Searched the resource database for : All Results AND Regions=Spain
Haven't found what you are looking for? To further refine your search: Click on the 'advanced search' menu to filter by title, abstract, source, and/or publication date; to include or exclude multiple resource categories, regions or topics.
Abstract: The political transitions in Egypt and Tunisia have rekindled
the interest in how states and societies have moved from authoritarian
regimes to democracy after overthrowing old regimes.
This report responds to that interest by providing a factual
overview of transitions to democracy of nine European states
between 1974 and 1991.
The states covered fall into two geographical regions:
Southern Europe, and Central and Eastern Europe. The context
of transition in each of these regions was different. The transitions
in Southern Europe took place as mainly discrete events
with little influence of one country over another. In contrast,
there was a strong regional dynamic in Central and Eastern
Europe, where all transitions were influenced by Gorbachev’s
policies of perestroika and glasnost and the loosening of the
Soviet Union’s grip on its satellite states.
Abstract: • The protection of asylum-seekers in Europe is dealt with under three principal bodies of law: the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951, the law of the European Union and the soft law developed by the Council of Europe.
• Member states of the Council of Europe are also bound by the judgments of the European Convention on Human Rights; although the convention makes no reference to refugee protection, its provisions and the judgments of its court in Strasbourg impose important obligations on states in respect of asylum.
• The entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty in 1999 initiated the first phase of the creation of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which aimed to harmonize refugee protection among member states while enabling them to meet their international obligations in that respect.
• The harmonizing measures adopted by the EU have been subject to severe criticism and the practices of member states reveal a systemic failure to comply with international refugee protection obligations.
• While there have been improvements in European refugee policy, significant challenges must be addressed before Europe can regain its reputation as a champion of the rights of the refugee. This is given particular urgency by recent events in North Africa, which may lead to large numbers of persons fleeing violence and disorder.
Abstract: This article addresses the management of unauthorised migration from Africa to Europe. We
review eight policy measures and explore how they relate to prominent policy narratives, centred on
security, co-operation and protection of migrants. We also examine the specific mechanisms through
which the policy measures function: direct control, deterrence and dissuasion. Analysis of policy
narratives helps explain the ascendance of externalised migration control, such as pre-border
patrolling. Furthermore, our analysis shows how the narrative of protection can be aligned with
direct control measures and constitute a double-edged sword for migrants. The text focuses on
maritime migration from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands. We draw in part on ethnographic
data from fieldwork in Senegal in order to assess the impact of specific measures on the target
population of prospective migrants.
Abstract: After years of conflict the Basque separatist group have called a permanent ceasefire. Who were the victims over the years and which forces were worst affected? The data below published by the Spanish El Ministerio del Interior shows how many people have been killed by the group by year. In 1980 the highest number was recorded with a total of 92 killings that year.
The tables break down the data collected since Eta's last attack on 16th March 2010 into locations and categories.
Abstract: Reports: 1 Al-Qa`ida’s Five Aspects of Power By The Combating Terrorism Center; 5 A Case Study of the January 2008 Suicide Bomb Plot in Barcelona By Fernando Reinares; 8 A Holistic Critique of Singapore’s Counter-Ideological Program By Kumar Ramakrishna; 11 Shifting Trends in Suicide Attacks By Assaf Moghadam; 14 The Future of Moqtada al-Sadr’s New Jaysh al-Mahdi By Babak Rahimi; 17 Reconsidering the Role of Militias in Iraq By Major James J. Smith, U.S. Army; 19 The Pakistan Army and its Role in FATA By Shuja Nawaz; 21 Iraq’s Border Security: Key to an Iraqi Endstate By LTC Steven Oluic, U.S. Army
Abstract: On 19 January 2008, between the hours of 00:40 and 05:00, 14 individuals were arrested in Barcelona, Spain’s second-largest city, as a result of a counterterrorism operation initiated two days before and intended to thwart what was evaluated by the state security agencies to be a suicide bombing plot against the local subway transportation system. Among those arrested were 12 persons of Pakistani origin –all but one foreigners in Spain, the other being a naturalized Spaniard— and two Indian nationals. But what exactly happened in Barcelona on January 2008 or was being prepared to happen, and how can we asses both the characteristics and scope of the foiled terrorist plot? Who are the individuals actually convicted in this case and how did they come to constitute a terrorist cell in the city? What kind of connections did these individuals or the cell as a whole have with terrorist actors abroad, as stated in the court sentence, more concretely in Pakistan? A proper answer to these three questions, elucidating also issues of leadership and strategy behind the Barcelona thwarted suicide attacks, based on information and data contained in the official judicial documents of this case at the National Court in Spain, should provide us with enough substantive knowledge on an important incident related to jihadist terrorism. But also with sound evidence upon which to reflect on the dynamics of the global terrorism threat in Western Europe, as it was evolving more than six years after the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, nearly four years after the 2004 Madrid commuter-train blasts and two and a half years after the July 2005 series of suicide bombings in London.
