La sociedad en la España democráticael caso riojano

Abstract

This research work is placed temporarily in the democratic transición, which starts in 1975, and equally in the recovery and consolidation of the democracy in our country and, especially, in the comunidad autónoma which is the target of our study: La Rioja. Therefore, already from the title, it is possible to see one of the characteristics that is going to be a constant during all the research: the dialog between the regional location (La Rioja) and the rest of the Spanish State. This work wants to analyze the process of change of the Riojan society from a political point of view, but also from a wider scope, including economic, social and demographic aspects. The most important part of the studies on this essential period in our most recent history is related to the change of leaders and the top spheres of society. Nevertheless, we believe that the social role of other groups such as political parties and other types of associations, the press and the whole citizenship must be studied, something that will be reflected in these pages statewide and at Riojan level. When approaching any study on democracy in Spain, we notice that most of the literature is general, but no specific. These are approximations to this fundamental period to understand our time, but from a global point of view. We find many studies that turn on this time in the whole State but we do not find more specific research about this period on concrete geographical locations, in our case Logroño/La Rioja's province and the autonomous community of La Rioja. It is true that there have proliferated studies and research about the so-called "local history" or "regional history", something that is being supported by the governments of the different Spanish regions. But it is a fact that, though in the last years a great work has been done in this respect, we can still speak about a lack of research about La Rioja understood as a new autonomous entity. The interest of the present research is centered in the study of the evolution of the Riojan society in a period as fundamental as the last three decades and a half, a process marked by the approval of the current Spanish Constitution in which Spain transitioned from being a submitted society by an authoritarian regime to become a democratic society. There is no research done from a scientific point of view yet, at least, in La Rioja. Following a comparative methodology between regional and state scopes, we will analyze different aspects that we can include inside the great meaning that gathers the concept "the social thing". We will refer to the demographic bases of the Riojan society, studying every parameter, economy and social stratification, centering on the evolution of the social inequalities, the creation and consolidation of the Welfare State, -in question nowadays- and analyzing other main topics like immigration, the continued process of secularization of the Riojan society, the role played by the associations in this time or the evolution of the mass media. Therefore, there is a big conglomerate of topics that seem heterogeneous, but that are interrelated. Another one of the main targets is to show different groups and social basic organizations to understand this time, as well as the classes and socioeconomic categories. To finish these points it becomes necessary to analyze the social change in the different social classes in this democratic time, in the widest sense of that concept. Definitively, the purpose is to purify all the available sources and to show a monographic investigation on the social history of La Rioja from 1975.