‘Anti-politics’, infrastructure policy and civil society mobilisations in Spain under the Primo de Rivera dictatorship (1923-1930)

During the early twentieth century, infrastructure development came to form an important policy agenda in public debate in Spain, influenced by ‘regenerationist’ thought that aimed to overcome the exclusionary politics of the Restoration era (1876-1923) through economic modernisation. The dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923-1930) presented itself as the mechanism by which regenerationist hopes could be put into practice, using infrastructure investment to claim political legitimacy and developing an ‘anti-political’ populism that resonated with citizens who blamed ‘professional politicians’ for Spain’s multiple crises during the early 1920s. This thesis examines public policy debate around infrastructure development during the 1920s, using this to explore the relationship between citizens and the Spanish state under Primo.

The regime’s commitment to modernisation and condemnation of previous political elites drew regenerationist-minded citizens and civil-society campaigns into its ideological orbit. This provided it with a degree of initial support, although the failures of populist policy-making undermined the long-term viability of this support. The regenerationist policy agenda delineated a ‘common good’ that citizens imagined would improve their material conditions, making support for technocratic modernisation a tenet of ‘good citizenship’. Civil society campaigns around infrastructure development reproduced regime discourses, reinforcing the cultural grip of regenerationist policy agendas. Moreover, developmentalist thinkers helped to provide a long-term socio-political vision for Spain’s future that the regime initially lacked.

Civil society mobilisations that mediated the relationship between state and citizen under the less than democratic politics of the Restoration also offered a means of relating to the state as it was reshaped under Primo. These mobilisations coexisted with the dictatorship’s attempts to ‘nationalise the masses’ and integrate citizens into state structures by imposing a conservative national identity through coercive institutions (Quiroga, 2007). Debates around infrastructure development created two-way, rather than top-down, interactions through which citizens identified with the primorriverista state.