THE STRUCTURE OF THE SPANISH POLITICAL ELITE, 1939-1975 Spanish Political Elite.pdf · Mariano Baena del Alcazar and Narciso Pizarro INTRODUCTION This paper is a preliminary report

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THE STRUCTURE OF THE SPANISH POLITICAL ELITE, 1939-1975

Mariano Baena del Alcazar and Narciso Pizarro

INTRODUCTION

This paper is a preliminary report of an analysis of the elite in power in Spainduring the Franco era from 1939 to 1975. Included are discussions of the initial hypotheses, theoretical considerations, methodology, and first results obtainedfrom the data.

After describing the nature of the data, the analysis will focus on the problemof the degree of integration of the elite in power and of the relationships betweenmembers of Parliament, holders of political offices appointed by decree, direc-tors of large corporations, civil servants, and members of the armed forces. Avery small "superelite" is identified which draws together all these institutional sectors of Spanish society, and thus confirms the existence of one "power elite"encompassing all these sectors.

Research in Politics and Society, Vol. 1, pages 149-171 Copyright © 1985 by JAI Press Inc.All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISBN: 0-89232-335-3

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150 MARIANO BAENA DEL ALCAZAR and NARCISO PIZARRO

THE PROBLEMS

This report is about the problem of power, and as often happens, there are twodistinct but inseparable aspects: on the one hand, there are positions defined invarious organizations, and on the other, there are the individuals who, by oc-cupying these positions, form part of an elite whose structure we want toexamine.

These two aspects, positions and individuals, are reflected in the fact that thereare certain organizations, and the elites which make them up. So, on the onehand, the organizations are different arrangements of positions, and these posi-tions, in turn, are defined by the relationships existing between them within theorganization. On the other hand, the concept of the elite may refer to a group ofindividuals who may be related in their own right rather than through position orstatus.

Besides this, it is important to ask if the relationships between the members ofthe elite and those existing between certain positions are substantially different.An empirical study makes the distinction between them, but we do not know forcertain to what extent the relationships between individuals are derived fromformal positions.

Any study which makes use of the elite concept is, therefore, obliged to definethose organizations in which elite positions are observable. This definition can bemade in a somewhat limited way using a concept of organization which is moreor less inclusive, or, if preferred, one in which social entities are more or lessformally institutionalized.

In this paper the organizations in which elite positions are found are the Stateand the legislative, executive, administrative, and judicial bodies which con-stitute it, as well as large companies, the organizations which are the seat ofeconomic power in modern nations.

This choice of state institutions and economic organizations can be justified interms of the initial objective set out: the study of power, and not merely theinternal structure of individual sectoral elites. As we shall see, the State inte-grates all elites and thus directly coordinates social life and social relationships.The initial results of this study confirm the theory of the existence of a "powerelite", i.e., of a group of individuals simultaneously occupying posts in severaldiverse organizations, indicating that the sectoral elites are so closely integratedthat they may be considered united.

We shall not discuss the theses of V. Pareto, G. Mosca, and R. Michels, norexamine the arguments of C. W. Mills: Modern research has shifted the problemof the study of elites and power to the terrain of structural sociology, whichprimarily seeks to describe networks of social relationships, and then to evaluateand compare structural characteristics which are theoretically significant. To dothis, formalizations which derive from graph theory (centralization, cliques),

The Spanish Political Elite

from the theory of categories (structural equivalence, block models), or variousalgebraic structures like semigroups, have been used. Statistics and probabilitymodels have also been found to be useful instruments for describing and compar-ing the networks of social relationships.

The necessity of using concepts valid for examining the structure of rela-tionships has led to a good deal of attention to methodology. Much recentresearch has been done using a sophisticated treatment of data but it is ofdoubtful significance. The methodology has generally been applied to the struc-ture of relatively small groups of about a thousand individuals, connected by areduced number of different social relationships.

This, however, is not the only reason for the limited range of network studiesof the structure of elites. The difficulty is not due to cost alone, but also to thenecessity of using interview or questionnaire data. In general, the data concernrelationships between individuals. The existence of a relationship between twopersons is established according to statements made by one of them referring tocontact with the other. With the exception of studies of the scientific communitybased on citations in articles, statements have had to be obtained by means ofsurveys, and when those persons interviewed are members of an elite, they maybe reluctant to answer.

However, this difficulty may be avoided by adopting a different meth-odological criterion: examining relationships between positions and not indi-viduals. To do this it is obviously necessary that there exist explicit criteria forthe identification of these positions, independent of the individuals occupyingthem. Having identified the positions, we can define the relationships betweenthem in at least two ways:

1. If any two positions are part of the same organization, there is a rela-tionship between them.

2. If they are two positions in different organizations, one may use thecriterion of the joint occupation of both by the same person as an indicatorof the existence of a relationship.

Using these two criteria, it is possible to identify sets of positions defined withinorganizations, and to identify relationships between them. Analysis of thesenetworks of "formal" positions provides evidence of a relational structure be-tween individuals, and makes it possible to point to a positional structure of realsociological significance.

This approach has been used in research into the relationships between corpo-rations (e.g., Burt, 1979; Allen, 1974; Bunting and Barbour, 1971; Levine,1972; Niosi, 1978; Sonquist and Koenig, 1975) which are established as a resultof one person being a member of the board of directors of two or more of them.Extension to other types of organizations has been minimal, although in his

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studies of the makeup of the dominant classes in America Domhoff (1975)considered membership in social clubs and policy-planning groups in addition tomembership on boards of directors.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PRESENT STUDY

This research began in 1972, with the objective of verifying the presence ofbureaucrats (highly qualified civil servants or career military personnel) in theelite in power in Spain during the regime of Gen. Francisco Franco. In the firstphase of research, data pertaining to the period 1939-1975, i.e., until the deathof Franco, were collected. Later the data bank was extended to cover the period1975-1981, although data relating to this latter period are still in the final phaseof analysis.

