State and Regional Administrative Coordination in Spain
sometimes not been considered as an obligation by the sub-national delegates , but as a way to show conformity or protest . This logic has perhaps reached its highest peak at those moments when the regional representatives have explicitly followed party directives at meetings , both before the sessions ( with unofficial meetings to set positions and strategies ) and during them ( leaving the meetings as a way to protest against governmental initiatives ). Furthermore , it has been seen how , even at moments of relative calm , the very nature of sub-national delegates ’ interventions has been decisively conditioned by partisan relations : critical interventions at meetings , particularly , were almost monopolized by those delegates belonging to opposition parties . This state of affairs reinforces the strategy previously followed by some peripheral nationalist governments , namely those of Catalonia and the Basque Country , which have traditionally sought bilateral relations with the central administration . In their view , such federalist institutions deserve no credit , and the behavior of Catalan and Basque delegates is , in general , to be explained by this broad ideological critique .
In this context of a relative lack of federalist values , an alternative hypothesis could have been put forward , emphasizing the importance of the human factor to explain variations in the conferences ’ dynamics . In fact , a certain influence of personal profile has been identified , in the way that meetings proceeded with certain ministers that tried to give a different character to the Sectoral Conferences under their mandates . For instance , the Environment Minister Cristina Narbona managed to establish more serious and thorough sessions that were held in different cities around the country . However , the impact of this personal factor has proven to be rather limited because of the normative consolidation of conferences . In other words , the very fact that they are determined by a law and specific regulations establishes clear ways to arrive at decisions that are absolutely independent of the will of particular subjects . Regulations therefore leave little room for other kinds of proceedings .
In short , the history of the Sectoral Conferences is symptomatic of the main problems with the Spanish territorial model . The relative absence of actors who are decidedly committed to interterritorial cooperation empties these institutions of content , furthering the lack of shared government that is characteristic of the Spanish regional model . This shared government should , it must not be forgotten , go hand in hand with decentralization when it comes to advancing toward a properly federal model .
References
Agranoff , Robert . 1993 . " Las Relaciones Intergubernamentales y el Estado de las Autonomías ." Política y Sociedad 13 : 87 – 105 .
Aja , Eliseo . 2014 . Estado autonómico y reforma federal . Madrid : Alianza .
Alda , Mercedes , and J . Antonio Ramos . 2004 . “ El marco de las relaciones intergubernamentales de la política de medio ambiente en el Estado Autonómico .” Gestión y Análisis de Políticas Públicas 28 : 87 – 104 .
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