Multiple crises? Strategies in Dismantling Public Policies in Spain

This paper aims to provide an analytical narrative and an interpretative framework on the multiple faces of the fiscal and financial crises that started in Spain in 2008, and continued during subsequent. Instead of addressing the sources of the crisis in Spain, this paper raises a different question: considering the multilevel structure of governance in Spain, involving also the European levels, what were the main strategies for crisis adjustment? To what extent adjustments were these strategies introduced on the basis of blame shifting? Do adjustments challenge the interests of the main organized actors in the country?  

In discussing the politics of policy dismantling in Spain, we will scrutinize the role of veto players, both private and public actors, in confronting a very different situation than the previous one. Two short case studies will be introduced, one is the social area, where we will consider the dismantling of child benefits policy, and the other is research policy, focusing on the dismantling of higher education policies. How the dominant Spanish mode of governance, based on a variant of liberal corporativism combined with unstable territorial adjustments, transformed during these recent years, is the main debate underlying this paper.