The original objective of this study should be emphasized here, for it explainsthe importance given to bureaucrats and it explains that this work does not referto the various noneconomic and private elites, but to the national elite of politicaland economic power. This implies that certain assumptions have been madewhich do not coincide with those made by other studies of elites. Bearing in mindthat we were trying to study the elite in power in a capitalist society, thoseindividuals who exercised political and economic power were considered as theelite. It was inevitable that political power would be found in Parliament (verycharacteristic of Franco's time, as will shortly be seen) and in the Executive, i.e.,the remaining structure of the State. As for economic power, it was understoodthat this was the province, above all, of those who ran the large companies, sincethese companies are the typical instruments of the capitalist system.

THE CONTEXT OF THE POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

Thus, these starting points were used for a study of the Spain of Franco. This wasa regime which initially was totalitarian, but which had gradually softened itsideology and the mechanisms of the exercise of power without, however, losingcontrol of all institutions by the Head of State.

It should be noted that this totalitarian character, despite later moderation, wassymptomatic of the intention of the State to absorb all the important aspects ofsociety. Consequently, such organizations as the unions,—which were madeofficial —and the majority of cultural institutions were directly under the controlof the Executive. Thus the political elite did not just mean those people holdingformal positions in the government or the central administration, but those spreadthroughout other sectors of society. If one thinks in terms of other studies ofelites, the only group excluded here were people from the world of the arts.

Moreover, the Parliament of Franco (the Cortes Organicas) had other specificcharacteristics: in practice only those who were followers of Franco could be in


studies of the makeup of the dominant classes in America Domhoff (1975)considered membership in social clubs and policy-planning groups in addition tomembership on boards of directors.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PRESENT STUDY

This research began in 1972, with the objective of verifying the presence ofbureaucrats (highly qualified civil servants or career military personnel) in theelite in power in Spain during the regime of Gen. Francisco Franco. In the firstphase of research, data pertaining to the period 1939-1975, i.e., until the deathof Franco, were collected. Later the data bank was extended to cover the period1975-1981, although data relating to this latter period are still in the final phaseof analysis.

The original objective of this study should be emphasized here, for it explainsthe importance given to bureaucrats and it explains that this work does not referto the various noneconomic and private elites, but to the national elite of politicaland economic power. This implies that certain assumptions have been madewhich do not coincide with those made by other studies of elites. Bearing in mindthat we were trying to study the elite in power in a capitalist society, thoseindividuals who exercised political and economic power were considered as theelite. It was inevitable that political power would be found in Parliament (verycharacteristic of Franco's time, as will shortly be seen) and in the Executive, i.e.,the remaining structure of the State. As for economic power, it was understoodthat this was the province, above all, of those who ran the large companies, sincethese companies are the typical instruments of the capitalist system.

THE CONTEXT OF THE POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

Thus, these starting points were used for a study of the Spain of Franco. This wasa regime which initially was totalitarian, but which had gradually softened itsideology and the mechanisms of the exercise of power without, however, losingcontrol of all institutions by the Head of State.

It should be noted that this totalitarian character, despite later moderation, wassymptomatic of the intention of the State to absorb all the important aspects ofsociety. Consequently, such organizations as the unions,—which were madeofficial —and the majority of cultural institutions were directly under the controlof the Executive. Thus the political elite did not just mean those people holdingformal positions in the government or the central administration, but those spreadthroughout other sectors of society. If one thinks in terms of other studies ofelites, the only group excluded here were people from the world of the arts.

Moreover, the Parliament of Franco (the Cortes Organicas) had other specificcharacteristics: in practice only those who were followers of Franco could be in

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The Spanish Political Elite 100

it, and frequently members of this chamber were the same people who held

important posts in the Executive. This Parliament made and passed the laws butnothing prevented the Head of State from creating legislation without it and, inany case, his will prevailed over the Parliament itself. In name, but not in fact,this Parliament was representative of the whole nation; it represented thosesupporters of the regime who were involved in official organizations. This, ofcourse, made for almost continuous communications between Parliament and thegovernment, public administration, and the numerous sectors controlled by it.There is therefore no doubt that the political elite consisted of these two formallydefined sets of positions, those in the Parliament and posts held in the Executive.In the case of the latter, being involved in these organizations was always a signof power; because of the personalistic nature of the regime, confidence at thehighest level was expressed when the person had been nomained by the Head of

State himself, even though this might have been at the suggestion of thegovernment.

As far as the economic elite is concerned—those in control of the largecompanies—it should be pointed out that there was never really a clear dif-

ference between private companies and the public sector. The connections be-tween the two were numerous, because the Franco regime frequently fostered theconcept of mixed companies, i.e., those with private shareholders but underState control. In addition, it must be borne in mind that the economic elites were

represented in Parliament through corporate organizations, i.e., the official tradeunions and chambers of commerce. Naturally the managing directors of theseorganizations were always directly appointed by the Head of State.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESEARCH

We may now proceed to the generic nature of the work. The universe of theresearch consists of 9978 persons who were at one time or another members ofthe Parliament of Franco, those directly appointed to positions by the Head of

State (normally at the behest of the Government), or members of the boards ofdirectors of large companies with more than 100 million pesetas (about $1million) share capital in 1972. It should be stressed that this set is not a sample,but the complete list of those persons who fulfilled the required characteristics—some being only members of Parliament, some only holders of positions appoint-ed by the Head of State, some only big businessmen. However, it was verycommon for persons to hold two or three of these positions simultaneously orsuccessively during the period under study.

We have not started from the individual position occupied by each subject, norfrom the relationship which he might have had with other members of the elite.

