 4 were APAs. AGE, Cultura, caja 316. 90. AGE, MC, caja 229. 91. Real Decreto 23/1977. In the Registro de Asociaciónes de la Comunidad de Madrid, 20 associations registered after April 1977 had their start as ACFs. Most of them changed their name to “AV” once the Movimiento was dissolved, but some used the name “Asociación Familiar”. 92. Poblado Dirigido Fuencarral (1965), Población Dirigido Canillas (1965), Parque Avenida (1965), Chamartin (1965), Torrejón de Ardoz (1965), Virgen de Begoña (1965), and Parque Suanzes (1969). 93. Cuartel: Boletín, Enero a Marzo 1974 (AGE, MC, caja 41), Moratalaz: Boletín, Febrero 1974, Vallecas: Boletín, Julio 1973, Fuencarral: Memoria 6/IV/1967 (AGE, MC, caja 43), Ciudad LA: Boletín, Octubre/Diciembre 1973, Coslada: Boletín Abril/Mayo 1976. 94. Thus, the Bulletins of the ACF Cuartel de la Montaña (I–III/1974) and Ciudad de Los Angeles (IV–IX/1974) both mention the “massive attendance” at general assemblies held in 1974, and in May of 1970, 500 were present at the assembly of the ACF Alto Estremadura, and a “great majority” of members in Moratalaz. (Bulletin of Alto Estremadura, May 1970 (AGE, MC, caja 71.) Three hundred members attended the 1971 annual assembly of the ACF Fuencarral (Acta, Junta General, 28/V/1971. AGE, Cultura, caja 43), while 150 were counted in Rosales in April 1975, 120 in both Villaverde Alto and the Grupo Residencial Peña Grande in

354 Notes

95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107.

108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117.

118. 119. 120.

121. 122.

February 1976 (For Pena Grande, Acta, 29/II/1976 (AGE, Cultura, caja 70). The other numbers come from the case files in the Registro de Asociaciones de la Comunidad de Madrid (RACM). Villaverde Alto: police report, 18/II/1976). Bulletin of the association in Moratalaz, II/73. RACM file. November 26 and 29, 1968. Documents from AGE, Cultura, caja 229. Letter DN to ACF, with congratulations. AGE, Cultura, caja 75. AGE, Cultura, caja 43 (Fuencarral) and 33(Entrevias). Boletín, VII–IX/1970. AGE, Cultura, caja 71. Acta, 1/VI/1974. Report, 17/III/1975. AGE, Cultura, caja 82. Letter 22/XII/1972. AGE, Cultura, caja 223. La Voz de Almería clipping. AGE, Cultura, caja 222. 28/III/1974. AGE, Cultura, caja 226. AGE, Cultura, caja 226 and 230. In the regular Movimiento hierarchy, each locale had a senior official, or jefe (JL), who reported up to the provincial jefe (JP), who in turn reported to the national leader of the Movimiento. The Delegado Nacional de Asociaciones (DNA) had its own bureaucratic chain of command, with its own provincial officials (DPs), who often worked with the JL’s and JP’s to constitute the associations, so the process often involved dual strands of the Movimiento bureaucracy. No date. AGE, Cultura, caja 26. At the founding assembly of the ACF Llaranés (Avilés), 13/I/1965 Acta. AGE, Cultura, caja 26. 20/XII/1963. AGE, Cultura, caja 26. 21/V/1964. AGE, Cultura, caja 28. Memoria 1964. AGE, Cultura, caja 27. AGE, Cultura, caja 229. Letter to Jefe Nacional de Servicio de Asociaciones Familiares, 2/IV/1964. caja 27. Letter to DN, 31/XII/1970. AGE, Cultura, caja 230. 18/III/1971. AGE, Cultura, caja 230. The DP of Huesca defined these as the criteria he used to pick two “pilot” towns—Lalueza and Poleñino—to promote the first ACFs in the province. Reports, 9/I/ and 21/11964. AGE, Cultura, caja 27. Interview in El Alcázar, undated. AGE, Cultura, caja 60. 1965 Memoria, AGE, Cultura, caja 26. There were two AVs, constituted in Huelva in October 1960 and in Vitoria in February 1962, and two ACFs, founded in Alava in October 1962 and in Vitoria in January 1963. In addition, there were 11 parent associations and 3 provincial associations of large families, including the one in Asturias, which was founded in the mid-1950s and became one of the most active of the family associations in the 1960s and 1970s with its 1000 members. 15/II/1971. AGE, Cultura, caja 219. Barrio Colorados in Las Palmas. AGE, Cultura, caja 227. The first discussion took place in November 1966, the second meeting on December 8, 1966 and the constitution of the ACF in June of 1968.

Notes

355

123. AGE, Cultura, caja 230. The 1974 Memoria of the ACF Guarnizo contains an homage to the priest. The ACF had been founded in 1964 and put on the list of “dead” associations by the DP in 1972. 124. AGE, Cultura, caja 73. Date of Constitution: 29/V/69. 125. AGE, Cultura, caja 74. Date of Constitution: 1/VII/69. 126. AGE, Cultura, caja 47. Date of Constitution: 20/V/66. In the DP’s Report (12/V/66), he says the association is “impulsada por el párroco”, who is very enthusiastic about it. 127. The report of the DP, 1/II/1972, is lifted directly from a letter written by the President of the organizing committee, 28/I/1972. AGE, Cultura, caja 103. 128. In this case, the DP Alicante was notifying the DN of an ambitious plan to visit two ACFs a week. 10/X/1973. AGE, Cultura, caja 222. 129. Memoria 1971. AGE, Cultura, caja 228. 130. DP Baleares to DN. 23/IV/1970. AGE, Cultura, caja 230. 131. DP Barcelona Report, 13/II/1974. AGE, Cultura, caja 224. 132. AGE, Cultura, caja 223. 133. “General Instructions on Asociations affiliated with the Movimiento”, AGE, Cultura, caja 180. 134. As explained in a letter from the DN to the DP of Avila, 10/XII/1971. AGE, Cultura, caja 223. 135. An indication of the budget woes of the DN can be gauged by the gap between the 25,000 pts given to the DP of Avila in 1971 and the 50,000 pts that the Provincial Federation in Albacete claimed not to have received for 3 years in 1971. 136. 4/VII/1974. AGE, MC, caja 229. 137. Letter to DN, 9/IV/1975. AGE, MC, caja 229. 138. Report, 24/IV/1970. AGE, MC, caja 77. 139. Alcalá de Chivert (Castellón). 27/XI/1974. AGE, MC, caja 225. 140. 19/VII/1967. 141. 9/XII/1975. Letter Consejo Nacional of the Movimiento to the DN. AGE, caja 183. 142. Bulletin of the DP, Num.1, July 1969. AGE, MC, caja 182. 143. 24/X/1972 Report, AGE, MC, caja 224. For a scholarly analysis of the Barcelona case, see Georgina Blakeley, “Democratization and Participation in Spain: The Case of Barcelona”, PhD Dissertation, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, 2000. 144. 29/VII/1972. Submitted with the DP report. 145. The analysis in this paragraph comes from Fabriola Mota, “La realidad asociativa”, pp. 44–54. 146. These included charity as well as neighborhood, APA, and consumer associations. Rafael Prieto-Lacaci, Cuadro 2.5.8. 147. The dates of constitution, as opposed to the date of legalization, are contained inside the files, and thus I only have them for the 93 files I read. 148. There are increasing numbers of local studies, most of which focus on the post-1975 period. Two that begin their analysis in the late Franco period are: Manuel Domínguez López, “El movimiento vecinal en el barrio de Bellvitge, 1960s–1980s” and María Isabel Fariñas de Alba, “Aproximación al

356 Notes

149.

150. 151.

152. 153. 154. 155.

156.

157.

158.

159. 160. 161.

estudio del movimiento vecinal en la crisis del franquismo y la transición”, both in La crisis del franquismo y la transición. Thus, there was no corollary to the Delegado Nacional de la Familia, which maintained and collected statistics and correspondence with provincial and local delegates throughout Spain, and whose archive remains intact at the Archivo General del Estado. Instead, files on individual neighborhood associations are kept—at least in the case of Madrid—in the Registers of the regional governments (RACM for Madrid). All information on individual associations was drawn from the RACM files, unless otherwise noted. This number is probably low, while the 2000 claimed by the association is probably inflated. The lower number was given in a critical ABC article accusing the association of having lost most of its members due to “politicization” (no date). The zone between C/Arturo Soria, Carril del Conde, Napoles, and Silvano. Manuel Castells, The City and the Grassroots, p. 226. Letter printed in the Bulletin, December 1975. The Estrella figure is provided in the annual budget report, while the Moratalaz figure is an estimate calculated by dividing the total dues income by the number of members. “Assemblyism” is an awkward translation of the Spanish word asambleismo, or the tendency to assemble/meet, but it captures the precision of the phenomenon. See Rebecca Clifford and Nigel Townson, “The Church in Crisis: Catholic Activism and ‘1968’ ”, Cultural and Social History (forthcoming), (pp. 18–19) for a discussion of the broader trend of popular assemblies in the late 1960s. RACM file. The different numbers were issued in separate police reports. The 1960 assembly was attended by about 50 people, and in 1961, 35 were counted. Another of the older associations, in Colonia Prosperidad, gathered 60 of its 244 members at its 1959 Assembly, while in the Colonia Primo de Rivera, originally founded in the 1920s, 42 showed up in 1961. There are no membership figures at this point, but in January 1970 there were 82 members, and in 1975 there were 170. The association in Barrio Estrella had 10 men at its founding assembly in October 1960, and expected 40–50 at its 1962 and 1963 annual gatherings. Expected attendance is obviously a less satisfactory gauge than a posterior report, but in some cases it is all that exists. In this case, the only other posterior report is on the 1963 assembly, at which the police counted 400 (8/IV/1963). Likewise, in the Colonia Diego Velázquez, 800 people showed up for a raucous general assembly in 1966, which the President noted was the second time he had seen such passionate discussions, implying at least one earlier similar occasion. Boletín, February 1966 and April 1966. 89 in June 1969 and 96 in July 1970. The exact name was “Asociación de Beneficiarios de Viviendas del Barrio de Puerto Chico de la Ciudad Parque Aluche.” Associations were formed in 1968 in Palomeras Bajas, in 1969 in San Blas, Pozo del Tio Raimundo, Ciudad de los Angeles and UVA Vallecas, in 1970 in Orcasitas and Barrio Aeropuerto, in Leganés in 1972, in Palomeras Altas,

Notes

162.

163.

164.

165.

166. 167.

168. 169.

170.

171.

172.

173. 174.

357

Palomeras Sureste, Colonia de la Paz (Entrevias), and Ciudad San Pablo in 1973, and in Carabanchel Bajo and Alto in 1974. Partial: June 9 and 13, 1969: 34 and 180. General: November 4, 1969: 600. Partial: February 3, 6, 9, 1970: 300, 150, 300. General: May 26, 1970: 530. Partial: November 25, 26, December 1, 3: 120–150 at each meeting. General: March 1971: 700. In fact, permission forms to hold these meetings were submitted in May, October, and December 1973, January, March, May, September, October, and December 1974, and March, May, and September 1975. To fill out this picture, there are other cases which lack this kind of serial documentation but include a single telling example that supports the broader conclusions: Barrio Aeropuerto, in which up to 450 of its 510 members attended an assembly in February 1975, or Parque Aluche’s January 1976 assembly, which packed 600 people into a room that seated half that many, or the Colonia Diego Velazquez, whose 1974 and 1975 assemblies expected 1000 and 1200 to attend. “Report from Madrid”, V/75. PCE Archive, Microfilm #730. Significantly, at the end of this description of the “leap” in barrio activity, he urges that the party “should pay more attention to this front in the struggle”, which implies that he was more of an observer than an instigator. ˇ de AAVV, Marzo 1977. Bulletin of the Federación Madrilena Another example of the same calculus is evident in the 17/VII/1970 report on AV Juan de Covas (Alcorcón). The report concluded that, despite the diverse professions represented on the junta, the popular nature of the barrio meant that the association should still be watched closely. This was the second report on the second set of statutes submitted. 26/VII/1971. And even this agreement was not accepted by all officials, as is apparent by the correspondence between the Civil Governor of Madrid and the Dirección General de Política Interior as late as October and November 1977. In response to an association’s reference to the agreement over boilerplate statutes in a letter to the CG on 7/IX/1977, he wrote to the DGPI on 27/X/1977 asking for confirmation of such an agreement, which the latter roundly denied in his reply of 8/XI/1977. For example, in Parque Aluche, 11/XI/1976 and Barrio Concepción: the 4/II/1975 agenda included a vote on the Federation, but it did not appear in the Acta of the assembly on February 11, presumably because it had been vetoed. Included as an example in a joint protest letter of 31/II/1975 to the government by a group of Asociaciones de Vecinos, printed in Doblón, August 16, 1975. For example, on one request submitted by the AV Carcabas on March 27, 1973, reunir a los vecinos was crossed out and replaced by reunir a la agrupación de vecinos. 5/XI/1975. In handwriting: “only members—list of members must be checked by the government representative at the door” There were a handful of dissident homemaker associations that collaborated with the politicized Asociaciones de Vecinos. 24/II/1975 letter of suspension from the DGS.

358 Notes 175. The meeting was November 1. The letter of suspension was dated 9/XI/1976. 176. This account and the press release was included in the Boletín de la AV Colonia de La Paz, XII/1975. RACM file. 177. 31/II/1975. Printed in Doblón, 16/VIII/1975. 178. AGE, Cultura, caja 222. 179. “Report from Madrid”, V/75. PCE Archive. 180. The police reported 900, while the newspaper Nuevo Diario estimated 2000. 181. Madrid Lucha Popular, May 14, 1976. 182. El Pais, 2/X/1976. The article was written on the occasion of the AVs “coming out” party. 183. 12/XI/1974: denial of legalization, “por existir dudas de las actividades”. 10/II/1975: reversal of decision based on appeal from AV.

3 Gender and the Role of Women in the Associational Milieu 1. See the introduction to Joan Scott’s Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) for a cogent theoretical exploration of the issue. Other approaches to the paradox of gender and citizenship are: Ruth Lister, Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives (New York: New York University Press, 1997), Wendy Sarvasy and Birte Siim, “Gender, Transitions to Democracy and Citizenship”, in Social Politics, 1(3), fall 1994, Beyond Equality and Difference, edited by Gisela Bock and Susan James (London: Routledge, 1992), Kathleen Canning and Sonia Rose, “Gender, Citizenship and Subjectivity: Some Historical and Theoretical Considerations”, Gender and History, 15(5), 2001 and Ursula Vogel, “Is Citizenship Gender-Specific?”, in Frontiers of Citizenship, edited by Ursula Vogel and Michael Moran (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), p. 59. 2. On Francoist gender ideology, see Mary Nash, “Pronatalism and Motherhood in Franco’s Spain”, in Maternity and Gender Policies: Women and the Rise of the European Welfare States, 1880s–1950s, edited by Gisela Bock and Pat Thane (London: Routledge, 1991), and Aurora Morcillo, True Catholic Womanhood: Gender Ideology in Franco’s Spain (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000). 3. For an analysis of feminist marginalization in the transition, see Pamela Radcliff, “Imagining Female Citizenship in the ‘New Spain’: Gendering the Democratic Transition, 1975–1978”, Gender and History, special issue, “Gender, Citizenships and Subjectivities”, 13(3), November 2001. 4. This participation has been recognized in a number of studies, although not extensively documented: See Sebastian Balfour’s Dictatorship, Workers and the City: Labour in Greater Barcelona since 1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), which claims that women played a key role in neighborhood associations (pp. 196–197), Temma Kaplan, “Luchar por la democracia: formas de organización de las mujeres entre los años cincuenta y setenta,” in Mujeres, regulación de conflictos sociales y cultura de la paz, edited by A. Aguado (Valencia: Univ. de Valencia, 1999), pp. 89–108, Giulana di Febo, “La lucha de las mujeres de los barrios en los ultimos años

Notes

5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

10. 11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

359

del franquismo”, in La oposición al regimen de Franco, edited by J. Tussell, A. Alted and A. Mateos (Madrid: UNED, 1990), Mary Salas, et al., Españolas en la Transición: De excluidas a protagonistas (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1999), pp. 40–45, Vicenta Verdugo Martí, “Organizaciones de mujeres en Valencia durante la Transición: Prácticas y formas de acción” (unpublished paper). See also Monica Threlfall’s useful narrative of women’s mobilizing before and during the transition, in Chapter 2 of Gendering Spanish Democracy, by Threlfall, Christine Cousins and Celia Valiente (London: Routledge, 2005). Campana XI/78. See articles by Kaplan, DiFebo, Verdugo and Salas, from fn 3. On the influence of feminism during the Transition, see Pilar Escario, Inés Alberdi and Ana Inés López-Accotto, Lo personal es político: el movimiento feminista en la transición (Madrid: Instituto de la Mujer, 1996), and Maria Angeles Larumbe, Una inmensa minoría: influencia y feminismo en la Transición (Zaragoza: Prensa Universitaria de Zaragoza, 2002). AGE, Política Interior: Expedientes de Registro de Asociaciones, 1962–1972, caja 222 (Manzanares) and caja 187 (Estrella), caja 207 (Los Rosales). This phrase also appeared in the statutes of the AV Alcala-Universidad, Palomeras Sureste and Palomeras Altas (all 1973). Unless otherwise noted, all the information about neighborhood associations in the province of Madrid is located in the Registro de Asociaciones (RACM), which contains files on all voluntary associations constituted through the 1964 Law of Associations. El País 5/IV/76. El País, 21/X/76. Britt-Marie Thuren corroborates this pattern in Chapter 3 of her study on the AV movement, based on field work done in the early 1980s (much of the book is focused on the later post-transition period of the 1990s). Britt-Marie generously shared her unpublished mss with me: Making Barrios, Making Persons: Grass Roots Politics and Gender Change in Urban Spain. Both articles appeared in the AV bulletin (Nexo, V/72). The first feminist congress was held in December 1975, in partial clandestinity, and several feminist journals began publication in 1976, most notably Vindicación, which was the project of the Colectivo Feminista, a radical feminist group associated with Lidia Falcón. Falcón published the first text on Spanish feminist theory in 1969. On the origins and impact of Vindicación, see Larumbe, Una inmensa minoría, pp. 183–196. Boletín 27/I/76. El País, 16/VI/76. Boletín, III/77. Vindicación, March 1977. Represented associations were: Tetuán, Palomeras Bajas, Palomeras Sureste, San Blas, Chamberi, Aranjuez, Vallecas, Doña Carlota (Vallecas), Parla, Concepción, Vista Alegre, Pedro Laborde, Fuencarral, and La Elipa. Vindicación included a regular section on women in “los barrios”, which covered the AVs as well as sub-organizational women’s mobilizations over quality of life issues. Clearly the radical feminist editorial board saw the women’s sections as a welcome step toward what one author called “more authentic feminist” organizations (XII/76).

