La Constitución de 1876 y la organización territorial del Estado

Abstract

The Constitution of 1876 and the political regime of the Restoration that it installed, largely thanks to the political acumen of Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, emerged in the context of a waning republic, brought to its knees by its failure to introduce federalism. By contrast, the long-deliberated Constitution of 1876 ushered in a highly centralised state, not only in mainland Spain, but also in its remaining overseas colonies, based on a very narrow idea of Spain as a nation, embodied by Castile. The new territorial organisation survived for the same length of the time as the validity of the Constitution that had introduced it (almost 50 years) or even longer, as Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship openly violated it but never expressly repealed it. However, following the «Disaster of ‘98», and largely thanks to the rise of Catalan nationalism, centralism was derided by many very diverse alternative political projects.