Abstract: A key contention of the transitional justice movement is that the more comprehensive and
vigorous the effort to bring justice to a departed authoritarian regime the better the
democratizing outcome will be. This essay challenges this view with empirical evidence
from the Iberian Peninsula. In Portugal, a sweeping policy of purges intended to cleanse
the state and society of the authoritarian past nearly derailed the transition to democracy
by descending into a veritable witch-hunt. In Spain, by contrast, letting bygones be
bygones, became a foundation for democratic consolidation. These counter-intuitive
examples suggest that there is no pre-ordained outcome to transitional justice, and that
confronting an evil past is neither a requirement nor a pre-condition for democratization.
This is primarily because the principal factors driving the impulse toward justice against
the old regime are political rather than ethical or moral. In Portugal, the rise of
transitional justice mirrored the anarchic politics of the revolution that lunched the
transition to democracy. In Spain, the absence of transitional justice reflected the
pragmatism of a democratic transition anchored on compromise and consensus.
Abstract: In 1936, while Sweden gave birth to one of the most peaceful solutions to class
conflict (i.e. the Neo-Corporatist Welfare State) with the iconic signature of the
Saltsjöbaden Accord, Spain gave birth to the most violent results: the Spanish Civil
War. Why did the political, social and economic elites choose collaboration in
Sweden and violent confrontation in Spain? Building on recent findings by economic
historians, this paper shows the notable socio-economic similarities between the two
countries: with European-record levels of social conflict, both were also late
industrialist economies enjoying remarkable growth rates as well as decreasing levels
of economic inequalities. The paper underlines an overlooked factor: the public
bureaucracy. In the key decades of state expansion (late 19th-early 20th century), the
semi-authoritarian Sweden – where executive and administrative positions, firmly in
hands of the Crown, were unaccountable to the parliament – created and consolidated
a meritocratic autonomous bureaucracy which promoted impartiality and the rule of
law. On the contrary, the instable and, on average, more liberal Spain – where
executive and administrative positions were frequently accountable to parliamentary
dynamics – built a patronage-based administration which allowed successive political
incumbents to implement their most preferred policies above the rule of law. This
made that in 1936, facing a leftist government extensively violating property rights,
the Spanish capitalist and middle-classes, until then the least supportive of fascism in
Europe, actively supported Franco’s military rebellion, which ended up becoming one
of the longest fascist regimes in the history.
Abstract: This book gives a comprehensive background to the long running conflict on the status of Western Sahara and particularly highlights the question of the territory's natural resources, such as fish, oil and phosphates. The book analyses why this territory, mainly covered by desert and only sparsely populated has since 1976 when the former colonial power Spain left the territory, engaged governments and people, both regionally and internationally, and the implications of its natural resources. The book includes: - a summary of the Western Saharan conflict, by Pedro Pinte Leite, specialist in international law in the Netherlands; - an up-to-date picture of the situation in Western Sahara with regard to natural resources, and the way in which exploitation is taking place, by Toby Shelley, a British journalist; - the UNs legal opinion from 2002 on exploitation of the natural resources of a Non-Self-Governing Territory written by Hans Corell, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, the Legal Counsel. Two political views of the conflict are also included. Magnus Schöldtz and Pål Wrange from the Swedish Foreign Ministry elucidate the Swedish Foreign Policy on the Western Sahara Conflict. A statement by Karin Scheele, MEP and President of the Intergroup on Western Sahara in the European Parliament focuses on the economic interests of the parties involved in the conflict.