360 Notes 19. The women’s committee began as the junta de amas de casa in January 1975, but was revised in June, no doubt as a result of internal debates. Bulletin, II/77. 20. Dones en lluita XII/77. 21. Vindicación 1/III/77. 22. The editorial board at Vindicación, under the direction of journalist Carmen Alcalde, was generally identified with this position. 23. Vindicación, II/78. 24. Vindicación, IV y VI/78. 25. Opción, IV/77. 26. For greater elaboration of the discursive treatment of feminists and feminism in the democratic press of the Transition, see Pamela Radcliff, “Imagining Female Citizenship in the ‘New Spain’. 27. On the argument about El País as the “dominant reference”, or point of reference for other media in the transition, see José Vidal Beneyto, “El espacio público de referencia dominante”, in El País o la referencia dominante, edited by Gerard Imbert and José Vidal Beneyto (Barcelona: Editorial Mitre, 1986), p. 18. 28. Before the 1960s, the women’s organization linked to the PCE was the Unión de Mujeres Españolas, formed in 1946 to continue the work of the Mujeres Antifascistas during the Civil War. The goal was fighting for the Republic, without which, according to the program, there was no point trying to work for women’s rights. The PCE’s strategy for organizing women shifted in the mid-1960s; thus, a report written in the mid-1960s laid out the necessity for the PCE to have a “real woman policy”, which included specific claims to benefit women. The report and the UME program are in the PCE archives, caja 117, carpeta 1 and 12/1. While the MDM’s foundation can be partially linked to this shift in PCE strategy, there is disagreement about the degree of PCE influence on both the origins and the development. In Españolas en la Transicion, pp. 29–30, the narrative emphasizes the ecumenical origins of MDM, while Threlfall, in Gendering Spanish Democracy concludes that the PCE was the dominant voice (p. 21). There may also be diverse narratives depending on the locale. Thus, Verdugo Marti, “Organizaciones de Mujeres”, ties the Valencia MDM closely to the PCE. It was founded, she states, in 1969 largely by PCE wives, in response to the 11/1968 arrest of 36 CCOO and PCE leaders (p. 13). Everyone seems to agree that the organization was open to all anti-Francoist activists and included women of various ideological positions, and it also seems clear that, as time went on, the MDM developed a more independent identity that blended anti-Francoism with feminism. 29. Mujeres en casa, hombres en la calle? (Madrid: Biblioteca Básica Vecinal, 1997). Thuren’s recent book mss, Making Barrios, Making Persons: Grass Roots Politics and Gender Change in Urban Spain, is a much more extensive treatment of many of the issues raised in this shorter study, but much of it is based on later field work in the 1990s, when the numbers of women had increased dramatically, and the role of the AV in the democratic society was much different than in the 1970s. 30. Vindicación, IX/76. 31. Vindicación, II/77.

Notes 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

361

Vindicación, VI/77. El País, 29/VIII/76. El País, 13/II/77. El País, 18/VIII/76. “Female Consciousness and Collective Action”, Feminist Studies, 1982. Vindicación, II/77. Vindicación, IX/76. El País, 6/V/76. El País, 2 &5/X/76. More anonymously, one of the five founders of the AV Pinar del Rey went on to become President in 1978 and 1979, while in Carabanchel Alto, a woman who began as a vocal in 1979 went on to become the AV President in 1983. Likewise, a woman who was among the five founders of the AV Parque Aluche in 1974 served as a vocal in the first Junta before becoming elected President in 1976. From a total of 250 AVs constituted between 1964 and 1978. Unfortunately, not all files contain complete records of junta names, so this analysis can only be approximate. This pattern would fit Britt Marie Thuren’s findings about the increasing numbers and role played by women after the transition. Making Barrios, Making Persons: Grass Roots Politics and Gender Change in Urban Spain. Thus, in Pinar del Rey, four women were elected in 1971, which fell to one in 1974 and didn’t increase again until five were elected in 1982. Likewise, the AV Puerto Chico had four women on their junta in 1967, 1972 and 1977, three in 1974 and two in 1976. Thus, in Palomeras Altas, there were four women on the junta as early as April 1975, and five, including the President and the Treasurer, in 1980. In the AV Fontarrón, 2 of the 12 founders in October 1976 were women, while in 1978 the President, VP and Treasurer were all women. And in Carabanchel Bajo, 6 of the 12 founders were female in June of 1974, and three of these comprised the majority (of five total) of the office holders in the 1977 and 1978 juntas. Finally, the AV Colonia los Almendrales elected three women to its first junta in December 1977, one of whom went on to become President in 1978, and continued to elect three women out of nine junta members into the early 1980s. Thuren argues that by then, the AVs had become a “gender neutral” political space, in that women and men seemed to participate equally, both as members and as activists. Making Barrios, Chapter 1. On the Asociación Española de Mujeres Juristas and the Asociación Española de Mujeres Universitarias, see Españolas en la transición, pp. 35–40, 50–52. El País, 6/V/76. Vindicación, I/77. To protect the privacy of these individuals, I will not link them with specific associations, but all of the reports apply to AVs in the province of Madrid. Madrid Lucha Popular, 3/VI/76. El País, 28/IX/77. Doblón, 16/VIII/75.

362 Notes 54. The founding provincial associations were: Alicante, Almeria, Baleares, Burgos, Ceuta, Cordoba, Coruna, Huesca, Lerida, Lugo, Malaga, Murcia, Orense, Pontevedra, S.C. Tenerife, Santiago de Compostela, Teruel. AGE, Cultura 273. Boxes 178–179 contain the founding documentation by province. 55. Thus, a February 1977 article in Campana (Bol of the AAC Huesca), (BN) reported the same 150,000 members as had a 1972 Report of the Federation, while the number of provincial associations rose from 42 to 46. 1972 Memoria, AGE, Cultura 273. 56. Campana, II/77. 57. Most of these figures come from the provincial association files in boxes 178–179 (AGE, Cultura). The 1967 Granada figure comes from a report in box 81. The Madrid association records are from the RACM files. 58. Memoria of Delegado de Participación, SF Archive, Academia de la Historia, Madrid. 59. The explanation for the two different versions of the name is not clear, but may have been related to disputes over “ownership” of the name. 12/XI/75 interview with President Font. AGE, Cultura 273. 60. From late 1966, the DN wrote to DPs, asking for information on existing AAC, and if none existed, urged them to take measures, which usually included contacting the SF delegate, to promote its creation. For example, a letter dated February 6, 1967 from the DP Baleares was a response to a DN telegram asking for an update about the constitution of an AAC (AGE, Cultura 179). As late as 1972, the DN was still sending out form letters to the DPs in provinces without an AAC. See 24/VI/72 letter from DN to DP Huelva. AGE, Cultura 273. 61. 14/IV/67. Letter from DN to DP Pamplona. AGE, Cultura 178. 62. Bulletin of the Movimiento, num.1102, 20/X/68. AGE, Cultura 273. 63. 11/I/68. Letter DP Avila to DN. AGE, Cultura 179. 64. 26/XII/66. Telegram, DP Pontevedra to DN. 13/I/68, Letter DP to DN. AGE, Cultura 178. 65. 15/III/67. Acta constitucional. AGE, Cultura 178. 66. Report on AAC Granada (1967?). AGE, Cultura 81. 10/I/68. Letter DP Guipuzcoa to DN. (Cultura 178). 15/I/68. Letter DP Vizcaya to DN (Cultura 178). 67. AGE, Cultura 16. 68. Luís Suárez Fernández makes this point in what is presumably an official history, given the publishing house. Crónica de la Sección Femenina y su Tiempo (Madrid: Asociación Nueva Andadura, 1993), p. 406. 69. The text, entitled “The AAC and Others Associations of Interest for the S.F.”, is located in the SF section of the AGE, Cultura 16. Weglison’s membership on the Junta of the FNAC is mentioned at the 1970 general assembly. Acta, III Asamblea, 3/XII/70. AGE, Cultura, 273. 70. The general goal to re-integrate old SF members by immersing themselves in the “family milieu” (medio familiar) was articulated at the 1964 Consejo Nacional in Pontevedra. SF Archive. 71. 13/VII/72. SF Archive. 72. Ponencia #2. SF Archive. 73. 31/I/67. Letter DP to DN. On 6/II/67 the DP explained that a family emergency had delayed the conversation with the woman. AGE, Cultura 179.

Notes

363

74. 10/I/68. Letter, DP to DN. AGE, Cultura 178. 75. 20/V/68. Letter DP to DN. AGE, Cultura 86. 76. 10/XII/68. Letter DP Baleares to Landaburu. 8/1/69. Letter Landaburu to DP. Cultura 179. 77. All of this information is contained in the association file located in the RACM. 78. This phrase was used by the president in a 23/VII/66 petition. 79. Petition to hold a meeting. 14/IV/65. RACM. 80. Undated, Feb?/68. AGE, Cultura 179. 81. Press release (undated), letter DP to DN, 20/I/68. AGE, Cultura 178. 82. Gaceta del Norte, 19/XI/68. AGE, Cultura 178. 83. Interview published in the association’s Bulletin, 1968. AGE, Cultura 178. 84. On the MDM’s origins and activities under the Dictatorship, see “Mujeres en la Transición Democrática”, Españolas en la Transición: de excluidas a protagonistas (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1999), pp. 29–34. See also Francisco Arriero Ranz, “El movimiento democrático de mujeres: de la lucha antifranquista a la conciencia feminista (1964–1975)”, paper delivered at the Congreso “La Transición de la dictadura franquista a la democracia”, Barcelona 2005 (www.cefid.uab.es/files/transicio-1.pdf). 85. Vicenta Verdugo Marti, “Organizaciones de Mujeres”, reports that in Valencia the MDM, which was only constituted there in 1969, began its infiltration strategy in the AAC of that province in 1971–72 (p. 20). In Madrid, a police report of 3/III/67 provided a list of seven dissident women, most of whom had joined the association in June 1965. All but one were described as related (wife, daughter, sister, cousin) to a communist militant, while the last was “considered to be communist” herself. While they joined in 1965, their presence became an issue in early 1967, when they organized a “violent political action” in the street, in the name of the association (from 13/X/73 police report). A follow-up police report of 8/III/67 provided advice on the best way to get rid of subversive members. RACM file. 86. The unpublished material, such as police reports, the letter of expulsion, and the “Declaration of Principles” drawn up by the association are found in the RACM file. Sedeño reported in 1971 (28/VII) that 13 members were expelled in 1967 and 41 more in 1968. Newspaper clippings of the 1968 Assembly, such as Ya, 9/III/68 and Pueblo 29/II/68, were located in the CIFEE archives, a private feminist archive since donated to the Civil War Archive in Salamanca. 87. This narrative is contained in Españolas a la Transición, pp. 30, 41–42. A 12/VII/71 police report describes the strategy of women with “communist antecedents” keeping their names off the organizing committees. AGE, Cultura 273. 88. Actas of the Consejo Directivo of the AAC Castellana. Three founding members resigned in May 1973 and the remaining board members defeated a proposal to disband the association. By February of 1974, two-thirds of the original members had dropped out, leaving 53 of the 146 who had joined since June 1972 (Libro de Socios). The secession vote took place at the 17/X/74 Assembly (Actas). The AAC Castellana documents are conserved in the Fundación CIFFE archives.

364 Notes 89. Españolas a la Transición, pp. 30, 41–42. There was yet another umbrella homemaker association formed in October of 1976, the Coordinadora Provincial de Amas de Casa, which the older associations refused to join. Its origins and ideological provenance are unclear, although an El País story described the Coordinadora as comprised of the most radical women, closely tied to the Labor movement. September 30, 1976. 90. The planning document from X/75 is in the CIFEE archives. Eighty women attended the meeting, representing Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona, Asturias, Santander, Galicia, Andalucia, and Valladolid. The Valencian case has been analyzed by Verdugo Martí in “Organizaciones de Mujeres”. The dissident nature of the Valladolid association is confirmed by its sponsorship of a public protest that generated a police report (29/IX/73). The FNAC felt compelled to write a long defense of its loyalty and to explain that the AAC Valladolid did not belong to the Federation, but had been corrupted by the same subversive elements that led the AAC Castellana in Madrid (3/X/73). AGE, Cultura 273. 91. Letter to Secretary General of the Movimiento. 6/XI/68. AGE, Cultura 178. 92. 9/II/67 and 11/I/68 letters DP to DN. AGE, Cultura 179. 93. Report on AAC Granada, no date (1967?). The enthusiasm for the association continued, with a reported 600 attending the 1969 general assembly, which included an “animated dialogue” in the question and answer period. Report on first trimester of 1969. AGE, Cultura 81. 94. DP to DN 3/X/70. AGE, Cultura 81. 95. DP Pontevedra to DN, 13/I/68, DP Soria to DN 2/I/68, and DP Orense to DN, no date. AGE, Cultura 178, DP Burgos to DN, 28/XI/67 (Cultura 179). 96. Letter Pres AAC Murcia, to General Secretary, FNAC. 23/V/69. AGE, Cultura 178. 97. DP to DN, 10/I/68 and 20/V/69. The initial hesitation was based on the assumption that wives of businessmen would not be interested in forming an association, while the wives of state employees wouldn’t join because they were not permanent residents. AGE, Cultura 86. 98. Undated Report and Memoria 1968 (20/III/69). AGE, Cultura 86. 99. “History of the Agrupación de Amas de Hogar de Barcelona”, II/68. AGE, Cultura 179. 100. Letter, President of AAC Baleares to DN. 14/II/72. AGE, Cultura 223. 101. Letter, DP to DN, 4/II/71. AGE, Cultura 223. 102. Jimena, October 1976 (Biblioteca Nacional). 103. Campana IV/73 for the letter. II/73 for the account of the assembly. In IV/78, the bulletin was still reporting large numbers attending recent events. The XII/76 edition speaks of the local associations in “various towns”. 104. AGE, Cultura 78 (Ventas), 80 (Carabancheles), 100 (Aluche). 105. 6/XII/73 report. RACM file. 106. 8/IX/71. RACM file. 107. Libro de Socios. The register was held by the Fundación CIFFE. I calculated membership figures by subtracting those who left the organization in a given year. 108. Campaign letter, 20/X/75. AGE, Cultura 229. 109. Letter, DP Orense to DN, 14/XII/67. In the SF, she was a cultural director, or regidora. Cultura 178. Letter DP Granada to DN, 3/X/70, Cultura 81.

Notes

365

110. Letter DP to DN, 17/II/67, on organizing committee. 22/I/68 letter on President’s decision. Cultura 178. 111. Memoria, Federation, 2/XII/71. AGE, Cultura 273. 112. From a letter DN to DP Burgos, 22/VII/76, AGE, Cultura 224. 113. RACM file. Also see the biographical entries on Ascención Sedeño Giménez and Ascencion Gregorio Sedeño, to be published Mss copy shared by the author, Alicia Canto. 114. Letter, DP to DN, 15/I/68. Correo Español clipping, 24/I/68. AGE, Cultura 178. 115. Sugerencias: Boletín de AAC Valencia, #12, II/71. 116. Campana (Huesca), VI/76. Jimena (Burgos), X/76. 117. In a letter from the Secretary of AAC Almería to Landaburu, I/69. The Burgos reference to the Marquesa is in the Acta, XI/75. AGE, Cultura 179. 118. Baleares, 31/I/68. AGE, Cultura 179. 119. AAC Madrid Memoria, 1969. Sofia accepted on 26/XI/69, RACM file. AAH Barcelona, Memoria, II/68. Cultura 179. 120. Sedeño used this phrase, which translates badly as “Ladies of Order”, to distinguish the association’s members from the dissidents at the 1968 General Assembly who wanted, in her view, to de-rail the original goals and identity of the association. 121. A good example of this implicit assumption is in the letter from the DP of Teruel to the DN, explaining why he thought there was no audience for a potential AAC in the province. The two likely groups for such an association were, he thought, the wives of state employees and the wives of businessmen, neither of which were good candidates for reasons specific to the province. 10/I/68. AGE, Cultura 86. 122. A typical case is the correspondence between the AAC and the DP of Ciudad Real, 29/IX/72 and 3/X/72. 123. Letter to DN, 28/VII/76. AGE, Cultura 228. 124. Memoria, AAC Almeria, 3/I/74. AGE, Cultura 222 and Letter AAC Alava to DN, 26/VI/72, AGE, Cultura 222. 125. Letter, President of Federation AAC to DN, 14/VIII/73, AGE, Cultura 273. 126. Letter, President Asoc. Barcelona to DN, 3/IV/74, AGE, Cultura 273. 127. Thus, one government report, dated 13/II/74, confirmed the Barcelona President’s “adhesion to the Movimiento” and deduced that the conflict may be rooted in her “jealousy or resentment” at the failure to recognize the importance of the Barcelona association. AGE, Cultura 179. 128. DN to AAC Baleares (he also refers to a similar request from the AAC Ceuta), 8/III/72. AGE, Cultura 223. 129. Report of DP Valencia, 20/XI/73. AGE, Cultura 278. 130. Published in ABC, IV/67. The President of the new AAC Pamplona read the story and sent it, along with a letter asking if it were true, to the DP. 5/IV/67. AGE, Cultura 178. 131. 1968 Memoria. RACM file. 132. Letter from DN to DP, Pamplona, 14/IV/67, responding to the letter of 5/IV/67. AGE, Cultura 178. 133. This information was conveyed in a letter from Sede˘ no, 4/X/73. RACM file.

366 Notes 134. The Department of Asesoría Política presented its report on “Relations with other Organizations” at the 1964 Consejo Nacional in Pontevedra. In 1966, the minutes of the Junta de Regidoras mentions a discussion of relations with “grupos afines no políticos”. SF Archive. 135. 12/III/66 Circular 5-D. SF Archive Academia de la Historia. 136. 29/VI/66. SF Archive. 137. Memoria, Dept of Participation, 1974 Logroño congress. While the department did produce a list of Asociaciones de Amas de Casa with membership figures, it had only planned to collaborate with the AAC on a series of activities. 138. Circular num. 10. 1/VII/74. SF Archive. 139. See Inbal Ofer, Señoritas in Blue: The Making of a Female Political Elite in Franco’s Spain: The National Leadership of the Sección Femenina de la Falange (1936–1977) (London: Sussex Press, 2009), for the argument about the SF national leadership’s self-identity as a female political elite. 140. 8/XI/57, Acta de Junta de Regidoras. SF Archive. 141. “Problemas Políticas Planteadas”, Gerona 1966. SF Archive. 142. Circular 7/XI/72. SF Archive. 143. Circulars, 1975–77. 144. 28/XI/74. SF Archive. 145. Memoria, Delegada provincial, SF Barcelona. 146. From the 1968 Memoria, read to the General Assembly on 18/III/69. RACM file. 147. Letter to Belén Landaburu, Secretary General of Federation. 22/VI/68. AGE, Cultura 178. 148. 28/X/68 letter to Landaburu, protesting approval of statutes without consultation. AGE, Cultura 178. 149. 2/XII/68, Landaburu to AAC Léon. Her claim that the letter with the suggestions from Leon had never arrived was clearly not taken seriously. Reply from Leon, 9/XII/68. AGE, Cultura 178. 150. Letter, 9/II/68, to President of the UNAF. AGE, Cultura 178. 151. Letter, 27,VI/68, to Landaburu. AGE, Cultura 178. 152. Letter, 15/VII/68, to Landaburu. AGE, Cultura 179. 153. Letter to Landaburu, 25/XI/68. AGE, Cultura 178. 154. Letter to DN, 28/X/68. AGE, Cultura 178. 155. A letter, 26/XI/68, from the President of the AAC La Coru˘ na to Landaburu lays the blame on the DP, who never delivered the invitation sent through his office. She tried to deliver the error message to the Orense leaders, but they interpreted the omission as “imposition”. AGE, Cultura 178. 156. 6/XI/68 Letter to Secretary General of Movimiento. AGE, Cultura 178. 157. Undated press release, signed by leaders of the AAC in Barcelona, Leon, Lugo, Pamplona, Tarragona, Pontevedra, Reús, Avila, and Zaragoza. AGE, Cultura 179. 158. Letter, Landaburu to Orense, 29/XI/68. AGE, Cultura 178. The insistence that the Federation would not limit the autonomy of provincial associations was also central to Landaburu’s plea to the León association to re-think its hesitance: Letter ND to Léon, after the national assembly had taken place on December 12, 1968. AGE, Cultura 178.

