UC San Diego

This dissertation examines leftwing popular political culture in the Spanish city of Santa Coloma de Gramenet from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. Using forty life history interviews and a variety of archival and printed sources, it first traces the processes of pre-political community formation, politicization and urban movement institutionalization that occurred in Spain's new industrial cities during the final decade of the Francoist dictatorship. The study then challenges the dominant scholarly view that the Spanish transition to democracy initiated a consensual process of demobilization. Although relations were complex, social movement activists, party militants and newly elected municipal officials continued to mobilize as they participated in ongoing European debates regarding the nature of democracy and socialism in the post-68 moment, the role of public memory in an age of extremist political violence and the international system of Cold War alliances. In addition to intervening in debates on the Spanish transition to democracy, this dissertation also presents an integrated account of the various dimensions of Europe's long 1968. As a local study, it traces the evolving relations and often-porous boundaries between different activist groups and "new social movements" while assessing the impact of widespread experiences of mobility and transnational contact