Rather, we began with a formal definition of the sets of positions and thenidentified individually those persons belonging to them. This, nevertheless, re-

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it, and frequently members of this chamber were the same people who held

important posts in the Executive. This Parliament made and passed the laws butnothing prevented the Head of State from creating legislation without it and, inany case, his will prevailed over the Parliament itself. In name, but not in fact,this Parliament was representative of the whole nation; it represented thosesupporters of the regime who were involved in official organizations. This, ofcourse, made for almost continuous communications between Parliament and thegovernment, public administration, and the numerous sectors controlled by it.There is therefore no doubt that the political elite consisted of these two formallydefined sets of positions, those in the Parliament and posts held in the Executive.In the case of the latter, being involved in these organizations was always a signof power; because of the personalistic nature of the regime, confidence at thehighest level was expressed when the person had been nomained by the Head of

State himself, even though this might have been at the suggestion of thegovernment.

As far as the economic elite is concerned—those in control of the largecompanies—it should be pointed out that there was never really a clear dif-

ference between private companies and the public sector. The connections be-tween the two were numerous, because the Franco regime frequently fostered theconcept of mixed companies, i.e., those with private shareholders but underState control. In addition, it must be borne in mind that the economic elites were

represented in Parliament through corporate organizations, i.e., the official tradeunions and chambers of commerce. Naturally the managing directors of theseorganizations were always directly appointed by the Head of State.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESEARCH

We may now proceed to the generic nature of the work. The universe of theresearch consists of 9978 persons who were at one time or another members ofthe Parliament of Franco, those directly appointed to positions by the Head of

State (normally at the behest of the Government), or members of the boards ofdirectors of large companies with more than 100 million pesetas (about $1million) share capital in 1972. It should be stressed that this set is not a sample,but the complete list of those persons who fulfilled the required characteristics—some being only members of Parliament, some only holders of positions appoint-ed by the Head of State, some only big businessmen. However, it was verycommon for persons to hold two or three of these positions simultaneously orsuccessively during the period under study.

We have not started from the individual position occupied by each subject, norfrom the relationship which he might have had with other members of the elite.

Rather, we began with a formal definition of the sets of positions and thenidentified individually those persons belonging to them. This, nevertheless, re-

sults in all key people in key positions being identified, even though the positionis not defined in terms of its occupant, but vice versa.

Because of the characteristics of the Franco regime, the universe of thisresearch has an integrated and comprehensive nature. Practically all social sec-tors of any importance are included, the sole exceptions being in the area ofeconomic power, landowners, and, in the cultural sector, artists. This resultsfrom the formal definition of the sets—although in the case of the big land-owners, there would have been great difficulty in obtaining information, sincethe principal sources were out of date or in some cases had been destroyed.

THE BASIC SETS

Members of Parliament (Procuradores en Cortes)

Data available on members of Parliament begin in 1942 because there was noCortes Organicas (or Parliament of any nature) during the period 1939-1942.However, this data set does cover the entire remaining period until 1975, involv-ing a total of 2483 people. There would have been many more people were it notfor the continuous membership in Parliament by the same individual in a consid-erable number of cases. Information obtained on this set of people, while notvery extensive, is nevertheless useful, i.e., data on Parliaments they belonged toand the organic groups formed by these people in those Parliaments. The firstgives us information as to the dates when they served in Parliament, as well asrepeated appointments therein. The representative groups indicate those sectorsof the organization of the State—and of the society absorbed by it—in whichthese persons were to be found.

Appointments by Decree

The number of persons appointed by the Head of State during the period1939-1975 was 4041, and it is here that the greatest amount of repetition occurs,including one person who was appointed 15 times. The average is 1.90 appoint-ments per person. Included here are the appointments made by the Head of State,not only in the ministries and their dependent organisms, but also in the judicialadministration, the important advisory councils, the very varied special tri-bunals, the higher military administration, the one political organization (the"Movement"), the official unions, and public companies and corporate organi-zations, e.g., chambers of commerce and agricultural councils. All of thesesectors were controlled by General Franco through these appointments, resultingin a very small group of people occupying the key positions of political power.The information gathered here identifies the sector of the state organizationwhich appointed those persons and, as dates are given both for appointments anddismissals, chronological analyses can be carried out.


The Spanish Political Elite .m

Companies and their Boards

Finally we come to the third basic group, consisting of 5241 people: membersof the boards of public companies (whether of mixed capital or totally stateowned) and of private companies with more than 100 million pesetas of sharecapital in 1972. Regarding businessmen, we tried to make the information ascomplete as possible, giving details of the range of the share capital (100 millionto 500 million, 500 million to 1 billion, etc.), of whether any capital from abroadwas used in the company, of whether the company belonged in the group of the"top 500 companies," and of the economic sector to which each companybelonged.

It should be borne in mind that this group, which is logically the most numer-ous, should not and cannot be separated from the previous ones, if only becauseof the appointments by decree made by General Franco to the boards of thepublic companies.

Bureaucrats

In accordance with the initial objective of this study, it was attempted todemonstrate the presence of civil or military bureaucrats in the three foregoinggroups. However, information on all those people considered to be bureaucrats isnot complete: the only information we have refers to those bureaucrats who alsobelonged to one of the three foregoing groups.

Civil bureaucrats fulfilling the aforementioned condition numbered 2718. Es-timates of the total number of bureaucrats in the 1960s indicate that this isapproximately 10 percent of the total number of civil bureaucrats.

The extreme political importance of the army in Franco's time made it neces-sary to take into account the nature of the military bureaucrat, normally definedas the career soldier, i.e., someone who had studied at a military academy andbecome an officer. We do not look at all individual positions within the militaryorganization, but only at those where a civil position was occupied by a memberof the armed forces. For a total of 830, we have ascertained which body theybelonged to (Army, Navy, or Air Force) and the military ranks held at thebeginning of the period in question, towards the middle, and at the end of it. Itmust be pointed out that military presence in each of the three sets of positions isvery varied, being particularly high in the Executive: 518 military men receivedcivil positions through appointment by General Franco.

THE FORMAL NATURE OF THE DATA, AND THESCOPE OF THE PRESENT STUDY

The basic data may be considered as a collection of attributes, but these attributesassign the membership of those people possessing them to groups which are notmerely formally defined sets of people, but real groups, because the formalcriteria used to identify them correspond to significant social relationships.