Notes

367

159. El Correo Catalan, 5/XI/69. Their specific reasoning is legalistic: that their constitution under the 1964 law of associations excludes affiliation with the Movimiento. The Junta of the Barcelona association responded with a circular to its members promising that membership would not sacrifice “absolute autonomy” or “the apolitical stance”. Circular #23, no date. AGE, Cultura 179. 160. Barcelona’s President protested this action in an 11/XII/70 letter to the President of the Federation (referred to but not in the file), with a response sent from the Federation on 18/II/71 explaining the Junta’s reasons for rejecting the statute changes and the possibility of including them on the following year’s agenda for discussion. AGE, Cultura 273. 161. From the government analysis, which concludes that the Junta Directiva did have the statutory power to decide if the proposal would be discussed by the assembly or not. ND. Cultura 273. 162. Letter, 14/XII/70. AGE, Cultura 273. Predictably, this critical letter generated an investigation of the Baleares association, but the DP’s report defended their initiative and energy, despite their reputation in Madrid as “a bit demanding or prone to protest” (protestona). He took their side in the conflict with a Federation that “didn’t seem to fully support them”. Letter, DP to DN, 4/II/71. AGE, Cultura 223. 163. The DP of Baleares commented in a letter to the DN, 11/II/71 that he thought the association in Baleares had more communication and interaction with Barcelona than with Madrid. AGE, Cultura 223. 164. Barcelona was one of seven associations that had attended in 1970 but not 1971, but there is no indication as to the motives of the others: Alava, Castellon, Lerida, Logrono, S.C. Tenerife, Santander, Soria, Tarragona, Tudela, Vizcaya. AGE, Cultura 273. 165. The letter of invitation is dated 4/XI/71. AGE, Cultura 223. 166. Acta, 2/XII/71. AGE, Cultura 273. 167. They included: Avila, Lugo, Ceuta, Baleares, Reús, San Sebastian, Léon, Tarragona, Huesca, Soria, Ciudad Real, Albacete, Valencia, Pamplona, Tenerife, Burgos, Miranda de Ebro. Program, I/72, AGE, Cultura 224. A 25/I/72 letter from Barcelona to the Federation accuses the latter of having “boycotted” their Jornadas. 168. The President issued the challenge before agreeing to allow the assembly to vote on Font’s appointment to a position on the Junta. Acta, 25/X/73. AGE, Cultura 273. 169. Petition, 31/X/73. Reply from Federation, 14/I/74. AGE, Cultura 273. 170. 3/X/73 report. AGE, Cultura 273. The report also assures the government of the Federation’s adherence to Movimiento principles and warns it of the “subversive” associations that were operating in Madrid. 171. Cover letter to DN sent with copy of petition to withdraw. 31/X/73. Cultura 273. 172. DN report 13/II/74, mentions that Barcelona has requested admission. Cultura 273. 173. Letter dated 28/III/71. Police report dated 31/VIII/71. RACM file. 174. 26/II/75 letter to the Jefe del Registro Provincial de Asociaciones. RACM file. 175. 8/IX/71. RACM file.

368 Notes

4 “What is a Family Association?”: The Civic Discourse of Familiarismo 1. Title of article in Familia Española, November 7, 1968. 2. “Lately, they’ve been talking a lot in this country about the associations”, La Voz de Castilla 14/V/72. 3. This chapter does not attempt to reconstruct the full range of this nationallevel discourse, but it draws from associational discourse around the country in order to identify broad patterns. Rather than “deep” analysis of a small number of texts in specific associational contexts, the strategy is to troll widely and give a sense of the quantitative as well as qualitative reach of the familiarista discourse. 4. The idea of collective framing comes from social movement theory: see Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 21. 5. Discourse is limited here to “text and talk”, which in turn interacts with other social practices. This distinction raises fundamental epistemological issues about the boundary between what people think they are doing and what they do. While acknowledging that both “talk” and “actions” are constitutive and interactive realms of social practice that are difficult to distinguish, I maintain what Louise Phillips and Marianne Jorgensen call an “analytical boundary” between the realms. Such a boundary recognizes the influence of structural constraints on discursive practices and the reverse while acknowledging that we can’t determine the exact line between them. Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002), pp. 89–90. 6. A “field” is Bourdieu’s term for an area of struggle in the social order, a “partly autonomous” space in which different actors struggle for positions. See the introduction to An Introduction to the Work of Pierre Bourdieu: The Practice of Theory (New York: St.Martin’s Press, 1990), by editors Cheleen Makar, et al., p. 9. Norman Fairclough incorporates Bourdieu’s “field” into his model of discourse analysis to define a bounded site in which multiple discourses compete for dominance in what he calls the “order of discourse”. (Louise Phillips and Marianne Jorgensen, Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method, pp. 72–73.) 7. James Paul Gee, Introduction to Discourse Analysis (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 33, defines Conversation with a capital C as a public debate within a society or among certain groups over focused issues, and in which people are able to take “sides”. 8. Gerard Imbert argues that this explicit discussion does not begin until late 1976. Los discursos del cambio: imágenes e imaginarios sociales en la España de la Transición (1976–1982) (Madrid: AKAL, 1990), p. 79. Where I would differ from Imbert is in asserting that there were building blocks that pre-existed this period rather than a clear rupture. 9. The Queen of America Goes to Washington City (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), p. 10. 10. “Meaning potential” or “meaning range” in Gee, Introduction, p. 56. 11. “The discursive constitution of society does not emanate from a free play of ideas in people’s heads but from a social practice which is firmly rooted in

Notes

12.

13.

14. 15.

16. 17.

18.

19.

20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

369

and oriented to real, material social structures.” Norman Fairclough, cited in Phillips and Jorgensen, Discourse Analysis, p. 62. Phillips and Jorgensen identify Fairclough’s use of the “order of discourse” as an important way to understand the operation of power within a social field. The concept refers to the configuration or ordering of all the discourses within a single field. (Discourse Analysis, pp. 71–72.) Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe define “floating signifiers” as concepts that are particularly open to different meanings, while “nodal points” are the privileged signs around which discourses are organized. (Phillips and Jorgensen, Discourse Analysis, p. 27.) Laura Edles, Symbol and Ritual in the New Spain: The Transition to Democracy after Franco (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 19. In this state, the assumptions are so deeply embedded it is hard to think beyond them, which limits the potential to imagine change. Phillips and Jorgensen, pp. 36–37. Laclau and Mouffe’s terminology. (Phillips and Jorgensen, Discourse Analysis, p. 48.) Eva Cox, “Diversity and Community: Conflict and Trust”, in Citizenship, Community and Democracy, edited by E. Vasta (New York: St.Martin’s Press, 2000), p. 79. Birte Siim defines the horizontal and vertical axes as the two dimensions of citizenship. Gender and Citizenship: Politics and Agency in France, Britain and Denmark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 4. To my knowledge, no one has fully examined the extent of this discursive network, given the complete neglect of the Movimiento as a social and cultural force during the latter Franco regime. Newspaper clipping from Alicante, 14/II/72. The article was entitled: “El ‘familiarismo’: una nueva fuerza?” AGE, Cultura 222. I/70. AGE, Cultura 225. The Boletín of the association in Moratalaz regularly printed excerpts, “those most interesting for the goals of our association”, from the two monthly issues of the magazine. (In the April 1972 issue.) Another example of its diffusion is a letter from the ACF Palamos to the DN (9/VIII/74), which began with a reference to his article in the recent issue of FE. AGE, Cultura 226. 7/XI/68. AGE, Cultura 26. Summarized in the Memoria of the course. AGE, Cultura 26. Letter DP to DN 16/XII/70. AGE, Cultura 223. From presentation (ponencia) on: “El Movimiento como futuro nacional a través de sus órganos representativos de participación.” 19/XII/72. AGE, Cultura 331. Letter DP to DN 7/XII/72. AGE, Cultura 222. Undated, but December 1972. AGE, Cultura 223. Letter, Subjefe of Movimiento to DN, 31/V/74. AGE, Cultura 223. 26/V/71. AGE, Cultura 230. XII/73. On the occasion of the first Provincial Assembly of Asociaciones de Padres de Alumnos. AGE, Cultura 222. Clipping, 14/II/72. AGE, Cultura 222. Boletín of the Moratalaz association, June 1971. BN.

370 Notes 33. The newspapers he canvassed were: YA, ABC, Arriba, Nuevo Diario, Informaciones, El Alcázar. AGE, Cultura 182. 34. La Voz de Castilla, May 14, 1972. 35. In one early report, the Jefe de Servicio Nacional de las Asociaciones Familiares informed the new association (the ACF Borja—Zaragoza) that, however “laudable” the statutes they had written, they needed to be revised to fit the norms of the law regulating ACFs. He directed the DP to “instruct and inform” the local junta of the necessary changes so they could in turn explain them to their members. 17/X/63. 36. “Fundamentals of Family Associations”. Bulletin of ACF Alto Estremadura, V/68. AGE, Cultura 71. 37. From the copy sent to households in Albesa (Lerida), I/64. AGE, Cultura 27. 38. In contrast, most of the Property Owners’ Associations reconstituted in the 1940s had no category of membership “rights”. see Chapter 1. 39. This was the justification made to revise the generic statutes by the ACF Poblado Dirigido de Fuencarral, Minutes of the General Assembly 9/IV/67. AGE, Cultura 43. 40. ACF of the Bloque de Ezequiel Peñalver y Adyacentes, 1966 Statutes. The original registration form was dated March 13, 1967, and was included in the RACM file for what became the Asociación de Vecinos del Bloque de Ezequiel Penalver after April 4, 1978. 41. The original request was dated 7/X/70. The DN’s approval was sent 18/XII/71. AGE, Cultura 222. 42. There is no direct evidence that the Alicante initiative was the model for the revised “family association” statutes, but it seems likely, given the DN’s enthusiastic response. 43. The term refers to the partly metaphorical use of the word “discussion”, which in this sense is not a specific discussion among specific individuals, but “public debates that swirl around us in the media, in our reading and in our interactions with other people”. Gee, Introduction, p. 49. 44. Boletín de Información de la Asociación de Propietarios y Vecinos de Moratalaz, IX/71. 45. Boletín de la Asociación de Propietarios, Colonia Diego Velazquez, I&II/70. 46. Alto: Boletín de la ACF Alto Extremadura, VII–IX/70. 47. Boletín de Información de la Asociación de Propietarios y Vecinos Puente de Vallecas, VII/69. 48. Boletín Moratalaz, II/68. 49. Boletín Diego Velazquez, VII/65. 50. This focus on individual benefits may also be linked to the “specific” nature of the “large family” associations. Voz de Castilla, 14/V/72. AGE, Cultura, 224. 51. This was the sentiment expressed by the founders of the ACF Peñaflor (Sevilla), according to the DP report. 25/I/64. AGE, Cultura 26. 52. Boletín ACF Puente Vallecas, I/69. 53. Boletín de Información de la Asociación Familiar de Cuartel de la Montaña, III/72. AGE, Cultura 41. 54. Boletín Diego Velazquez, IX/65. 55. The awareness of economic transformation and its impact on sociability was especially common in formerly rural communities being incorporated into metropolitan areas. In one example, the report on the formation of the

Notes

56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

65. 66. 67.

68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87.

371

ACF Peñaflor (Sevilla) explicitly talked about the influx of new workers and the concern to monitor the impact of population increase. 25/I/64. AGE, Cultura 26. The President focused on economic cooperativism, while the priest spoke in the language of civility. Memoria, 1964, AGE, Cultura 27. From a La Vanguardia article (25/V/72) reporting on the Congress of the Provincial Federation of Family Associations. AGE, Cultura 224. Annual Report, 1968. Barrio Estrella. RACM file. Bol Cuartel de la Montaña, V/72, AGE, Cultura 41. Other examples can be found in the bulletins of Diego Velazquez, Alto Estremadura, Coslada, Barrio Estrella, and Getafe. Boletín de Información de la ACF Coslada, V/75, BN. Boletín Colonia Manzanares, X/61. Boletín Moratalaz, VI/71. Boletín de la ACF Barrio Aeropuerto IX/64, AGE, Cultura 32. Social trust defines relations with “non-intimates”, and is one of the principles at the center of social capital. See Eva Cox, “Diversity and Community”, p. 79. Letter from a member, Boletín Cuartel de la Montaña, IV&V/73. AGE, Cultura 41. Memoria, undated, ACF Alto Arenal. AGE, Cultura 65. First “ponencia” at a regional Movimiento conference (no date), written by Jorge Jordana de Pozas (who later becomes the DN). AGE, Cultura 182. A similar statement was included in a ponencia at the July 1973 provincial family association conference in Barcelona. Cultura 224. 7/VII/70 assembly. Association of the Colonia Primo de Rivera. RACM file. 22/XI/72 clipping. AGE, Cultura 224. Circular Informativa ACF San Fernando de Henares, #11, XI/69. AGE, Cultura 70. Boletín ACF, Alto Estremadura, V/68. AGE, Cultura 71. Boletín Diego Velazquez, VII/65. Boletín ACF Moratalaz, IV/72. Speech printed in El Faro (Vigo), 17/VI/70. AGE, Cultura 230. Boletín Moratalaz, IV/71. Clipping citing speech at inauguration of ACF Aguilar de la Frontera, no date (@ 1964). AGE, Cultura 28. 20/I/73. “Plan for 1973”. AGE, Cultura 230. 17/V/74. The campaign was entitled “Diffusion of Family Doctrine”. AGE, Cultura 227. 17/III/73 Clipping. AGE, Cultura 224. Clipping, 6/11/73. AGE, Cultura 223. Boletín Moratalaz, X/70. Boletín Puente Vallecas, X/74. Boletín Alto Estremadura, II/68. AGE, Cultura 182. Fundamentals of Family Associations. Boletín Alto Estremadura, IV/69. AGE, Cultura 71. Boletín Diego Velazquez, I/67. Boletín Moratalaz, 10/70. Questionnaire in Hoja Familiar, of the Provincial Federation of Cáceres, I/70. AGE, Cultura 225.

372 Notes 88. Boletín Cuartel de la Montaña, V/71. It’s women’s section was called “The Woman’s Corner”. 89. Examples of such arguments can be found in the bulletins of Alto Estremadura (IV/69) and Boletín Moratalaz (VI/72). 90. Interview with the new President, Boletín Diego Velazquez, I/72. 91. Clipping, 20/VI/72. AGE, Cultura 224. 92. 14/XI/72. AGE, Cultura 228. The response to the petition is not in the file. 93. Interview, spring 1971, in local newspaper. AGE, Cultura 222. 94. Boletín Coslada, VII/77. 95. Boletín Moratalaz, X/70. 96. In the corporatist system, there were three “pillars” of the social order: the town, the syndicate, and the family. For the Cortes, a third of the representatives were to be nominated by local governments, a third by syndicates, and the last third by “the family”. The dispute was over which voice/voices represented the family. The Movimiento criticized the “liberal” version of allowing all heads of household in a district to vote individually for the family “tercio” representative. 97. Some examples of such arguments are: the presentation on the “future potential of family associations” at the I Provincial Assembly in Madrid, VI/73 (AGE, Cultura 229), the provincial head of the Movimiento’s closing speech at the I Provincial Assembly in Guadalajara, X/73 (AGE, Cultura 226), and speeches at the Provincial Federation Assembly in Alicante, reported in La Verdad, 13/II/72 (AGE, Cultura 222). A counterargument can be found in Nueva Rioja’s 29/XI/74 editorial, in which the author argues that family associations were not the ideal channels for public representation because of their links to the Movimiento and their specific and narrow needs (AGE, Cultura 228). 98. This defeat was defined as the background to familiarista Enrique Villoria Martínez’ project to form an openly political wing of the movement, the “Unión Popular Democrática”, in 1975. Nuevo Diario 12/IV/75, AGE, Cultura 182. 99. Interestingly, according to documentation from Alicante, it was a local ACF in that province that first proposed the idea of corporate voting for city councillors at a provincial conference held in IV/66 in Benidorm. It was approved by the Provincial Federation and forwarded to the DN on 28/IV/70, with no explanation of the delay. AGE, Cultura 222. 100. Nueva Rioja 29/XI/74. 101. Interview in La Coruña, 24/I/73. AGE, Cultura 226. 102. Newspaper clipping of interview, no date, but with others dated III/IV 1971. 103. Boletín Moratalaz, IV/72. 104. 1964 newspaper clipping. AGE, Cultura 28. 105. First Assembly of the Provincial Federation of the Movimiento, VI/73. Presentation on “Family Associations”. AGE, Cultura 229. 106. Report of organizing commission of the ACF Mejorada del Campo, no date (@ XI/72). AGE, Cultura 104. 107. Boletín Diego Velazquez, VIII/65. 108. 27/XI/74. Letter, ACF Alcala de Chivert, to DN. AGE, Cultura 225. 109. Hoja Familiar of Cáceres, I/70. AGE, Cultura 225. 110. VI/73. AGE, Cultura 229. 111. Letter from DP Baleares to DN, 17/VI/70. AGE, Cultura 223.

