Twisted Modernization : The Political Economy of Contemporary Spain

This book explains the political and economic development of contemporary Spain employing up-to-date tools and concepts of political economy. The book draws important lessons about comparative development that go beyond the Spanish case, shedding light on the challenges and limitations of modernizing and democratizing developing nations.

As pointed out by the editors of this unusual volume, studying the development of contemporary Spain is important to understand the challenges, dynamics and limits of political and economic modernization. The contributors of Twisted Modernization bring the theoretical and methodological toolkit of modern political economy to study Spain's long run economic (industrialization) and institutional (capacity, constitutions) processes, the evolution of its economic, political and judicial elites, and how the country's institutional legacies condition its democracy and economic outcomes to this day. Including work from over a dozen of well-known specialists and grounded in novel and systematic data, this volume provides a sober assessment of both the country's achievements and worrying future challenges. It offers key insights on the causes of democratization and growth in general and provides a model for further research on the trajectories of other countries. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.