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Let us examine why this should be so: for parliamentarians it is readily seenthat, given the peculiar circumstances of such an organization, there is bound tohe some kind of mutual acquaintanceship, personal relationship, and effectiveinteraction. This is even more the case given the nonexistence of political partiesin the Franco Parliament.

Appointments by decree define a group of positions—and persons—whichalso constitute a real group. It is a relatively small group of individuals havinginstitutionally defined relationships within the same administration, even whenthe positions they occupy belong to different departments. This comembership inthe administration presupposes a sharing of interests which makes the establish-ment of direct interpersonal relationships very easy.

On the other hand, in the case of civil servants organized in different bodies("corps") and selected according to tests, interpersonal relationships are veryintense within each body. Also, the sizes of the higher bodies are small, a mereseveral hundred for those bodies whose members form part of the politico-administrative elite.

Thus the possession of a position is equivalent to membership in a structuredgroup. Social categories and roles—to adopt the terminology of Nadel (1957)—in this case are so close as to be virtually synonymous, with obvious meth-odological consequences.

For our present purpose, the most important fact is simply that these sets ofindividuals who are identified by their common possession of positions are realgroups and not just analytical categories. By analyzing these groups of indi-viduals and their relationships, we are giving evidence of sets of social positionswith diverse degrees of structural equivalence. We shall return later to this topic.

As we have already said, this study covers the entire range of political postsheld during the Franco regime, and they have been identified using a formaldefinition: those people who were members of the Parliament, and those nomi-nated by decree. It must, however, be pointed out that this work has one specialcharacteristic: the data collected are diachronic, covering a period of 35 years.Thus, the information concerning appointments and dismissals includes dateswhich will permit us, in a later stage of the analysis of this data, to analyzestructural characteristics of the politico-administrative institutions of Spain byutilizing a temporal series of events. Here we shall be setting forth only theresults of a first stage of the analysis, which takes no account of the relationshipsthat may derive from the temporal series of events.

Finally, we shall point out one limitation of the study: the figures concerningboards of directors of limited companies are based solely on yearbooks for 1970and 1972, and therefore do not cover the same period as the other data. For thisreason we underestimate the importance of the links between the political-admin-istrative elite and the economic one. Budgetary reasons have prevented us fromgathering more complete data.

As we have already mentioned, we are now working on the construction of a


file of the same type of data, but covering the period 1975-1982. Once the basictask of data collection is completed, a computerized file will be built and pro-cessed, and in the near future we shall be able to study the effects of the changeof political regime—the introduction of democracy—on the structure of thesepolitical-administrative elites, and their connections with the economic elites.

SOURCES OF DATA

The formal nature of the defined sectors, as well as our intention of covering thewhole spectrum and not just a sample of the positions, has meant that sourceshave been relatively easy to come by. However, using them has been a particu-larly laborious task.

Information about the members of Franco's Parliament was first obtained forhis doctoral thesis, by Banon Martinez (1978), a colleague of Professor Baena.The information consisted of the lists of members, published by the Chamber forinternal use, giving information which was supplemented from the archives ofthe same Parliament.

For appointments by decree, the source was the Official Bulletin of the State(Boletin Oficial del Estado), where, in accordance with legal requirements, allthese appointments are published. Because the study of such a tremendousnumber of Official Bulletins was especially laborious, this may well be the areaof study which contains a slightly larger amount of human error in datacollection.

The source of information about membership of boards of directors of com-panies was two financial yearbooks concerning companies, one published by aprivate bank (Banco de Bilbao) and the other published privately. These twowere selected from among those known for greater reliability.

The area of civil bureaucrats presented more problems. As a basic source, weused the Index of State Civil Functionaries (Indite de Funcionarios Civiles delEstado) published by the Presidency of the Government of Spain in 1964, but theinformation in this list was updated to 1975 by using official or semiofficial listsof all bodies of higher civil servants and, where these were lacking, by consult-ing the Boletin Oficial del Estado, where names of civil servants appear.

On the other hand, military authorities cooperated fully. The data concerningprofessional soldiers was taken from the publications of the Army, Navy, andAir Ministries (Escalas y Escalillas) where all officers are listed.

The Nature of the Data Bank

The data mentioned above have been processed—up to 1975—on a disk-based master file. It consists of a sequential file, and at the moment contains18,000 entries.

100 MAKIANU BAENA DEL ALCAZAR and NARCISO PIZARRO

I X

Although the results presented here reflect no more than aggregates of data inlarge categories, we do have extremely detailed information about the variouspositions and memberships of each individual:

1. For members of Parliament in Franco's time we have entered the corpo-rative sector(s) that they represent. In the democratic Senate and Parlia-ment (since 1977) we have entered the political party as well as theprovince where the seat is held and the parliamentary function: member,senator, president or vice president of one or the other chamber, etc.For appointments by decree, we have entered the administrative positionidentified with precision (which department, hierarchical level, formaltitle, etc.) within the administrative structure. Dates of appointment anddismissal are also recorded.Large companies are identified and their code corresponds to their posi-tion in the size ranking. Also recorded are the volume of capital, thepresence or absence of foreign capital, the area of activity and the natureof the company, whether public or private, and the geographical locationof the headquarters of the company.

4. For civil servants we know the body and the ministry to which theybelong, as well as, by means of the registry number in the DirecciOnGeneral de la FunciOn Publica, their relative seniority within it.

Methodology

This study lies within the structural perspective appropriate to the analysis ofnetworks. But, because of the nature of the total information available, the itemsof data which we handle are basically vectors of institutional positions which areassociated with each individual. The relationships between individuals are de-rived from their membership in groups. Obviously, the degree of institutionaliza-tion of the group, as well as its size, determine the intensity of interpersonalrelationships or, if preferred (vide the work of Samuel Leinhardt), the probabilityof the existence of the binary relationship, direct or indirect, derived from thebasic fact of membership. On the other hand, the degree of institutionalizationand the size of sets are not only associated analytically in terms of their effect onthe intensity of the relationships but also depend, to a large extent, on the criteriachosen by the researcher to define the groups. These criteria, in turn, are deter-mined by the objectives of the analysis. An example will serve to explain theforegoing.