Notes

373

112. Bol Alto Estremadura, IX/69. AGE, Cultura 71. 113. Speech to the Provincial Assembly of Ciudad Real, 19/XII/72. AGE, Cultura 331. Virtually the same phraseology is attributed to Familia Española in an article in the Bol Moratalaz, XI/71. 114. La Voz de Castilla (V?/73). Editorial. AGE, Cultura 224. 115. Memoria, 1964. AGE, Cultura 27. 116. Interview, clipping 10/II/73. AGE, Cultura 223. 117. 28/IV/70. Letter to?, AGE, Cultura 222. 118. Acta, 22/XII/63. AGE, Cultura 27. 119. Letter to DN, No date. AGE, Cultura 229. 120. From the 24/VI/63 order establishing the ACFs. Cited in the report of the DP of Lerida, 27/IV/64. AGE, Cultura 27. 121. The rest of his “plan of action” focused on the battle between the family and its enemies, which were marxism but also economic transformation. 20/I/73. AGE, Cultura 230. 122. Letter to DN, 30/V/63. AGE, Cultura 26. 123. Report of the DP, Zaragoza, 14/I/64. AGE, Cultura 27. 124. Report on the formation of the ACF Borja (Zaragoza), 17/X/63. Jefe de Servicio Nacional de Asociaciones Familiares del Movimiento. AGE, Cultura 26. He made similar comments to the DP in Madrid (29/IV/64) in regards to the statutes of the ACF Parque de Avenidas. The unelected representatives of the DP and the city government could be “prejudicial to the life of the association” and were not part of the norms, he concluded. AGE, Cultura 32. 125. 19/XII/72. AGE, Cultura 331. 126. Letter, DN to DP of Alicante, 18/XII/74. AGE, Cultura 222. 127. Report XII/63 on the ACF Pizarelles. AGE, Cultura 26. 128. Letter to Jefe Nacional del Servicio de Asociaciones Familiaries, 20/IV/64. (Cultura 27.) 129. Letter to DN. No date, probably 1972. He also noted that he had sent his ideas for reforming the model statutes to the DN, but had received no reply. AGE, Cultura 226. 130. La Voz de Galicia 27/II/72. 131. La Gaceta Regional 26/V/71. Since this is several years after the Pizarelles report, it may or may not be the same DP. AGE, Cultura 230. 132. Letter from Mayor of San Martín de la Vega to DP (19/VII/67) and reply 26/X/67. 133. 14/I/64 report. AGE, Cultura 27. 134. ACF Parets. 16/IX/70 DP report to the Technical Secretary of the Movimiento. AGE, Cultura 224. 135. ACF San Fernando de Henares, letter from DN to DP, no date, @ II/70. AGE, Cultura 229. 136. Letter to DN, 16/XII/71. AGE, Cultura 222. His discursive strategy can be recognized without ignoring the fact that this was a pragmatic appeal for money. 137. Letter to DN, 24/IX/74. AGE, Cultura 225. 138. “No se les va a mediatizar de ninguna parte”. Voz de Castilla 14/V/72. AGE, Cultura 224. 139. Part of a series on “Political Principles that Inspire the Creation of ACFs”. Hoja Informativa IX/64 (ACF Barrio Aeropuerto, Madrid). AGE, Cultura 32.

374 Notes 140. Hoja Familiar, first issue, I/70. Bulletin of the Provincial Federation of Cáceres. AGE, Cultura 225. 141. Boletín Diego Velazquez, I&II/70. 142. 19/XII/72. Presentation on “Family Participation”. AGE, Cultura 331. 143. Report of the Director de Gabinete Tecnico, DNF, 9/XII/75. AGE Cultura 183. 144. 15th Curso de Orientación Política-Administrativa, 10/X/75. 145. Interview with President of the ACF in Alicante. Clipping, no date, @ spring 1971. AGE, Cultura 222. 146. Boletín ACF Coslada, III–IV/75. 147. Bulletin, ACF Parque de las Avenidas, VIII–IX/64. AGE, Cultura 32. 148. The first quote was from an editorial in an Alicante newspaper, 14/II/72 (AGE, Cultura 222), and the second from the Bulletin, ACF Cuartel de la Montaña, Spring 1974, #10. 149. Speech printed in Solidaridad 24/V/72. AGE, Cultura 224. 150. Bulletin, Barrio Aeropuerto, IX/64. AGE, Cultura 32. 151. The original registration form was dated March 13, 1967, and was included in the RACM file for what became the Asociación de Vecinos del Bloque de Ezequiel Peñalver after April 4, 1978. 152. Letter to DN, 25/II/74. AGE, Cultura 28. 153. Cited in Doblon, 16/VIII/75. 154. Discussed in the Boletín de la ACF Coslada, VI/74. (BN). 155. Boletín Moratalaz, X/70. 156. Clipping, 10/II/73, AGE, Cultura 223. 157. El Correo Catalan, 16/VI/72. AGE, Cultura 224. 158. “Report on the Suspension of Family Associations in Vizcaya”, 30/IX/72. AGE, Cultura 222. However, it is also important to note that these family associations were legalized through the 1964 law, not through the Movimiento hierarchy. 159. In two examples, in Las Palmas and Granada, the DP wrote of rumors that orders were being sent from Holland or Paris to infiltrate their associations. Letter 8/X/70 regarding the ACF Isleta, AGE, Cultura 227. Letter DP Granada to DN, 2/IX/70, AGE, Cultura 226. 160. The counterculture magazine, Andalán, did a story on them in VII/75. 161. Boletín Moratalaz, VI/72. 162. V Ponencia, no date. AGE, Cultura 182. 163. La Voz de Castilla, 14/V/72. AGE, Cultura 224. 164. The bureaus under attack were the Obra Sindical de Hogar and the Instituto Nacional de Vivienda. Boletín de Informacion de la Diputacion Provincial de Asociaciones del Movimiento, num.1 (VII/69). AGE, Cultura 182. 165. Letter from Provincial Federation of Caceres to all ACFs, 3/XII/76, urging them to vote in Suarez’ referendum. AGE, Cultura 225. 166. AGE, Cultura 224. 167. Speech in Cadiz, printed in La Voz del Sur, 16/II/77. AGE, Cultura 225. 168. Letter to Civil Governor of Vitoria, 1/IX/76. AGE, Cultura 222. 169. Report on Family Association Movement in Oviedo, June 1977. AGE, 223. 170. 7/I/77 Manifesto. AGE, Cultura 223. 171. Minutes, General Assembly, January 15, 1978. They also changed the name from Vicente Alexandre to Suanzes, for unknown reasons. RACM.

Notes

375

172. Britt Thuren defines this deeper meaning of vecino, and argues that it was one of the key symbols uniting the movimiento vecinal. Chapter 3, “Discourses in the Movement”, unpublished mss, Making Barriosm Making Persons: Grassroots Politics and Gender Change in Urban Spain. 173. In Madrid, these included the AF Vicente Alexandre (now AV Suanzes Parque Madrid) the ACF in the Barriada de los Estudiantes in Leganés, and the AV Ciudad Residencial Santa Eugenia. (RACM.)

5 Women and Familiarismo: The Civic Discourse of the Homemaker Associations 1. Letter, President of the Almería AAC to Secretary General Belén Landaburu, 21/V/69. AGE, Cultura 179. 2. Some of the associations were Amas de Hogar rather than Amas de Casa, for reasons that are not entirely clear, but there seems to be no functional reason to distinguish between them. Thus, in this text “AAC” or “homemakers’ associations” is used generically to refer to both. The translation of “ama de casa” or “ama de hogar” as homemaker rather than housewife reflects the word’s origins as “mistress” or “master” of the house. I thank the anonymous reader of the mss for this suggestion. 3. María del Carmen Muñoz Ruíz, “Las revistas de mujeres durante el franquismo”, in Mujeres y hombres en la España franquista: sociedad, economía, política y cultura, edited by Gloria Nielfa Cristóbal (Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 2003), p. 107. Muñoz examines the changing discourse of the “female” magazines, which, from the early 1960s, increasingly recognize the need for the ama de casa to adapt to modern times, educate herself, and even, perhaps, enter the workforce. Rosario Ruiz Franco makes a similar argument about the changing state of opinion with regards to women’s legal status in Eternas menores? Las mujeres en el franquismo (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2007). She focuses on the efforts of two female lawyers, but in the context of public debates in such venues as Teresa and ABC. 4. ABC was/is a catholic/conservative daily newspaper, Ama was a “women’s magazine” for homemakers, Teresa was the magazine of the Sección Femenina, and Cuadernos para el Diálogo was a reformist journal that brought together dissident Catholics, democrats and Marxists. While the outlines of an evolving gender discourse are apparent, Ruíz Franco notes that there hasn’t been much research on this topic, with most scholarship on gender policy and discourse either focused on the early decades of the regime or assuming continuity throughout the 40 years. Eternas menores, p. 25. 5. For a discussion of these campaigns, see Inbal Ofer, Señoritas in Blue: The Making of a Female Political Elite in Franco’s Spain: The National Leadership of the Sección Femenina de la Falange (1936–1977) (London: Sussex Press, 2009), Chapter 3. 6. Inmasculada Blasco Herranz, “Citizenship and Female Catholic Militancy in 1920s Spain”, Gender and History, 19(3), November 2007, Victoria Enders, “Problematic Portraits: the Ambiguous Historical Role of the SF of the

376 Notes

7.

8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

Falange”, in Constructing Spanish Womanhood: Female Identity in Modern Spain, edited by Victoria Enders and Pamela Radcliff (New York: SUNY Press, 1999), Inbal Ofer, Señoritas in Blue rejects the label of “feminist” for the SF leaders because they didn’t challenge the existing patriarchal order. As Enders, Ofer, and Blasco have all argued, it has been difficult for feminist scholars to accept that traditionalist women’s groups could have developed a partly autonomous “women’s agenda” within the patriarchal hierarchies in which they were entrenched, for example, the Catholic Church and the Movimiento. The use of the word jornada is not easily translated, but it indicates a series of working sessions on a particular topic. Antonio Andújar, October 23, 1973, Valencia. AGE, Cultura 273. Interview published in the Bulletin of the Madrid homemaker association, V/72. BN. Interview published in the Madrid bulletin, V/72. BN. Carta Circular, num.2, undated (1966–1967). CIFEE archives. Letter, Pres AAC Albacete to DN. 19/VI/72. AGE, Cultura 222. X/71 Circular. CIFEE archives. Letter to DN, no date. The I Jornadas were held in X/73. AGE, Cultura 273. Clipping 10/II/73. Interview with DP Baleares. AGE, Cultura 223. Interview, V/72, Madrid bulletin. BN. Clipping, XI/68. AGE, Cultura 178. Projects listed in the Memoria of the Granada association, 1967. AGE, Cultura 81. While this “problem” was not usually specifically defined, in an interview with the President of the Baleares association, (clipping, Baleares, 18/I/69), the reporter asked whether amas “needed union because of the scarcity of domestic help”, to which the President responded that the issue was the “point of departure” for the association. AGE, Cultura 179. In the Avila case, the DP wrote that the “problem” of domestic service had generated an initial (unsuccessful) attempt to organize a homemaker association. Letter to DN, 9/II/67. AGE, Cultura 179. The quote comes from an interview with Carmen Rodríguez de Losada, President of the AAC in Bilbao. Correo Español, 24/I/68. This conclusion was drawn from a comparison of the information included in the small number of associational bulletins that survive, so it is only suggestive. Petition to the Sección Femenina, 20/XII/67. AGE, Cultura 179. From the first edition of the Valencia association bulletin, @ 1968. AGE, Cultura 178. Interview, El Diario Montanés, 22/II/69. AGE, Cultura 178. Campana, VI/72. BN. “The Promotion of Women Through Associations”. Printed in Diario Femenino 26/X/69. AGE, Cultura 179. Report on 1967 activities. AGE, Cultura 81. Campana. XII/74 and II/75. BN. Campana, XII/71. BN. “The Ama de Casa and Society”, by María Fernanda Zabala de Serra, 10/X/73. AGE, Cultura 273.

Notes

377

31. An ateneo was a cultural and educational center, in which members attended lectures, read newspapers, and engaged in other activities promoting personal and collective enlightenment. Cover letter for 1968 Memoria, sent to Administration official. 30/IV/69. RACM file. 32. 10/II/68 letter sent to members, announcing the upcoming General Assembly. RACM file. 33. 20/XII/67. Petition sent to DN Sección Femenina. AGE, Cultura 179. 34. Newspaper clippings, no date (@X/67). AGE, Cultura 178. 35. 1967 Memoria, Granada. AGE, Cultura 81. 36. Campana, VI/75. BN. 37. Gaceta del Norte, 19/XI/68. Interview with President Elena Sobrón. AGE, Cultura 178. 38. “Women in Marriage and Society”, Josefina Trillo-Figueras. 29/IV/69. RACM file. 39. I/72. BN. 40. Campana, XI/73, I/74, V/74. BN. 41. It was 8.8 percent in 1940. Ofer, pp. 87–88. 42. According to the reporter, it was the topic that generated the most vigorous discussion at the conference. La Mañana (Teruel), 15/III/68. AGE, Cultura 86. 43. Trocha, #4/72. Bulletin of AAC Madrid. 44. Diario Femenino, 26/X/69. From an article about the I Symposium of Amas de Casa. AGE, Cultura 179. 45. Clipping, N.D. (@ X/67). AGE, Cultura 178. 46. “comadrona, estanquera or reina” Speech at I Symposium, 26/X/69. AGE, Cultura 179. 47. III/72. BN. 48. Nosotras, 4th trimester, 1974. BN. 49. Trocha, #4/72. 50. Printed in Campana, XI–XII/75. 51. Police report on “Women in Civil Law”, 10/II/69. “Rights of Married Women”, Trocha, V/72. RACM file. 52. For an analysis of the protagonism of female lawyers and associations like the AEMJ in promoting changes in the legal status of women from the 1950s to the 1970s, see Rosario Ruíz Franco, Eternas menores. 53. Gregorio wrote about this in the Madrid bulletin, although the clipping is undated. RACM file. 54. Clipping, 3/IV/75. AGE, Cultura 182. 55. AGE, Cultura 179. 56. Cited in Campana, the Huesca association’s bulletin. 12/73. BN. 57. 19/IX/67. RACM file. 58. Carta Circular #1, 1966/67?. CIFEE archives. 59. Another interview, in Alerta, 16/IV/68. AGE, Cultura 178. 60. From the approval letter sent by the Ministerio de Gobernación, 21/X/69. 61. This discursive framing of associationism could also be found in the broader family association discourse, although it was a minority current there as well. 62. The Declaration of Principles was written in February 1967, while the press conference was held on 19/IX/1967. The phrase “enemies of our nation” is in the association’s 1968 Memoria. While one can see the individual hand of

378 Notes

63.

64. 65.

66. 67. 68.

69.

70. 71. 72.

73. 74.

75.

76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83.

the President in this language, what interests us here is not whether all the members shared her patriotic ideals but how they shaped the parameters of the discourse. RACM. From the DN’s speech at the I Jornadas in Valencia, 23/X/73. Likewise, in the homemaker association federation’s petition for a government subvention, the authors confirm that their associations “establish a better understanding and equilibrium between supply and demand, production and consumption”. (7/X/72). AGE, Cultura 273. 10/73. Belén Landaburu. AGE, Cultura 273. Re-printed in the first edition of their bulletin, Amahoa III/73. BN. The focus on the ama’s new role as a “mass consumer” in the new economy was part of the “modernizing” discourse in the female press as well, (see Muñoz Ruíz, “Las revistas de mujeres”) but the distinction lies in the collective framing of the role within the association rather than the focus on individual behavior. Program, I/72. AGE, Cultura 224. Reported in La Vanguardia Española, 20/I/72. AGE, Cultura 224. Printed in the association’s journal, Hacienda y Hogar, VI/74, but the same phrasing appeared in a Noticiero Universal interview on 12/XI/75. AGE, Cultura 273. This section of Villoria’s article, published in Familia Española, is excerpted in the Barcelona President’s press release, but neither the date of the original article nor of the press release is included. Judging from the dated response of the Federation President (22/II/71), we can estimate the time frame. Cultura 226. Published in the Madrid association’s Bulletin, V/72. BN. Letter, 22/II/71. AGE, Cultura 226. Undated letter. Interestingly, she criticized the Federation’s President for refusing to make a public defense of the homemaker associations. Cultura 226. An ad for the pamphlet, “Protagonista el Consumidor”, appeared in the Barcelona bulletin, Hacienda y Hogar, VI/74. The first of the articles on consumer associations appeared in IV/72, but continued periodically into 1975. A perusal of the index of Teresa reveals that the homemaker associations were rarely ever mentioned in any other context. A summary of Villoria’s talk and the announcement of Font’s were in León’s bulletin, III/74. AGE, Cultura 227. The bulletin also quoted him as saying that theirs was “one of the most hard-working associations in Spain”. 19/II/73, DP to Villoria. AGE, Cultura 226. Article in the Madrid association bulletin, II/72. BN. Editorial, “Reflexiones”, I/71. Bulletin of the AAC Valencia. AGE, Cultura 178. “Charlas en la Camilla”, Madrid association bulletin,?/72. 26/VI/69. Included in 1969 Memoria, RACM file. Stanley Payne, The Franco Regime, 1936–1975 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), pp. 514–515. Press Conference, 19/IX/67, and Carta Circular, n.d. RACM file. Acta, 26/VI/69. RACM file.

Notes

379

84. The request to approve the talk (5/XI/70) defined it as “civic education”. RACM file. 85. Campana, 10–11/73. BN. The fact that one of the association’s own leaders was running for a position on the city council no doubt helped motivate the lofty rhetoric, and in fact she was elected, as the December issue celebrated. 86. The quote comes from the minutes of the Burgos association assembly, 28/XI/75. AGE, Cultura 179. 87. Nosotras, X/74. BN. 88. Campana, VI/72. 89. 1968 Memoria, AGE, Cultura 81. 90. Hacienda y Hogar, VI/74. AGE, Cultura 273. 91. 1968 Memoria. RACM file. 92. From the Declaration of Principles. RACM file. 93. Copy of Conclusions sent to the members of the AAH Barcelona. AGE, Cultura 179. 94. Valencia bulletin, “Sugerencias”, II/71 (AGE, Cultura 178) and 1969 Memoria of Madrid (RACM file). 95. II/72. BN. 96. The speaker, Andoaín, represented the Provisioning Commission (Comisión de Abastecimiento), a division of the Ministry of Commerce. Printed in Vanguardia Española 26/X/69. AGE, Cultura 179. 97. This quote from the Plan was cited in a 1972 report of the AAC Madrid. AGE, Cultura 228. 98. 7/X/72. AGE, Cultura 273. 99. ABC, 16/IV/72. AGE, Cultura 273. 100. 14/II/67. RACM file. 101. 20/IX/67. RACM file. 102. Bulletin, VIII/72. RACM file. 103. 30/XII/71. AGE, Cultura 273. 104. Press conference 20/IX/67 and editorial VIII/72. Letter to Minister was in the same edition of the bulletin. RACM file. 105. Published in El Alcázar, 12/IV/75. AGE, Cultura 182. 106. TeleExpres 27/X/69, Jose Andoain, Director General of Consumption AGE, Cultura 179. 107. Co-written with Mariano Blanco. Bulletin, VI/72. BN. 108. Bulletin, IV/72, “Política de Precios”, by Josefina Trillo-Figueras. BN. 109. La Prensa, 3/VII/74, vs. full text of press release. AGE, Cultura 273. 110. Hacienda y Hogar, VI/74. 111. The conclusions were forwarded to the DN by Font. 22/I/76. AGE, Cultura 273. 112. Excerpts of the interview were printed in Huesca’s bulletin, Campana IV/75. 113. Interview with Diario SP 10/III/68. CIFEE archive. 114. Ya, 6/III/68. CIFEE. 115. Diario Español Tarragona, 2/III/68. CIFEE. 116. Vanguardia Español, 25/I/77. AGE, Cultura 223. 117. Without doing an exhaustive search of the entire local and provincial press, this section relies on clippings sent from local associations to the DN or the homemaker federation, which became part of their file in the Movimiento

380 Notes

118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128.

