ABSTRACT
The development of various national and regional identities in Spain has been a long paradoxical process spanning at least the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: while the Spanish state is one of very few European states that has remained territorially intact throughout this period, it has undergone an acute national and identity conflict. This unique case can be explained by a specific combination of factors: the prior existence of a highly consolidated state and pre-national Spanish identity, the relative weakness of political and socio-economic developments, the consequent strength and capacity for reaction of anti-modern social groups, the survival of ethnic identities which are susceptible to political activation, the lack of correspondence between the centres of political power and the centres of emerging economic power, and the loss of the old empire along with an inability to construct a new one.