Appointments by decree can be conceptualized:

1. As an entirety, unified by the trust of the Head of State2. As differentiated in as many groups as ministers directly responsible for

the nomination

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Membership of boards of directors of companies can be examined:

1. By considering each company and its corresponding board of directors asa different group

2. By grouping together the companies by areas of activity

The same differentiation of criteria of membership appear concerning the civilservice. Civil servants belong:

1. To the same "corps" or body2. To the same ministry3. To the same geographic region4. To the civil service in general

In any event, and whatever might be the criteria selected to define the groups, thefact remains that these groups consist of sets of positions identified by the levelsof aggregation chosen. These sets of positions can be treated as such, without itbeing necessary to represent them in the form of a network. The individualsoccupying them can, therefore, be considered as links between sets of positions:the cardinal of the intersection of two categories or sets of positions, the numberof individuals belonging to both, makes it possible to estimate the intensity of theconnection between groups which are formally differentiated.

This is a view which we have developed, theoretically, in a paper (Pizarro,1978) in which we examine the algebraic properties of social "places," definingthe place of an individual as a set of relations of membership in different institu-tions and associating the institutions with the set of individuals which comprisethem. One can define the relationship between two individuals as that of the setsof institutions to which both belong at the same time, and also of the relationshipbetween both persons. This duality of networks of individuals and institutions,recorded by Breiger (1974), is not the only property of networks of positions.Examining a very natural law of composition about the set of "places" thusdefined, a semigroup structure is revealed with characteristics of the type called"rectangular bands," in which it is not possible to distinguish formally betweenprimary and secondary (or derived) relationships.

This type of data can also be analyzed by considering it as simplicial complex-es, formally similar to the networks of places as defined by us. However, whenthe number of individuals in an institution is large, use of the dual perspective ismore appropriate, constructing a network of institutions connected by indi-viduals. In this perspective, the connection between institutions is a set of indi-viduals, conceptually homogeneous with those institutions, which are them-selves sets of individuals.

Our view is close to that of the analysis of intersections of social circles. Butthe concept of the social circle as defined by Alba and Kadushin (1976) is arattribute of individuals and the social circle consists of the set of individuals with


whom every one of the individual members of the network has a relationship,primary (direct), secondary or n-ary (indirect).

The types of relationships which Alba and Kadushin consider are reciprocal: ifA R B <7> B R A. But the existence of the relationship is established by startingfrom the two individuals who compose it: A says he talks to or is a friend of B, orrefers to B, etc. In our study, on the contrary, the relationship between twoindividuals is deduced from the membership of both in a group with a greater orlesser degree of institutionalization: a body of civil servants, public office, beingmembers of the same department and therefore having been appointed by thesame person, members of the board of directors of a company, etc.

If we tried to construct the social circles of individual members of the elite onthe basis of our data, we would find groups of very large sizes for each one ofthem. For example: each member of Parliament would have all 605 members inhis social circle and, in addition, he would have in his circle at least thosepersons occupying high posts in the same department—this just by restricting thesocial circle to direct relationships. Therefore, intersections of social circleswould also be groups with a high number of individuals in them: in practice, theuse of categories of posts, and the relationships between them because of jointmembership, reveals the same type of structure as the analysis of the intersec-tions of individual social circles.

In fact, in this work we use five categories of social position: A (Parliament),B (political nominees), C (company boards), F (civil servants), M (military),considering two individuals occupying positions of the same category as directlyrelated—or indirectly, as we shall see later. Having identified the groups ofactual persons occupying positions of each type, it is obvious that:

1. Social circles of first degree of all individuals who occupy a single posi-tion in a category are, simply, those groups of individuals defined by thepositions in that category.

2. Social circles of individuals occupying positions in two sectors are, sim-ply, the union of these.

3. Due to the existence of these individuals, and therefore, to the fact that theintersection of the sets is not empty, social circles of the second degreeare, simply, the union of all the sets.

As can be verified, the absolutely crucial requirement regarding the network ofinterpersonal relationships is to establish to what extent formally grouped posi-tions within a sector are related so it can be assumed that there exists a directsocial relationship between its members.

We have seen that for members of the Parliament, a direct social relationshipexists between members. For people occupying posts to which they were ap-pointed by decree, (subgroups of B) this is also true. To generalize this for the


whole B group would depend on how long the post was held, since long tenurewould increase the probability of effective links being formed.

For civil servants (F) and military administrators (M) the probability of theexistence of direct relationships between members of the sets is very high. But,as we have not yet evaluated this, little can be deduced from this statement. Weshall shortly see how the analysis of the intersections of these groups leads to theconclusion that relationships of the second degree are extremely dense: the eliteform a social network with very short inter-individual distances, the individualsocial circles are very extensive, and their intersections very large.

Our use of data about the positions of the elite during such a long period oftime (35 years) gives rise to certain theoretical problems of interest: we cannotignore substitutions and shifts, nor phenomena of a sequential type. We hope tostudy temporal components of interpersonal relationships by using dates in ourfile at a later stage of research.

We have verified the existence of numerous temporal processes of relationshipas can he seen in the accompanying tabulation.

Other positions ofBeing Minister From nominates appointment by decree

(M. A.) Martin Artajo 1945 Ruiz Gimenez, 1946— — — — — — —(R. G.) Ruiz Gimenez 1951 --- — — —

— — _ _ — -- Fraga Iribarne, 1955

— — — — — (F. I.) Fraga Iribarne 1962 Pio Cabanillas, 1974—(P. C.) Pio Cabanillas 1974 — — — — — — —

__ — --

Here we see how Ruiz Gimenez, Minister of Education from 1951 to 1956,appointed to a previous post (President of the Institute of Hispanic Culture) byMartin Artajo (1945-1957), in his turn appoints to his team Fraga, who later wasto become Minister, who then appoints to his team Pio Cabanillas, who. . . .Thus we can presuppose that Ruiz Gimenez was in Martin Artajo's social circle,that Fraga was in Ruiz Gimenez's, and that Pio Cabanillas was in Fraga's.

