SPAIN IS A EUROPEAN COUNTRY, AT LEAST FROM A GEOGRAPHICAL point of view. Culturally and historically it is part of Western Europe. During most of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th century it enjoyed constitutional government in one form or another. The liberal revolution of 1820 was the first outbreak of rebellion against the legitimist order imposed by the Holy Alliance in continental Europe. Men, institutions and parties of the Spanish Republic of 1931–36 were of European stature.

THE ORGANIZATION OF SPANISH UNIVERSITIES AFTER THE CIVIL WAR put them under the control of Falange and the Catholic Church. The Ley de Ordenaciόn Universitaria (Law of University Organization) of 1943 established this Falangist/Catholic control over the recruitment of academic staff, the content of teaching and the appointment of Rectors. In 1940, a pre-war Falangist student union, the SEU (Sindicato Español Universitario) was converted into a state-controlled, single and (since 1943) compulsory student union, the officials of which were appointed by the government.

DESPITE YEARS OF POLITICAL STABILITY AND RECENT ECONOMIC growth General Franco's dictatorship has left many of Spain's perennial political dilemmas unresolved. The problems that preci itated the Civil War (1936–39) and destroyed the Second Republic will continue, albeit in modified form, to dog Franco's successors.

One particularly intractable problem is posed by Spain's Basque and Catalan minorities. Local nationalist movements contributed to the Republic's collapse and remain a long-term threat to Spain's political stability. This essay, therefore, tries to identify the root causes of these movements; to examine the regional problem's present state and to scrutinize possible solutions to the problem in the post-Franco era.

THIS STUDY HAS BEEN WRITTEN DURING THE STAGE OF BROAD political transition inside the Spanish State, following the death of General Franco, in November 1975. The new monarch, Juan Carlos I, has already carried out some acts that will define Spanish politics in the near future, by confirming the men who governed during Franco's last years: but what attitude the political system will take under the monarchy is still unforeseeable; and, although everyone is waiting for a certain liberalization of the regime, the real scope that liberalization will have in the short and medium term remains problematical.