129. 130. 131. 132. 133.

134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149.

150. 151.

152.

archives. The claim about the “explosion” is in the 1968 Memoria of the Madrid association. RACM file. Minutes of Assembly, 2/XII/71. AGE, Cultura 273. 19/IX/67. Request for permission to hold press conference. RACM file. 22/III/68. AGE, Cultura 178. 3/V/67. AGE, Cultura 178. Clipping, XI/68. AGE, Cultura 178. Reported in the association bulletin, II/72. BN. TeleExpres, 17.IV/73. AGE, Cultura 223. La Prensa, 3/VII/74, (AGE, Cultura 273) Ya, 3/IV/75, (182) and Voz de Castilla, n.d. (224). Circular 21, 25/I/71. AGE, Cultura 273. 16/IV/72. AGE, Cultura 273. Articles from Alerta, Gaceta del Norte, and El Diario montanés. “Complete success” was referring to a first aid course, 22/VI/68 (GN), and the discussion took place after the annual General Assembly, 25/V/69 (Alerta) AGE, Cultura 178. 7/II/69. AGE, Cultura 179. Baleares, 18/I/69. AGE, Cultura 179. 26/X/69. AGE, Cultura 179. Alerta, 26/II/69. The photo was in a clipping from X/68. AGE, Cultura 178. The first quote comes from an editorial in a Cadiz newspaper, 13/I/77 (AGE, Cultura 225), the second from the 1972 Program of Activities in San Pablo, Asturias (Cultura 223). Clipping from a Málaga newspaper on the occasion of the I Jornadas of Family association Leaders, 10/VI/73. AGE, Cultura 229. Heraldo de Aragón, 20/II/75. (AGE, Cultura 183). Clipping in Lugo newspaper, 22/X/67. AGE, Cultura 178. 29/II/68. CIFEE archives. 29/II/68. CIFEE archives. 29/II/68. CIFEE archives. “Una pelea de mujerucas atrasadas y vociferantes”. Her critique of the press coverage was contained in a “confidential report”, 9/III/68. RACM file. La Gaceta del Norte, 19/XI/68. AGE, Cultura 178. Alerta, 16/IV/68. The reporter had been recruited to interview the Junta of the AAC Santander. AGE, Cultura 178. La Prensa, 24/X/69. AGE, Cultura 174. Trocha, I/72 and 5/72. BN. Campana, II/75. BN. Num.102, III/72. BN. 9/VIII/75. BN. 1/III/68. CIFEE archives. This article provoked an outraged response from Sedeño’s daughter, defending her mother against the “defamatory” stories published about the conflict. 20/III/68, Diario SP. CIFEE archive. El País, 3/VI/76. Mimeographed broadsheet, X/71. No information on which association produced it is given, but it must be one of the Madrid associations, given its location in the CIFEE archives. 29/IV/71. CIFEE.

Notes

381

153. 21/IX/73. CIFEE. 154. 27/VI/74. CIFEE. 155. Listed in the Ventas bulletin, Hoja #3 (II/72). CIFEE. Britt-Marie Thuren notes that, while “barrio” can refer to urban subdivisions in general, in everyday usage it refers to working-class areas. Chapter 3, “Discourses in the Movement”, unpublished mss, Making Barrios, Making Persons: Grass Roots Politics and Gender Change in Urban Spain. 156. “Mujer y Barrios” was one of seven “position papers” at the Jornadas. 157. Mss copy in CIFEE archives. 2/X/72. 158. CIFEE archives. 22/X/72. 159. From a broadsheet issued by the Madrid dissident associations. N.D., @ 1974. CIFEE. 160. 22/X/75. CIFEE archives. 161. Interview with Diario SP 10/III/68. CIFEE archive. 162. From a letter sent by the associations to the Mayor, 15/X/74. CIFEE archives. 163. 14/X/74. To the Ministerio de Gobernación. CIFEE. 164. Suspension letter sent to Asoc. Castellana, 24/II/75, contains the original wording of the boycott in capital letters. CIFEE archives. 165. Press release published in Ya, 17/IV/75. 166. 19/XI/75. CIFEE. 167. Jornadas Resolutions, XII/75. CIFEE. 168. 30/X/76. “Ideological Differences Prevent Unification of the Associations of Amas de Casa”. 169. In an open letter to President Suárez, the Federation leaders complained of the little attention paid to their organization. El País, 13/II/77. 170. The phrase was used in an article in El País, September 30, 1976. See also the statement of the Coordinadora Provincial de Amas de Casa on X/10/76, which complained about how the homemaker associations had been marginalized in the citizen movement. 171. El País, 10/IX/76. 172. The classic citizen movement chronicler, Manuel Castells, accepts this distinction when he argues that the housemakers’ associations diverted women from participating in the citizen movement. His judgment seems to rest on the presumed leadership of “militant communist women”, but such leaders were prominent in the AVs as well. City and the Grassroots, p. 271. 173. See Pamela Radcliff, “Citizens and Housewives”, Journal of Social History, 2002, for a fuller development of this theme. 174. El País, 11/2/76, 7/19, 2/13, 10/27, 1977. 175. The title of an editorial in Campana, V/77. 176. Campana, XII/76, II/77. 177. The “present political situation” was the subject of a Madrid association forum. Trocha, V/77. 178. 21/X/76, clipping, no masthead. AGE, Cultura 273. 179. Jimena, XI/76, XI/78, I/79. The XI/78 edition also included a legal analysis of the Constitution by a Judge who was also present at the roundtable. 180. Jimena, X/76. 181. Campana, IV/78. 182. Undated clipping from early 1976. AGE, Cultura 273. 183. At the first provincial assembly of homemaker associations in Cádiz. N.D. AGE, Cultura 225. He gave what was probably a similar talk to the Barcelona

382 Notes

184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194.

195. 196.

197. 198.

199. 200. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205. 206.

association, entitled “Familia y Democracia”. Letter of acceptance dated 21/III/77. Cultura 273. “La participación de las amas de casa”, Jimena, III/79. Campana, III/80. Campana, IV/77. Campana, XII/76. Trocha, #99, 1981. Campana, XII/76 and the Madrid association bulletin, X/77. Campana, V/77 and Trocha, 1981. Campana, XI/78 and Trocha, #99, 1981. El País, 8/VI/76. Press Conference, El País, 9/V/76. “The AV meetings occurred when husbands came home from work and the women had to cook dinner and be with the kids. As for the feminist associations, our members don’t yet have the consciousness of these groups.” El País, 4/III/77. Conclusion, “Primeras Jornadas”, III/1977. As in the conclusions at the 1977 Jornadas del Ama de Casa. In a report on the Jornadas published in the Ventas association bulletin (#4, March 1977), these issues were related to “discrimination against women”, but even this category doesn’t appear in the actual conclusions. The report said the themes most discussed by the 400 women in attendance were access to, and education about, birth control, and sites where adult women could develop themselves (lugares de formación) in ways that had been denied them as girls. Reporting on a recent assembly of the Asociación Castellana. Cuadernos para el Diálogo, 27/III/76. “Conclusions of the I Congress celebrated by the Provincial Federation of Asociaciones de Amas de Casa of Madrid”. 23/II/1980. The decision to change the name was made at this congress. CIFEE archives. The author was referring to the dissident AAC in Valladolid. 1/VII/76. El País, 25/IX/76. Statement from the I International Symposium for Consumer Defense, I/1977. CIFEE archive. Report of meeting, 14/II/76. CIFEE archives. 4/XII/76 letter of invitation to members. CIFEE archives. Ventas bulletin, March 1977 (?). Statement to the press, El País, 8/III/1977. From a statement on “The AAC and the elections”, issued by the Provincial Federation, V/1977. CIFEE archives.

6 The Civic Discourse of the Neighborhood Associations of Madrid: From Community Improvement to “Citizen Movement” 1. “Considerando que la enorme y vertiginosa expansion producida en los barrios Periféricos de las grandes ciudades, hace que las posibilidades de la Administración no basten para cubrir las vastas necesidades que, en todos los órdenes se plantean, por ello, a sus habitantes.

Notes

2. 3.

4.

5.

6. 7. 8.

9.

10.

383

Que existiendo, por el mismo motivo, situaciones en que estos se ven imposibilitados, de beneficiarse de las ventajas y de soportar las responsibilidades que acarrea una vida en común ordenada y equilibrada y que, por ultimo, exista una ordenación legal que tiende precisamente a posibilitar la solución de dichosos problemas, fundamentalmente regulando el derecho natural de Asociación y que, asimismo, estamos imbuidos de un fuerte Espíritu de trabajo y Cooperación con la Administración, en aquellos ámbitos en que, o bien no puede extenderse por razones de cantidad o bien deja a la libre iniciativa de los ciudadanos.” Bulletin, Colonia Diego Velázquez, I/68. Except where otherwise noted, the statutes of the Asociaciones de Vecinos are located in their files in the Registro de Asociaciones of the regional autonomous government of Madrid (RACM). To promote the flow of the text in this analysis, I will sometimes use the name of the neighborhood as a shorthand: as in “Palomeras Bajas included . . .”, instead of always specifying the “statutes of the AV Palomeras Bajas included . . .”. Thus, Estrella’s 1960 goal of an association with “exclusively social, cultural and recreational goals, as well as brotherhood and cooperation” appeared verbatim in the statutes of the AV Carcabas-San Antonio in 1967. In the same year, the AV Puerto Chico picked up the phrase of fomenting “brotherhood and cooperation”, but in this case “towards pursuit of the common good”. And, since Puerto Chico’s statutes served as the model for the AV in Ciudad Los Angeles (1969), Leganés (1972), Portugalete (1974), and the Polígono Franco Rodriguez (1973), these terms became part of the shared language of the AVs. Thus, even though Tetuán and Fuenlabrada (1975) formulated a different version of their goals, they included the pursuit of the “common good” and “brotherhood and cooperation” in their aspirations. See Gerard Imbert’s Los discursos del cambio: imágenes e imaginarios sociales en la españa de la transición (1976–1982) (Madrid: AKAL, 1990), for an extended argument about the transition as “semiotic object”. DGS letter to Min. Gob., December 1, 1960 (RACM). DGS letter to Min. Gob., May 30, 1961 (AGE, Gob. Caja 211). After the Movimiento created its ACF project, it offered “affiliation” as an option to integrate pre-existing associations while they could retain their original statutes and regulations. Of the handful of AV formed between 1960 and 1964 in Madrid, those in Moratalaz, Barrio Estrella and Diego Velazquez were affiliated with the Movimiento, according to references in their bulletins. For this reason, I have included the content of the bulletins as part of the Movimiento discourse in the previous chapter, but I have included their statutes, which were used by later AV, in this chapter. This wording is from the statutes of the Comunidad Vecinal Barrio Estrella (1960), but there are similar articles in Moratalez, Diego Velazquez, and the 1960 revised statutes of Manzanares. DGS letter September 8, 1960. This new phrase was red-lined by the government official as too broad, and appears in the approved version modified by a phrase that will become common; “not including those interests of an economic or class nature, because these fall under the purview of the Syndical Organization”.

384 Notes 11. This language was dropped in the 1966 revision, which simply obliged members to “support the decisions of the Assembly”. 12. The AV UVA Vallecas (1969) aimed to “watch over the morality and good name of the population”, and Alcalá de Henares—Universidad and Palomeras Sureste (1973) “to watch over public morality”. 13. Nexo, V/72. This bulletin of the AV Barrio Concepción is one of the few surviving/existing from the pre-1975 period. 14. It appeared in the AV Aluche’s pledge to “assure convivencia ciudadana” (1975) and in Las Matas’ version of “creating an ambience of pleasant convivencia ciudadana” (1976). 15. The AV San Blas was one of the few with an explicit project to do so, outlined in Assemblies in 1973 as the “participation of women”, in 1974 as the “integration of women” and in 1975 as the need to “create a women’s section”. 16. Nexo, V/72. 17. Boletín Ciudad San Pedro, VI/74. 18. Evidence of this agreement and its implementation is contained in two letters. One, written by the Asociación Familiar of Alameda de Osuna to the Civil Governor (September 7, 1977) refers directly to such an agreement. The other, written by the Asociación Familiar of the Ciudad Residencial Santa Eugenia (September 1977) mentions that their first set of statutes had been returned by the Civil Governor with a request that the association re-apply for legalization with the “estatutos-tipos”. RACM files. 19. Other examples supporting this chronology are: that the opposition journal Doblón combined its references to “barrio movements” or “citizen associations” at around the same time, and Cuadernos para el del Diálogo began indexing the “citizen movement” in the second half of 1976. 20. Notice in Arganzuela, I–III/77. 21. El País, 23/VI/76. 22. Arganzuela, first trimester, 1977. 23. Boletín, Carabanchel Bajo, III/IV/77. 24. Boletín, AV Ciudad de Los Angeles, IX/78. 25. Pregón, Fiestas Patronales 2/VI/76. 26. 17/XII/75 Agenda. 27. Report, 26/I/76. 28. Boletín Parque Aluche, 27/I/76. 29. After the new law of association in April 1977, the ACF Coslada became an AV, announcing that it had become part of the “citizen movement” in “name as well as in practice”. Boletín, VII/77. 30. Bulletin, La Coslada, June through September, 1976. 31. XI/75 internal bulletin of the Provincial Federation of Madrid. 32. Quoted in Tomás Rodríguez Villasante, Los vecinos en la calle: una alternativa democrática a la ciudad de los monopolios (Madrid: Ediciones de la Torre, 1976), p. 92. 33. Boletín Amantiel-Noviciado, XII/76, Arganzuela, first trimester, 1977. 34. A small selection of such theoretical/propagandistic literature includes: J. Rebollo and E. Ranon, et al. El movimiento ciudadano ante la democracia (Editorial Cénit: Madrid, 1977), I. Quintana, Apuntes para la participación ciudadana vista desde una asociación de vecinos (Madrid, 1977), special issue

Notes

35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

54. 55. 56.

385

of Documentación Social, Junio–Septiembre, 1975, “La acción en los barrios”, Jordi Borja, Los Movimientos sociales urbanos (Madrid: Ediciones Siap-Planteos, 1975) and Qúe son las Asociaciones de Vecinos?, (1977) Tomás Rodríguez Villasante, Los vecinos en la calle (1976), Manuel Castells, Ciudad, democracia y socialismo: la experiencia de las asociaciones vecinales madrileñas (Madrid: Siglo Ventiuno, 1977), Javier Garcia Y Dolores Gonzalez Ruiz, Presente y futuro de las AAVV (Madrid: Editorial Pecosa, 1976). Most of these works seemed to contain a mixture of theoretical and pedagogical aims, but they were clearly written with the goal of contributing to the immediate political moment. Thus, Villasante’s and Borja’s books were both based on talks they had delivered, and the Documentación Social special issue sought to connect the “barrio movement” to the general movement “that struggles for the fundamental transformation of our society” (p. 7). Imbert, p. 8. Neighbors in the Street: A Democratic Alternative to the Monopolistic City. Borja cites this book on p. 14. A reference to a talk by Castells on the “importance of the citizen movement in the establishment and functioning of a democratic regime” is in the March 1977 issue of Aluche. See especially part 6 of his The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983). City and the Grassroots, pp. 328–329. José Luís Martín Palacín, “Acontecimientos y reivindicaciones en los barrios: hacia un movimiento social urbano”, Documentación Social, num. 19, julio– sept, 1975, p. 43. Villasante, Los vecinos en la calle, pp. 65–66, lays out his ten points for the establishment of ayuntamientos democráticos. Reported in the AV Aluche bulletin, III & IV/77. La Paz, XII/75. Majadahonda: Boletín Informativa de la AV, III/77. Boletín, XII/79. Boletín AV Palomeras Sureste, II/77. Villasante, “La movilización por conseguir unas reivindicaciones concretas, la lucha por las reformas urbanas, sin apartarse de este objetivo, es un factor importantísimo tanto para conseguir la reivindicación en cuestión, como para dar un salto decisivo en el grado de conciencia de los vecinos”, pp. 55–56. The phrase “conciencia ciudadana” is found in Borja, Los movimientos sociales urbanos, p. 27. Boletín ACF Coslada, VII/76. Boletín AV Amaniel-Noviciado, XII/76. Boletín AV La Paz, XII/75. Boletín ACF Coslada, VI/76. 1975, p. 7. From a 21/VI/75 “Tele-Expres” interview. Cited in Javier Angulo Uribarri, “Análisis crítico de la acción de barrio”, Documentación Social, núm. 19 (julio– sept, 1975), p. 28. See, for example, Ruth Lister, Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives (New York: New York University Press, 1997), Chapter 6. El País, 19/XII/76. El País, 27/XI/77.

