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Decentralization, Resources and Inequality in Spain: Are there still 'Eight Spain's'?

Comparative Politics
Federalism
Institutions
Political Economy
Social Welfare
Welfare State
Yasemin İrepoğlu Carreras
University of Pittsburgh
Yasemin İrepoğlu Carreras
University of Pittsburgh

Abstract

As an officially unitary, but a de facto federal country – as considered by many - , Spain is made up of 17 autonomous communities (ACs) with varying economic and social development levels and varying distribution of resources per capita. Spain also has one of the highest regional and national inequality scores among western European countries. In their classic work ‘The Eight Spains’, Linz and de Miguel (1968) explain eight different types of provinces in Spain, based on differences of economic and social structure, long before the official creation of the ACs at the end of 1970s. By applying the method of process-tracing, this paper asks the following questions: What is the impact of political and fiscal decentralization on gaps in resources and economic inequality in Spain in the 20th century? Do ‘the eight Spains’ still exist to this day, or has decentralization, which is the product of the democratization process, changed the territorial governance structure in Spain? If the governance structure has changed, how has this impacted inequalities? This paper contributes to the literatures of fiscal federalism and political economy.