These contributions together with an extended chronology, by Claes Olsson, over the different phases of the conflict form a useful information source for policy-makers, researchers, students and activists interested in or dealing with issues related to the Maghreb framework and in particular the Western Saharan conflict.
Abstract: Spain has been a useful but low-key contributor to the mission in Afghanistan. It has undertaken valuable civilian work, but its military role has been more circumscribed.
Towards the end of 2009 the Spanish government was conspicuously muted in its reaction to President Obama’s new strategy for the war in Afghanistan. As Spain assumes the EU presidency the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has yet to convince that he is committed to winning the war in Afghanistan.
This policy brief analyses Spain’s role in Afghanistan so far, and examines possible ways forward.
Abstract: This paper argues that both socio-economic disadvantage and political factors,
such as the West’s foreign policy with regard to the Muslim world, along with historical
grievances, play a part in the development of Islamic radicalized collective action in
Western Europe. We emphasise the role of group identity based individual behaviour in
organising collective action within radicalized Muslim groups. Inasmuch as culture plays
any role at all in radicalization, it is because individuals feel an imperative to act on the
basis of their Muslim identity, something to which different individuals will attach varying
degrees of salience, depending on how they place their Muslim identity based actions in the
scheme of their multiple identities. We also emphasize the role of the opportunistic
politician, from the majority European community, in fomenting hatred for Muslims, which
also produces a backlash from radicalized political Islam. We present comparative
evidence on socio-economic, political and cultural disadvantage faced by Muslim
minorities in five West European countries: Germany, the UK, France, Spain and the
Netherlands.
Abstract: Much has changed in Spain's Basque Country over the three and a half decades since dictator Francisco Franco died in November 1975. The huge, titanium-plated Guggenheim museum on the banks of the river Nervión in Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry, is perhaps the most obvious symbol of modernity in this industrialised northern region. But there are plenty of other developments that are important to the Basque people, not least the fact that their culture and language no longer face the senseless repression of the Franco years. When Patxi López was sworn in as the Basque lehendakari, or regional premier, in May 2009, change was more than one of his main pledges: it was an inevitability. As a Socialist, he had in the elections to the Basque parliament on 1 March 2009 broken twenty-nine years of uninterrupted rule by the centre-right Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV), making him the region's first non-nationalist leader in the democratic era.
"I feel I have the mandate to lead a change", López had said after the regional elections on 1 March gave him enough votes to form a governing coalition with conservatives.
But some things in the Basque Country never seem to change. Soon after López was instated, it emerged that the authorities had thwarted a plan by the separatist group ETA to plant a bomb at the regional assembly, which was to be detonated as politicians of all stripes debated prior to the investiture.
Then on 19 June, ETA struck more effectively, killing police-inspector Eduardo Puelles with a car-bomb in the Basque city of Bilbao. This, it soon emerged, was merely the beginning of ETA's annual "summer campaign", usually a string of bomb-attacks, often in tourist resorts, which usually harm no one but raise the international profile of the organisation during the news-devoid holiday season. This year, however, there was a more ferocious tone to the attacks.
Abstract: Terrorism is not a new phenomenon, nor is it likely to disappear anytime soon. It is not the exclusive domain of any single religion or ideology, nor do all terrorists come from the same socioeconomic class or share the same mental pathologies.1 In part, the diversity within contemporary terrorism is what makes it so great a challenge. This report describes, in great detail, the state of terrorism in Western countries over the course of 2008.
Before turning to terrorism events in the West during 2008 and key developments within Western countries’ legal systems, we are going to pinpoint a few broad trends—a few currents that run through the various incidents and cases that follow. As this report will show, concerns about the contemporary connection between criminal activities and terrorism are clear in Bulgaria, a country rife with organized crime. An April 2008 parliamentary report charged that profits from the country’s drug trade were channeled to Middle Eastern terrorist groups.