386 Notes 57. El País, 11/V/76. 58. El País, 23/IX/77.

7 The Civic Community in Practice: Family and Neighborhood Associations as “Schools of Democracy” 1. “La Asociación . . . quiere ser el medio y una oportunidad para que intervengas directamente en la resolución de los muchos problemas que te plantean esta sociedad.” 2. Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), Chapter 5. 3. There has been an ongoing debate among civil society theorists over what kinds of activities and associations are relevant to democratic development. On the one hand is Robert Putnam, who includes private (the infamous bowling leagues) as well as public associations, as long as they create social “trust”, while on the other hand social movement theorists emphasize specific oppositional democratic projects. See Larry Diamond’s chapter on “Civil Society”, in Developing Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), for a discussion of different approaches. Like Young, Diamond excludes “private” activities but doesn’t further differentiate between civic and political. 4. Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy, p. 162. 5. Gender and Citizenship: Politics and Agency in France, Britain and Denmark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 4. Both Siim and Young emphasize the Habermasian concept of communicative interaction. 6. On the skills developed in civil society, see Harry Blair, “Jump-Starting Democracy: Adult Education and Democratic Participation in Three Countries”, Democratization, 10(1), Spring 2003, pp. 54–55, 59. 7. Such as the AV San Juan Bautista, which collected 600,000 ptas/yr in dues in 1969 and spent 700,000 ptas, or the AV Ciudad de Los Angeles, which paid 9 million ptas in services in 1974. Registro de Asociaciones de la Comunidad de Madrid (RACM) files. 8. The access to outside funds was one of the major complaints of AV Presidents interviewed in a Doblón article (16/VIII/75), but this shouldn’t be exaggerated either, given the shrinking DN budgets and the numerous pleas for money from various ACF. Thus, when the ACF Valdeacederas asked the DN for money to build a social/cultural center, he replied that all he could offer was furniture when the project was completed. Letter, no date. AGE, Cultura 228. 9. Thus, the President of the ACF Poblado Dirigido Fuencarral described the range of activities organized by their new cultural center: theater, recitals, music, cultural visits, talks, library, films, and camping. Letter, 21/X/73. AGE, Cultura 229. 10. In Madrid, these were housing developments (colonias) like San Juan Bautista, Diego Velazquez, Prosperidad, Ciudad de Los Angeles, and Puente Vallecas. 11. An interesting case that reveals the exclusive identity of these associations was the April 6, 1979, vote taken by the AV Colonia Manzanares on the

Notes

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

387

issue of whether to expand to include the entire neighborhood of Moncloa. Many members worried about becoming a minority in the expanded association and wording was inserted in the statutes that if 51 percent of Colonia Manzanares residents petitioned for something it would have to be taken up by the Junta of the association. The proposal passed, but the government later vetoed the special privileges. RACM file. The AV Colonia Prosperidad was negotiating such a transfer in November 1972. RACM file. The 1975 Memoria thanks everyone who contributed. RACM file. Boletín I/69. The budget for that year included 80,000 ptas for the rent, 35,000 to fix up the place, and another 25,000 on lighting and furniture, RACM file. Minutes of General Assembly, 28/IV/74, II/75, VI/76. Letter from ACF President with clipping from Alcazar (6/VI/69). AGE, Cultura 60. RACM file. Boletín, X and XI/74. AGE, Cultura 64. Budgets. The AV San Blas maintained a high level of activity in general. In a dossier submitted to government censors in 1976, it claimed to have organized over 80 separate events over the past several years, from cultural activities to assemblies and demonstrations. El País 3/VIII/76. RACM file. Minutes of Assembly, 28/I/75. RACM file. Boletín, II/77. The committee’s accounting of its first year makes it clear it was just getting underway. RACM file. Relación de Actividades, early 1969. AGE, Cultura 81. AAC Granada, Relación de Actividades, early 1969. AGE, Cultura 81. Campana, VI/72. BN. Memoria 1968. AGE, Cultura 178. Alerta, 17/X/68 interview. AGE, Cultura 178. 8/XI/68. AGE, Cultura 81. Interview with the President, Bulletin, n.d. (1968) AGE, Cultura 178. Alerta, n.d. (@XI/68). AGE, Cultura 178. 29/III/73 DP report. AGE, Cultura 226. Jimena XI/76. BN. Memoria 2nd Trimester 1968. AGE, Cultura 81. Circular of AAC Lugo, n.d. AGE, Cultura 178. Memoria 1968. RACM file. Memoria of Conference. AGE, Cultura 273. 1971 Memoria, Ceuta association. AGE, Cultura 225. VI/76. Campana. BN. (Ventanielles): Acta 30/IV/65. AGE, Cultura 28. (Puerto Chico): Boletín, XI/73. RACM file. Boletín AV Moratalaz, X/70. V/72. Bulletin of the AV Covadonga. Boletín of the ACF Poblado Dirigido, Fuencarral, VII/71. AGE, Cultura 43. DP report, 11/XI/65. A 1968 program in the file indicates they continued organizing them. AGE, Cultura 42. Boletín, II/66. AGE, Cultura 71.

388 Notes 46. Programa de Festejos, VII/70, ACF San Cristóbal (Madrid). AGE, Cultura 60. 47. Pregón, June 26–29, 1976. RACM file. 48. Acta, Asamblea, 10/IV/78. The AV had held them in 1977 as well. RACM file. 49. Memoria Actividades 1964. AGE, Cultura 26. 50. Memoria 1964. AGE, Cultura 27. 51. Letter to DN, 21/VIII/73. AGE, Cultura 229. 52. Letter, President to DP, 25/V/69. The play was performed by the ACF’s youth section. AGE, Cultura 42. 53. According to the police report, 30/III/76. RACM file. 54. Budgets, RACM file. 55. Budgets, RACM file. 56. Boletín, I/71. 57. Boletín, XI/73. A commission was formed to plan them for the following summer and 28,000 pts was budgeted for “cultural acts” during the year. RACM file. 58. Acta Asamblea, 15/IV/73—discussed the end of year festival. Circular @VI/75 announced the new end of school year fiestas, and police reports of 21/X/76 and 22/X/76 provided attendance figures for that event. RACM file. 59. Boletín, II/77. RACM file. 60. 9/IV/67 Minutes of Junta General. AGE, Cultura 43. 61. Literally, “self-solutions”. Jordi Borja, Los movimientos sociales urbanos (Madrid: Ediciones Siap-Planteos, 1975), p. 100. 62. Boletín, XII/75. RACM file. 63. 1968 Program. AGE, Cultura 26. 64. Acta, Junta General, 22/IV/76. AGE, Cultura 148. 65. Arganzuela, #5, first trimester, 1977. 66. Memoria 1968. AGE, Cultura 65. 67. Alto, VII–IX/70. AGE, Cultura 71. 68. Letter, Jefe de Servicio Provincial de Asociaciones Familiares to DP, 2/IX/69. The Jefe asked for 10,000 pts to defray the high cost of the projects. AGE, Cultura 182. 69. Memoria 1964. AGE, Cultura 27. 70. Asamblea, 24/VI/71. RACM file. 71. Acta, Junta Directiva 9/I/65. AGE, Cultura 28. 72. “Protagonista el Consumidor”, co-authored with F. Hernández Castanedo. Summarized in Hacienda y Hogar, VI/74. 73. According to a speech at the II Jornadas de Consumidores. Proceedings summarized in Hacienda y Hogar, VI/74. 74. From a speech at the II Jornadas de Consumidores: “consumption is a new social role that has to be learned”. Hacienda y Hogar, VI/74. 75. Amahoa, III/73. AAC Guipuzcoa, in its section “Domestic Economy”. BN. 76. Trocha, #4,1972. BN. 77. This news from Barcelona was published in the Guipuzcoa bulletin, Amanoa, III/73. 78. II/68. From the 1968 history of the Barcelona association AGE, Cultura 179. 79. Clipping of interview, undated. III/71. AGE, Cultura 273.

Notes

389

80. II/73 letter to members. AGE, Cultura 225. 81. Campana, IV/75. 82. The booths were supervised by the association, but facilitated by the appropriate government agency. 1969 Memoria. RACM file. 83. Trocha, I/72, 11/72, articles by Josefina Trillo-Felguera. Also Hacienda y Hogar, VI/75, interview with Minister of Commerce and accompanying editorial. 84. “la política de abstención de compra”. Campana, I/76. 85. The petition was presented to the DP in 28/III/64 and read at the founding assembly on 17/IX/64. AGE, Cultura 27. 86. AGE, Cultura 148. 87. 28/V/71 assembly. AGE, Cultura 43. 88. RACM file. 89. Minutes, IX/78 assembly. RACM file. 90. Minutes, 15/IV/78 assembly. RACM file. 91. Letter published in ABC, no date. Stapled to 14/VI/76 report. RACM file. 92. Complaint by old President, 11/XII/77. RACM file. 93. Hoja Informativa, no date, @ VI/75. RACM file. 94. 14/VI/70 interview with dissidents, and 16/VI/70 response of old President, Arriba. Dissident petition dated 14/XI/72, and DP report dated 23/X/73. AGE, Cultura 228. 95. Boletín, III and IV/75. 96. Boletín, Moratalaz, VI/71. 97. AGE, Cultura 229. 98. The Fuero de los Españoles was the bill of rights issued by the regime in 1947. 14/XI/72 petition to the Cortes. AGE, Cultura 228. 99. Series of documents, 1969–1974, AGE, Cultura 224. 100. In the words of one police report, the dissidents at the 1967 assembly “went so far as to proclaim the need for demonstrating in public with posters and signs.” 3/III/67. RACM file. 101. Letter of dismissal sent to the members accused of participating in the February 68 assembly revolt. 29/III/68. CIFEE archive. 102. This phrase was used in the “Declaration of Principles”, 14/II/67, which was drawn up partially in reponse to the conflicts at the 1967 assembly. RACM file. 103. “Carta Abierta”, Madrid, 4/III/68. The story was also picked up by Europa Press. 104. 31/VIII/71. The events at the two assemblies were serious enough, in the words of the BRI report, “hasta el punto de que las asambleas eran verdaderas debates políticos.” RACM file. 105. Minutes, 16/XI/69 assembly, IV/72 and IV/74 assemblies. RACM file. 106. Boletín, XI and XII/70. 107. 31/I/72 general assembly. RACM file. 108. In the election of the Provincial Federation of Córdoba in May 1972. AGE, Cultura 226. 109. In another context, the new Junta of the ACF Coslada announced that “we have not been named dedocráticamente, but in a public assembly.” Boletín, V/74.

390 Notes 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123.

124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143.

144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152.

Report, Jefe de Servicio Nacional. AGE, Cultura 32. DP report, VII/64. AGE, Cultura 28. DP report on ACF San Fernando de Henares, 9/XI/73. AGE, Cultura 229. XI/72. AGE, Cultura 229. 21/III/67 Acta. AGE, Cultura 63. RACM file. 25/VI/74. AGE, Cultura 136. 19/V/72. AGE, Cultura 102. 28/X/66 assembly. AGE, Cultura 27. 31/I/65 assembly. AGE, Cultura 26. Boletín, IX/69. AGE, Cultura 71. Boletín, I–III/67. RACM file. Boletín, IX/66. RACM file. The full discussion is recorded in the minutes of the assembly, 28/IV/74, while the edited version appeared in the bulletin, IV–IX/74. The attendance at the assembly was described as much higher than the 450 votes that were submitted in the follow-up election. RACM file. Minutes, 24/VI/73 and 13/I/74 assemblies. RACM file. Minutes, 28/IV/74 assembly. RACM file. Minutes, 13/VI/76 assembly. RACM file. While attendance figures are not always provided, 653 members attended an assembly in II/75. Minutes of 27/IV/76 meeting of new provisional Junta Directiva described the history of this process. RACM file. Minutes, 6/II/77 assembly. RACM file. Minutes, 9/IV/67 assembly. AGE, Cultura 43. RACM file. Minutes, 26/VI/69 assembly. RACM file. Minutes, 16/XI/69 assembly. RACM file. Boletín, ACF Coslada, VI/71. Minutes, 27/II/77 assembly. RACM file. Boletín ACF Coslada, VI/71. Minutes, 25/IV/74. AGE, Cultura 33. Boletín, 27/I/76. RACM file. Two hundred people were in attendance. RACM file. Boletín, VI/71. Boletín, II/66 and IV/66. RACM file. Boletín, XI&XII/70. The President of the AV Leganes admitted to police that the association was holding assemblies for residents and members every 2 months. 13/VII/74. RACM file. 12/V/75 report. RACM file. 6/X/74 report. RACM file. 17/II/75 report. RACM file. 29/VI/75 report. RACM file. Literally, “cheering sections”. Doblón, 16/VIII/75. Boletín Colonia Diego Velázquez, IX–X/69. Boletín Diego Velázquez, V–VI/73. Boletín Cuartel de la Montaña, I–III/74. Boletín Coslada, IV/74.

Notes

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153. This AV was one of the affiliated family associations. Ejercicio, XII/73. RACM file. 154. Nexo, V/72. RACM file. 155. Alto, II/68. 156. Resumen 1972. RACM file. 157. 9/VI/72, Meeting of the Junta Directiva of the AV. RACM file. 158. Cited in La Vanguardia, 25/V//72. AGE, Cultura, 224. 159. 2/XII/68 police report on 26/XI and 29/XI assemblies, with 400 people at each. RACM file. 160. Boletín Alto Estremadura. AGE, Cultura 71. 161. Petition, 8/III/71 and Newspaper clipping, no date. AGE, Cultura 331. 162. Boletín, X–XI/74. 163. 31/V/74, Meeting of the Junta Directiva, RACM file. 164. 1968 Program, explicitly based on the questionnaire responses. AGE, Cultura 26. 165. 20/II/65. AGE, Cultura 26. 166. 14/III/74 report. AGE, Cultura 229. 167. Memoria 1964. AGE, Cultura 27. 168. 1968 Ejercicio. RACM file. 169. Boletín, I–III/74. AGE, Cultura 41. 170. No date. RACM file. 171. Petition of the Provincial Federation of Family Associations, Granada, to the DN, with their suggestions for revisions to the Education Law. No date, AGE, Cultura 226. 172. Boletín Alto Estremadura. AGE, Cultura 71. 173. Boletín ACF Getafe, VII/66. AGE, Cultura 33. 174. Editorial, Boletín ACF Coslada, VI/71. 175. Acta of Junta General, 28/V/71, with 300 members in attendance. AGE, Cultura 43. 176. 6/III/66. AGE, Cultura 28. 177. Boletín, XI/73. RACM file. 178. The AV Ciudad de los Angeles, AV Moratalaz, ACF Parque de las Avenidas, AV San Juan Bautista, AV Barrio Pueblo Chico, AV Barrio Estrella, are some of the associations with documented ongoing struggles with the construction company that built their neighborhoods. 179. President’s speech at 9/I/72 Assembly. For the 28/I/73 Assembly, there is a 10 page agenda full of impassioned attacks on the company. 180. His speech at a 28/IV/74 Assembly. RACM file. 181. 1969 Memoria. RACM file. 182. 2/XII/71 conclusions, published in Campana, XII/72. 5/II/75 Conclusions. AGE, Cultura 273. 183. 7/III/74. Boletín. AGE, Cultura 224. 184. Published in Nuevo Diario, 3/IV/75. 185. A V/72 petition of the Madrid association, printed in its bulletin. RACM file. 186. 7/III/74, Boletín of the Leon association, approving of the new regulations, for which they “have been lobbying for years”. AGE, Cultura 227. 187. 5/II/75 Conclusions of Federation AAC assembly. AGE, Cultura 273. 188. In letter sent by Barcelona President Font to DN, reflecting conclusions of recent assembly, 22/I/76. AGE, Cultura 273.

392 Notes 189. Published in El Correo Catalan, 3/I/76. AGE, Cultura 273. 190. V/72. 191. AGE: AAC Tenerife, 24/X/69, Cultura 178, AAC Baleares, X/73, Cultura 223, Federation 5/II/75, Cultura 273. 192. Letters from the AAC Tenerife to the Federation, 29/III/69, 1/VII/69, Cultura 178. Letter from the AAC Almeria, 27/XI/69, demonstrates that the issue was taken up in other provinces, Cultura 179. 193. Memoria, 1969. AGE, Cultura 81. 194. Letter from AAC Madrid to various government bodies, 12/II/73, Cultura 273. 195. 2/X/69, AGE, Cultura 178. In typical fashion, one of the major issues was getting some government office to accept responsibility for solving the problem. 196. A “defined contribution plan” in which women could invest funds for their retirement. 197. 25/I/71 letter from Federation to the member associations. Memoria of Federation, XII/71, recounts the presentation of the Secretary General, Belén Landaburu, to the Cortes, on 22/III/71. AGE, Cultura 273. 198. Boletín del Estado, 24/XI/72. AGE, Cultura 273. 199. “Resultados Objetivos del Análisis de la Encuesta Sobre la Situación de las AAC respecto a la Seguridad Social”, 7/III/73. This document is an analysis by a government expert of the original study. AGE, Cultura 273. 200. Report prepared by Federación Nacional de AAC, 20/XII/76. AGE, Cultura 273. 201. Memoria, Federation, XI/72. AGE, Cultura 273. 202. Campana, AAC Huesca, XII/71. 203. Memoria 1971, AGE, Cultura 273. In an April 1975 interview, the AAC Madrid’s President confirmed the continuation of this representation. Campana, IV/75. 204. Published in the BOE, #55, 4/III/72. AGE, Cultura 273. The Federation’s XI/72 Memoria claimed that this order was a result of their petition. 205. 25/II/69 letter from the President of AAC Baleares informing the Federation of these appointments (Cultura 179). In Lerida, a newspaper clipping (@ 1968) reported that the Civil Governor asked permission to appoint AAC reps to the Comisión de Rentas y Precios (Cultura 86). 206. 19/IX/67, Report of Abastecimiento Committee of AAC Madrid. RACM file. 207. Denied the first year, in 1972 the Federation re-submitted its petition, this time with a detailed plan of how the funds would be applied. Among the projects would be a weekly newspaper column with comparative local prices, a consumer consulting service, a pamphlet of general consumer information, and surveys or studies of family consumption issues. Memoria Federation, XII/71 and XI/72. Cultura 273. 208. Letter in the Boletín, IV and V/74. 209. Boletín, VI/71. 210. Letter, ACF Nuestra Sra Perpetua Socorro to the DP, 22/VI/70. AGE, Cultura 229. 211. Letter to President of Junta Municipal, 26/VIII/69. AGE, Cultura 65. 212. Congress, Summer 1973, Ponencia on Urbanism and Housing. AGE, Cultura 224.

Notes

393

213. The following narrative is constructed from the Memorias of 1967 and 1968, and various letters and petitions sent by the ACF. AGE, Cultura 43. 214. Letter to General Technical Secretary of the Movimiento, 19/IX/67. AGE, Cultura 43. 215. The following narrative is pieced together from the bulletin, between I/69 and IV/75. 216. Boletín, X/70. 217. Boletín, I/69. 218. Boletín, VII/71. 219. Boletín, I/74. 220. Boletín, X/69. AGE, Cultura 32. 221. Boletín, II/69. 222. Boletín, XI/73. RACM file. 223. The following narrative is constructed from the Boletín, 1968–74. 224. Boletín, VIII/68. 225. Boletín, IV/70. 226. Boletín, V/70. 227. Boletín, VIII/71. 228. Boletín, VIII and IX/72. 229. Boletín, II and III/72. 230. Boletín, XII/73. 231. Boletín, V/73. 232. Boletín, IX/71. 233. Boletín X and XI/72, III/73. 234. Report on Assembly, 17/II/75. RACM file. 235. Boletín, XII/75. RACM file. 236. Interview, Andalán, VII/75. 237. Letter, 26/VI/76. AGE, Cultura 222. 238. Boletín ACF Coslada, I and II/75. 239. DN Report, 3/XII/70. AGE, Cultura 222. 240. Internal Movimiento report, 17/III/75. AGE, Cultura 82. 241. Letter, Consejero provincial of Movimiento to DN. 26/VI/76. AGE, Cultura 222. 242. Circular 21/XII/76, Ministry of Política Interior to the Civil Governors. AGE, Cultura 222. 243. 5/VII/72. AGE, Cultura 223. 244. RACM file. The same point was made in a VI/75 assembly. 245. Boletín, V/74. 246. Boletín, III and IV/75. 247. Heraldo, 20/XI/76. AGE, Cultura 183. The letter explained how efforts to get the city to fund a necessary access road dated back to 1973. 248. The following narrative is pieced together from documents in the RACM file. 249. All of these steps were laid out in the Boletín, XII/75. RACM file. 250. Boletín Informativa de la Antigua AV Las Rozas, V/77. 251. This information was included in a press release sent to El Pais, 3/VIII/76. RACM file. 252. This occurred in Carabanchel Alto (Boletín XII/75) and Coslada (IX/77). 253. Heraldo de Aragon, 19/II/76. AGE, Cultura 183.

