The Surnames of Democracy: Intellectuals and the Idea of Democracy under Francoism (1939-1975)

Abstract

The reflections on the limits of democracy, its crisis and the the ways of adapting to new times took up most of the theoretical debates of the Francoist intellectuals, along with those of the anti-Francoists. In the name of democracy many surnames as well as social projects were added, in a instrumental way, to the prestige of its legitimacy as an unavoidable principle of the exercise in power in contemporary societies. As those debates promoted the crisis within liberal democracy, they tried to find solutions elsewhere. The right in plesbiscitarian, charismatic, organizational, semi authoritarian, presidentialistic or technocratic ways. The left in socializing or decidedly socialist ways, even though the defeat, the resistence and the exile made its democratic learning process much faster, despite the brief rebirth of the revolutionary utopians with the “new left” of the 60’s.