We can assume that the formal relationships which go to make up our data are,at the same time, indices and results of another type of social relationship, whichevolved over longer time intervals both before and after those dates recorded inour data.

Precisely for this reason, to treat what happened over an extended period ofti me as if it were a case of simultaneous data is the same as considering formalrelationships at a given date as indices of "permanent" social relationships,which in turn implies that, in this schema, differences in types of position haveno substantial character whatsoever.

The type of data which we have available also makes possible an analysis ofanother type: for example, bearing in mind the formally related positions andtheir hierarchy, we can follow the replacement pattern, and also detect syn-chronic networks and study the way they have changed during the period under

1b1 MARIANO BAENA DEL ALCAZAR and NARCISO PIZARRO

consideration. To do this, we need to develop algorithms and programs whichare capable of treating large sets of data.

PROVISIONAL RESULTS

The circumstances in which this research has been carried out force us to giveonly provisional results for the period 1939-1975. We hope to obtain definitiveresults when the data are analyzed in more detail, as well as when the period1975-1981 is considered.

Bearing in mind the institutional characteristics of the groups under study, it isno great surprise that the political and economic elite of the Spain of Franco wastightly integrated. Communication between groups of members of Parliament,politicians directly appointed by the Head of State, and important businessmenwas extensive. If we leave out in each set those people who were in only onesector, (e.g., members who served in only one Parliament, persons who onlyreceived one appointment, or held only one membership of a board of directors)then the remainder of persons in the study constitute not different elites, but partof the same elite, possessing diverse qualifications which coalesced easily.

In fact, a graphic representation of the groups of elites under considerationwould look like a series of overlapping circles laid on top of one another until aspace shared by all could be discerned, and in this space there would be 317people. These 317 were at the same or different times members of Parliament,active politicians, and important businessmen.

The Size of the Elite

The most important thing to define is the size of the political elite, given thatthe 9978 people under study at the moment did not all occupy their politico-administrative positions in one year, but over a period of 36 years.

The political elite is smaller in the case of the Cortes during Franco's time: thetotal number of members for the ten parliaments is 2483. However, the averagenumber of seats is 611 (the range is from 483 to 693 seats, depending on whichparliament it was), and the total number of seats held during the 36 years was6113. Thus, people who have been members have been so in 2.46 parliaments onaverage, and 48 of these have been members of nine parliaments and 28 of 10.Something similar occurs when we examine the group of people who receivedappointments by decree. Here we have 4041 people, but 7683 appointments todifferent posts. The average number of posts per person is 1.90.

The political elite, then, is at the same time small (an average of 611 membersof parliament plus 1707 positions of appointment by decree) and stable, becausepositions of appointment by decree are occupied for an average of more than 15years, and seats during an average of 2.46 parliaments. Thus the average size of

100The Spanish Political Elite

the political elite at any given moment would be the sum total of 611 and 1707,or 2318 people if each one held no more than one post. This of course is not thecase, since 25.19 percent of the people in group B occupied a post in group A(430 people on average). The political elite (A+ B AnB) has an average size of1888 people.

The size of the economic elite is 5241 when we use data from 1970 and 1972to establish this. As we shall see later, these people and those who form part ofthe political elite are, in part, one and the same, whether simultaneously orsuccessively.

In the following analysis we have abstracted the time factor, treating the entireFranco elite as if their positions were synchronic. We believe that by proceedingin this manner we reveal a structure which later analyses will modify very little.One must not forget the very high average length of tenure in the differentpositions.

Integration of the Political Elite

Relationships Between Members of Parliament and Political Nominees

If we consider the political elite of the Franco period consisting of individualsof groups A and B, i.e., members of Parliament and politicians nominated by theHead of State, we are referring to an exhaustive set covering the totality, and notto a sample. These two groups have respective total memberships, during the 36years in question, of 2483 people in A and 4041 in B. As we can see in Table 1,1018 (A fl B) have belonged to both sets of people, which represents a participa-tion of 40.99 percent calculated on A and 25.19 percent calculated on B. Thus,more than one-third of the members of Parliament have held politico-admin-istrative posts, and one-quarter of those who have occupied politico-admin-istrative posts have also been members of Parliament. The total number who

Table 1. Relations Between the Group of Membersof Parliament (Group A) and Other Elite Groups

(expressed by the size of intersection in absolute value)

n A A n B A nc Ansnc

A fl 2,480 1,018 481 317

F 11 722 488 192 166

mn 298 168 60 46

Fnmn 36 30 19 17

r

1 04 MARIANO BAENA DEL ALCAZAR and NARCISO PIZARRO

during these 36 years formed part of this political elite is 5506 people, of whom,as we have said, 1108 form part of both groups.

Internal Structure of the Political Elite

As previously noted, members of Parliament constitute a real social group,and this is not merely because they gathered together in the chamber or becausethey know each other personally. It is also because these relationships are stableand lasting since, on average, a member stays in the Parliament for 2.46 parlia-ments, or 9.84 years. The replacement rate is very low, which guarantees a veryhigh density of personal relationships between the members of the dyachronicset.

As far as those who have occupied politico-administrative positions are con-cerned, we can also point to the existence of a very high degree of internalintegration. The reasons for this are as follows:

1. Formal relationships exist between actual positions within eachdepartment.

2. In each department there also exist informal relationships. The fact ofoccupying a position in a ministry presupposes having been proposed bythe minister, and therefore having some relationship with him, and usu-ally with the rest of the people nominated by him.

3. But, 1803 of those people who have been nominated by decree, or 42.14percent of them, have held two or more different positions, which in-creases the density of relationships, both in the same department and indifferent ones. The average is 1.90 nominations per person.

