Franco's Spain

by Tim Rees and Jean Grugel

Published 26 September 1997
Although born during the inter-war period of Facism, the Franco regime managed to survive into the predominantly liberal-democratic era of Western Europe after 1945. The book takes as its major theme the complex and changing relationship between the internal structures of dictatorship and civil society. Often characterized simply as personal dictatorship founded upon force, in reality the key to its longevity was a remarkable capacity to integrate different interest groups, to generate substantial legitimacy, and to marginalize dissent until its final years.