First session – Thursday, November 18 from 4 to 6 p.m.
The creation of the political-economic elites during the Franco regime
16:00 Welcome
16:05 “The creation of the political-economic elites during the Franco regime”, by Joan Rodríguez Teruel (University of Valencia)
The aim of the presentation is to show the gears of formation, maintenance, and renewal of the political elite of the Franco regime, with particular attention to the levels of recruitment at state level: ministers, high officials and Parliament. Starting from a conceptual clarification about elites and the ruling class, the intervention addresses the way in which Franco built a new ruling elite and to what extent the recruitment patterns of its political personnel remained stable over time. From this perspective, we are interested in identifying the circuits that led to the centers of power of the new State, the preeminent social groups, and their internal diversity. The specific studies on Franco’s political staff point to the great break that occurred with respect to the Second Republic after the civil war, a break that will not be so clear 40 years later, when the regime experiences the transition to democracy. While it is true that the most prominent strata of Franco would be separated in the first years of democracy, the lower groups, located in the high civil service and in other cores of the Franco administration, showed more capacity for continuity under the governments of democracy.
16:40 Answer Jordi Alberich (former director of the Cercle d’Economia)
17:00 Debate moderated by Jordi Amat
18:00 Closing
Second session – Thursday, November 25 from 4 to 6 p.m. Online
The role of the University in the framing and creation of the elites during the Franco regime
16:00 Welcome
16:05 “The role of the University in the framing and creation of the elites during the Franco regime”, by Miguel Ángel Ruiz Carnice (University of Zaragoza)
The University during the Franco dictatorship is a space where several scenarios converge as a result of the civil war and the Franco victory: intellectual decapitalization, the product of death, purification and exile of non-affiliates; struggle for power linked to the control of strongly ideological chairs; establishment of socialization mechanisms as part of a project of their own by the different groups that operate within the regime; training place for the system’s future political elites as a result of the elite renewal procedure: co-optation.
The presentation that is presented tries to establish the interactions of the university life of the dictatorship with the ambitions and the dynamics of the different political sensibilities of Francoism, which fight to become dominant, but which share a deep identification with July 18 and defend the elimination of the liberal and progressive heritage of previous decades. It is also necessary to influence the evolution of the regime and the different strategy over time that these sectors will follow with the aim of guaranteeing their personal survival and their political legacy when the dictator is gone.
16:40 Answer by Carolina Rodríguez López (Complutense University & director of CIAN-Revista de Historia de las Universidades)
17:00 Debate moderated by Jaume Claret
18:00 Closing