In 1833-1874, Spain suffered 0.7 coups per year. By contrast, the Restoration (1874-1923) saw the eradication of successful coups. This can be partially attributed to the turno pacífico, which allowed the main political parties to alternate in office without dragging the military into politics. We suggest, however, that the reduction in coup risk was also associated with a conscious budget policy. This, though, did not rely on increases in total military expenditure (which actually stagnated during most of the Restoration), but on the steady improvement of officers' remunerations and promotions. This strategy was probably detrimental to Spanish military capacity abroad, but was consistent with the objective of keeping the military out of politics.

This paper analyses the attempts of the Spanish state to regulate industrial relations in the early 20th century. The main conflict being over union recognition, workers faced strong opposition from employers, which generated a situation in which all possible agreements to end strikes were unstable. Faced with an increasingly active labour movement, the state tried to regulate industrial conflict but hesitated to apply state authority to force recalcitrant employers to recognize unions. A transitory system was in place for more than 20 years in which the state and employers clashed over the issue of the freedom to work and the state selectively applied its coercive power to force employers to give up on some of the strikers' demands. Tracing the role of authorities in strikes, I show how the intervention of state officials in strikes granted workers at least the partial satisfaction of their demands. I finally argue that state intervention in industrial conflict fuelled the radicalism of both unions and employers' associations.

This paper analyzes the role of a very multifaceted lobby group, the Spanish Maritime League, in the context of the relationships between the economic and the political spheres during the first decade of the twentieth century. It specially focuses in the League's ability to influence three important economic variables of the period (public subsidies to the merchant fleet, the protectionist policy towards coal production, and the policies in naval production) as well as in the strategies followed by its leaders to move forward their proposals.