Abstract: This Synthesis Report extracts the main findings from seven EU Member State case studies surveyed under
the Capacity-Building and Training Cluster of the Initiative for Peacebuilding (IfP). Case studies were conducted
in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain in order to assess these countries’
capacities to meet EU spending targets for official development assistance (ODA) and to analyse the position of
peacebuilding within national ODA policies. Each case study analysed country-specific ODA policies by focusing
on institutional mechanisms and key actors in managing and implementing ODA; the role and capacity of civil
society organisations in influencing planning, implementation, and evaluation of ODA; and public awareness of
and support for ODA.
This report finds that international development cooperation has received growing attention during the last
decade in all surveyed case-study countries. New EU Member States in particular are striving to adhere to
their international commitments by further refining their ODA policies; enhancing the institutional structures
for managing and implementing ODA; and increasing cooperation with and consultation of civil society
organisations.
Abstract: On a December morning in 1973, an ear-splitting blast ripped through the fashionable Salamanca district of Madrid, shaking the walls of this reporter’s home. The first frenzied reports on the Spanish state-controlled media spoke of a gas main explosion. A journalist’s instinct said this was not so; political tensions were running high in the final years of the Franco dictatorship, the aged general was suffering from severe Parkinson’s disease and his frail voice was barely audible in broadcasts. Everyone impatiently awaited the end of four decades of a tyranny that still had two years to run, and everyone expected trouble.
When the dust cleared, it emerged that the Basque guerrilla organisation Euskadi ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty – ETA) had detonated a bomb under the street, blowing up the car of Prime Minister Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, Franco’s heir apparent, known as the “Ogre” for his extremist hard-line policies. It was generally agreed that had Carrero Blanco survived, Spain was in for a messy post-Franco period. The banned socialist and communist parties, backed with the muscle of their trades unions, were beginning to resurface after nearly 40 years underground. Tensions were running high and there were widespread fears of bloody street clashes under a future Carrero Blanco régime. That night, stocks of champagne were depleted in the wine shops of the Basque Country, though this was the last time one of ETA’s violent actions was to win widespread popular support across Spain.
Abstract: This interactive piece provides a short history of the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna separatist movement in the Basque, Spain. The Basque 'country' straddles the western end of the Pyrenees covering more than 20,000sq km of France and Spain. Basque traditionalists claim their culture can be traced back to prehistoric times and that their language, Euskara, is the oldest still used in Europe.
Abstract: A Spanish court has initiated proceedings that are likely to result in criminal charges against six top legal officials in the Bush administration for their role in crafting the justifications for the use of unlawful detention, torture and other internationally outlawed methods in the "war on terrorism."
The accused include former White House counsel and later US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, who authored the infamous "torture memo" that justified waterboarding and narrowly defined torture as acts that "would result in death, organ failure, or serious impairment of bodily functions." Also charged is Yoo's former boss in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee; former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith; former General Counsel for the Department of Defense William Haynes; and David Addington, who was the former chief of staff and legal advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney.
A Spanish human rights group, the Association for the Dignity of Prisoners, filed the legal case on March 17 in Spain's National Court (Audiencia Nacional). The court gave the case to Judge Baltasar Garzón, who gained international fame in 1998 for issuing an arrest order for Augusto Pinochet for the murder, disappearance and torture of Spanish citizens under his military dictatorship in Chile. Pinochet was held under house arrest in Britain for a year and a half until the British government finally rejected Spain's extradition request and allowed him to return to Chile.
Garzón has already turned the 98-page complaint over to state prosecutors for review, and lawyers close to the case have stated that it is almost inevitable that a criminal investigation will proceed, potentially resulting in orders for the arrest of the six US officials, placing them in jeopardy of facing the same fate as Pinochet if they travel abroad.
Abstract: Contrairement à une idée reçue, la France et le Royaume-Uni ne sont pas les seules puissances nucléaires en Europe. En effet, depuis 1954, dans le cadre de l’OTAN, les États-Unis stationnent des forces nucléaires dans plusieurs pays du continent. Reliques de la Guerre froide, ces forces devaient originellement faire face à la supériorité des troupes conventionnelles du pacte de Varsovie. De plus de 7 000 armes nucléaires tactiques, réparties dans une dizaine d’États européens au milieu des années 1970, l’arsenal n’a cessé de diminuer, à la suite de l’éclatement de l’URSS, pour parvenir au chiffre de 350 armes en 2007. Depuis le début de la décennie, la question de l’utilité de ces armements, et donc indirectement d’un possible retrait, est de plus en plus souvent évoquée.