4. In addition, as we stated previously, according to Spanish custom, occu-pancy of high political office makes it easy to establish personal rela-tionships between those holding the offices.

Here we are referring, of course, to direct relationships. As far as indirect onesare concerned, it is obvious that the mere existence of the Council of Ministers,and the presence of holders of high political office in the chambers will establishnumerous second-order relationships. However these are not the only ones exist-ing between the members of this political elite, for the political elite is a mereformal construction within the power elite of which it is a part.

Civil Servants and the Political Elite

One of the initial objectives of this research was to examine the degree ofparticipation by career civil servants and military functionaries in the politicalelite, as well as to determine greater or lesser integration between politicians andcivil servants.

RRO The Spanish Political Elite J. *J.,

Table 2. Relations Between the Group of Members ofParliament (Group A) and Other Elite Groups

(expressed by the size of intersectionas a percentage of A)

oup, n A A n B A nc AnBncausetable A n 100 40.99 19.39 12.78

irlia-very

F n 29.11 19.67 7.74 6.69

.onic mn 12.01 6.77 2.41 1.85

con- FnMn 1.45 1.20 0.76 0.68

m-nal

We have data on the members of the higher bodies of the civil service, on thepeople who have been members of Parliament (group A), and on those who havebeen nominated by decree (group B).

As we can see from Tables 1 and 2, 722 (FnA) of the 2480 members ofParliament, 29.11 percent of the total, are career civil servants. In Tables 3 and 4we see that 2020 (FnB) of the 4041 people who have occupied political officewere career civil servants, which represents 49.98 percent of the total. In addi-tion, of the 1018 people who have belonged simultaneously to groups A and B,48.03 percent were civil servants (F (1 A fl B).

Therefore we can state that of the 5506 people composing the political elite (A+ B – A fl B), 2718 were civil servants, 49.36 percent of the total politicalelite.

In addition, 543 of those nominated to political office (M f1 B) and 298 of themembers of Parliament (M 11 A) were of the military. The total number ofmilitary officers in the political elite is not, however, the sum of these last two

Table 3. Relations Between the Groupof Political Nominees (Group B) and Other Elite Groups(expressed by the size of intersection in absolute value)

nB B n A B n c BnAnc

B n 4,041 1,018 622 317

F n 2,020 489 321 166of

ical mn 543 169 110 46

andFnmn 66 31 25 17

10M,

each

3 ofd byusu-

2.14in-

id in

ccu-rela-

Nies:ers,dish(ist-lere

The Si

T

Civil a(EcononLegal a

CourGovernCivil eiJudgesAttorne

ecutcUnivers

fessoProfess,

nololHigh seWork iTax ins

mentIndustriMiningCareerAgronoNotary

To

Re

in Spas rerrestorthe S(cians;under

Ascomp1972.boardelite 1


Table 4. Relations Between the Group of PoliticalNominees (Group B) and Other Elite Groups

(expressed by the size of intersectionas a percentage of B)

nB B n A B n c BnAnc

B n 100 25.19 15.39 7.84

F n 49.98 12.10 7.94 4.10

mn 13.43 4.18 2.72 1.13

FnMn 1.63 0.76 0.61 0.42

figures: 169 officers have occupied political positions and been members ofParliament (M fl A fl B), so that we have 722 career officers in the politicalelite, 85 of whom were both civil servants and military functionaries at the sametime.

To interpret these facts correctly, it is necessary to note that in Spain the publicadministration recruited its staffs through the system known as oposiciones, aseries of examinations to which candidates having a higher university degreemay be admitted and for which several years of preparation are often necessary.Therefore a civil servant, military functionary, or army officer is the product of aperiod of training, preparation, and selection which lasts for years. Thus theinterpretation of intersection is not reciprocal: civil servants occupy politicalposts but it is not the case that the political elite occupies "jobs" in the civilservice. Also in Spain, as in France and Italy, to pass the various tests forselection makes a person a lifetime member of a body of functionaries, and hecannot be considered as just having a job in the administration. He actually formspart of it.

The existence of a high proportion of functionaries among the political elite isjust as significant as the absolute number that we have (2718), which, in turn,represents a high percentage of the total number of higher functionaries—around10 percent of the average of the total numbers during the period.'

We have shown that 10 percent of the civil servants belonging to the higherbodies occupy approximately half the total number of political positions. If weexamine the bodies to which these civil servants belong, we discover that theycome from 66 of the 79 such bodies. Furthermore, 1790 out of 2020 civilservants who have occupied political office (in B) came from no more than 17such bodies. In addition, and as can be seen in Table 5, the proportion of civilservants occupying political office in six of these bodies is very much higher.

We can conclude that the civil service, and in particular some of the higherbodies, constituted an important means of access to positions of political power

1

1

IV/The Spanish Political Elite

Table 5. Distribution of Corps Memberships by Number of PoliticalPositions Occupied and by Corps

CorpsOne

PositionTwo

PositionsThree

PositionsFour+

Positions

Total

Persons

Percent ofStaff inPoliticalPositions

Civil administrators 103 53 18 10 184 6.95Economists of the State 1 4 2 3 10 40.00Legal advisers of the State 9 8 6 5 28 68.29

CouncilGovernment lawyers 48 24 16 21 109 36.70Civil engineers 120 20 8 10 158 9,99Judges 143 36 21 14 214Attorneys (public pros-

ecutors)57 28 10 8 103

University (full) pro-fessors

182 56 21 37 296 33.52

Professors (full) of tech-nological schools

30 11 5 5 51 21.07

High school teachers 42 6 1 4 53 4.17Work inspectors 72 38 17 16 143 55.21Tax inspectors (Depart-

ment of Finance)23 29 18 10 80 11.38

Industrial engineers 17 3 2 1 23 6.41Mining engineers 8 1 1 10 2.00Career diplomats 74 51 29 68 222 50.91Agronomists 53 23 8 4 88 9.73Notary publics 6 5 1 6 18

Total: 17 corps 998 396 184 222 1790

Remaining 49 corps 253 81 32 47 413

in Spain during Franco's time. This fact becomes more significant when we see itas representative of a stable characteristic of political power in Spain: since therestoration of the monarchy and during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera andthe Second Republic, higher civil servants provided a high proportion of politi-cians; and although exact figures are not yet available, in the present democracyunder King Juan Carlos this tendency has been maintained.

