Germ Bels remarkable analysis of the damage done to the Spanish economy by the countrys asymmetrical and dysfunctional transport and communications model was published two years ago in the well received Infrastructure and the Political Economy of Nation Building in Spain, 17202010. In the present volume, Germ Bel returns to the series with a dissection of the problems of the relationship between Catalonia and Spain: The dynamics of conflict between groups, their effects on the inter-territorial distrust, and their impact on the functioning of the state. Prof. Paul Preston, Series Editor
Support for independence in Catalonia has increased rapidly over the past decade. This dynamic is the result of Catalans in political, economic and academic fields who no longer believe that the necessary reform of Spanish government is a viable option in terms of achieving an acceptable arrangement for Catalonia to stay within the Spanish state. Rejecting assimilation on the basis that a uni-national state is unworkable for a host of structural reasons, not least the lack of reform progress to date, secession is viewed as the preferred choice for the betterment of the regions people.
Disdain, Distrust and Dissolution dissects the problems of the relationship between Catalonia and Spain. The author investigates the dynamics of conflict between opposing groups, the resulting effects on inter-territorial distrust, and the impact on the functioning of the Spanish state as a whole. These conflictual issues are projected onto areas of public policy that reflect basic motivations of rising public support for independence: national identity and sense of community (language and education policy); economic viability (fiscal relations with the state); and future opportunities in a global world (issues of infrastructure, especially transport).
The overwhelming conclusion is that the accumulation of mutual distrust between the opposing parties is a major obstacle to the functioning of the Spanish state. Mutual perception of unfairness and lack of trust is an impediment to the design and functioning of future shared projects and without agreement and engagement there is no benefit to either party, to the detriment of Spain and its peoples.
Germ Bel is professor of Economics at Universitat de Barcelona. Has been visiting professor at Cornell University and Princeton University, and visiting researcher at Harvard and at European University Institute; and has published several books and more than eighty international academic articles on public sector reform. See more info at http://www.ub.edu/gim/en/membre/germa-bel/
The Caada Blanch / Sussex Academic Studies on Contemporary Spain
General Editor: Professor Paul Preston, London School of Economics
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Kathryn Crameri, Goodbye, Spain?: The Question of Independence for Catalonia
Michael Eaude, Triumph at Midnight in the Century: A Critical Biography of Arturo Barea.
Mark Derby, Petals and Bullets: Dorothy Morris A New Zealand Nurse in the Spanish Civil War.
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Helen Graham, The War and its Shadow: Spains Civil War in Europes Long Twentieth Century.
Angela Jackson, For us it was Heaven: The Passion, Grief and Fortitude of Patience Darton From the Spanish Civil War to Maos China.
Gabriel Jackson, Juan Negrn: Physiologist, Socialist, and Spanish Republican War Leader.
Sid Lowe, Catholicism, War and the Foundation of Francoism: The Juventud de Accin Popular in Spain, 19311939.
David Lethbridge, Norman Bethune in Spain: Commitment, Crisis, and Conspiracy.
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Jorge Marco, Guerrilleros and Neighbours in Arms: Identities and Cultures of Antifascist Resistance in Spain.
Martin Minchom, Spains Martyred Cities: From the Battle of Madrid to Picassos Guernica.
Olivia Muoz-Rojas, Ashes and Granite: Destruction and Reconstruction in the Spanish Civil War and Its Aftermath.
Linda Palfreeman, SALUD!: British Volunteers in the Republican Medical Service during the Spanish Civil War, 19361939.
Linda Palfreeman, Aristocrats, Adventurers and Ambulances: British Medical Units in the Spanish Civil War.
Linda Palfreeman, Spain Bleeds: The Development of Battlefield Blood Transfusion during the Civil War.
Cristina Palomares, The Quest for Survival after Franco: Moderate Francoism and the Slow Journey to the Polls, 19641977.
David Wingeate Pike, France Divided: The French and the Civil War in Spain.
Hugh Purcell with Phyll Smith, The Last English Revolutionary: Tom Wintringham, 18981949.
Isabelle Rohr, The Spanish Right and the Jews, 18981945: Antisemitism and Opportunism.
Gareth Stockey, Gibraltar: A Dagger in the Spine of Spain?
Ramon Tremosa-i-Balcells, Catalonia An Emerging Economy: The Most Cost-Effective Ports in the Mediterranean Sea.
Maria Thomas, The Faith and the Fury: Popular Anticlerical Violence and Iconoclasm in Spain, 19311936.
Dacia Viejo-Rose, Reconstructing Spain: Cultural Heritage and Memory after Civil War.
Richard Wigg, Churchill and Spain: The Survival of the Franco Regime, 19401945.
Copyright Germ Bel, 2015.
Published in the Sussex Academic e-Library, 2015.
SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS
PO Box 139
Eastbourne BN24 9BP, UK
and simultaneously in the United States of America and Canada
First published in Spanish, Anatoma de un Desencuentro, by Destino in 2014. First published in English in Great Britain in 2015 by Sussex Academic Press.
The right of Germ Bel to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988; the right of William Triuni to be identified as Translator of this work has been likewise asserted.
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Published in collaboration with the Caada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies and The Catalan Observatory, London.