394 Notes

Conclusion/Epilogue 1. Bryan Turner has developed a formal typology of how citizenship gets situated along the passive/active and the public/private axes. “Outlines of a Theory of Citizenship”, Sociology, 24, 1990. 2. Cited in, Ramón Cotarelo, ed., Transición política y consolidación democrática: España 1975–1986 (Madrid: CIS, 1992), pp. 494–496. 3. Ramón Cotarelo, “La Constitución de 1978”, in La Transición Española (Madrid: Editorial Sistema, 1989), p. 325. 4. Cotarelo, “La Constitución de 1978”, p. 331. 5. Andrea Bonime-Blanc makes this point in Spain’s Transition to Democracy: The Politics of Constitution-Making (New York: Westview Press, 1987), pp. 94–95. 6. Antonio Hernández Gil, “La persona en la Constitución”, in Perspectivas de una España democrática y constitucionalizadora, V.III (Madrid: Union Editorial, 1979), pp. 551–553. 7. Luís Sánchez Agesta, Sistema político de la Constitución Española de 1978 (Madrid: Editoriales de Derecho Reunidos, 1985), pp. 189 Y 194–195. 8. Schmitter and O’Donnell sum up the social democratic strategy in Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), pp. 11–12. The more recent debate between defenders of the welfare state and neo-conservatives has been whether certain entitlements actually create passivity rather than the context for participation. 9. Santiago Miguel González provides a detailed account of the formation of these organizations, in La Preparación de la transición a la democracia en España (Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza, 1990), pp. 418–480. 10. Luís Enrique Alonso, “Los nuevos movimientos sociales y el hecho diferencial español: una interpretación”, en José Vidal-Beneyto, España a debate: la sociedad (Madrid: Editorial Tecnos, 1991), p. 87. 11. Alonso, “Los Nuevos Movimientos”, p. 92. 12. González, La Preparación, pp. 244–245. 13. González, La Preparación, pp. 451–454. 14. González, La Preparación, p. 459. 15. José Vidal-Beneyto, “Volver a empezar o la ruptura ciudadana”, El País, April 8, 1995. 16. On the “lessons” of the Civil War as a context for the transition, see Paloma Aguilar Fernández, Memoria y olvido de la guerra civil española (Madrid: Alianza, 1996), and Laura Desfor Edles, Symbol and Ritual in the New Spain: The Transition to Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 17. Manuel Castells, The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983), p. 225. 18. El País, September 25, 1977. The PTE also opposed the idea. 19. Peter Donaghy and Michael Newton, Spain: A Guide to Political and Economic Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 120–121. 20. Joan Subirats, Introduction, Existe sociedad civil en España?: responsibilidades colectivas y valores públicos, edited by Subirats (Madrid: Fundación Encuentro, 1999), p. 23.

Notes

395

21. Peter McDonough, Doh Shin and Jose Alvaro Moises, “Democratization and Participation: Comparing Spain, Brazil and Korea”, Journal of Politics, 60(4), 1998. 22. Victor Pérez Díaz, Spain at the Crossroads: Civil Society, Politics and the Rule of Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). His classic work defining a major role for civil society in the transition is The Return of Civil Society: The Emergence of Democratic Spain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). In his recent re-assessment, he is more circumspect about the current strength of Spain’s civil society. 23. Gunther Dietz, El desafío de la interculturalidad: el voluntariado y la Ong ante el reto de la inmigracion: el caso de la ciudad de Granada (Granada: Fundación La Caixa, 2000). ˇ democrática”, in 24. Cited in Joan Botella, “La cultura política en la Espana Transición política y consolidación democrática: Espaˇ na, 1975–1986, edited by Ramón Cotarelo (Madrid: CIS, 1992), p. 135. See also Joan Subirats’ Introduction to Existe Sociedad Civil for a similar argument (pp. 20–28). 25. This claim is based on anecdotal evidence of individual trajectories, but can’t be confirmed until research is carried out on the career trajectories of former AV leaders. 26. José Rodríguez Después de una Dictadura: Cultura autoritaria y transición política en España (Madrid: Centro De Estudios Constitucionales, 1987), p. 42. 27. See his articles in El País, “El soborno de la ciudadanía” (December 3, 1992), and “Crédito y credulidad” (January 23, 1993). 28. Victor Pérez Díaz, Spain at the Crossroads. On page 46 he mentions this view. 29. Cayo Sastre García, Transición y desmovilización, p. 73. 30. Luís Enrique Alonso, “Los Nuevos Movimientos”, pp. 94–96. 31. “Volver a empezar o la ruptura ciudadana”, El País, April 8, 1995. 32. Rafael del Aguila Tejerina, “El problema del diseño político de la transición española”, Documentación Social, num. 73, Octubre–Diciembre, 1988, p. 39. See also his El discurso político de la transición española (Madrid: CIS, 1984). 33. Geoff Eley makes this general point in Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 428. 34. The argument is cited in Cayo Sastre Garcia, Transición y Desmovilización Política 1975–1978 (Valladolid: Universidad De Valladolid, 1997), p. 38. In the Spanish literature, a similar argument that equates demobilization with the modernization of democratic politics is made by Joan Botella, “la cultura política en la España democrática”, pp. 133–134. 35. Eley uses the term “radical democracy” in Forging Democracy, while José Vidal-Beneyto employs citizen democracy. See his article criticizing the transition from this perspective in El País (April 8, 1995). 36. Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 156. 37. Forging Democracy, p. 428.

Bibliography Archives AGE Archivo General del Estado (Alcala de Henares): This national government archive contains all documentation produced by, or sent to, government officials working for the various ministries. Since the Movimiento was housed in the Ministerio de Cultura (Cultura), all of the official documentation for the Family Associations is catalogued within this section of the archive. Some material on associations is also located in the Ministerio de Gobernación (Gob) (Ministry of Interior) section, because the 1964 Law of Association was issued through this Ministry. This documentation includes correspondence between local or provincial and national Family Association personnel, newspaper clippings and other information on local associations, annual reports, and statutes. Archivo de la Seccion Femenina, Academia de la Historia (Madrid): Contains official documentation of the SF national headquarters, including agendas and discussions at the national congresses. RACM: Registro de Asociaciones de la Comunidad de Madrid (Madrid): The register of associations is an active government office, but it contains an archive of all associations registered with the community of Madrid. Association files include a variety of documentation, from statutes, to police reports, to annual reports, and requests to hold activities. Fundacion CIFEE: A private feminist archive that contains documents of the dissident homemaker associations in Madrid as well as on the MDM in Madrid. The collection has since been donated to the Civil War archive in Salamanca. Communist Party Archives (Madrid): The official archives of the PCE. Includes microfilmed clandestine reports during the dictatorship from PCE militants in Madrid to the party leaders in exile. Biblioteca Nacional: Has editions of bulletins of various ACF, AAC, AV, and APA.

Association publications Amahoa: Boletín de la AAC Guipúzcoa Arganzuela, Boletín de la AV Boletín de la AAC Leon Boletín de la ACF Colonia Manzanares Alto: Boletín de la ACF Alto Extremadura Boletín de la ACF Parque de las Avenidas Boletín de la ACF Poblado Dirigido, Fuencarral Boletín de la ACF de Getafe Boletín de la Asociación de Propietarios, Colonia Diego Velázquez Boletín de la AV Aluche Boletín de la AV Amaniel-Noviciado Boletín de la AV Barrio Aeropuerto 396

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397

Boletín de la AV Carabanchel Alto Boletín de la AV Carabanchel Bajo Boletín de la AV Colonia de La Paz Boletín de la AV Ciudad San Pablo Boletín de la AV, Ciudad de Los Angeles Boletín de la AV, Entrevías Boletín de la AV La Paz Boletín de la AV Palomeras Altas Boletín de la AV Palomeras Sureste Boletín de la AV Parque Aluche Boletín de la AV Puerto Chico Boletín de la AV UVA Vallecas Boletín de la Federación Madrilena de AAVV Boletín de Información de la ACF Coslada Boletín de Información de la Diputación Provincial de Asociaciones del Movimiento, Madrid Boletín Informativa de la Asociación de Propietarios y Vecinos de Moratalaz Boletín Informativa de la Antigua AV Las Rozas Boletín de Información de la Asociación de Propietarios y Vecinos Puente de Vallecas Boletín de Información de la Asociación Familiar de Cuartel de la Montaña Campana: Boletín de la Asociacion de Amas de Casa de Huesca Carabanchel: Organo de las Plataformas de Barrio Familia Española Hacienda y Hogar: Boletín de la Asociacion de Amas de Hogar Barcelona Hoja Familiar: Boletín de la Federación Provincial de Cáceres Hoja Informativa de la ACF Barrio Aeropuerto Jimena: Boletín de la Asociacion de Amas de Casa de Burgos Madrid Lucha Popular Majadahonda: Boletín Informativa de la AV Nexo: Boletín de la AV Barrio Covadonga Sugerencias: Boletín de AAC Valencia Trocha: Boletín de la Asociacion de Amas de Casa de Madrid

Contemporary newspapers/journals Teresa Vindicación La Voz de Castilla Cuadernos para el Diálogo Doblón Documentación Social Dones en lluita El País

Books and articles Aguilar Fernández, Paloma. Memoria y olvido de la guerra civil española. Madrid: Alianza, 1996.

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Index

Acción Católica, 26, 46, 69–70 membership, 68 activities of associations, private, 273–7 and AAC, 278–81 cultural, 277 definition of, 273 mutual aid, 276 recreational, 276 social center, 276 services, provision of, 276 activities of associations, civic “auto-soluciones” for urban problems, 284, 299–300 for “community development”, 283 definition of, 273 democratic participation, rank and file, 294–7 democratic process, debates over, 287–90 election procedures, debates over, 290–4 fiestas, public, 281–2 self-government, performing, 287 surveys, community, 284 for vecinos and members, 281 activities of associations, civic (of AAC) consumer education and campaigns, 285–7 democratic procedure, debates over, 289–90 activities of associations, political collaborative relations with the state, in practice, 298–302 collaborative relations with the state, breakdown of, 306–12 definition of, 273, 297–8 oppositional relations with the state, definition, 298 oppositional relations with the state, evolution of, 312–16

activities of associations, political (of AAC) collaborative relations with the state, 302 for children’s welfare, 303–4 consumer demands, 302–3 for women’s welfare, 304 anti-Francoism, 3, 5, 6–7 and the AV, 263 and civil society, 65 anti-Francoists activists as social capital, 24–5, 58–60 in the AAC, 112, 113, 135–6, 214, 221–6, see also Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, dissident or anti-Francoist in the AV’s, 59–62, 99–100, 102, 104, 105, 263, 298, 313 in the AVs, female, 127–8 in the citizen movement, 62, 324–5 in Coordinación Democrática, 324–5 curas obreros, 56–7 “entrismo”, strategy of, 59, 135–6 in the family associations, 183–4 in Junta Democrática, 56, 324–5 in the MDM, 119–20, 135–6, 360 in Plataforma de Convergencia Democrática, 57, 324–5 see also ORT (Revolutionary Organization of Workers); PCE (Spanish Communist Party); PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party); PTE (Spanish Workers’ Party); Movimiento Democrático de Mujeres (MDM) ama de casa/ama de hogar, translation of, 375 (fn2) 406

Index Asociaciones de Amas de Casa (AAC) (or de Hogar, AAH) and activities, civic, 280 and activities, political, 302–6 and activities, “private”, 278–9 and activities, “private”/selfimprovement, 279–81 autonomy in the Federation, struggles over, 148–52 in Barcelona, 130, 134, 137–8, 144–5, 204, 212–13, 285–6 in Burgos, 138 and children’s welfare, 303 and civil society, 128–9, 143, 153, 215 chronological arc of, 139 and consumer activism/movement, 203–4, 204–6, 212–15, 216–17, 285–7, 302–3 vs. Consumer Associations, 204–6 Federation of, (FNAC), 129, 131, 144, 148–52 goals of, 194–7 goals of, civic, 202–3 illustrating gender “difference” framework, 110–12, 233 in Huesca, 138 leadership profiles, 139–42 in Madrid, 130, 134, 145, 203, 207–8, 212, 218–19 in Madrid, attempt of dissidents to co-opt, 135–6, 214, 218–19, 290, 363 (fn 85–6) membership in, 129–30 membership, bourgeois status of, 141–2 networks, of female sociability, 280 neglect of, 111, 128, 226 number and regional distribution of, 73–5, 129 origins, grass roots, 134–6 origins, “top down”, 131–3 and pension fund/Mutualidad, 195, 217, 304–5 and press releases, 216–17 representation in state administration, 210–11, 213, 305–6

407

and SF role in constitution of, 131–3, 140 sources for, 113 statutes of, 193–4 supervision by Movimiento hierarchy, limits of, 143–5 supervision by SF hierarchy, limits of, 145–8 and United Nations, Year of the Woman (1975), 197 vitality of, 84, 136–8 see also Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, dissident or anti-Francoist; Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, civic discourse of Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, civic discourse of, 190–3, 233–4 and the anti-Francoist AAC discourse, overlap with, 221–2, 223–4 and the anti-Francoist press, 220–1 and “apoliticism”, 209, 212, 214, 227–8 and citizenship, female, 193, 206–8, 227–8, 234, 278 and civic education, 206–9, 230 and civic responsibilities, 202–4, 218 and collaboration with the state, debates over, 211–15 communitarianism of, 208–9 and consumer identity, 203–4, 204–6, 227, 229, 285–7 and convivencia, 206–7, 209, 225 in defense of family, homemaker or woman, 194–7 and democratization, 227–8 dissemination of, in the general press, 215–21 of dissident AAC, 192, 222–6 as a “female space” 190, 234 and feminism, 190–1, 197, 219, 226, 229 legal status of women, debates over, 201–2 and Francoist gender ideology, destabilization of, 191, 220, 234, 279–80 and nationalism/patriotism, 203

408 Index Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, civic discourse of – continued pluralism of, 190, 234 and “promotion of women”, 196–7, 217, 234, 279–81 in the public sphere, 215 role of women in the labor force, debates over, 199–201 role of women in society, debates over changing, 197–99, 202, 217–18, 219–20 and self-government, 207–8, 218 and state/civil society boundaries, 209–10, 215 statutes, ambiguity of, 193–4 in the transition, 226–33 and the “woman question”, resurrection of, 191, 202 Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, dissident or anti-Francoist, 111, 112, 152–3, 221–6 and the conservative AAC discourse, overlap with, 221–2, 223–4, 232–3 and the conservative AAC discourse, divergence from, 226, 230–2 and the AV discourse, overlap with, 226 civic discourse of, 192, 222–6 and the ‘citizen movement’, 221, 227, 381 (fn170, 172) and class identity, 222–3, 231–2 “entrismo” attempt in Madrid AAC, 135–6, 214, 290, 363 (fn 85–6) and feminism, 226, 231 in Madrid, 135–6, 138–9, 214, 290 leadership profiles, 142 membership in, 138–9 and “promotion of women”, 223–4 in the public sphere, limited access to, 221, 225 repression of, 225–6 role of MDM in, 135–6 origins of, 135–6 in the transition, 226–7, 230–2 vitality of, 138

Asociaciones de Amas de Casa (or de Hogar), leaders of Font, Margarita (Barcelona), 140, 144, 205, 212–13, 285 Landaburu, Belén, (Secretary General FNAC), 197, 199, 200, 201, 203 ˇ Ascención (Madrid), 134, Sedeno, 140, 145, 148, 203, 211, 213 Trillo-Figueras, Josefina (Madrid), 199, 212 Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familia (ACF), 30 in Madrid, 76–7, 78–9, 81–3 number of associations, 73–4 origins of, 72–3, 87–8 and parish meeting spaces, 48–9 and participation of priests, 52–8, 88 and patron saint’s festival, 51–2 regional vitality of, 75–6 supervision by Movimiento hierarchy, limits of, 88–90 and the state, breakdown of collaborative model, 306–12 and the state, collaborating with, 298–302 varied goals of, 76–7 vitality, evidence of declining in early 1970s, 79–81 vitality, evidence of, 78–9, 81–4 and women, debates over role in, 169–73 see also family associations Asociaciones, de Cultura e Higiene, 44–5 ˇ Asociación Espanola de Mujeres Juristas (AEMJ), 201 Asociaciones de Padres de Familia (or de Alumnos) (APF or APA), 68–9, 83–4 and the 1970 Education Law, 70–2 number of Movimiento APAs, 73–4 Movimiento vs. Catholic affiliated, 71–2, 351 (fn33) Asociaciones de Vecinos (AV), 8–9 anti-Francoist activists in, 59–62, 99–100, 102, 104, 105, 127, 239, 263 archives of, 9, 92–3

Index assemblyism, culture of, 94–5, 98, 295–7 the first AV (1919), 38–9 in Barcelona, 90–1 and civil society, 93, 108, 153, 239, 256–7, 259–60 and civil society, limits of access to, 98–9, 236–7 chronological arc of, 66, 90–1, 92 cycles of mobilization in, 96–8, 295–6 and the 1964 Law of Associations, 32 and the April 1977 Law of Associations, 257–8 and gender equality paradigm, 111–12, 114, 119–20, 122–3, 125, 128 legalization, struggles over, 100–1, 263 in Madrid, membership figures, 94, see also Madrid, associations in in Madrid, numbers of, 92 national statistics on, 91 and parish meeting spaces, 48–9 participation levels, 94–5, 250, 294–7 and participation of priests, 52–8 and patron saint’s festival, 51–2 and the role of the PCE, 59–62 repression of, 50–1, 98–103, 246 repression, limits of, 103–7 and the state, relations with, 297–8, 312–16 in the transition, 261–4, 270–1 and urban problems, 36–7, 244, 306–12 Asociaciones de Vecinos, civic discourse of, 235–6, 270–1 and amnesty, demands for, 263 anti-Francoist activists, impact on, 239, 263 and censorship of, 246, 256, 257–8 culmination of, in 1977 statutes, 258–9 and “citizen movement”, 236–7, 239–40, 252, 261–4, 264–9 and civil society, 256–7, 259–60 class vs. vecino identity, 247

409

and community, civic, 243–4, 244–6 civic vs. private goals, 245–6 convivencia in, 242, 244–6, 258, 262 democracy, promotion of, 263, 264–9, 270–1 elections, varied procedure for, 254–5, 290–4 vs. familiarismo, 235–6, 259–60 and gender identity, 243, 247–8 vs. (1940s) Homeowners’ Associations, 240–3, 245, 252 membership, rights and responsibilities, 248–52, 259 participation, creating a culture of, 250–2, 264–9 pluralism of, 239 in the public sphere, limited access to, 236–7 rights, active/participatory, 249–50, 259, 265 rights, passive, 250, 259 and self-government, debates over, 252–5, 259 sovereignty, popular vs. shared, 253–4, 259 semi-public nature of, 237 and the state, relations with, 255–7, 265–6, 297–8 Asociaciones de Vecinos, statutes boilerplate (April 1977), 257–9 as discursive texts, 237–8, 258 cross-fertilization of, 238 grass-roots origins of, 238–9 Asociaciones de Vecinos and women Algora, Carmen 123, 124, 126 female activists, profiles of, 125–8 incorporation of, 114, 247 invisibility of, 114, 247–8 leadership roles in, 123–5 marginalization in, 114–15, 120–1, 122–3 participation in, 13, 112–13 Presidents of, 123–4 Sobrino, Cristina, 115, 121, 123, 126, 127, 270 in the transition, 269–70 women’s sections (vocalías) of, 112, 116–19

