Agustin, Oscar Garcia

In 2000, the Popular Party (PP, the conservative party) won the elections reaching absolutemajority, unlike 1995 when they obtained simple majority and they had to negotiate with theBasque and Catalan nationalist parties to get approval of some of their politics. However theseagreements never embedded a culture of dialogue and the conflicts became more accentuated at theend of their first term (Tusell, 2000: 239). The Spanish president, José María Aznar, interpreted theresults as a big electoral support for his project and started a new orientation in some areas such asthe relation with nationalism. The division between the Basque nationalist party (PNV) and PPincreased after all the nationalist parties (including Herri Batasuna, the radical left party close to theterrorist group, ETA) pretended to develop a political frame, that would contribute to reachingfreedom, while the two biggest national parties, PP and Partido Socialista (PSOE, social democrats)agreed to fight against terrorism and the nationalist environment together. In that context, Aznarundertook the definition of the nation maintaining this division and tried to find a way offormulating Spanish nationalism and getting some accept by the citizens.In this paper I will examine the discursive formation constituted by PP to redefine the Spanishnationalism using the idea of constitutional patriotism, which emanates from the academic debate,in competition with the social democrat party, that aspires also to apply this signifier to establishtheir own project and collaborate with the nationalist parties, who are against the traditionalconception of Spanish nationalism. In order to analyse this issue I will use discourse theory,especially as it has been conceived by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. I will show the politicalimplications as the result of the fixation of a new consensus and how the consensus is constitutedagainst other formations and therefore it covers up a kind of particularism, although it assumes theform of national or universal interest.<br/

Good patriots. The nation according to the Spanish conservative party

http://vbn.aau.dk/files/16341722/GarciaOscar_IDA.pdf

Good patriots. The nation according to the Spanish conservative party

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