En toute discrétion entre 2005 et 2008, les États-Unis ont dénucléarisé deux de leurs plus grandes bases européennes, Ramstein (Allemagne) et Lakenheath (Royaume-Uni). Elles abritaient au total 180 bombes nucléaires. Indéniablement, ce désarmement apporte un nouvel éclairage sur cette posture nucléaire de l’OTAN. À ce titre, les 240 bombes restantes ont sans doute définitivement perdu leur rôle militaire au profit d’un rôle politique. Les raisons de ce retrait ne se limitent pas seulement à des problèmes de sécurité dans ces bases. Non, d’autres problématiques comme l’évolution de l’Alliance atlantique, la politique de chacun des pays hôtes, le renouvellement des flottes à capacité duale, l’utilité stratégique, sans compter la pression de l’opinion publique soutenue par des organisations pacifistes, contribuent et vont contribuer à limiter ce stationnement d’armes. Désormais seuls l’Allemagne, la Belgique, les Pays-Bas, l’Italie et la Turquie ont sur leur territoire des armes nucléaires américaines, mais pour combien de temps encore ? Demain, l’Europe va-t-elle être une zone libre d’armes nucléaires américaines ?
Abstract: A detailed analysis of the nature of the current and potential threat that the Spanish contingent will have to face in the immediate future is required in the light of increased risks in Spain’s deployment zone in Afghanistan in recent months, the worsening of the conflict in a large part of the country –including the capital, Kabul– and the intensification of terrorist activity in neighbouring Pakistan. The Taliban and al-Qaeda are the principal instigators of these risks, forming a tandem in which local tribes, drug traffickers and common criminals also participate at times. Without entering into open combat against multinational bases or forces, their strategy consists in harassing them via gunfire, explosive devices, attacks and kidnappings. This ARI describes the evolution of these risks for the Spanish contingent in Afghanistan, the behavioural patterns of the terrorists and insurgents, their internal organisation, their main attacks and the effect of the latter on the Spanish and multinational forces engaged in a mission of reconstruction that could become destabilised by the growing risks.
Abstract: Urban radicalism in Europe as portrayed by the recent riots in Athens is a constant worry of the European security services, since there is ample evidence of wider connections between radicals and terrorists.
There are two major themes to be looked upon. Firstly the relationship between the extreme-leftist terrorist groups that operate in the so-called "Mediterranean axis" - France, Italy, Greece and Spain - and secondly, the connection of these groups to Islamic extremists.
The radical - anarchist movement in Europe is pretty strong and well organized with thousands of loyal supporters. Back in 2005, the riots in Paris proved that the radicals and second-generation Muslim immigrants in France were able to form the political agenda of that time, although they were not successful in preventing Sarkozy’s ascendance to power 18 months later.
Abstract: Spain is a relatively new player in the international development cooperation system, as until the 1970s it was
in fact a recipient of international assistance. Development cooperation has increased considerably since then,
though in the context of the State’s external action cooperation was not prioritised. However, over the last
six years development cooperation has gained considerable prominence in Spain. Official funds allocated to
cooperation have increased and in 2008 it is estimated that they will reach 0.5 percent of Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), rising to 0.7 percent in 2012. The priority geographic area for assistance is still Latin America,
although funds destined to less developed countries have increased, in particular to Africa. In addition, the
institutions involved in defining and managing cooperation policies have been strengthened.
Spanish foreign policy has pledged to support an ‘active, selective and strategic multilateralism’, and this
commitment has led to the launching of the Alliance of Civilisations in association with Turkey. There has also been
a significant increase in contributions to multilateral institutions (surpassing €2,200 million). Spain is currently
ranked fourth among the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Development
Assistance Committee (DAC) donors in terms of multilateral cooperation.
Conflict prevention and peacebuilding were mentioned for the first time as strategic lines of Spanish cooperation
in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation’s (MAEC) Master Plan for Spanish Cooperation 2005-2008.