The Economic Elite and the Political Elite

As already noted, our files contain all members of boards of directors ofcompanies having more than 100 million pesetas of share capital in 1970 and1972. This represents 5241 people: 2904 of them occupy posts solely on theboards of different companies, the remaining 2337 members of this economicelite (44.6 percent) also occupy positions in organizations of a different nature.

168 MARIANO BAENA DEL ALCAZAR and NARCISO PIZARRO The si

Table 6. Relations Between Board Members (Group C) likelyand Other Elite Groups elites I

(expressed by the size of intersections in absolute value) while 1

makeuservanstage

As we can see in Table 6, 482 company directors have also been members of degreeParliament (C fl A) and 622 have occupied political posts (C fl B). In addition, great,317 of them have occupied both types of position. Thus we have a total of 787 consicmembers of the economic elite who are also involved in the political elite, peoplerepresenting 15.04 percent of the first and 14.29 percent of the second. In includaddition, as we see in Tables 6 and 7, 811 (F fl C) company directors are civil beingservants and 281 (M fl C) are soldiers; this represents respectively, 15.47 per- appoiicent and 5.36 percent of the group of directors. Furthermore, 166 company accid(directors who are in groups A and B (member of Parliament and persons appoint- elite,ed by decree) are civil servants as well. memt

Thus we find a high degree of integration between the members of the political Thiand economic elites, accentuated by an even higher percentage of civil servants elite,on boards of directors, as well as by the presence of military personnel. great.

These results, however, are of a tentative nature, as collective C was identified and iisolely from those members of boards of directors in 1970 and 1972, while the anothother groups, (A, B, F, M) cover the whole period from 1939-1975. It is highly the Si

ThiTable 7. Relations Between Board Members (Group C) positi

and Other Elite Groups whirl(expressed by the size of intersection life.

as a percentage of C) a operaOrgaof Pa

nc cn A C n B AnBnc

cn 5,241 482 622 317

F n 811 193 321 166

M n 281 60 110 46

FnMn 40 19 25 17 At theanalysgroup:

n c c n A C n B AnBnc

cn 100 9.19 11.86 6.04

F n 15.47 3.68 6.12 3.16

M n 5.36 1.14 2.09 0.87

FnMn 0.76 0.36 0.47 0.32


likely that the relationships between the political, economic, and bureaucraticelites have been underestimated. Since membership on the board of a company

• while being a stockholder is a stable situation, the most important changes in themakeup of these boards would probably be due to the substitution of one civilservant and/or politician for another. We will verify this hypothesis in the nextstage of our work, with data on companies from 1980.

PROVISIONAL CONCLUSION

At the present stage of our research, we have only completed a very elementaryanalysis of our data: little more than contingency tables in which large categorygroups are used. Even so, the results obtained are of considerable interest. Thedegree of integration deriving from comembership in large sets of positions isgreat, but it is easy to demonstrate that it is underestimated. It is enough toconsider (see Figure 1) in the case of the two groups A and B that there are manypeople in this political elite who have no relationship at all with other groups,including F and M. These people, however, occupy just one position, eitherbeing a member of Parliament or holding an office to which they have beenappointed by decree. Thus, their belonging to the political elite is, so to speak,accidental: at a given moment they occupy a position defined as being part of theelite, but it is really a transitory situation which does not indicate effectivemembership in the power elite.

Thus, excluding those people who occupy a single position as members of thiselite, we are left with a very small network in which social proximity is verygreat. Those individuals grouped at the intersections which we have examined,and in particular the 317 in A fl B fl C, have very similar social circles, and, atanother level of analysis, we can state that they occupy a very central position inthe Spanish elite—the superelite, in fact.

This superelite of little more than three hundred persons occupies a centralposition which can be interpreted as interinstitutional or interorganizational, butwhich ensures the circulation of the flow of information which regulates sociallife. Thus, the power elite in Spain is strongly integrated, and let us note that theoperative definitions which we have used include, because of the CortesOrganicas, the university elite because rectors of the university are all membersof Parliament, the professional colleges (doctors, lawyers, etc.), and, in general,representatives of all social activity legitimized under Franco. With the exceptionof artists, only those in opposition to the regime are excluded from this study ofthe Spanish elites. The duration of the regime, and the nature of the politicaltransition which we are now passing through, highlights the length of the veryreduced political and social power of the "opposition elites." We hope thatanalysis of data of the post-Franco era will confirm this hypothesis, and ade-quately explain this process.

2,3373,233

44.59%80.00%

1,90876.84%

AnBnC

4p tih' 317


Total A = 2,483

A only

575

23.15%

B only

% on B

15.39

B n C

total=

622

'k on C

11.86C only

2,904808 55.40%20.00%

B total = 4,041 C total = 5,241

A: Members of Parliament

B: Nominees by Decree

C: Board Members of Companies

Figure I. Links Between Political and Economic Elites

Finally, it is important to point out that in this study we have observed how the

State and its institutions form the space wherein the integration and coordination

of social elites takes place. We do not feel that this is a phenomenon associated

solely with the totalitarian nature of General Franco's regime, for it is one that

continues in the present State as well.

NOTE

1. By higher functionaries we mean those belonging to a body which insisted on the possession

of a university degree as a requirement for entry.

The Spanish Political Elite 1/1

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THE STRUCTURE OF THE SPANISH POLITICAL ELITE, 1939-1975 Spanish Political Elite.pdf · Mariano Baena del Alcazar and Narciso Pizarro INTRODUCTION This paper is a preliminary report