410 Index assemblyism/asambleismo, 94–5, 98, 295–7 associationism chronological arc of, 1960s–70s, 66–7, 108, 139 and democratic transition, 316–18 new channels of, 23 in early Franco regime, 25–6, 67–70 and the Restoration regime (1875–1923), 3–4 and the Sección Femenina’s promotion of, 132–3 Spanish tradition of, 3, 329 Associations, Homeowners, 39–40 in colonias, 40 falangist language of 1940s, 42–3 goals of, 40–1 membership in, 42 participation in, 95–6 as prototypes of AVs, 39–40, 44, 240 associations, discursive frameworks, 155–7 horizontal community relations, debates over, 165–9, 206–9, 244–6 vertical relations with the state, debates over, 177–80, 209–15, 255–7 associations, legal and administrative frameworks Delegado Nacional de Asociaciones (DNA) (1957), 27, 72–3, 131 Delegado Nacional de la Familia (DNF) (1969), 30, 351 (fn37) Delegado Provinciales (DP) and Locales (DL), 88–90 1964 Law of Associations, 25–6, 32 1977 association law, 82, 257–8 under the Franco regime, 25–6 Barcelona, associations in AAC in, 130, 134, 137–8, 144–5, 204, 212–13, 285–6 AV in, 90–1 Carrero Blanco, Admiral, 20, 22 and “technocrats”, 22

Church, Catholic and associations, 26, 68–72, see also Hermandad Obrera de Acción Católica (HOAC); Acción Católica; Asociaciones de Padres de Familia (or de Alumnos) (APF or APA); Juventud Obrera Católica (JOC) and “Christian communities”, 47, 50 curas obreros, 46, 54–5, 56–7 and ”enclosures”, 50, 57 and language of convivencia, 53, 57 and language of social justice, 46–7 Church, Catholic, parish networks, 45 and community sociability, 45, 52, 68 and meeting spaces, 48 and priests as community leaders, 52–3 and priests in associations, 52–8, 88 and saint’s day festival, 51–2 citizen movement, 3–4, 66, 261–4, 264–9, 316, 321 and the AAC, dissident, 221, 227, 281 (fn170, 172) and the AV, 236–7, 239–40, 252, 261–4, 264–9 and the anti-francoist opposition, 62, 324–5 Borja, Jorge, theorist of, 265, 269, 284 Castells, Manuel, theorist of, 264–5 vs. class struggle, 264–5 and communitarianism, 267, 321 demobilization of, 322–8 democratic alternative of, 264, 271, 321, 330 democratic theory of, 264–9, 321 democratization, contribution to, 264–9, 270–1, 316–18, 330 as a discursive phenomenon, 236–7, 240, 260, 261 and the family associations, exclusion of, 188 and gender, 112, 233–4, 269–70 and municipal governments, 265–7, 326 vs. political parties, 324–5

Index theory of, linking concrete protests to regime change, 268–9 in the transition, 261–4 “theorist-participants”, 264 Villasante, Tomas, theorist of, 264, 265 “citizen consciousness”, 264, 268, 272, 315 vs. class consciousness, 264–5, 222–3, 231–2 citizenship associations as laboratories of democratic, 287, 316–17 associations as schools of democratic, 272–4 and civic identity, 156 in the Constitution of 1978, 322–3 discursive construction of, 156–7, 169, 185–6, 188–9, 259–60, 320–1 and family associations, 189 female, 13–14, 109–12, 154, 193, 202, 206–8, 227–8, 234, 269, 278 and gender, 13–14, 109–13, 154, 227–8, 233–4, 269–70 horizontal axis of, 165, 244, 273, 297 inclusion vs. exclusion in, 12 participatory model of, 264–5, 328–9 passive vs. active axes of, 11, 252 rights-based, 328 theories of, 11 vertical axis of, 173, 255, 273, 297–8 civic associations contribution to democratization, 272–4, 317 definition, 3 vs. private and political, 273–4 as “schools of democracy”, 272 under authoritarian regimes, 273–4 civic discourse, see discourse civil society and the Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, 128–9, 143, 153, 215 and the Asociaciones de Vecinos, 93, 108, 153, 239, 256–7, 259–60

411

AVs, limits of access to, 98–103, 235–6 debate on strength of civil society in Spain, 64, 326–8 definition, 2 during the early Franco regime, 67–70, 169 and family associations, 84–5, 90, 156–7, 169, 177, 180, 185–6, 188–9, 259–60 under dictatorships, 4, 19, 319 contribution to democratization, 2, 10 and gender, 109, 320 in 19th –20th century Spain, 329–30 measuring, 10, 65, 67 revival under Franco regime, 8–9, 19, 64–7, 108, 169, 259–60, 273–4, 319 and social capital, 12, 25, 157 and the state, boundaries between, 182–6, 209–15, 266, 329–30 and the state, evolving relationship with, 316–18 transition, after the, 326–8 Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), 46, 59 Catholic militants in, 70 Communist party, see PCE (Spanish Communist Party) communitarianism, 164, 165–7, 208–9, 267, 287–90 communitarian vs. liberal democracy, 271, 297, 287–90, 321, 325 Constitution of 1978 and AV, non-recognition of, 325 and citizenship, 322–3 citizen participation clauses, 322 civil rights clauses, 323 social rights clauses, 323, 325–6 consumer movement/activism AAC in the, 203–4, 204–6, 212–15, 225–6, 227, 285–7, 302–3 Movimiento Consumer Associations and AAC, tensions between 204–6

412 Index convivencia, 53, 57 in AAC, 206–7, 209, 225 in AV, 242, 244–6, 258, 262 definition of, 166 in family associations, 165–9 in Homeowners’ associations, 41, 43 and horizontal axis of citizenship, 297 Coordinación Democrática, 324–5 political parties, control of, 325 democracy, schools of associations as, 272–3 laboratories vs. schools, 287, 317–18 promotion of democracy in AVs, 263, 264–9, 270–1 democratic culture associations’ contribution to, theory of, 273–4 AV contribution to, 270–1, 316–18 building blocks of, 10, 12, 320–1 of the citizen movement, 264–9, 321 civil war, impact on, 325 communitarian vs. liberal, 267, 271, 287–90, 297, 321, 325 a democratic alternative, 264, 270–1, 321, 330 organic democracy, 28, 174, 175–6, 177, 287 participatory vs. representative, 12, 264–5, 295, 325–6 “performing” democratic practices, 272, 287, 316–17, 321 radical or substantive, 329 statist, 327, 328, 330 democratic process, debates over, in associations decision-making, 287–90, 295 election procedure, 254–5, 290–4 no fixed blueprint for, 317–18 membership, rights and responsibilities, 248–52, 259 participation, creating a culture of, 250–2, 264–9 participation, rank and file, 294–7 self-government, 252–5, 259

democratization theories of, 1 contribution of citizen movement to, 264–9, 270–1, 316–18, 330 contribution of civil society to, 2, 10, 320–1 modernization theory, 20–2, 37 of municipal government, 266–7, 326 the “Spanish model”, 1, 329–30 “third wave”, 328, 329 women’s participation in, 14, 233–4 dictatorship, see Franco regime discourse AAC civic discourse, 190–1, 320–1, see also Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, civic discourse of AV civic discourse, 235–6, 320–1, see also Asociaciones de Vecinos, civic discourse of of the citizen movement, 264–9 definition, 368 (fn5) “master frame” of, 155, 320 familiarista civic discourse, 155–7, see also familiarismo (family association movement discourse) theory of discourse analysis, 155–7 economic development, 20 impact, negative, 24, 33–4, 37, 274–5, 306–12 impact, positive, 21–2 statistics of, 20–1 economic policies (of Franco regime), 274–5 authoritarian development model, 34, 37 Housing policies, 34–5 liberalization, 20, 22 Plan de Estabilización, 20 education, 1970 General law of, 70–1 and school parent associations (APA), 70–2 Catholic mobilization against, 70–2 elections, in associations in AV, 254–5, 290–4

Index familiarismo (family association movement discourse) autonomy, debates over, 177–80, 259–60 vs. AV civic discourse, 259–60, 320–1 civic discourse of, 155–7, 188–9, 320–1 collaboration with the state, debates over, 180–182, 182–6, 211–15 communitarianism in, 164, 165–7, 287–9 corporatism in, 176, 267 convivencia in, 165–9 as discursive subject, 155, 159–60, 236 gender hierarchy in, 161, 170 media channels, internal, 158 nationalism in, 175 organic democracy in, 175–6 participation, culture of civic, 164, 188–9 pluralism of, 157, 168–9, 189, 289 political vs. apolitical identity, debates over, 173–7 press coverage of, 159 principles of, 160, 164 state/society relations, collaborative model of, 177, 209–10, 298–302 women’s role in ACF, debates over, 169–73 the “woman question” in the AAC, 190–3, see also Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, civic discourse of family associations, 8–9 archives of, 9 autonomy vs. supervision, 88–90, 156–7, 160–64, 177–80, 180–2 and citizenship, 189 and civil society, 65–6, 84–5, 90, 156–7, 169, 177, 180, 260 conferences of, 158–9 chronological arc of, 66, 79, 84 critiques of proposal for, 31 horizontal (community) relations, 165–9 in Madrid, 76–7, 78–9, 81–3 numbers and regional distribution of, 73–5 origins of, 72–3, 85–88

413

press coverage of, 158–9 proposal for, 29–30 statutes of, 160–3, 187–8 in the transition, 186–8 vertical relations with the state, 173–7, 297–302, 306–12 women in, 13, 110–11, 169–73 see also Asociaciones de Cabezas de Familia (ACF); Asociaciones de Amas de Casa (AAC) (or de Hogar, AAH); familiarismo (family association movement discourse) family associations, bureaucratic structure of Delegado Nacional de Asociaciones (DNA) (1957–68), 27, 72–3, 131 Delegado Nacional de la Familia (DNF) (1969–77), 30, 351 (fn37) Delegado Provinciales (DP) and Locales (DL), 88–90 fascism and the Franco regime, 4–6, 319 feminism, 112, 113, 114, 116, 269 and the AAC, 190–1, 197, 219, 226, 229 conservative, 192 and “difference” paradigm, 118–19 and “double militancy”, 119–20, 231–2 first conference, XII/75, 136, 364 (fn90) feminist press, 117, 119 “radical” feminism, 117–19, 232 and women’s sections of AVs, 117–18 Francisco Franco, 4, 33 Franco regime and authoritarianism, 5 and authoritarian development, 33–7 debates on nature of, 4–6 and electoral law, 1967, 207 evolution of, 4–5, 6–7, 19–23, 319 and fascism, 4–6 and gender ideology, 111, 191 and local government, 34, 266 opposition to, see anti-Francoism; anti-Francoists

414 Index Franco regime – continued and the space for civic associations, 6–8, 319 repression of AAC, dissident, 226 repression of AVs, 98–103 repression under, 4, 7, 23 ruling coalition of, 23 social investment, low level of, 37 see also economic policies (of Franco regime); Movimiento Gender in the citizen movement, 269–70 and citizenship, 109–13, 153–4 equality/difference paradox, 109–12, 153–4, 173, 233–4, 270, 320 and the family associations, 160–1, 169–70 and vecino identity, 243 and worker identity, 269 Hermandad Obrera de Acción Católica (HOAC), 46, 59, 69–70 Homemakers’ Associations, see Asociaciones de Amas de Casa (AAC) (or de Hogar, AAH) identity, vecino (neighbor/resident) vs. ama de casa identity, 227 vs. class interests, 38–9, 59–61, 247, 264 definition of, 335, 38 evolving definition of, 42, 243 vs. family identity, 187, 242 and gender identity, 111–12, 114–15, 125 industrialization, 21 ˇ 56, Junta Democrática de Espana, 324–5 Juventud Obrera Católica (JOC), 46, 69–70 Madrid, associations in AAC, 130, 134, 145, 203, 207–8, 212, 218–19 AAC, anti-Francoist, 135–6, 138–9, 214, 290

AVs in, 92, 94–5, 96–8, 261–4 AV Alcalá de Henares (Distrito Universitario), 98, 106, 107 AV Aluche, 104, 106–7 AV Carabanchel Alto, 98, 102, 104, 106, 315–16 AV Carabanchel Bajo, 100, 104 AV Ciudad de Los Angeles, 97, 292–4 AV Leganés, 98, 104, 106, 107 AV Moratalaz, 95, 98, 101, 105, 309–12 AV Orcasitas, 97, 99, 100, 104, 295 AV Palomeras Altas, 97, 106 AV Palomeras Bajas, 96, 103, 314–15 AV Parque Aluche, 100, 101, 107 AV Puerto Chico, 96, 99 AV San Blas, 97, 101, 102, 103, 296, 312 AV Tio del Pozo Raimundo, 97, 105 AV UVA Vallecas, 105, 308–9 AV Zappora, 97, 296 family associations, 76–7, 78–9, 81–3 Provincial Federation of AVs, 101, 102, 261, 263 see also Asociaciones de Vecinos, civic discourse of membership, in associations AAC, 129–30 AAC, anti-Francoist, 138–9 AV, in Madrid, 94 Homeowners’ Associations, 42 Movimiento organizations, pre-1960s, 68 modernization theory, 20–2, 37 Movimiento corporatism, 176 1968 Estatuto Orgánico, 28, 29 and Guardia de Franco, 68 language of participation, 27–9 pre-1960s organizations of, 26 membership of pre-1960s organizations of, 68 mobilizing the masses, 23, 27 organic democracy, 28, 174, 175 (definition), 177, 287 and OSE, 26–7 role in Franco regime, 4–5, 8 and SEU, 26–7

Index Movimiento and the family associations autonomy vs. supervision, 88–90, 156–7, 160–64, 177–80, 180–2, 143–5, 145–8 and the AAC, 128–9, 131–2, 143–5, see also Sección Femenina and the Consumer Associations, 204–5 and the family association project, 8–9, 29–31 influence in the family associations, 66, 84–5, 88–90, 156–7 promotion of, 158–9, 236 role in the formation of family associations, 72–3, 85–6, 131 and school parent associations (APA), 72 statutes, imposition of boilerplate, 160 tensions in the family association project, 163–4 vertical integration, efforts towards, 160–1, 177 Movimiento Democrático de Mujeres (MDM), 119–20, 135, 360 (fn28), 363 (fn85) movimiento familiarista, see familiarismo (family association movement discourse) municipal government and the citizen movement, 265–7 under the Franco regime, 34, 266 reform of, after the transition, 326 neighborhood associations, see Asociaciones de Vecinos (AV) opposition groups, see anti-Francoism; anti-Francoists; ORT (Revolutionary Organization of Workers); PCE (Spanish Communist Party); PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party); PTE (Spanish Workers’ Party) ORT (Revolutionary Organization of Workers), 59, 62, 127, 265 ˇ Organización de Sindicatos Espanolas (OSE), 26–7

415

participation, in associations of anti-Francoists in AAC, 112, 113, 135–6, 214, 221–6 of anti-Francoists in the AV, 59–62, 99–100, 102, 104, 105, 263, 298, 313 assemblyism, culture of in AV, 94–5, 295–7 in AV, 94–5, 250, 294–7 culture of participation in AVs, creating a, 250–2, 264–9 culture of participation in family associations, 164, 188–9 Homeowners’ Associations, 95–6 language of participation in Movimiento, 27–9 of priests, in ACF, 52–8, 88 of women in AVs, 13, 112–13 PCE (Spanish Communist Party) and Coordinación Democrática, 325 and “entrismo” strategy of infiltration, 135 and Junta Democrática, 57, 324–5 and the Movimiento Democrático de Mujeres (MDM), 119–20, 360 participation in AVs, 59–62, 105, 127, 324 Plataforma de Convergencia Democrática, 57, 324–5 pluralism in AAC, 190, 234 in AV, 239 in family associations, 157, 168–9, 189, 289 vs. unity in decision-making, 287–90 political parties and the demobilization of the citizen movement, 324–6 and the lessons of the civil war, 325 PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party) and the citizen movement, 324–5, 326 and municipal government reform, 326 and Plataforma de Convergencia Democrática, 57, 324–5 PTE (Spanish Workers’ Party), 59

416 Index repression of AAC, dissident, 225–6 of AV, 50–1, 98–103, 246 of AV, limits of, 103–7 censorship, of AV statutes, 246, 256, 257–8 in Franco regime, 4, 7, 23 Sección Femenina and the AAC, 128–9, 139–40 control of the AAC, limits of, 145–8 in the origins of the AAC, 131–3 self-government, in the associations, 287–94 as civic activity, 287 communitarian practices, 288 decision-making, debates over unity vs. pluralism, 287–90, 295 democratic practice, laboratories of, 287 organic democracy, 287 pluralism, defense of, 289 see also democratic process, debates over, in associations ˇ Universitario (SEU), Sindicato Espanol 26–7 social capital, 12, 157 civic trust, 157 and civil society, 12, 25, 157 definition of, 24, 37 opposition leaders as, 60–62 parish networks as source of, 45 priests as, 56–8 social trust, 157, 167 sociability associations and, 166 female networks in AAC, 280 parish networks and, 45, 52 Solís Ruíz, José, 27, 28 the state, and associations, relations between AAC and collaboration with the state, 302–6 collaborative model of relations, 298–302 collaborative model of relations, breakdown of, 306–12 evolution of relations between, 298

oppositional model of confronting the state, 298, 312–16 see also municipal government totalitarianism, 4, 5, 67–8 the transition (1976–8) AAC during, 226–233 citizen movement, during, 240, 261–4, 264–9 citizen movement, demobilization of, 323–5 civil society, after, 326–8 communitarian vs. liberal democracy in, 267, 321, 324–5 family associations during, 186–8 municipal government, reform of, 326 urbanization, 21 and housing crisis, 34–5 rural/urban migration, 21 and state’s lack of structural investment in, 37 urban problems and mobilization, 36–7, 306–12 urban crisis, 33–7, 244 Vatican II, 46 vocalías de mujeres (women’s sections of AVs), 112, 116–17 debates over, 118–19 women in the AAC, see Asociaciones de Amas de Casa (AAC) (or de Hogar, AAH); anti-Francoist and AVs, see Asociaciones de Vecinos and women in the citizen movement, 269–70 and citizenship, 13–14, 109–12, 154, 227–8 difference/equality paradox, 13, 109–12, 118–20, 122–3, 153–4, 173, 320 debates over women’s role in the ACF, 169–73 the “woman question” in the AAC, 190–3, 202, see also Asociaciones de Amas de Casa, civic discourse of