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Liberalism and radicalism in Spain

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Background

In the nineteenth century, liberalism was a major political force in Spain, but as in many other continental European countries care must be taken over the use of labels as this term was used with different meanings.

As in much of Europe, the nineteenth-century history of Spain would largely revolve around the conflicts between the three major liberal currents – radicalism; progressive classical liberalism, or conservative classical liberalism. While all three rejected the Catholic, traditionalist, and absolutist Old Regime, each had a different perspective on the urgency and degree to which state and society needed reforming to modernize the values and institutions.

  • The term 'liberal' itself was usually used to signify classical liberalism. It had a progressive-liberal wing as represented by the Fusionist Liberal Party (more inclined towards gradual reform, and making compromises with the radical current); and a conservative-liberal wing as represented by the Liberal Conservative Party (more inclined towards traditionalism, and compromising with the absolute-monarchist faction). Its various currents were broadly united by a set of shared beliefs:
    1. In political affairs, parliamentarianism, though of a socially-conservative kind (e.g., suffrage limited to property-owners);
    2. In economic affairs, free-market capitalism;
    3. In social affairs, conservatism (e.g.: rejecting full universal suffrage; or a strictly laic separation of church and state)
    4. In constitutional affairs, flexible towards the type of constitutional regime (monarchy or republic).
  • For the left-liberal and social-liberal currents, 'liberal' was rarely used as the single defining label. Instead such currents rather used labels such as radical, democratic or republican (see republicanism). The shared beliefs that generally unified its various factions included:
    1. Universal manhood suffrage;
    2. Sovereignty to be vested in the people of the nation rather than in the royal parliament;
    3. A root-and-branch reform to remove the political influence of monarchical, religious and aristocratic patronage;
    4. A certain degree of social democracy, as the nineteenth century progressed;
    5. An active role for an administratively-centralized state in carrying out these tasks.

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