Since the explosion of the indignados movement beginning in 2011, there has been a renewed interest in the concept of the “public sphere” in a Spanish context: how it relates to society and to political power, and how it has evolved over the centuries. The Configuration of the Spanish Public Sphere brings together contributions from leading scholars in Hispanic studies, across a wide range of disciplines, to investigate various aspects of these processes, offering a long-term, panoramic view that touches on one of the most urgent issues for contemporary European societies.

Barcelona's transformation into the world's leading smart city is explained by one of its chief protagonists. SMART CITY Barcelona provides an essential guide for innovation and leadership for all those who participate in the design of cities in the 21st century. The Barcelona municipality is a driving force in the creation of city employment, well-being and opportunity. What can the world learn from the Barcelona model? What should municipal governments' priorities be when committing to this development model? What are smart cities and what are they not? Why do they generate so much controversy? Based on the author's experience as deputy mayor of urbanism, housing, infrastructures, environment, energy, ICT, and innovation in Barcelona City Council, as well as a consultant and lecturer to cities across the world (Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Doha, Dubai, Oslo, Prague, Moscow and Bogota, to name a few), SMART CITY Barcelona presents twelve theoretical and practical lessons for all citizens, civil servants, politicians, architects, city planners and businessmen who wish to contribute to the design of 21st century cities. The urban development vision to integrate information and communication technology (ICT) and internet of things (IoT) technology in a way that makes best use of the resources and human assets peculiar to a city has attracted popular attention and social media comment as people view this new vision as the promotion of the artistic, spiritual and political life of the city they live in. *** "Both in politics and in private practice, Antoni Vives has devoted himself with a passionate commitment to dealing with the central questions of urbanisation in the twenty-first century. He sees how the need to make cities easier places to live - whether in terms of transport, housing, health care, recreational spaces and the key issue that underlies all others, funding - is a social as much as a logistical problem. Toni has campaigned against the reduction of cities to amorphous conglomerations in which citizens are merely cogs in the overall economy. Instead, building on his own experience in Barcelona, he has recognized the central importance of maintaining, but also connecting, small neighbourhoods with a real sense of community. --From the Series Preface by Paul Preston, London School of Economics (Series: The Canada Blanch / Sussex Academic Studies on Contemporary Spain) Subject: Sociology, Urban Studies, Architecture, Energy Studies, Spanish Studies]

The Iberian Peninsula has always been an integral part of the Mediterranean world, from the age of Tartessos and the Phoenicians to our own era and the Union for the Mediterranean. The cutting-edge essays in this volume examine what it means for medieval and early modern Iberia and its people to be considered as part of the Mediterranean.

The research collected in this volume consists of 18 chapters which explore a number of key areas of investigation in contemporary Iberian studies. As the title suggests, there is a strong emphasis on trans-national and trans-regional approaches to the subject area, reflecting current discourse and scholarship, but the contributions are not limited by these approaches and include an eclectic range of recent work by scholars of history, politics, literature, the visual arts and cultural and social studies, often working in transdisciplinary ways. The geographical scope of the transnational processes considered range from intra-Iberian interconnections to those with the UK, Italy and Morocco, as well as transatlantic influences between the Peninsula and Argentina, Cuba and Brazil. The book opens up some pioneering new directions in research in Iberian studies, as well as variety of fresh approaches to hitherto neglected aspects of more familiar issues.

To the outside world, for some half a century, the words ‘Basque Country’ have provoked an almost instant association with the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA, Basque Homeland and Liberty) separatist group and violent conflict. The Basque Contention: Ethnicity, Politics, Violence attempts to undo this simplistic correlation and, for the first time, provide a definitive history of the wider political issues at the heart of the Basque Country. Drawing on three decades of research on Basque nationalism, Ludger Mees weaves together the various historical and contemporary strands of this contention: from the late medieval kingdoms of Spain and France and the first articulations of a Basque ethno-particularism, to the dissolution of ETA in 2018, and all manner of dictatorships, conflict, peace, civil war, political intrigue, hope and failure in-between. For anyone who has ever wanted to gain an insight into the Basque Country beyond the headlines of ETA and grasp the complexity of its relationship with Spain, France and indeed itself, this volume provides a detailed, yet digestible, basis for such an understanding.

With the rise of both populist parties and social movements in Europe, the role of emotions in politics has once again become key to political debates, and particularly in the Spanish case. Since 2011, the Spanish political landscape has been redrawn. What started as the Indignados movement has now transformed into the party Podemos, which claims to address important deficits in popular representation. By creating space for emotions, the movement and the party have made this a key feature of their political subjectivity. Emotions and affect, however, are often viewed as either purely instrumental to political goals or completely detached from ‘real’ politics. This book argues that the hierarchy between the rational and the emotional works to sediment exclusionary practices in politics, deeming some forms of political expressions more worthy than others. Using radical theories of democracy, Emmy Eklundh masterfully tackles this problem and constructs an analytical framework based on the concept of visceral ties, which sees emotions and affect as constitutive of any collective identity. She later demonstrates empirically, using both ethnographic method and social media analysis, how the movement Indignados is different from the political party Podemos with regards to emotions and affect, but that both are suffering from a broader devaluation of emotional expressions in political life. Bridging social and political theory, Emotions, Protest, Democracy: Collective Identities in Contemporary Spain provides one of the few in-depth accounts of the transition from the movement Indignados to party Podemos, and the role of emotions in contemporary Spanish and European politics.