In 2007, the Peace Building Strategy Paper: Spanish Development Cooperation was approved, thus transforming
peacebuilding into one of the seven strategic lines of cooperation. This strategy paper is now being disseminated
among many sectors, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs), universities etc. The main activities that
will be undertaken are in the process of being defined.
Civil society played an important role in drawing up the strategy paper, which embraces a peacebuilding approach
that links security and development. Peacebuilding is considered to be an integral task before, during and after
conflicts and should always entail a high degree of local ownership. The strategy proposes the use of essentially
civilian means, although military resources shall also be considered if necessary to achieve peace.
Abstract: Recent research on violence against civilians during wars has emphasized warrelated
factors over political ones. For example, factors such as control of territory or
characteristics of the armed groups have been prioritized at the expense of factors such as
ideological alignments or local political competition. In this paper, I argue that the
emphasis on war-related factors is conditioned by the scope conditions of previous
theories, which have focused on irregular civil wars. I switch the locus of attention to socalled
conventional civil wars, and I introduce a theoretical framework that takes into
account both political and war-related factors. Hypotheses are tested using data on 1,377
municipalities during the Spanish Civil War. I find that levels of prewar electoral
competition explain variation in levels of direct violence from both the left and the right
in the areas they controlled at the beginning of the war, but that war-related factors gain
explanatory relevance after the onset of conflict, when control changes from one group to
the other. In particular, there is a clear endogenous trend whereby subsequent levels of
violence are highly correlated with initial levels of violence. I argue that the mechanism
behind this is civilian collaboration with armed groups. In short, the paper demonstrates
that an understanding of the determinants of violence requires a theory combining
political cleavages and wartime dynamics.
Abstract: The object of this paper is to question the logic of generalised suspicion in
indictment and detention procedures in the context of the war on terrorism, in order
to understand the legal oscillation between resistance and deference to intelligence
data in the judgment of terrorist acts. To illustrate these various forms of judicial
resistance/deference, we closely examine three cases of judicial abuse in the fight
against terrorism, corresponding to three different chronological and socio-political
moments: the ‘Guildford Four’ in Northern Ireland (1974), the judicial
condemnation and constitutional ban of Batasuna, the Basque nationalist party in
Spain (2002) and the Maher Arar case in Canada (2002). Behind the screen of an
elastic conception of public security, the primacy of an intelligence-based rationale
over the judicial process results in tensions between the attribution of guilt and the
rendering of justice that distort classical judicial procedures and the principle of a
fair trial. Moreover, such tensions eventually legitimise proactive and preventive
strategies that lead to condemnation through allegations of terrorism rather than
proof.
Abstract: This second edition of the Peace Process Yearbook analyses the conflicts in which
negotiations are being held to reach a peace agreement, regardless of whether these
negotiations are formalised, are in the exploratory phases, are bearing fruit or, to the contrary,
are stalled or enmeshed in crisis. The majority of the negotiations are linked to armed conflicts,
but other situations are also analysed in which despite the fact that there are currently no armed
clashes taking place, the parties have yet to reach a permanent agreement to put an end to the
hostilities and disputes still pending. Thus, the negotiations are relevant for preventing the
beginning or resurgence of new armed confrontations.
The yearbook also examines certain process that have theoretically come to a close through a
peace agreement, but that in our opinion are worth monitoring for at least another year with the
purpose of revealing whether or not implementation of the agreements takes place as planned
and whether the armed conflict can truly be regarded as over (the cases of the Aceh in
Indonesia or Northern Island, for example), as there is a plethora of examples of peace
agreements that have lasted a short time.
The way of organising the analysis of almost every case follows a standard pattern, namely: 1)
a brief synopsis of the background of the conflict, with a short description of the armed groups
and the main players participating in the conflict; 2) the lead-up to the peace process; 3) the
events that took place throughout 2006; 4) a table displaying the most noteworthy events in the
year in summarised form; 5) a list of websites where the conflict can be monitored; and 6) a
table that helps to illustrate the relationship between the primary and secondary actors in each
conflict, showing the spaces of intermediation that exist in each case.
