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The official Spanish branch of the international Boy Scout movement, the Exploradores de España, offers an instructive example of a nationalist association in Spain in the first third of the twentieth century. This article adopts a comparative perspective and studies the Exploradores discourses and practices, the association's founders and leaders, the scouts' publications and activities, as well as the organization's internal conflicts and evolution between 1912 and 1931. As in Britain and many other countries, the movement was endorsed by the royal family and led by military officers and middle-class men – representatives of monarchist civil society. It shared nationalist and regeneracionista (from regenerationism) values, as an agent of nationalization throughout Spanish territory. Like other Boy Scout movements in Europe and the Americas, it pursued the goal of making good patriots, with a knowledge of and ready to defend their fatherland: young hidalgos, the Spanish equivalent of the British gentlemen. Hence this study also explores the gender aspects of Boy Scout ideals. Initially, the Spanish scouts were troubled by an intense religious conflict, which was won by Catholic sectors, so their nationalism became deeply conservative. During the 1920s, the movement was instrumental in the nation-building projects of different governments, especially under the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera (1923–1930). In short, it can be considered one of the main nationalizing agents during this key period in modern Spanish history, and belies the image of supposed passivity and a lack of interest in national construction among Spain's ruling elites.

Reseña de: Suárez Cortina, Manuel: Los caballeros de la razón. Cultura institucionista y democracia parlamentaria en la España liberal, Santander, Genueve Ediciones, 2019

Review of Suárez Cortina, Manuel: Los caballeros de la razón. Cultura institucionista y democracia parlamentaria en la España liberal, Santander, Genueve Ediciones, 2019. ; Reseña de: Suárez Cortina, Manuel: Los caballeros de la razón. Cultura institucionista y democracia parlamentaria en la España liberal, Santander, Genueve Ediciones, 2019.

This article focuses on the substantial academic literature on caciquismo — the proliferation of clientelist practices by local notables or caciques — in Restoration Spain (1875—1923). Caciquismo is generally considered to be the key problem in the political behaviour of Spaniards and the evolution of the Spanish political system in the Liberal era. The article shows the central relevance of caciquismo in contemporary political analysis and criticism, and the different interpretations of early historiography on the subject. It consists mainly of an overview of the prevailing historiographical tendencies — here called 'new political history' and'agrarian social history' — in the study of caciquismo, especially their opposite conceptions of caciquismo as some kind of political clientelism and their descriptions of political elites and the connections between political and economic powers. It is argued that these tendencies share a common language and conclusions which facilitate comparisons with similar phenomena in other countries. The article includes some hints of this comparative analysis, and, finally, it suggests some paths of research which may be followed in the future.

Este trabajo analiza el fenómeno del caciquismo en la España de la Restauración a través de un caso significativo, el del Conde de Romanones. Este personaje liberal dominó la vida política de la provincia de Guadalajara durante más de cuarenta años a través de la creación y el sostenimiento de una clientela de notables. En un contexto rural, se sirvió de relaciones familiares y económicas, del reparto de los recursos administrativos y de la manipulación del fraude electoral para sostener su poder, que sólo la Iglesia pudo tímidamente desafiar al final del período. ; This essay studies political clientelism -known as caciquismo in Restoration Spain- through a relevant case: that of the Count of Romanones, a liberal minister. He ruled the Castilian province of Guadalajara, a rural district, for more than forty years. His power was based on kin and economic relations, distribution of public resources and electoral fraud. The Romanonist clique controlled almost all political life, and only the Church was able to challenge its monopoly at the end of the period.